John D. Giorgis wrote:
>At 12:04 PM 5/23/01 +0300 Charlie Bell wrote:
>>
>>> According to the CIA World Factbook:
>>> America exported $663 billion worth of good and services in 1998. Top
>>> exports included: capital goods, automobiles, industrial supplies and raw
>>> materials, consumer goods, agricultural products
>>
>>But is America a *net* exporter of any of those things, which was the
>>question...
>
>Oh that was the second question....... She *did* ask if America actually
>produced anything.
By "produced" I more or less meant "more than we consumed." Guess that
wasn't clear- sorry.
>Anyhow, here is our net trade balance for a number of commodities - if
>someone is really interested in data on services, I will attempt to look
>that up as well. Just let me know......
I'm not real good at reading this kind of thing, but assuming that the
stuff marked negative is what we import more that we export, it seems the
stuff we export can be put into these main categories:
Timber and Logs (but not "Forestry Products")
Nonmetallic Minerals
Grain and Oilseed Milling Products
Meat Products and Meat Packaging Products
Some Fabrics, mostly synthetics
Printing & Publishing stuff
Chemicals. All kinds of chemicals.
Pesticides, Fertilizers & Other Agricultural Chemicals (this is the fun
one- DDT, anybody?)
Paint, Soap, Plastic
Agricultural and Structural Metals
Machinery
Communications Equipment
Waste and Scrap
According to the little summary line at top, our balance in 2000 was
-436,469, whatever that means.
Hum. I'm not sure what to think about this. We're certainly not all that
glorious in the world of real production, now are we?
Kat Feete
We still win in creativity though, right? Right?
------------
"I was thinking about how people seem to read the Bible a whole lot
more as they get older, then it dawned on me...they're cramming for
their final exam."
- George Carlin
