As I said, this economy was hollowed out LONG before this financial crisis kicked over the house of cards.
For those who continue to argue for offshoring… let’s do the math, shall we? What would the return of 5.5 MILLION jobs do to our unemployment levels?
The tired argument that stopping offshoring makes a company vulnerable to overseas competition pretty much becomes moot when you realize that we’ve already lost a THIRD of all manufacturing jobs to offshoring.
Any pro-offshoring person care to tell us what these companies and jobs have been or are being replaced by? It seems that no one has been able to answer that.
What kind of major damage to our economy are we talking here?
The loss of these jobs is not because companies here aren’t competitive.
There’s plenty of things that can improve our job situation.
Well, I think a lot of the shift in quality of jobs is the inevitable result of globalization. We couldn’t stop it if we wanted to and if we really thought about it we probably wouldn’t want to. Maybe I’m jumping the gun on retaliation, maybe we can inflate our currency and force China to drop their peg (at considerable cost), after all our economy is still several times the size of theirs.
Smoot hawley is only a bad idea during a recession if everyone retaliates, if everyone just lets us engage in mercantalism then, its not so disastrous, for us at least, not over the short term needed to recover from a recession, there may be some feedbacks that make this totally untrue but I don’t know if anyone knows the magnitude of those feedbacks.
Maybe I’m premature, maybe we can inflate our currency enough to the point where its simply not worth working for the same nominal dollars but I think it would take significant inflation for China to drop its peg, the sort of inflation we might not want. I don’t think I’m alone in being concerned that runaway inflation is a possibility considering hwo much debt we have out there.
I credit them with having a better plan than that.
Thats a lot of ifs. Like you say, the natural savings rate is being distorted and what they might otherwise invest in is also being distorted. They might decide they prefer gold to treasuries.
OK, I can agree with that.
Beacause the only practicable response we have at our disposal right now is the ugly option.
OK, and i’m going to push whatever response we can engage in right now rather than wait until the politcal climate makes other responses possible.
I don’t think Jackalope ever said he was an accountant but he has made some insightful obesrvations about our current situation and while it might not make any sense to you why someone might think that manufacturing jobs are moving to low wage countries, it is in fact happening (not that I think there is very much we can or even want to do about it) and it happening a lot fagster than our economy’s ability to supply new jobs for all the people who lost their jobs along with all the new job entrants. The outsourcing is just so rapid that we can barely adjust to last year’s job losses when this year’s job losses hit us in the face.
Wait, you don’t think that China’s actiona are lifting their people out of poverty (at our expense).
Hm…well, I think that they had only one way to go, and that was up, so I suppose that they have lifted themselves up, to an extent. However, they have deliberately held most of their population back from reaping the full rewards of their upward economy, because this has allowed them to continue and even expand the current trade imbalance. By deliberately keeping their currency artificially low (and at the same time pumping a large amount of the profits back into our own economy, thus keeping ours high), they have kept all that wealth out of their own peoples hands…wealth they could use to purchase goods and services from the US or Europe on a greater scale than what they are currently doing.
I think, in the end such a policy is going to bite the Chinese on the ass…hard. It’s entirely possible that in a few years people will look back in much the same way that people today look back and wonder what all the fuss was about the Japanese taking over and destroying our industrial and manufacturing sectors, and how they were going to rule the world economically speaking, blah blah blah. Didn’t happen, and if the Chinese continue the way they have been, a wall will surly be coming up to hit them sometime in the future.
As for ‘at our expense’, as I said earlier in this thread, it’s been a bit of a two edged sword for us…good and bad. Much of the bad, however, was our own fault, since we didn’t do smart things with all the resources the Chinese poured back into the US by buying our dollars by the truck load…we did stupid things, like the recent housing bubble. I don’t feel that trade is, in general, at the ‘expense’ of one partner exclusively, or to the benefit of another exclusively…there is always some level of give and take, and certainly our relationship with China has quite a bit of give and take in it, good sides and bad ones.
