Post Mission Debriefing

[Wallew]

PS,

The ONLY THING that Europeans are buying that costs $100,000 now that USED to cost $60,000 is US REAL ESTATE. But there is ALWAYS some foreign national buying real estate here in the US. It's cylical.

LAK,

The FIRST set of countries you mentioned ARE NOT members of EU. For the second set of countries, they are ALL running unemployment rates that are currently three to FIVE times higher than the US unemployment rate, which is currently well below six percent.

So, are you saying that the US will NOW spend more money to buy Euro goods because of the drop of the US dollar? OR will they buy US goods because they are NOW cheaper here at home (and abroad) compared to those that are on the EU?

Just curious.

 

[LAK]

Wallew

The FIRST set of countries you mentioned ARE NOT members of EU. For the second set of countries, they are ALL running unemployment rates that are currently three to FIVE times higher than the US unemployment rate, which is currently well below six percent.

Current EU members are; Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, The Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and United Kingdom. Member candidates are Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania and Turkey - with Macedonia also currently applying. The newly installed leadership in the Ukraine has also just made known they want in, and many more will certainly follow.

There is massive investment going into these and other former east bloc countries. In the case of Ukraine, with the announcement of intended EU membership, projected foreign investment into the Ukraine has jumped into the billions.

Unemployment figures only reinforce what I am saying. It means that there are bigger pools of cheap labor in the countries with the highest figures. In socialist europa, welfare recipients must accept any reasonable offer of employment, and a low level of pay is not an exception. In the countries with the lowest average labor, property and other costs, this investment potential is not lost on the corporate world, and that is where it is going.

So, are you saying that the US will NOW spend more money to buy Euro goods because of the drop of the US dollar? OR will they buy US goods because they are NOW cheaper here at home (and abroad) compared to those that are on the EU?

I am saying that there is not a significant market in the whole of europa and elsewhere for the few manufactured goods we produce. They can most all be bought cheaper elsewhere. About the only cheap exports that we have that anyone wants right now are the services of our miltary and our tax dollars.

The US hardly produces any manufactured goods anymore and is taking in goods from the usual places; China, Mexico etc. As the new Pan American state progresses we will probably see more from some of the South American countries where similar pools of cheap labor and investment lay, once the governments of all of them can be made to heel.