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The Problem with DHS's Plan to 'Buy American'
An anonymous reader points out a Cnet report on the
Homeland Security Authorization Act, which would require that more than 50 percent of the components in any end product bought by the Department of Homeland Security be produced or manufactured in the U.S., writing "The Pentagon has agreements with 21 countries that waive the act, but an amendment that just passed the House would prevent the DHS from waiving the 'Buy American' restrictions. "The president of the Information Technology Association of America observed that this means the DHS may 'have to learn to do without computers and cell phones,' since he could not think of any manufacturers of those devices that would meet the 50% threshold."
What about things like uniforms? I know most cheap bulk clothing is manufactured in East Asia.
Well this is one of those things that shows how the government is out of touch with reality and of what goes on outside of theory. all good and maybe 'faith based' government is like this. believe it and it will come true?
I remember a US school district dumped apple laptops for schools because they werent made in the US.
Wonder which US-made laptops they picked up instead. mattel?
With the way that America is today, anything like this would end up as a flop. We like things cheap and fast, and this would makes things expensive and slow....
I see no way that this would help our 'security'. I think the last thing we need is our goverment to spend time and resources comming up with this, when they could be doing something more useful.
I mean, if components are assembled in the US from 100% imported subcomponents, does that make them foreign components or US made components.
For example, every chip on a motherboard could be made in Taiwan, but if the board itself is put together in the US then who made it?
Is this law actually compatible with that North America Free Trade thingy?
Yes, but it's usually high end and thus out of reach of the masses.
... etc
... etc.
... but in China you can just dump these chemicals out the back.
examples:
Bose Wave Radio
McIntosh audio equipment
Apple's XServes
IBM servers and mainframes
Cisco Routers
Netopia Routers
AMI Motherboards
Lots of commercial electronics for things like autos, CNC machines, telephony
The same goes for electrical components that you don't see like Illinois Capacitors, TadCom resistors, several OEM power supplies
The real reason that so much industry has moved overseas to places like China and India, is that there are very loose environmental and worker safety rules. Manufacturing electronics involves toxic chemicals that are very expensive to dispose of in Germany, US and Japan
__________
|rip/\/\aster
Which is most likely why they picked it for a "Buy Home brands " initiative .
the DHS never really apeard to be a main gouvernment brach dealing with the national security , after all you have several organisation who already partake in that function. It is as QUANGO organisation set in place to put peoples minds at rest.
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
American Cell Phone Company buys cell phone part pre-assembled from China for $20 and battery from Korea for $10, then does final assembly here and charges $61 wholesale to the gov't.
By value, it's over half American-made.
If 51% mass is the problem, bundle it with an American-made car battery and charging device.
You may think this is funny but crazy rules call for crazy workarounds.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
All I can really say is: STFU and work for less! Your argument is totally BS. So what if US workers lose a few jobs? The same amount of goods (actually likely more) have been produced for less money and people in other countries now have jobs. The end result is, no jobs are lost to the world (likely more are created), and consumers get goods for less. Please get it through your head that Americans are overpaid! Just because you guys are finally being forced to start working for your money you start getting all bitchy. Either compete, or go die because the rest of the world doesn't want your whiny ass here. People really have to stop thinking in terms of countries and think in terms of the World because, guess what? You may be a citizen of the US, but you are living in the World with the rest of us and you have to think in terms of world welfare, not country welfare!
I worked at walmart for a while after college -- The people there were just miserable, and I dont mean shitty people, actualy most of the people were pretty nice, it was just like being on the ship of the damned. The smarter among us knew where the ship was headed, the less aware didn't. And the undertext was always, dont tell anyone. Management was stupid, but they could spot the smart people -- who didn't generally last long. I got along by pretending to be not stupid, but not smart either. They want someone just smart enough to stock their shoes, electronics, etc, and not be trouble -- but stupid enough to believe their lies. They lied constantly, did rotten (and sometimes illegal) things, and just generally made your life shit. The guys who had been there for 15 years, were worn to the nub by life. I was originally thinking of trying to become the store manager or something -- I was *BY FAR* the most educated employee with a BS, but after a while my conscience started to bother me. I *literally* felt by working at this company I was selling out myself, the country, and my own interests.
I quit after a few months when they decided to make me permanant... my back was hurting so bad from the labor that I couldn't sleep more then 3 hours at once (i'd wake up with knotted muscles, have to stretch for 20 - 30 mins, then go back to sleep) And it wasn't like I could afford the walmart insurance, which IIRC was about 30% of your wage (7$ an hour).