Regardless, I don’t think this is an ‘offshoring’ problem…that’s simply a red herring, IMHO, trying to chop down the biggest political tree in the partisan forest. It’s a boondoggle, a misdirection, populist claptrap. I’m still talking to you (as opposed to the OP who I have more scorn and pity for than anything else) because you make a good point that the real issues are more about monetary policy than about anything else…if there IS an issue, that’s it. And I agree that there is an issue with the way China is deliberately trying to manipulate their (and our) currencies to keep the imbalance high and keep their manufacturing sectors developing. I’d say we (you and I) disagree as to what should (or could) be done about that, and obviously we are somewhat in disagreement over whether this is a one way or two way street, with benefits as well as downsides to both parties, but I do agree with what I think is your general theme, that being that there is certainly a problem with currency pegs, and that this is a real issue, as opposed to the smoke and mirrors of offshoring. If I’m wrong about your position then I apologize…
Economics is a science, as anyone can tell, and your first claim is just silly, as you don’t even seem to know what the crash was caused by and most of your cites don’t say what you think they do.
Here’s an example:
Except the cite you provide in support of this number DOESN’T SAY THAT. It’s your own cite, your chosen source, and you didn’t read it correctly.
According to your own cite, what happened was that manufacturing jobs declined by 32% between 2001 and October 2009. I can independently verify that number through other sources, so that is definitely true. ** But it doesn’t actually say they all vanished because of offshoring**, versus how many were lost to efficiencies, robotics, or the financial crash of 2008 (which caused almost half that drop; that’s why your cite chose to stop counting in October 2009, the nadir of the fiscal crash, even though it was written in September 2010 and surely could have used more up-to-date information.) The article is unquestionably anti-offshoring and claims offshoring’s the problem in a generic sort of way,* but doesn’t actually provide evidence that the 32% drop was wholly the result of offshoring.*
It is trivially easy to find partisan claims that manufacturing employment is down due to technology and the fiscal crisis, rather than offshoring:
How is my cite any worse than yours? Personally, I think the truth lies somewhere between the two; I’m not stupid enough to believe one explanation holds all the answers.
Get the unemployment thing straight, dude. When you can understand really, really simple definitions, you’ll be ready to move on.
Type in your browser "is economics a science’ and you will find plenty of dispute. It has no predictability. Every new and brilliant economic concept will fail. The Greenspan School of Libertarians, knew exactly what to do , and they were wrong. the most brilliant and powerful financial pros and economic giants blew it all once again. Every economic star who got an administration to follow their ideas, crashed and burned. If it were a science it would be easy to develop a system that would work. Has that happened?
Type in ‘is creationism a science’ or ‘9/11 conspiracy’ and you’ll find plenty of dispute as well. Type in ‘AGW hoax’ and you’ll find quite a bit of dispute as well. Does that mean that Creationism IS a science, or that 9/11 was actually perpetrated by a shadowy government agency? Or that AGW/GW is a hoax brought about by liberal elements (the dirty finks) trying to destroy business and take us all back to a pre-industrial civilization?
Um…no. Just because there is ‘dispute’ doesn’t mean that it’s valid. Economics is most definitely science. Perhaps the problem is that some folks making the counter claim don’t actually know what ‘science’ is or how it works. Certainly the folks who claim Creationism is science don’t seem to grasp the finer points…
And what do you base such an incredible statement on, exactly? Just an out of your ass assertion based on ignorance? What exactly is a ‘brilliant economic concept’ that has failed?
Greenspan didn’t have a separate economics ‘school’ (of thought), and even if he was wrong about everything (which he wasn’t), that wouldn’t prove or disprove that economics is science. Where do you get this stuff from??
Who are these people (in your own, um, mind) and how did they blow it exactly? Could you give specific examples?
Again, even if this were true (which it isn’t) has zero impact on whether or not economics is a science.
Good grief. What do you base this on?
I think you equate ‘science’ with ‘magic’…IOW, you don’t have any idea what ‘science’ actually is or how it works.
Type in your browser “Is Obama a Muslim?” and you will find plenty of dispute.
Type in your browser “Is evolution true?” and you will find plenty of dispute.
Give me a fucking break. The existence of dispute is nigh on meaningless. Ignorance is not a point of view.
Here is a list of physicists and chemists who were wildly, dramatically, often stupidly wrong about major positions of science:
Albert Einstein
Lord Kelvin
Sir Isaac Newton
Virtually every notable scientist on earth in the 18th century who believed in “phlogiston”
Every notable scientist on earth in the 19th century, all of whom believed in luminieferous ether
Most of the geologists in the world prior to the late 20th century who rejected continental drift
The biologists who said Pasteur was nuts
So are chemistry, physics, geology and biology not sciences now?
