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2004-11-23 China-Japan-Koreas
Red China tells US to put its house in order
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Posted by Mark Espinola 2004-11-23 2:45:08 AM|| || Front Page|| [11130 views since 2007-05-07]  Top

#1 In a mark of China’s growing economic confidence, the country’s central bank has offered blunt advice to Washington about its ballooning trade deficit and unemployment.

Lemme get this straight - a country that typically considers criticism directed towards it by others to be meddling in it's internal affairs is now doing the same thing to other countries?

*sniff sniff* I smell a hypocrite.....
Posted by Bomb-a-rama 2004-11-23 3:07:32 AM||   2004-11-23 3:07:32 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 No sweat. Looks like the 2004 US trade deficit with China will be $160 billion. Cut off ALL trade with them and that takes care of over 30% of the deficit numbers. Include the oil price crash when China goes into depression and knock off another $100 billion. Throw in the reduced defense (XX billion) spending required to counter Chinese military expansion financed by Chinese trade surplusses with the US. Throw in the added employment and taxes from all those highly productive manufacturing jobs returning to the US. Fuck yea! Numbers are looking good. Do it now. Germany next?
Posted by ed 2004-11-23 3:29:40 AM||   2004-11-23 3:29:40 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 I was ready to toss out everything I had (made in china)into a bonfire heap when the Chinese forced our EP3 surveillance plane down a couple of years ago, but when "W" apologized the way 'they' wanted him to, I said "what tha hell" and kept the stuff!

I figure, If I have to eat rice and wear straw hats in the fields in the future, I'll be proud to be there with "W" and his family!
Posted by smn 2004-11-23 3:51:00 AM||   2004-11-23 3:51:00 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 agree
Posted by Thinens Granter5518 2004-11-23 5:38:23 AM||   2004-11-23 5:38:23 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 Tossing everything made in China into a bonfire would result in your being naked and without entertainment. A few days after my first visit here, I immediately understood why everything is "Made in China". Streets and streets full of nothing but factories producing every sort of good under the sun. Anything you need, I can find a factory that makes it. Cheap, and the quality's OK as long as you keep a hawk eye on them.
Posted by gromky  2004-11-23 6:34:25 AM||   2004-11-23 6:34:25 AM|| Front Page Top

#6 well i guess one way would be too use pretty much slave labor , or how bout we just steal every damn thing ever invented and sell it as our own?
Posted by smokeysinse 2004-11-23 8:12:18 AM||   2004-11-23 8:12:18 AM|| Front Page Top

#7 China has a problem and it's of their own making. The Yuan will be revaluated up and there is nothing the Chinese can do to stop it. All they can do is delay it to their own detriment.
Posted by phil_b 2004-11-23 8:17:41 AM||   2004-11-23 8:17:41 AM|| Front Page Top

#8 Emerging MSM Meme du Jour: "China Filling World Leadership Vacuum."

See, it's simple: even when Bush wins big, he loses. Pay no attention to those election results. Listen to us: we're the MSM, and we know better.
Posted by lex 2004-11-23 8:18:23 AM||   2004-11-23 8:18:23 AM|| Front Page Top

#9 Fact is Bush should pay to send Vicente Fox to China. When Vicente returns from his state visit examining all of the factories and such Bush and Fox should meet again.

"Vicente, your country can make that nickle-and-dime bullshit so why aren't they? We'll build the factories, you educate your workforce."

I'm not talking about radios, not yet, but all of the kids toys pumped out of the PRC have got to be easier to manufacture than the cars being built in Mexico. With Nafta Mexico would save a fortune on import costs and the distance required for shipping is practically zero.
Posted by RJ Schwarz 2004-11-23 8:38:34 AM|| [http://politicaljunky.blogspot.com]  2004-11-23 8:38:34 AM|| Front Page Top

#10 RJ. I worked with a company that populated surface mount printed circuit boards. The Chinese drove the Mexicans out of the business because the Mexicans are high labor cost producers. Then, to add insult to injury, they'd come in after they drove the company out of business and buy the equimpent at auction to stock their next factory.

