3 ms·
And yet, America is directly responsible for the lifting of a billion people out of poverty through trade - far more than any social assistance program in histo
by cal5k 7y ago
And yet, America is directly responsible for the lifting of a billion people out of poverty through trade - far more than any social assistance program in history.
- Miner49er 7y agoNot because of any value for human life. The economy only cares about human life insomuch as a person's productivity and spending power.
- oblio 7y agoDidn't the US have only about 330 million people or so?
- magduf 7y agoYou seem to be forgetting the billions of people in China. Who do you think buys most of the stuff China exports?
- oblio 7y agoThere's not "billions of people in China", there's about 1 billion and 400 million. That's a minor nitpick compared to my other points though. China exports worldwide, see these examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_trading_partners_of_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_trading_pa... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Brazil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Brazil It's not just the US buying from them. Everyone's buying Chinese goods and services. More than that, the US didn't raise anyone in China out of poverty. Like it didn't raise South Koreans or Iraqis or Aghans or Germans, etc. The Chinese raised China out of poverty. Nobody's buying Chinese goods out of the goodness of their hearts, they're buying it because they're cost effective. They're buying them quite rationally. The only thing the US did was allow them to trade, which we go by American values, should be a sort of universal human right. Now that the US is getting the short end of the stick, should we suddenly become hypocrites and say that China's abusing the system the US used and abused for so long? :-)