The other thing that struck me (coming from a household that made over 200k a year) was how poor the people working there were. I remember one girl bragging abuot how well she was doing -- she had a dvd player and a ps2.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
Macs are manufactured in california for the different government boddies that require made in america.
Apple's original Macintosh motherboards were made in the USA and the units were assembled here. Not sure where the components were made. Don't know about today's Macs, but someone else mentioned XServes are made in USA.
With any manufacturing process, "made in" is only meaningful on a step-by-step basis. Frequently, commodity parts may be multiply-sourced so one lot of, say, a power supply, may contain an XYZ capacitor from country A and another may contain an equivalent capacitor from country B.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
What will become of them?
Eventually there'll be no more small farms to confiscate through eminent domain or blighted land clauses (or steal through various social programs). At that point, it'll be cheaper to turn an abandoned strip mall or abandoned factory into something else than it will be to force 50-60 millionaires out of their $500,000 homes (sitting on an entire half acre each!).
Like most everything else, this is a cycle. We'll eventually have to choose between un-improving/un-developing (what a dumbass term those real estate people have) land or not eating. The lesser sadness of this is that when we come back around to this point in the cycle, we'll be much worse off, because some things done to land can ruin it for tens of thousands of years (assuming we don't end up like the folks in ``I Put My Blue Genes On'' where there's no humanity left).
The greater sadness is that I see this now; you also see this now; hundreds of people see this now, but they're mostly the ones doing the small farming which doesn't lend itself to gaining the political power necessary to stop this.
Hear me Oh My Representitives! It's only cheaper to bulldoze that forest to make a factory if you don't consider all the factors! That abandoned factory on the edge of town is really the cheapest place to put your new factory. Preserve the small farmer his land!
I wish you would explain that to the Corps of Engineers! At least, the a$$holes I have to deal with... We use "commercially available" products to install our HVAC systems (they could go down and buy them from most any parts house themselves), but we certainly DO have to comply with Buy American when doing the job. Or so they say, and since they control the purse strings...
This leaves us in a bit of a bind. Most foreign-made items we use DO have an American made option, but it is - horrors! - an INFERIOR option. One we would never use otherwise. Luckily, the more critical components are made by companies that the DOD has on their exceptions list, but it still means we have to deal with the paperwork verifying that.
Do you understand this now? Let me spell it out for you. This an example of a case in which time (and thus money) is wasted by the City of Indianapolis because its workers are not allowed to make spending decisions based on quality of service or other attributes except by the race of the owner. This policy is racist.
...just my 2 gil.
As for soil reclaimation, the situation is better. There has been a lot of research into high-temperature composting, which breaks down toxic leftovers in the soil. Alas, if that soil contains heavy metals, as is often the case, then those must be removed by other means. All of this is quite labor-intensive, and therefore expensive, but some brownfield sites have been turned into parks and gardens this way. I, for one, would love to see a rejuvenated Rust Belt. I'd also like to see the people responsible for these messes be forced to clean them up, rather than socializing the problems that capitalists created, which is what we're doing now.
"OH SHIT, THERE'S A HORSE IN THE HOSPITAL!"
I am not the first person to point out here that very few electronics are made in America anymore. But I would like to point out that many people in America don't understand this, and that it is kind of counterintuitive and that various otherwise intelligent people's inability to understand this is causing some bad economic mistakes to be made all along the line.
I was born in 1979. I still remember when items like televisions, VCRs, Microwaves and the like were luxury items. For people born earlier, especially in the depression, the idea that goods like these often are literally not worth the space it takes to store them. Many people don't understand that televisions and stereos are mass produced in countries like Taiwan that 20 years ago were third world countries, and that Japan is past us in technology, Taiwan is pulling even, and countries like Malaysia are waiting to catch up.
The micro and macro effects of these are causing big ripples in our economy. If the pricing of housing goes up, and the price of consumer goods stays the same, what does that do? If you own an independent electronics retailer, and you sell televisions and stereos at 100 dollars each with a 10 dollar profit, how many do you have to sell to afford a standard 300,000 family home?
And, if the US is running a 60 billion dollar a month trade deficit, what is it going to sell to make up for that? Heavy manufactring used to be our bread and butter, but we would have to export (for example), 600 million tons of steel a month to make up that deficit. Pretty much the only thing the US has a clear edge in manufactring these days is commercial aircraft. But the people who are making economic policy don't realize this just because it contradicts their experience when they were growing up.
