Why are right wingers opposed to America doing what China is doing

Great Debates
1

with regards to tariffs and currency controls?

China’s economic moves are making them richer than they were before. Economic growth is way off the charts in China and their people are earning more money now on average than ever before.

Jobs are flooding into their country.

Why is it okay for China to do whatever it takes to improve their economy but if America does it… suddenly we’re evil selfish Yankees who are out to starve China to death?
Do we have to wait until America goes bankrupt or our currency goes to hell and China’s export market implodes, driving their economy into the dirt?

2

Do you think the answers will change from the last time you asked nearly this exact same question? Perhaps if you actually listened to the answers you were already given, instead or your knee jerk rejection of them, you would come out of it with more understanding of why ‘conservatives’ think it’s a bad idea. Mind, I’m not saying you have to agree to what they are saying…if you want to wallow in ignorance, that’s your own lookout…but you could at least learn why they think the way they think, then you wouldn’t have to keep asking the same questions over and over again, and you wouldn’t have to keep putting out your standard (to paraphrase) ‘No conservative has been able to explain this to me yet’ line.

Just a thought…you should give it a try…

-XT

3

Uhhh… not following what you are saying here. Do you want the US un-float the dollar so we can engage in currency manipulation?

4

It’s not right wingers. It’s everyone left of you.

You know what happens when you devalue a currency, right? It’s not just that your exports become more competitive; it’s that your imports become more expensive. Considering that our trade deficit is currently hovering in the $50 billion range, that’s very bad news for us.

Losing manufacturing jobs to China won’t seem quite as bad if our entire country comes to a standstill because gas is $15/gallon.

5

Devaluing our currency to make exports more attractive is exactly financially equivalent to putting a special tax on every American citizen, and then giving that money to foreigners.

China can get away with that sort of shit, because they’re an authoritarian country and if the peasants don’t like it they can shut the fuck up.

The economic policies that make sense for a poor undeveloped authoritarian country with a large uneducated low-wage work force, don’t necessarily make sense for a rich developed liberal democratic country with a high wage work force.

You don’t see France or Germany trying to adopt the Chinese model, do you?

If you want to get a minimum wage job in a sweatshop, there are plenty of such job opportunities right here in America. And if millions of Americans wanted to join you, employers would be happy to open more and more sweatshops to accommodate you all. The only problem is that in America it is very difficult to find people willing to work long brutal hours for minimum wage in sweatshop conditions. Oh, there are people willing to work such jobs, but they usually come from Mexico. But it turns out that in China there are hundreds of millions of people fighting to get such jobs.

Because China is, per capita, poorer than countries like Algeria, Ecuador, and Angola.

So how about rather than looking around at the policies of countries that are incredibly poor, we take a look at countries with a higher per-capita GDP than the US, and try to emulate them? How about we emulate Luxembourg, Norway, Switzerland, Denmark, Qatar, and the Netherlands?

The reason the average GDP per capita in a large population country like the United Sates is likely to be lower than a few small european states (and oil soaked petrostates) should be obvious–small populations are more likely to deviate from the mean than large populations. If you took small sub-samples of the US, you’d find pockets that are as rich as the above mentioned European states (like Connecticut and Massachusetts), it’s just that you have to average that out with poorer areas like Idaho and Mississippi. Large populations tend to regress toward the mean.

So when you compare the US to other relatively large countries like France, Germany, Japan, the UK, or Italy, what do we find? The US is doing better. So what does that tell us?

Not that we can’t do better, or that the USA is bestest EVAH. Just that the US with GDP per capita of ~$45,000 probably shouldn’t be emulating China with GDP per capita of ~$3800. Because Dude, we’re like ten times richer than they are.

6

I don’t see anybody except fringe internet message board posters who support China-style protectionism in the US, so it isn’t just “right wingers”.

And I don’t see anybody with an iota of economics education advocating any kind of protectionism at all.

In fact, who the hell sees China as any kind of role model? Sure, they have economic growth, but on absolute terms they are dirt poor. Might as well look at the absurd economic growth during the Industrial Revolution in England and conclude that we should institute a mercantile system and bring back child labor (actually, isn’t that what the OP is suggesting?). No matter what you do, you can’t turn the US back into a developing country. At least not without destroying a good chunk of the world (including ourselves) in the process.