Jesus Christ, am I the only person who knows the difference between science and politics?
I specifically mentioned other ideas to combat the inequality in the US, which I specifically admitted was a genuine problem. It was the very next sentence. But you snipped that out in that particular quote tag because quoting the full argument in one piece would have undermined your strawman. It wouldn’t do for you to accuse me of throwing the poor “under the bus” if you simultaneously quoted the next sentence where I point out the existence of alternative policies that are designed to help the working class.
At least you freely admit yourself that you want to throw the poor under the bus. It is somewhat funny, though, that you think emphasizing the fact that you’ve always wanted to screw the poor makes your argument stronger.
There are basically two ways to proceed: friendly cooperative rivalry, or unfriendly pissing contests.
One of the chief problems with our species is the false conclusion that whatever is good for those filthy foreigners must, ipso facto, be bad for us. I’m speaking generally here, not attributing these motives to you, but a lot of people (not all) look at a strengthening China and see the Yellow Menace. They see the US’s status as the pre-eminent economy in world being threatened. For them, success is all about relative status. China is gaining, therefore we in the US should apparently piss ourselves in fear, as we issue belligerent threats about how great we are and threaten to cut off cooperation with those foreign scum. They think it will make things better for us if they throw the Chinese under the bus. This is, of course, total bullshit. Le Jacquelope’s own cites show the long-term advantages of trade. China’s gain is our gain. Making China a high-wage country will unequivocally help us the US.
You can argue, plausibly, that the current wave of offshoring has gone so fast that our workers are bearing a disproportionate level of the cost, compared to previous eras of trade and specialization. This isn’t bad economics. Not at all. You’re on plausible ground. But I’m still focused on the broader situation, including the importance of long-term growth, and this is precisely why I briefly mentioned alternative domestic policies to decrease income inequality in the US.
More than that, though: by succumbing to the desire to retaliate, you’re playing against our own interests.
China is not a democracy. And that’s the entire problem, isn’t it? They’re not like us. And that (along with simple racism, in many cases) is what causes the xenophobes to dribble down their pant legs. But that very political difference is what makes the focus on cooperation even more important. This isn’t a one round game here, where you play it and go home. We can’t smash the Chinese with righteous, justified punishment, and then hope they forget. Our countries will play the same game over and over and over again. We’d like to get to a win-win scenario, but we should do so as cleverly as possible. China has opened up quite a lot in the last several decades, and if we’re smart, we’re going to encourage that trend to continue. That means trying to stay as friendly as possible, whenever it’s clever to do so.
The win-win scenario of long term cooperation should be our ultimate aim. Anything else is a needless distraction. And punishing China, while possibly emotionally satisfying in the present, will not necessarily get us what we want when our children are playing round 50 of the game and our grandchildren are playing round 100. What we want is cooperation. That is the all-encompassing goal. That is the win-win scenario. That is the policy that benefits all of us–even, indisputably, our own workers off into the future–as we play this game over and over and over again. And that should mean choosing the policy that has the best chance of encouraging cooperation on the other side, not only today but also in the future.
Retaliation doesn’t necessarily do that. It could just make them pissed off. And for what? To undermine a currency peg that could be undermining itself with every passing year? Really?
Proper monetary policy will eat away at the value of Chinese reserves. That, by itself, will make their peg much harder to enforce. They would have to increase the rate at which they are buying reserves every year, at the exact same time that the total value of their reserves would be dwindling. That would have to give them pause–the drop in value of their reserves would be a very sharp reminder of how top-down capital controls can backfire.
Obviously, they’re aware of what inflation is. But they’ve counted on their reserves to hold their value because they’re counting on us not doing anything with our own currency. Why? Because we haven’t been doing what we should with our own currency. We have the power, and haven’t been using it. They’d be fools not to recognize that. But as soon as we change policy, they will have to deal with the change in situation. And so we could likely get what we want by avoiding the pissing contest and pursuing a simple domestic policy, one that we should’ve started two years ago. Letting them know that we are willing to control our own currency is an important lesson for them to learn, one that is directly relevant to their own long-term growth prospects.
Retaliation should be not pursued for its own sake. It must have a goal. And we should try to achieve our policy goals with a clear eye on how our techniques will be perceived many years down the line. That’s why retaliation is a last resort technique, and those who reach for it before attempting other win-win options are not looking for that which is best for the country as we play the same game with the same partners ad infinitum. They’re merely aching for a fight.