Vincente is screwed and he knew it in 2000. That's why he wants immigration reform so much. Mexico didn't change when it had the chance and now it can't. The curse of the oil drug.
Posted by Mrs. Davis 2004-11-23 9:11:36 AM||   2004-11-23 9:11:36 AM|| Front Page Top

#11 The Mexican problem is due to their own nativism. IIRC the Mexican constitution prohibits non-Mexican citizens from owning property in Mexico. Their economic problems are therefore of their own making and means that nothing that is negotiated will end the flood of its institutional failure from pouring over our southern border. There's nothing to talk with President Fox or any Mexican leader about the immigration issue. America's economy is helped by significant invests from England, the Netherlands, Japan, and others. That is not going to happen in Mexico.
Posted by Don 2004-11-23 11:14:35 AM||   2004-11-23 11:14:35 AM|| Front Page Top

#12 I'm not so sure the Mexicans are in such bad shape. Anecdotal, sure, but I'm hearing and reading reports that some mexican manufacturers have pulled up their socks and figured out how to shift from assembly and production of undifferentiated stuff to higher value-added output in the same way US steelmakers shifted to mini-mills and cold-rolled (?) high-end steel during the 1990s. Some are even taking over bankrupt US producers. Migrating up the value chain.
Posted by lex 2004-11-23 11:17:34 AM||   2004-11-23 11:17:34 AM|| Front Page Top

#13 Chinese manufacturing is only part of a bigger trend.

Automation means less labor is required to make goods. The US manufactures more goods than ever before, but a smaller percentage of the US work force is needed. Even with all the manufacturing for the overseas markets, Chinese manufacturing jobs are disappearing. As old, inefficient Chinese industries fail their workers are laid-off. The modern plants need fewer workers.

As a result of farm and industry automation there is a worldwide glut of unskilled labor. As robots become increasingly sophisticated and cheaper, the trend will continue. Eventually labor costs will be a minor factor in manufacturing costs. The main costs will be for capital and knowledge. Energy and materials will be secondary cost elements.

Successful economies will provide a modern infrastructure to support modern manufacturing, will transition to “information industries”, and will support market economies and social policies that create new jobs for displaced workers.

The US can’t stop this process. If the US stopped importing Chinese goods, Europe and the Asian countries would pick up the slack. Many of the goods manufactured in China would still be sold in the US (but wouldn’t have a Made-in-China label). After a financial bump, the Chinese economy would continue to modernize and grow (but relations between China and the US would be far worse).

China can’t stop the process. To provide jobs for the displaced factory workers (and hundreds of millions of rural poor) China must continue growing at a fast pace. Trade problems with the US or a war with Taiwan or a Korean war would be a social disaster for the Chinese leaders.
Globalization is affecting every country.

Information is flowing across borders. Modern agriculture and business follows. Significant labor and social disruption follows. The US is best positioned to ride the globalization wave, but even the US has major problems. We live in interesting times.
Posted by Anonymous5032 2004-11-23 11:48:11 AM||   2004-11-23 11:48:11 AM|| Front Page Top

#14 Yea verily. The world is a global village. The pace of change is increasing. The innernet breaks down barriers. Globalization is globalizing the globe.
Posted by lex 2004-11-23 12:05:16 PM||   2004-11-23 12:05:16 PM|| Front Page Top

#15 Wow, I'm glad I brought up mexico, this has been an informative thread.