Okay. I have had my say.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
Assuming the parent and grandparent posts are correct, what prevents some outside company making a commercial tool that fits the DHS's needs is only that it is unlikely that a custom tool the DHW would want also has broad market potential.
In other words, for a company to make a commercial tool just for a DHS spec, it would be essentially coding on spec but without a contract. And given that the DHS would presumably be putting out a contract because they couldn't find the product in the market already, that implies that it is there aren't enough other interested custmers in this product.
Short answer: nothing is preventing someone from doing this except market risk and reality.
--Pat / zippy@cs.brandeis.edu
My hunch with respect to the blighted land is that in the 21st century, environmental reclaimation technology will be the big, big growth industry, as we become aware of what we are doing to ourselves by shitting in our own nest.
I was referring to the trick where when a city decides it wants your farm or forest to build a factory (even though there are several abandoned ones to choose from in the immediate area), they'll threaten to declare your land blighted so that you can't use it anymore. ``Sell your land to us or we'll declare it blighted and use eminent domain to take it for the price of blighted land.'' Then they ``clean'' it up and sell it to a local politically connected guy to drop a factory on it (again, even though there are lots of failed factories around, this one will for sure bring in some jobs!). There's some irony in using a Socialist mechanism to achieve Capitalist ends.
All of this is quite labor-intensive, and therefore expensive
It'll eventually be ``worth it'' to pay for the cleanup. It's actually worth it now, if you draw the lines for the closed system correctly, but most people don't which is why we're where we are now and why things will get worse before they get better. It'd sure be nice if we could keep things from reaching some devastating terminal point, though.
socializing the problems that capitalists created
Capitalism drives things towards an equilibrium. I would argue that an equilibrium between Too Much Poison and Not Enough Poison isn't desireable. Some controls about requiring closed wastewater systems and total nonpollution of the surrounding area would be devastating in the short run, what with China et. al. not having to follow the same rules, but in the long term we'd come out far, far ahead (being able to eat and all). At any rate, I'm not an economist, and they'd scoff at a lot of opinions I have, but economic theories don't grow tomatoes.
World banks are actually very concerned that this might happen. However, our saving grace currently is that other countries have invested too much money in our economy. They can't withdraw their money; if they did then what you described would be very likely to occur.
As pointed out in popular movies such as Fahrenheit 9/11, Saudi money comprises a couple percent of the US economy. That's a lot. About as much as Wal-Mart.
If that money went away we'd be feeling it very hard. But, I think there's a 90% chance that doesn't happen.
Think of it as a game of chicken. The US and other countries are in a game of chicken. We all know that our currency is quickly losing real value, but people are too afraid and too dependent on the US economy to "pull out". Japan might be a big electronics buyer itself, but many more of its products are shipped overseas, primarily to the USA. If our market of consumers disappeared, so would their production economy.
The game of chicken continues until one of two things occurs. (1) Other countries pull out of the US. A cascade effect occurs and the world is in a depression. (2) Other countries don't pull out and slow, steady inflation causes US foreign debts to be effectively erased.
Lots of powerful companies are banking on #2 to happen. If #1 happens, everyone loses, but if #2 happens, it's really the poor people, the factory workers and sweatshop slaves, in 3rd world countries that lose out.
I find the car industry particularly sad as a case, since despite being a product which cannot be cheaply made in China (for US export) the US industry still fails. If I had to guess I'd say the US will continue to slowly decline with politicians following the mantra of "if I don't see it, it can't hurt me." Maybe the US culture simply isn't designed for a leading role; the US became a world power because no one else was left standing and kept it for decades due to constant fear. The fact that the soviets posed a threat at all is amazing thing given how much stronger the US was in all aspects.
I can't even begin to guess what the end result will be, but I hope the US survives long enough for other nations to be able to compensate in case it collapses. In the end at least it kept democracy and freedom alive, and propagated them to a decent amount.
I work for a French company in the US. Our
products are excellent, competive and American
made.
There are no outrageous price barrier between
Europe and America. We buy a lot from France and
sell a lot to France. The problem is not Europe
but Asia.
When we sell products in India they have to be
made in India because India charges 60% duty on
imports. Korea and China charges outrageous prices
as well. More and more companies are moving their
operations to India and China to be able to
compete in Asia and America.
The losers are Americans, Canadians and Europeans
in this stupid race to the bottom.
Products from India or China are not better, just
a lot cheaper.