If it comes to a pissing contest, then so be it. But better to avoid that if there are smart options still on the table. That’s not just good economic policy. It’s a smart move whatever goal we’re pursuing.
There is not enough industry in China to emply the VAST majority of its population. It is trying to put their entire pp[ulation on the factory floor, they might be reducing he purchasing power of those who are lucky enough to live near cities and have new economy jobs (the rural Chinese are not allowed to move to the cities), but they are increasing the number of participants in the new economy.
Why does everyone assume the Chinese are economically illterate idiots who don’t understand the long term effects of their decisions. Might I suggest that the Chinese take a very long view. They have already figured out their endgame and it does not involve shooting themselves in the foot. Once theya re an economic power, they will be able to amnipualte their way out of the peg that does not hurt them.
The chinese are different than teh Japanese, there are at least ten times as many Chinese.
Net, net, net, our trade with China has probably not increasesd societal utility. Sure a few people got REALLY fucking rich but median REAL INCOME has gone down over the last ten years. Some of this was inevitable but at least some [part of it was the direct result of currency manipulation. Maybe not a lot but enough for at least a million jobs (YMMV).
If the rate of change was a bit slower, we would be able to adapt to it, our economy would absorb the slack but the rate of change was probabl;y going to be faster than our economy’s ability to abosrb in any event and the currency manipulation puts it over the top.
I don’t like offshoring, I just don’t think there is anything that we can do about that wouldn’t make the situation worse in the long run. Unlike us, the rest of the world will in fact retaliate if we erect trade barriers or engage in unfair trade practices and its little solace to beggar my neighbor if I beggar myself in the process.
If the rate of change was a bit more gradual, I think trade would be an unmitigated nebefit to our society as we shed ourselves of less productive activity and take on newer and more productive activity but right now, our ability to com up with more productice jobs is FAR slower than globalization’s ability to move our jobs to places like China and India.
While this is not always true, it is true when those filthy foreigners are engaging in beggar thy neighbor policies.
So we should take it on the chin to encourage China to continue to open themselves up to economic reforms taht they would be retarded not to continue? China is going to continue to open their economy no matter what, its inevitable. The Chinese are not genetically communist, they see the advantages of markets and trade, why does taht have to be encouraged?
And in the meanitme? China is going to engage in this one sided behaviour as long as we let them.
Or the Chinese may have an endgame that you don’t appreciate. The Chinese are not stupid, they can study the same economic theories everyone else can and they HAVE. They have just come to the conclusion that they can manipulate the levers of global economics in a way that gives them an advantage. Thinking in terms of relative wealth may not make any sense to you but to a country like China, empoverishing more developed countries could be seen as shortening the journey to the top.
Are you really THAT sure that China won’t be able to manipulate their way out of the peg without hurting themselves?
Are you under the impression that the Chinese own a bunch of 30 year treasuries? I thought the vast majority of their investment is in short term treasuries so what sort of inflationary pressure were you thinking of that would significantly diminish the value of China’s investment?
In fact I think the Chinese hold most of their treasuries in the form of bills not bonds.
Whilst when the US is engaging in the self-same beggar thy neighbor policies that is simply the true and natural order of the world?
The cause of the current US malaise was self-inflicted indulgence, the economic setting necessary to affect the cure have been widely perscribed, and vigorously applied by US to other economies that fell into the same crevass … just that the US doesn’t want to take it’s own medicine because that’s a bit too hard and astringent and , well “the American way of life is not negotiable”.
You do know Sir Isaac Newton, and the other people and examples I named, didn’t live/take place within centuries of the Middle Ages, yes? Confusing the era of Lord Kelvin with “the middle ages” is roughly equivalent to believing that Franklin D. Roosevelt was President during the Protestant Reformation.
Science is not about what you know. Science is the process of investigating what you do not know.
I’m trying my best to be patient, but, really, you’re not making sense here.
If I dispute that economics is a science, I’m not saying it is useless - not in the least.
Recently experimental economics has sprung up, applying to a large extents the principles of psychology research to those parts of economics to which they are suited. That this has happened - that experiments in economics are something new, would argue that economics isn’t a science.
The older versions of economics were closer to philosophy, and given the handwaving we often see some of this is still true. But I think it has moved on into mathematics (developing new modeling techniques) and engineering - understanding an existing system and trying to get it to do something. There is a little bit of history thrown in, as we try to understand the causes of past economic conditions.
