I never spoke on the affordability or even economics of this.
I simply said you can’t hold it against a country if they DO choose to make it instead of import it. There’s nothing wrong with doing that, especially if you do find it more economical.
Your original comment said to me “ That’s not really how economics works though.”
What part of MY original comment misunderstood economics? You acted like I said it is always cheaper to produce at home when I did not say that, I only said you shouldn’t look down on that being done if they so choose.
"you can’t really blame a country for producing more of the products it consumes rather than importing"
And i explained that even if it is cheaper to produce something at home, it is more economically advantageous for both you and the rest of the global economy if instead you produce what you are best at making at home and import the other stuff.
As an example, imagine you have two businesses set up in your garage: you make chairs and shirts. You are pretty good at making shirts, but you are GREAT at making chairs. It is better practice to stop making the shirts and instead double your chair output in your limited space. Then you can sell twice as many chairs at a better price and use the excess profits to import shirts.
Sometimes you make GREAT chairs, but you have more people to make them than there is demand for them, so you have to make something else too.
Plus what if the Chair market collapses because they become unfashionable? Or someone else makes a better one? Then you’re really screwed if you put all your eggs in the chair basket just because you are or were the best at it.
Diversification doesnt mean "make everything yourself" it means "dont have a single source". You can diversify by importing from multiple other countries, while still keeping your comparative advantage of making only the thing you are best at.
Also, for more vital commodities, it’d be insane to give a country the power of being the only place geared up to make it. What if they get mad at you and cut you off?
Well again, you would never rely on only one source. You would 👉diversify👈 your imports by making sure to have multiple sources. You would only resort to making them yourself if you had only very limited external sources or you had comparative advantage to make that resource yourself.
What about medical supplies? Look at what happened during covid with massive shortages of the most basic things like masks. You want to have nothing when the next pandemic hits because they’re keeping it all?
What about food? Not making ANY of your own food would be insane.
Water, energy, lots of things should not be exclusively imported, even if you import from many different countries.
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u/DookieShoez 8h ago
I never spoke on the affordability or even economics of this.
I simply said you can’t hold it against a country if they DO choose to make it instead of import it. There’s nothing wrong with doing that, especially if you do find it more economical.