We should charge the same tariff as they do and we
would do better economically.
I thought I was the only one this cynical. I have gone back to school to earn a second B.S., my third college degree -- I already hold a B.S. and a M.A. In addition to the science and math curriculum I'm studying Chinese; for reasons that you should find self-evident. I was in Beijing in 2000 and have friends who have been to China even more recently and it is clear that the well paying and rewarding work is already-in or will be in Asia. And when I'm done with school I will hold a B.S in Fine Arts and Communications, a M.A in Design and Writing, a B.S. in Math and Chemistry, a Ph.D in Computational Chemistry and speak fluent Mandarin. And that will qualify me to go anywhere I damn well please and earn a good living, which will likely not be in my country of origin; USA.
I don't suppose it ever registered with you that if you are concerned about the security of your nation there might be value in having domestic manufacturing cability for things like computers and cell phones.
If you transfer all of the production capability necessary for the existence of your society to other nations, China for instance, what exactly do you do if:
A. There is a war with China and it engulfs Taiwan, Korea, Japan and the rest of Asia.
B. China decides to exploit its stranglehold on your economy as fodder for various forms and degrees of blackmail.
Not a big fan of Congress passing laws, and it sure is a clumsy and staggeringly expensive way to achieve it, but I can see some value in preserving domestic capacity to design and manufacture things, especially things like IC's that are dual use and essential to national security in peace time and to national defense in event of a war. I wonder how many weapons the U.S would no longer be able to manufacture if the flow of goods from Asia were severed.
Perhaps in our globalized world we have moved beyond a global war but somehow I doubt it. What exactly happens when you have a world war in a world with a globalized economy. China has a huge advantage becuase it is rapidly acquiring all the industrial capacity necessary to fight a sustained conflict, an advantage that was America's during World War II. The U.S. is increasingly a land of service jobs, overpaid execs, marketing and incapable of producing anything of tangible value, excepting maybe weapons. America is increasingly in a position it would have to win a big war fast with the weapons it has because it couldn't fight a sustained war where there is attrition of its weapons and weapons platforms and where industrial capacity is essential to survival. Its hard to even rebuild that industrial capacity if all the machine tools and fabs have been crated up and moved to China.
You better hope F-22's are invincible because if they were taken out in large numbers they would be nearly impossible to replace in event of a real war.
There is also a concern with things like computers going in to security critical facilities like the DHS, NSA, DOD and FBI which are manufactured in a potentially hostile country. They can be designed with subtle and exploitable flaws and back doors and its pretty hard to go over every one of them with a fine tooth comb.
@de_machina
Wow. I really wish basic economics were a required subject in school.
Buying $8 American means helping the defeceit, not having to pay $6 social secuity to the American who got layed off because of China. Buying $8 American means the government gets back a certain amount in Taxes from the American workers.
Yet another broken window fallacy, because you've now paid $8 for $2 worth of stuff, reducing your wealth by $6. You are effectively advocating charity for US businesses that can't compete in the global market. It's equivalent to buying the Chinese product for $2 and then just paying $6 for the US worker to do nothing. Better idea: encourage the US company and workers to either become more efficient, or find another business. Neither wealth nor jobs is a fixed quantity, and the economy is not a zero-sum game.
People here with this "buy from China" attitude are blissfully unaware that for every $ going overseas it costs us another 10 here to keep america going.
Not remotely true. Free trade benefits both parties; there is a mountain of theoretical and historical evidence to support this. You want to see what happens when a nation cuts itself off from world trade, go take a look at North Korea. There's a plausible case that the US shouldn't buy Chinese goods because the Chinese government is hostile. There's not a plausible case that it's bad for our economy.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
You should print this out and mail it to yourself certified so you can prove your "I told you so" points.
I don't have quite such a dire view as you do, though. Of course, the thing with economics is when we realize the worst that could happen, we can prevent it from happening. The fact that the government knows that Weimar inflation is possible, makes it improbable.
However, the current government, to say the least,
seems to have the habit of ignoring reality. The thing is, the American economy actually can survive quite high trade and budget deficits for a while...but not forever. I believe that if we are lucky, as the American dollar gets weaker, imports will get more expensive and manufactring will be cost-feasible in this country. Thats the good version. The bad version is some type of shock hits the global economy, people panic, people pull money out of the economy, the US can't find a way to fianance its debt...and general badness follows.
For my own "I told you so" points, I wrote about this happening in May of 2003:
The Two Tiered Economy
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
Ehh I doubt the Japanese production economy would "disappear" if the American consumer market did.
