"Peter Wiley" wrote in message
. ..
In article et,
Maxprop wrote:

"Bob Crantz" wrote in message

East Asia allies doubt U.S. could win war with China

Sure it could. All the US would have to do is pull the plug on Chinese
goods, the majority of which go to the USA. China would collapse in
economic ruin within months. g

Nice theory, except that you'd have to wait, say, 5 years or so to
replace all those imports from somewhere else. Your domestic
manufacturing capacity for consumer goods is, shall we say, minimal?

Minimal may be an overstatement. We've done a fine job of exporting nearly
every manufacturing job short of the high-tech and/or large industrial end
of things. However, a friend, who is an importer of foreign low-tech goods,
tells me that India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and many other SE Asian countries
would dearly love to replace China as our major supplier of such goods.
Mexico, some Central and South American countries continually bid for the
business as well. But it's not so simple as it seems. If we pulled our
low-tech goods production entirely from the Chinese, they'd probably attack
us.

Ditto the patience and attention span of your consumers. How else can
one explain the success of places like Home Depot and Walmart?

Simple, really. Our consumers place little or no value on quality service,
rather choosing low price and one-stop shopping as an alternative. In the
1960s and 70s, small towns and villages across the USA watched as ma & pa
business and shops closed, unable to compete with the K-Marts and other
so-called superstores. Now we're stuck with them and have almost no
alternatives.

Max