From Newsgroup: soc.history.what-if

Ed Stasiak <estasiak@att.net> on Wed, 22 May 2013 19:15:56 -0700 (PDT)
typed in alt.time-travel the following:

Rich Rostrom

Ed Stasiak

Availability would drop and costs would increase...

You don't get it. Availability of these
things drops _instantly_ to _zero_.

Yabut, _what_ things?

The U.S. imports plastic sporks from China and that will
be gone in this scenario. Now the U.S. could ramp up
domestic spork production but I suspect that due to the
strange situation and the need for plastics for higher
priority areas of the economy, we wouldn't bother.

Initially, kids would have to bring their own forks to school
for lunch and down the line, school cafeterias would provide
silverware as they did back in oldy timey days.

You have to define what "hurt' means in this context and
I just don't see this being that much of a problem for the
average Joe American Citizen.

The inserts for machine tools are imported. How long to ramp up production of those so that you can start making the machined parts to
replace the imports?

Various annoyances, sure (gas prices spike, tomatoes
might not be available in northern states during winter,
etc) but nothing we couldn't easily deal with.

Did we mention that the subways stop running, because the plates
used to attach rails to ties were imported, and there isn't a domestic
source?
--
pyotr filipivich
Next month's Panel: Graft - Boon or blessing?
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: soc.history.what-if

fairwater@gmail.com (Derek Lyons) on Mon, 15 Apr 2013 05:21:21 GMT
typed in alt.time-travel the following:

Dan Goodman <dsgood@iphouse.com> wrote:

On Sun, 14 Apr 2013 18:19:36 +1000, SolomonW wrote:

On Sat, 13 Apr 2013 18:56:50 -0500, Dan Goodman wrote:

A country is sent back several thousand years into the past.
(Occupying the same area.) Which countries might do well, and which
wouldn't?

Very few countries would do well initially as they would be cut off the
world market and almost everyone imports something.

Which countries NEED to import? I think all three North American >>countries could survive on their own resources.

The problem isn't that they don't need to import - the problem is that
they *do* import.

As they will see in 2020: having most of your pharmaceuticals come
from over seas, puts a great deal of stress on medical care when your stockpiles run out before new product comes online.
--
pyotr filipivich
Next month's Panel: Graft - Boon or blessing?
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2