Now modeling doesn’t make something not a science. Climate science is a good counterexample to that claim. But climate science at its heart depends on experimentally verifiable physical principles, and economics, at the moment, does not.
Scientists try to understand the systems they study, not influence them. Engineers do both. So, much of science, especially at the high policy level, is engineering. Being an engineer, I assure you that this is not a negative. And, as always, some engineers are better than others.
With due respect, what you are describing has been the way economics has been studied for longer than either of us has been alive, unless you’re a lot older than I suspect.
Just for fun, I looked up the Nobel Prize for economics in the year I was born, 1971. It was given to Simon Kuznets, who is famous for his work in econometrics and analyzing development through the use of empirical evidence. The idea that men like Kuznets were just involved in “hand waving” is ignorant bullshit; the man’s work was based on analyzing the evidence. He was every bit as interested in finding the facts as Stephen Hawking.
Maybe I just had a lucky year… 1970? aul Samuelson, famous for his rigorous application of empirical, scientific approach to economics. How about the year after I was born? Hicks and Arrow, for their exhaustive work in welfare theory and equilibrium theory, all based on years and years of empirical research.
When I took econ in high school - before 1971, we studied a historical book on older economics called “The Wordly Philosophers.” When I took it in college - in about 1971 in Samuelson’s department - there was a reasonable amount of math for an Econ 101 book. Handwaving was more 19th century than 1971. It was quite clear from Samuelson’s book (which had the easy way of doing some of the work assuming you knew calculus hidden in some footnotes) that there was a rigorous mathematical background even then.
You are about 50 years off, at least in your assumption about what I call “older.”
Now I admit to insulting philosophy a bit by calling it hand waving, but I wanted to make a distinction with science.
“Taking it on the chin” contradicts every single thing I’ve written about this topic from the beginning. Absolutely nowhere have I advocated passive inaction. Not a single time. I have consistently advocated taking cool-headed domestic action instead of angry short-term international hysterics. Smart policy could get us what we want. A desire for revenge might accomplish short term goals, at the expense of mutually beneficial cooperation into the future.
We have the ability to counteract China’s currency policies with our own currency policies. We have our own currency. That should be our first step. And never have I said that this is a categorical suggestion. I have admitted that it’s possible that retaliatory measures might eventually be appropriate. But they should be a last resort, at least for anyone who’s interested in achieving better cooperation out to the future.
In the meantime, we do exactly what I’ve been saying in practically every post I’ve written. My suggestion has not changed in the last 24 hours.
Money would work. And that’s exactly why we’re hearing the rumbles of rumors from the Fed.
An advantage they have only because of our passivity with our own currency.
Krugman even implicitly admits this. The reason the Chinese currency situation is especially pernicious at present, according to him, is the “liquidity trap”. But that trap is merely a result of an unconscionable inaction on our own part. When Krugman is blaming the Europeans for their own unnecessarily tight money, he speaks not a word of this trap. He’s rhetorically sneaky in that way: When he’s talking about the sins of the Chinese, his focus is on potential monetary ineffectiveness (essnetially, from a lack of will). But when’s he’s talking about what more the Europeans could do, his focus is the exact reverse.
He doesn’t contradict himself outright, at least not by my reading. It’s a rhetorical, not a logical, double-standard. But for all that, it’s still plenty annoying.
I don’t understand this question.
We want a healthy China. We want a high-wage China. We want them to unwind their risky, short-sighted manipulations in a way that’s good for them and good for us. You say they’re smart, and yeah, there is a bit of devious cleverness to what they’ve been doing, but it’s still a myopic sort of intelligence. They’re boxing themselves in, concentrating on the present instead of the future. Understand something here: US interest rates will go back up. It must happen. There will be an accounting for all this debt, including the debt held in their reserves. Basically, we can either inflate smart or inflate stupid. Those are the only real options.
The smart way is gradual, where the markets know exactly what to expect about the value of the dollar off to the horizon. We nudge prices back up to their long term trajectory. The stupid way is a debt crisis. If we go the smart way, China potentially has time to adjust its strategy smoothly, so that the appreciation of the RMB doesn’t have an overly adverse effect on their economy. We get what we want (a relaxing of their manipulations), but we get it in a way that doesn’t damage their long term growth prospects.