Sure they export a lot of goods to the USA, and sure, they can redirect exports to emerging markets (China, India, most of SE Asia)
Which would work if it weren't for our trade deficits. The reality is that those USD's would go into the international currency exchange markets where they'd probably be used as an intermediary currency between other countries. The odds are that the 1 million USD that I send to China probably won't be used by China to buy American products, it will be used to import Pakistani rugs to Beijing, it will be used by Hong Kong trading companies to set up a distribution center in Australia, or it will be spent setting up a school in Africa. Since banks in most nations will gladly trade in US currency, it is often treated as a world currency in the business arena.
Based on that, my original point still stands. There is no gurantee that US Dollars sent to China will ever make it back into the US economy. Even though it's our national currency, the facts of the global economy have created a situation where the US dollar has value in nations beyond our own. In that environment, we're little more than a currency printer and gurantor.
Of course, if the Euro succeeds in upsetting the US applecart and replaces the USD as the preferred international exchange currency, we probably will revert to a traditional send & return currency exchange like you're describing. Of course, if that ever happens our trade deficits will make the US Dollar nearly worthless when buying from high quantity exporters. They'll have far more US currency flowing in than they can use in return, which will either drive prices through the roof or cause the US to begin exchanging dollars for euros when dealing internationally.
There is nothing so pathetic as seeing a beautiful young theory roughed up by a tough gang of facts.
What does the USA have to offer? Resources.
Minerals, chemicals, and enough food to support nations that are unable to grow enough to support their own populations.
Minerals? IIRC, every major gold mine in the US is foreign owned. Environmental protection laws are also driving up the cost and regulatory burden on mines so steeply that very few new major mines have opened in the past several decades, while dozens have closed. Mineral extraction is a fading industry in the US...the number of mines and miners continue to dwindle, and the profits from those mines rarely benefit this country anyway.
Chemicals? When was the last time a major new petrochemical plant was built in the US? Most American chemical companies are now putting their production facilities in Mexico and other neighboring countries where environmental and safety laws are less stringent. While the profits of this industry flow back into the US, it's arguable whether Mexican produced chemicals are really US products anymore...we're more of a middle man at this point (and we all know who gets cut first when budgets get tight).
Food? I live in the California Central Valley, arguably one of the most productive agricultural areas on the planet. You know what I see? Every year, countless thousands of acres of irreplaceable farmland being paved over for suburbs and strip malls. I see the government in an all-out attack to end pesticide use, stop cow flatulence, and restore irrigation water to their source rivers. While these may be laudable goals, their result is the same...farming is dying here. Nationally, the US is losing farmland at an incredible rate as fields are abandoned and built over. In fact, there is less production farmland in the US today than there was 100 years ago. We are rapidly becoming a food IMPORTER, not an exporter.
Economically, the US is becoming a net importer in just about every category, and is basing its continued economic dominance on the theory that its citizens can own and manage the resources being produced by other countries. Eventually the citizens of those countries are going to grow tired of American domination and either nationalize those assets or begin producing the same products with their own money and management...and put us out of business because their lower CEO salaries and the fact that they aren't beholden to stockholders will give them a HUGE price advantage.
There is nothing so pathetic as seeing a beautiful young theory roughed up by a tough gang of facts.
Guess what companies are going to be making these custom products for DHS? The same companies that spend hundreds of millions of dollars lobbying in Washington to secure US taxpayer money for their contract pipelines.
People will then yell, "What, do you want DHS to send those contracts to countries overseas?!? Traitor!"
To which I need not reply, because these are the same people that yell "Free market capitalism!" when people voice concern over the vast amount of products being pumped through Long Beach, CA from China and distributed by the likes of Wal-Mart/Target/etc.
My point? Anyone please tell me, what makes sense in respect to the future of this country? I'm not so against the Corporate Welfare, but what I am against are the people who say they support that, but not social welfare for the masses. Hypocritical, and corrupt.
It's like the opposite of Robin Hood: Steal from the poor, give to the rich.
Authority questions you. Return the favor.
Also, didn't the story break a while back about China demanding that their computer suppliers "buy China" only? Funny thing is, I don't see them having a problem keeping up their commitmenmt.
What _does_ the USA have to offer? Think about it - almost all the manufacturing industries have moved out/are moving out, and the US is largely going towards being nothing more than a consumer (okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a little, but you get the idea).
.9% more productive than average, and 3.3% more than plants that were closed. Today we have over 360,000 manufacturing plants in the US.
