"buy American" & family war sacrifices

Dear Paul Nelson,

There will be no Midrange jobs for you and me if the "Buy American" model
succeeds.  You and I will be out of a job, for the reasons noted below.

I empathize very much with the sacrifices your family members have made and
the suffering that they endured during the war.  It is a very sad but true
situation that people of every nation and ethnic descent have been both the
recipients of and perpetrators of atrocities.  People on both sides of any
conflict claim that the other side is the bad one.

With regard to the "Buy American" position, I notice that its strong
proponents want to sell their product globally, exporting it to other
countries, while encouraging Americans to "buy American".  Essentially, "I
will not buy from you (a foreigner), but I want you (the foreigner) to buy
from me."  That concept cannot succeed except in the very, very short term.

If you sell your product to people in another country, you expect to be
paid in U.S. dollars.  You don't want euros or yen because these are
worthless to you.  But how is it that your international customer has U.S.
dollars in the first place?  Most likely because Americans purchased
foreign goods from him with U.S. dollars.  Other countries are not
permitted to print U.S. currency (that is called counterfeiting).  So if
you expect to export your product to international customers and get paid
with genuine (non-counterfeit) U.S. dollars, you need to accept that this
can occur only if LOTS of Americans are "buying FOREIGN".

For thousands of years many nations have tried to seal their borders to
international commerce or limit it by imposing high tariffs, trying to
protect their own economies and encourage their citizens to "buy American"
or "buy within my own country".  I am not aware of any countries that have
succeeded in this attempt long-term.  Nor am I aware of any companies that
refuse to sell to customers outside the U.S. borders.  (In fact, it is
well-known that U.S. weapons manufacturers sell American-made weapons to
its enemies.  Saddam Hussein and other enemies of America buy American
goods from eager sellers.)

In conclusion, I believe that each of us should accept the fact that "buy
American" is an unsustainable and unworkable model, unless we choose to go
back to the pre-pre-pre-industrial era when no ships sailed the seas, no
camels crossed the deserts, each bearing useful goods desired by people in
other locales.  There can be no silk, no rubber, no tea, no spices, no
this, no that, nor anything but what you grow and manufacture in your back
yard if you and others "buy Amercan".
Respectfully submitted (and with condolences for the suffering your family
experienced),
Eric Lehti

= = = = = = Your earlier message is noted below = = = = = = =
I don't know about you guys, but I DO look at the source of the products,
and try to funnel as much money toward American business. I travel a lot,
and you should see the looks on the faces of the car rental clerks when I
insist on GM or Ford products. The argument that Toyotas or Hondas are just
as good if not better than American cars stops abruptly with two words:
"Pearl Harbor".
Maybe I am the way I am because I was raised in a family where one uncle
(Airborne) parachuted into France the night of June 5, 1944. Another uncle
(Marines) barely survived the Bataan death march, and another was at
Honolulu's Mitchell Field in the Army Air Corps on December 7, 1941. My
father (too nearsighted for air combat) spent the war training B-17
maintenance crews. My former father in law and his brother were both on
ships in Pearl Harbor the same day. These men passed on to me the belief
that one should forgive freely but remember forever.
Make a stand. Buy American.
Paul Nelson
630-327-8665 Cell
708-923-7354 Home
pnelson@braxton-reed.com