>And the farmers would earn $1 per day?
Labor remains a scarce factor in the U.S. Coffee gets very expensive...
>We would be drilling the entire
>Cal. coastline.
Indonesia and Nigeria aside, we don't import oil from poor countries.
We import oil from rich countries.
>Big change
>in quality of life/standard of living, as you have insisted in
>pushing the benefits of trade
Most trade is north-north trade--and most of the gains from trade are
gains from the extremely fine north-north division of labor.
My guess? My guess is that we gain something like $120 billion a year
of extra value from the $300 billion a year we trade with poor
countries--that it would cost us $420 billion to make goods and
services here at home to provide us with the utility we get from
imports from poor countries.
My other guess is that the poor countries gain something like $1200
billion from the $800 billion or so they trade with rich countries.
Why the different ratios? Because (coffee aside) the U.S. is nearly
competitive in lots of goods we import from poor countries (plastic
toys, textiles, furniture), while less-developed countries have an
extremely hard time making many of the things they import from the
industrial core. (That's why it's the industrial core, after all:
it's extraordinarily productive in utilizing the technologies of the
industrial revolution.)
Brad DeLong
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