I not only support free trade but free immigration: It should be at least as easy for a worker to move between countries as it is for a corporation to set up shop in other countries. That way, the Indians who want to do Job X will already be here doing Job X, so outsourcing becomes less attractive. Also, the protectionists who dearly miss their low-paying call center job can easily follow that to India as well. Win-win! :slight_smile:

7

Uh, we had plenty of high wage manufacturing jobs here before we decided that China could de-float their currency and enact huge import tariffs but America isn’t allowed to.

I betcha that if those manufacturing and tech jobs returned from overseas you’d see millions of people fighting for them.

8

You vastly underestimate both the size of the opposition to offshoring and what people are willing to do to beat it.

Far be it from the so-called educated people to accept what has always worked. Leave it to them to be in favor of the hopelessly failed sinkhole race-to-the-bottom system we have now.

Keeping manufacturing and tech jobs does not make you a developing country.

No wait. Let’s do it your way.

That way we can turn high paying domestic RESEARCH jobs into low paying overseas jobs. Oh no wait, that’s happening right now.

Then when all we have left are domestic jobs that are nailed down, we’ll have a society of minimum wage cashiers and nurses/doctors and nothing left in between. (That’s called “no middle class workers left”, for you aspiring Nobel prize winners out there.) Oh wait, then we could import low wage overseas and immigrant doctors to do the work for 1/10th the price.

Global immigration… good deal. Then those of us who can’t find a job because everyone’s coming here for work can beg DrCube for money for air fare to go overseas and work in sweatshops.

We couldn’t possibly choose to fight for the good paying, safe workplace jobs we had here and which we would have kept FOREVER if we hadn’t bought into the globalism scam. Nosiree.

9

We could de-float our currency and enact huge tariffs, but it would be a dumb-ass idea to do either, as has been pointed out many times.

And, as has also been pointed out several times, China does not have plenty of high-wage manufacturing jobs - they have plenty of low-wage manufacturing jobs and an artificially devalued currency.

I realize you have a lot of people on your ignore list (please don’t mention who is there, in GD at least) but maybe someone will quote one of the people you are ignoring and you can respond.

Or not.

Regards,
Shodan

10

You vastly underestimate both the profits to be made from offshoring and what certain people can do to preserve it.

11

… like our friend, logic.

12

Oh I’m quite aware of the amount of money they can put into bribing politicians into ignoring the will of the people. Seen it happen all the time.

Eventually, though, superior numbers win in a democracy. Especially the vast majority that is forming behind the banner of anti-offshoring. For starters, being slapped with a reputation as an offshoring bastard helped keep Fiorina and Whitman out of office in California. That’s just the start of things.

And the more the powers that be try to preserve offshoring the faster they’ll drive the economy into the dirt… ruining the national currency with endlessly growing debt until it ends because it costs TOO much to pay ANYONE to do the work overseas. This end is absolutely guaranteed if we stay the course; there’s no need for us evil liberals to give you guys an excuse to blame us for that mess. We could just step aside and let the offshoring tycoons fuck themselves into ruin.

13

Wait, I thought you said you WANTED us to devalue our currency, so we wouldn’t be able to buy foreign goods anymore?

If so, that’s your dream scenario: inflation that ruins the value of the dollar, which means we can’t afford to buy goods and services from overseas anymore.

Or am I missing something?

Because that’s what China is doing: deliberately lowering the value of their currency relative to the dollar (and the euro and the yen), so that their people can’t afford to buy foreign goods and services, while foreigners can buy Chinese goods and services more cheaply.

Do you want foreigners to be able to buy American goods and services more cheaply than Americans can buy American goods and services? Should foreigners get a subsidy when they buy from Americans?

Again, this is China’s strategy: impose a vast systemic invisible tax on every Chinese worker, and hand that value over to foreign purchasers. Do you want to emulate this system here in the United States? Why or why not?

You seem to have the idea that China’s economy is doing better than the United States. However, China’s total GDP is about 1/3 of US GDP, while that have about 4 times as many people, meaning their per-capita GDP is somewhere around 1/12th of the US.

And if you just look at the manufacturing sector, what would you expect to see? That China has a massive manufacturing sector, while the United States has none? Which country do you think has a larger manufacturing sector? Remember that China has four times the population of the US before you give your answer.

