iteresting thread - economics was never my strongest subject but this trend is evident in the uk also and the complete lack of a manufacturing base ( most products are assembled in the uk from imported parts from mother factories abroad) means our economy is of a similar nature to the us and we also are seeing a drift away of cheap support and call centre jobs ( local telephone directories answered in india!!!! ) The time for isolationist economics is passed as I am sure it is in the US though maybe to a lesser extent, given the fact that the infrastructure of manufacturing has been spread around the third world and when costs there become too high they will move again to a lesser developed nation. We cannot maintain our wealth as nations by being purely service economies and the globalized nature of the multi nationals means keeping track of finances and collecting taxes is even more problematic for governments. I feel what is needed in the UK and in the US is a resurgence of a strong manufacturing base which will allow for a better balance in the economy unfortunately the price we all may have to pay for this is that this will not happen until the states which are bases of manufacturing reach economic parity with the us and uk and we can then compete on equal terms for those jobs which would tend to indicate a rather sharp drop in living standards for the post modern states.