We’re going to have a very bad time if we go the stupid way.
The overwhelming majority of US debt holdings by foreign governments are in the form of securities that mature in over a year (Treasury notes and bonds, not bills). Maybe China is the one big exception and predominantly holds cash and close cash substitutes. My knowledge of China is what I glean from the business news, not first-hand study.
Even if that’s true, though, they nevertheless hold significant longer term (>1 year) debt, hundreds of billions of dollars worth. And even given cash and near-cash holdings, the effect of getting back to 2% inflation would still have a powerful effect. The mechanism is slightly different, but the result is the same: the future value of cash holdings decreases immediately with an increase in inflation expectations. Even a 1% change, back up to a healthy 2%, would have a significant, and compounding, effect. They are, after all, not dumping their reserves upon maturation of short-term bills. They are re-investing, or holding cash. In that way, the underlying principle remains the same. And the more they buy, the more they’re stuck when they want to sell. They won’t be able to unwind their position without sharply appreciating their currency.
This is exactly why money would work right now. It’s the thing to do first.
The only thing YOU know about the crash is the soundbites you’ve read. “Fiscal crisis” - Heritage, as usual, is just barely scratching the surface.
The final catalyst for the crash was a sudden loss of access to consumer debt. The crisis, however, was building up for at least ten years in the working class / consumer world. The last 10 years (at least) was built upon debt-based spending: credit cards, home equity loans. Wages alone could not, did not support all the spending and growth that happened. When the credit cards got cut up, the home equity collapsed and foreclosures came down, people were forced to spend what they earned and no more. “Fiscal crisis” just scratches the surface of what happened in 2008.
And your cite tries to ignore one major GLARING error that you either missed or hoped I would: if automation is any significant part of the loss of jobs in manufacturing, then why are we still shipping the stuff from China? If it’s automated, the cost of building X here would be less than the cost of both building X there and shipping it here. If offshoring isn’t the full cause of our drop in manufacturing jobs, it certainly is by far the biggest; and automation cannot possibly be a significant cause.
Your argument, and Heritage’s, does not stand.
But your argument, and Heritage’s, will have more credibility in the future, and you or your kids will wish it hadn’t: employers now want fewer workers to do more work: this will lead to less jobs, not more. Automation will eventually mature. New job booms still will not occur. Job growth will not keep up with population growth. Listen to me closely here: the way things have stood since 2000, you have seen the end of job growth keeping up with population growth. You can kiss that goodbye forever unless we RADICALLY change course with our economic policy.
You get the “lots of jobs are coming back” and your “some jobs are coming back” backpedal straight, dude. Make up your mind on which way you’re going with that argument and then we can move on. How about you get your knowledge of exports in order while you’re at it. You tried to sell Susanann on the strength of our manufacturing exports while totally ignoring the greater size of our manufacturing imports. Don’t tell me about getting anything straight when you have a number of things you’re not straight about.
And you want to talk about unemployment? How about the millions of people who’ve been out of work for 6 months? There is nothing that they can train for that will get them hired, simply because there are literally no jobs. We have 5 people fighting for every one job. Even if all of those 5 people become super skilled in every possible thing that every employer wants, 4 absolutely MUST remain jobless unless they leave the country. The math cannot be circumvented. Back in the good ol’ days of 2000-2007, statistically speaking about 1.5 people would have absolutely had to remain jobless because of the same reason.
You can lowball the numbers as much as you want but if we hadn’t offshored textiles, manufacturing, tech and biotech, we would not be in this mess. Any ONE of these industries, if they had stayed here, could have severely mitigated the impact of this recession. SEVERELY. And you better believe, machines cannot write software, nor can they research new drugs: in those two fields, the automation argument goes byebye. And considering the fact that tons of Chinese laborers are still producing goods for America, and we haven’t replaced them with onshore automation… yeah, I wouldn’t advise you to try to build a bridge across a logical sinkhole of the size that blights the automation argument. Your numbers don’t add up.
Who cares what you said in your next sentence? You have a problem with me caring about my country. That’s damning enough.
You called my “tribe” small. Lemme ask you this - name me one country whose people do not care about themselves first. One. Just one. Let’s compare their numbers against the rest, shall we?
Quoting your full argument shows you have a problem with me caring about my own country first.
Policies that won’t even work and you know it.
