Thursday, March 24, 2011

trade gap story.... buffet's answer

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"Buffett's plan proposes creating a market for transferable import certificates, (ICs) that would represent the right to import a certain dollar amount of goods into the United States. These transferable ICs would be issued to US exporters in an amount equal to the dollar amount of the goods they export and they could only be utilized once. They could be sold or traded to importers, who must purchase them in order to legally import goods into the USA. The price of ICs are set by (free-market) forces, and are therefore dependent on the balance between entrepreneurs' willingness to pay the ICs market price for importing goods into the USA and the global volume of goods exported from the USA, (i.e. supply and demand).
Proceeds from the sale of ICs would encourage exporters (who would gain that extra money in addition to the proceeds of their exports) and discourage importers (who would need to pay the additional cost to acquire ICs as well as the cost to acquire the goods they are importing). This system would essentially create a broad-based tariff on imports to the United States, and subsidy for exports – compare cap and trade, which creates a similar market in pollution"