A little? More than a little. Quite abit more.
There are 14.5 million U.S. manufacturing jobs. About a quarter of those are low-risk for export as no other nation has enough ability to even challenge them. About 2/3rds are in a "medium risk" level where some niche markets and countries *could* become competitive.
But then again, a smart observer does not base it all on jobs. Productivity per-worker increases have a far more dramatic effect on manufacturing than mere jobs level measurements. So too is R&D.
US spending on R&D by US companies amounts to 3% of GDP, or about 277 billion/year. By comparison, the EU average s 2%, and OECD countries average 2.3%.
US import of GDP is about 10%. By comparison, China's import of GDP is about 25%.
Manufacturing production in the US more than doubled from 1970 to 2000. yet manufacturing employment fell from 25% to 13% over that same period of time. As I said above, productivity gains are not to be idly dismissed.
Between the years 1982 and 1977 manufacturing jobs fell by 1.7 million. Despite this, the value of goods manufactured in the US approximately tripled, and the number of facilities increased by just under 10%. In manufacturing, productivity is king. Yet despite the increase in plants from 1977 to 1997, over 117,000 plants closed. Plant closings are an ongoing thing. Indeed, studies have shown that on average over a 5 year period, 32% of plants are closed. here, too, productivity is a key player.
Plants that survived were
Indeed, since 1940 US Manufacturing has remained remarkably stable. Since 1940 manufacturing output as portion of GDP has oscillated between 16 and 19%. The low point during the recent correction was, IIRC, about 16%.
Again, productivity is king, and the US is still driving productivity gains.
China, for example, will have little incentive to drive productivity gains. Productivity gain drivers are largely a function of labor pool, of which China has a rather large pool. And despite the hooplah in the media, China is actually running a trade deficit, and has been for a long time. Their manufacturing is primarily around building things they need such as concrete for roads, buildings, etc.. In an actual analysis, Chinese products are no more advantageous than it's neighbors.
The EU is moving ostensibly to a service driven economy (read: doomed to failure economy), and trying to get out of manufacturing (btw, most of the "exported" manfuacturing went to Europe a long time ago). This leaves Japan, Russia, and various Asian countries.
Of those, Russia has a lot of problems to overcome before it can become a manufacturing giant to rival the US. Japan is still getting itself built back to workable state (and doing a fine job of it, expect "sudden" news on this front in the next few years). After these two, there isn't much left in the way of manufacturing potential to rival the US manufacturing.
Indeed, when looking at US direct foreign investment, over half of it goes to Europe. Mexico got about four percent, China less than one percent. India is statstically non-existent as far as US investment abroad.
Chinese labor costs per unit are rising faster than US costs per unit. This will have significant impact on Chinese exports and their costs. Indeed, due to rising labor costs in the 1990s South Korea had a loss of 15% of manufacturing jobs, whereas the US shed a mere 3% during that same time (and remember, production was still rising in the US).
And last but not least, if you look at the global manufacturing levels
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
Oh, yes, every other country tries, and then the US screams bloody murder about them restricting "free trade". More and more, it seems these Free Trade agreements are more and more one-sided.
Speaking as one from the country that's the third largest recipient of US investment (Ireland), I say "HAH HAH"!
Actually, our government may be bad at running our country in some ways, but they are sly devious conmen when it comes to business and attracting industry/multinationals to Ireland.
After all, despite the massive US interest - they account for something like 20-25% of businesses in Ireland - although that's a lot, that means we've a lot more companies that aren't from the US! It also means we've an insane amount of outside investment overall!
And our government continues the slyness by picking up on trends and getting the Chinese interested in setting up shop here (our entire local government for my area went over to China with representatives from practically every major business in the province, along with the Prime Minister! Largest trade delegation ever from Ireland). And we've had the Chinese premier in my little backwater city too.
At some point Ireland may have to examine her ethics, but hey, all these people have money, so... Bwah hah hah.
All the benefits of being in the EU without the sluggish economy and massive unemployment seriously rocks.
Come to Ireland while you can. Just don't go to the insanely expensive Dublin - one of the highest cost-of-living places there is. Go to Cork or Limerick. Galway's nice but doesn't have so much industry.
And due to unbalanced regional investment a two-hour car trip brings you to undisturbed quaint and beautiful real Irish countryside, with traditional lifestyles! (Yes, we nab a disproportional amount of tourists as well as all the industry. Nice one! Keep coming!)
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