Ah yes, putting words into my mouth that I never said.
I want to uplift my nation’s poor and working class. Offshoring blows away any hopes of doing such. You cannot, will not, find a way to replace those jobs with more and better paying jobs.
Let me say this clearly to you: I care about my people first. I am not a globalist. I am not, like you, a “citizen of the world”. Your “citizen of the world” tribe is insignificant in number.
Speaking of straw men, you just picked a hell of a fight with one.
No one gives a rip about any “yellow peril”. This is not about pissing contests or striving for superiority. It is about absolutely nothing else but the God given right to do what we can in order to preserve our standard of living.
You’ve got it totally wrong, perhaps even intentionally: the Chinese are throwing us under the bus. China has stated that they will give us the rope with which to hang ourselves. They’re enjoying ludicrous growth at our expense.
More facts which most of you guys have completely run away from because you have no counter argument: we are running a MONSTROUS trade deficit with China. We are going into a very deep debt hole. At some point we will no longer be able to sustain this. China is a leech sucking on our life blood and soon we won’t have any left to give. Our dollar will collapse and imports will skyrocket. Get this straight, China won’t have us to rely on and their economy will go pop!
My cites don’t show the long term advantages of trade with China. All defenses of offshoring point to POTENTIAL advantages that have never materialized.
Allow me to say this very clearly: not even any cite you can come up with will show these “advantages”. They talk about things that will happen out there over the rainbow, about profits to “American” corporations that never seem to filter down to the working class. Meanwhile for the last ten years the reality is that job growth has not kept up with population growth and wages have not kept up with inflation. You have no cites that contradict that.
Policies that won’t even come close to stemming the blood (green) tide. Policies that won’t save the GENERATIONS of people whose buying power and dreams and lifestyle will be severely cut by this mess.
The broader situation is that this employer’s market is permanent. Job growth will not keep up with population growth. Wages will not keep up with inflation. This pattern has set in and it will never end. Not ever, if we stay the course you want us to stay. No amount of social programs you can ever dream of, will fix that.
Wow, I could see you arguing for free trade with Nazi Germany.
You don’t care if China cheats in order to gain economic advantage against us. It’s okay if they screw America and steal our intellectual property and sell knockoff pirated products to us. It’s okay if they hack into or DDOS our military networks. It’s okay whatever China does. But if we get angry about it, suddenly we’re xenophobes who dribble down our pant legs or all that whiny “we are the world” bullshit.
You know what? These other guys might not see your agenda for what it is or they might not want to stand up to your guilt-tripping arguments, but you aren’t fooling or intimidating me with this citizen of the world rah rah China er, I mean poor put upon helpless China propaganda.
You’re preaching racism against America while trying to deflect attention away from it with comments like this:
I do not want to cooperate with China until they learn to treat their people like human beings and not cogs in a machine. I want no part of their culture. No, this is not a one round game; but I, and many other Americans, also do not forget.
This is also not
wait, hold up, read this very carefully
This is NOT about punishment for the Chinese. This is called “we do not want to put up with bad actors”. China is a bad actor. America needs to get a pair and stand up for itself just like China is doing.
Wow… you really feel China is some poor helpless put-upon victim, don’t you?
You mean we’ll piss off the poor put upon helpless Chinese?
Maybe we’ll just let history run its course and run up more debt until the dollar is worthless and cost them another 20 million… no, wait, 50 million!!! jobs by making their imports super expensive.
Every day opposition to offshoring to China grows. Every day. We’re getting stronger, because your argument is getting weaker and more desperate, and history is judging you very harshly. In the street people make fun of Made In China: and because of the poisonous crap they send us, many of us fear it. For our lives. Because their imports make our kids sick!
You seem to forget here, in your simultaneous attempt to portray China as both a poor put-upon victim and vengeful retaliator who, in your own words, “won’t forget”, that a pissed off United States is one dog you least want to provoke.
Listen closely, man: you may write me off, but do fear the US Dollar. It is in danger of collapse because of our debt. If that happens poor vengeful 100-round unforgetting victim China is done for.
Dear God, Hellestal, I pray for the day that you go public and tell America what you said here. I want you to spread your word to the nation. Tell America that we’re xenophobes dribbling down our pant legs because the working class is tired of losing their jobs to China and seeing their kids get poisoned by stuff from China. You have made a better argument against offshoring than any of your opposition here could ever hope to.