14

Actually, you do. In broad strokes if not in fine details. Germany is very much an export-oriented economy, and relies on maintaining a trade surplus with most of its trading partners, just like China. China maintains their trade surplus by keeping their currency artificially low. Germany, on the other hand, maintains their trade surplus at least partially by keeping their trading partners’ currencies artificially high. We call this “the Euro,” which prevents Germany’s trading partners (most of whom are Eurozone nations) from devaluing.

15

I’m sick of all those film-making jobs being exported to California, and the mining has all gone to West Virginia! Illinois’s coal mining industry has been killed for over a century. All due to this “Interstate Commerce” bullshit. Did you know there’s no cattle ranches in New York City? Where are all the cattle ranchers in NYC supposed to get work? Where are the bourbon distillers supposed to get jobs in Michigan? Or automobile workers in Wyoming?

Seriously, why is it better for the US to have a single national economy rather than individual state economies competing with each other for jobs and profits, or even individual competing county economies? Now why would it NOT be better for us to have a single global economy with free movement of resources, including capital and labor? Can somebody answer me that?

16

Does it matter? It’s going to happen if we continue on the path we’re going.

Sure, why not? It means more jobs for us Americans. Americans who are out of work right now then get jobs producing what foreigners want.

Oh yeah, and one thing you forgot to factor in here (which everyone else forgets, too): this so-called “Tax” you mention will decrease in magnitude because American workers’ wages will go up because employers have to compete for talent (instead of the other way around). I do suspect, though, that bringing up this particular point will pretty much end the discussion, as it has in every other thread.

Untrue. I said it is growing faster, and that is true.

You’re missing my point. Yes, we all know China is POOR compared to America. This is not in dispute. What I keep trying to explain here is that China is GROWING and we are not. Do you realize just how fast they propelled themselves out of poverty?

And as I pointed out above, all your long talk about the “tax” imposed on Americans by a deflated dollar? That completely ignores the increased wages that would result from a flood of jobs coming back to the country.

For the last ten years we have had wages not keeping up with inflation… and job growth lagging behind working class population growth. Worse than that we’ve had one recession after another, ending with a jobless recovery; and this last time the jobless recovery got cut short by another recession.

All of America’s growth in the last 10 years (at the very least) was fueled by consumer debt - factoring that in, we actually had negative growth, since so much of it was based on debt!

Our workers are losing ground. Right now. What are China’s workers doing? Getting raises. When was the last time you saw Americans strike for raises and get them?

17

Because that would also require a one world Government. Short of that, labor will never be as free to move as capital is. And if you have a one world Government I can think of perhaps three voting blocks of a billion+ people each who would work very hard to strong-arm the world into following their culture and rules.

Good luck with that.

18

Because religions never try to strong-arm individual nations? Or are you talking about Communism? Anyway, I don’t see why we can’t cooperate economically without a world government. I’m not against a world government, I just don’t think it is necessary in order to have free trade and immigration.

Anyway, you’re fooling yourself if you think that there isn’t already a global economy. The choice we need to make is whether to encourage growth in that economy or whether to make ourselves all comparatively poorer by stifling it with isolationism and protectionism. There will be some winners and losers, as in all economic shake-ups, but overall we’ll be better off if we allow business and labor to go where it wants.

19

Because certain Governments don’t want us filthy Americans on their soil. Simple as that. If you’re a woman you can’t drive in certain Muslim countries.

Who is going to force countries to allow American workers into their country to compete against their people for jobs? Are you kidding? Unlike America they actually care about securing jobs for their people.

Oh, there is. It’s a race to the bottom.

You keep pushing this “make ourselves all comparatively poorer by stifling it with isolationism and protectionism” meme without knowledge of historical facts.

China is not making themselves poorer with protectionism. They are making themselves richer. This is an easily demonstrated fact.

America made itself wealthy using protectionism. Another historical fact.

History clearly shows that you do not necessarily make yourself poor by using protectionism.

Do you have any actual demonstrated proof of this or is this just speculation on your part?

When has unrestricted global trade and immigration ever worked?

I could just as easily and logically say that global socialism will benefit everyone, based on its track record.

20

They are making a tiny, tiny percentage richer, and stiffing the rest. Exactly the same behavior you bitch about the American government engaging in.