Gomory mentions 3 choices for a country that stops making something: (1) import it by selling something else it makes, (2) go without, and (3) import it by promising to pay later. The Buffett article he links to says because America's been doing no.3, the foreigners will use those bonds to buy property in the US before they're inflated away, and that the US won't likely confiscate foreign-owned property.<p>But neither author mentions what makes the US different to China, Japan, India, and others taking over US manufacturing. Chinese can become Americans, but Americans can't become Chinese. The US (and Australia and Brazil, etc) are founded on immigration. Foreigners buying US land can be given US citizenship as an alternative to having their property confiscated. The children of Chinese (and Koreans,etc) are going to Western countries to be educated, usually hoping to stay. By offshoring manufacturing and ICT, the US, Canada, etc simply get a larger citizenship base, not lose any global competitive advantage.<p>Despite the rise of China, many of the younger generation of Chinese still want to live in foreign English-speaking and European countries, and that's not likely to stop. And eventually, Americans will eventually vote for the government that lets them in the easiest, because house prices will start rising again when the international students rent them and immigrants buy them.<p>But Americans and Australians don't become Chinese or Vietnamese, nor do they want to. An immigrant-based nation such as the US can outsource its manufacturing to ethnic-based nations such as China and India, and stay rich BECAUSE it's an immigrant-based nation. People from ethnic-based nations will generally prefer to live in the US or Canada BECAUSE they're immigrant-based nations. So the US needn't worry about outsourcing to India.