In my humble opinion Mexico needs a bit of FDR in their make-up, to get them from third world up to a shakey first world footing. Some work programs to build proper highways would be a start, a dam or two for power, some irrigation so they can produce the kind of crop yields I think they could, a rebuilding of the schools and education infrastructure. Use the oil revenues to pay for it all, get people employed and build up the infrastructure.
Posted by rjschwarz  2004-11-23 12:12:54 PM|| [http://politicaljunky.blogspot.com]  2004-11-23 12:12:54 PM|| Front Page Top

#16 "Pobre Mexico, Pobre Mexico
"Lejos de Dios, Acerca de Estados Unidos."
__
Porfirio Diaz
Posted by borgboy 2004-11-23 12:40:37 PM||   2004-11-23 12:40:37 PM|| Front Page Top

#17 and cursed by oil wealth. There aren't many oil-rich large countries on this planet that have figured out how to keep their economies from becoming captive to the oil price rollercoaster and keep their politics from becoming corrupted by oil lobbies of all kinds. In fact the worst corruption often accompanies spectacular oil wealth: Nigeria. Russia. Indonesia. Saudi. Mexico.

Posted by lex 2004-11-23 12:44:24 PM||   2004-11-23 12:44:24 PM|| Front Page Top

#18 rj, You'd also need to remove the several score of families that own and control a tremendous amount of the country and keep the rest down. Don't change that and it won't matter if you've got FDR or JC, nothing will change.
Posted by Mrs. Davis 2004-11-23 3:03:18 PM||   2004-11-23 3:03:18 PM|| Front Page Top

#19 The UK and Australia both rode their oil/gas booms to be the most sucessful advanced economies in the 90s. Western Canada did a pretty good job as well. Oil just turns a screwed up country into a screwed up country with money.
Posted by phil_b 2004-11-23 3:11:23 PM||   2004-11-23 3:11:23 PM|| Front Page Top

#20 True. I'll amend to say that great oil wealth hinders progress from corruption/incompetence toward a productive, advanced economy. Or lack of natural resources is often a blessing in disguise (Japan, SoKorea, Chile w exception of copper etc)
Posted by lex 2004-11-23 3:34:43 PM||   2004-11-23 3:34:43 PM|| Front Page Top

#21 Lack of resources, Lex you should be siting Singapore and Hong Kong as examples. Both nations had zero resources and made it big.
Posted by rjschwarz  2004-11-23 3:41:18 PM|| [http://politicaljunky.blogspot.com]  2004-11-23 3:41:18 PM|| Front Page Top

#22 Would have except for their economically strategic locations. Huge natural advantage to Singapore esp.
Posted by lex 2004-11-23 3:45:32 PM||   2004-11-23 3:45:32 PM|| Front Page Top

#23 That was a purdy good book about the Mexican-American War borgboy.
Posted by Bill Peterson 2004-11-23 4:49:09 PM||   2004-11-23 4:49:09 PM|| Front Page Top

#24 That might explain Singapore, somewhat, but not Hong Kong. It was hard work and very limited government that made Hong Kong wealthy. Besides, there are other nations with strategic locations that became basket cases. Panama, Yemen, Somalia, Egypt, Moracco, etc, etc.
Posted by RJ Schwarz 2004-11-23 10:47:47 PM|| [http://politicaljunky.blogspot.com]  2004-11-23 10:47:47 PM|| Front Page Top

#25 In my humble opinion Mexico needs a bit of FDR in their make-up,..

Starting with the basics is very important - they need to improve THEIR country instead of violating our borders, and the U.S. is NOT their outlet, nor is it "lost territory" to be slowly reclaimed.
Posted by Bomb-a-rama 2004-11-23 11:53:20 PM||   2004-11-23 11:53:20 PM|| Front Page Top

00:06 Bomb-a-rama
00:03 smn
23:53 Bomb-a-rama
23:37 mojo
23:37 phil_b
23:33 phil_b
23:32 mojo
23:31 Bomb-a-rama
23:30 mojo
23:17 Bomb-a-rama
23:12 Mhz
23:07 Ptah
23:07 Wo
22:56 Mhz
22:49 RJ Schwarz
22:47 RJ Schwarz
22:44 Zhang Fei
22:31 Darth VAda
22:13 lex
22:07 lex
22:03 Anonymoose
22:02 Kathy L
21:59 lex
21:38 Raj









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