Wisconsin Revolt

angelsbandit said:

The problem is:

If the USA tries to put tariffs in place, the trading partner will react in kind.
Tariffs placed on China's goods, will result in tariffs on the American products they import.

The USA has little enough exports as it is, and with higher tariffs - American exports would fall even lower than their current level.
Everything is not as easy as many seem to think - every action results in a reaction from someone else.

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I realize that it is not as simple as that. However, America is one of the richest countries in the world even with the debt we hold. In free trade money flows from prosperous nations to the lower cost nations. China doesn't import much of our products. If the Chinese products weren't being bought here then American products would be. We could live without trade with China. While it isn't a simple situation the simple explanation is money is only going from America to China and Tariffs would stop the money from moving. Which would be good for America. While it wouldn't build overall business it would increase American manufacturing at least.

Someone else mentioned trade partners should be held to certain standards of pay and ect. It costs less to live like we do in China - it would only help to a certain point.

The end result of the path we are on is everything will even out. Once our level of living has dropped to where China's or China's has risen enough to match ours then it will become a partnership. As it is we are simply supporting China's growth.

Carthoris,

You may want to read sometimes before you post: "China doesn't import much of our product"
US exports are losing ground in many places, but continue to grow in China.


U.S. exports to China rose 39% in the first five months of this year, to $38.5 billion, according to a new study from the US-China Business Council (USBC), which tracks exports by state. Those numbers put the value of U.S. exports on track to exceed a record $90 billion this year
California, Washington, Texas, and Louisiana topped the list of exporting states, sending primarily computers and electronic equipment, farm crops, and chemicals to Chinese shores, according to the USBC report. Transportation equipment and waste and scrap materials rounded out the list.
Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Michigan also remained among the top 15 exporting states to China. "Even with a global recession, American businesses and American workers continue to benefit from expanding opportunities to sell high-value manufactured goods to the China market," says USCBC President John Frisbie. "China is the only major trading partner to which U.S. exports are growing fast enough to meet the President's goal of doubling exports in the next five years."
China is now the third-largest export market for U.S. products and the fastest-growing by far. Export growth to the other top U.S. export markets in the 2000-2009 period -- Canada, Mexico, Japan, and Britain -- has been significantly slower, the USCBC says.

only 90 billion? In a year? Wow, the Fed prints that much and throws it out into the system in only 15 business days. Hell the Fed prints money 17 times the rate at which China Imports our goods, All the while we import $300 Billion of China's goods into America. And all the while the Fed all by itself could easily purchase both and still have a trillion point three to spare for this year alone.

I'm pretty sure that 90 Billion equates to quite a few American jobs, and The USA needs every job it can get.....

angelsbandit said:

Carthoris,

You may want to read sometimes before you post: "China doesn't import much of our product"
US exports are losing ground in many places, but continue to grow in China.


U.S. exports to China rose 39% in the first five months of this year, to $38.5 billion, according to a new study from the US-China Business Council (USBC), which tracks exports by state. Those numbers put the value of U.S. exports on track to exceed a record $90 billion this year
California, Washington, Texas, and Louisiana topped the list of exporting states, sending primarily computers and electronic equipment, farm crops, and chemicals to Chinese shores, according to the USBC report. Transportation equipment and waste and scrap materials rounded out the list.
Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Michigan also remained among the top 15 exporting states to China. "Even with a global recession, American businesses and American workers continue to benefit from expanding opportunities to sell high-value manufactured goods to the China market," says USCBC President John Frisbie. "China is the only major trading partner to which U.S. exports are growing fast enough to meet the President's goal of doubling exports in the next five years."
China is now the third-largest export market for U.S. products and the fastest-growing by far. Export growth to the other top U.S. export markets in the 2000-2009 period -- Canada, Mexico, Japan, and Britain -- has been significantly slower, the USCBC says.

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You may want to understand the issue you are talking about before you question others understanding of it. We have a major trade deficit with China. We might export 90 billion to them this year, but we are going to import 400 billion. Our GDP/GNP are around 14 trillion. I bring that up so that you can see just how much that 300 billion we are losing to China means to us. This happens every year and that money doesn't come back. My statement "China doesn't import much of our product" was in reference to the overall picture, if you can't grasp that you might want to go back and revisit critical reading.

You copied and pasted an article that addresses an issue other than the one you are using it for, and then never actually said what your point was. You responded to 6 words out of my entire post, now go back and reread it. Acting like 90 billion dollars of imports is a big help to our economy is about the same as you buying a 20 dollar bill for 100 dollars and saying you have 20 more dollars for your personal budget. Stupid and makes you look the same. BTW, Welcome to the debate

This is our monthly trade surplus and deficit.

http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/top/index.html#2010

angelsbandit said:

I'm pretty sure that 90 Billion equates to quite a few American jobs, and The USA needs every job it can get.....

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It would only equate to jobs being added if it was a 90 billion surplus. We are still at 310 deficit on the deal.

Take away the 90 Billion dollars in production and someone is losing their jobs.

If Americans would voluntarily buy from their neighborhood first, their town next, products from their home state next, and then American made products instead of foreign made products just to save a few dollars we would not have the obscene trade deficit we have now.
Everyone complains about WalMart, and say they don’t shop there, but the numbers tell the truth - it was you the American consumers who pushed Walmart to cheaper foreign made products over more expensive local products.
If everyone would make an effort to support local American companies the trade deficit would ease greatly.

angelsbandit said:

Take away the 90 Billion dollars in production and someone is losing their jobs.

If Americans would voluntarily buy from their neighborhood first, their town next, products from their home state next, and then American made products instead of foreign made products just to save a few dollars we would not have the obscene trade deficit we have now.
Everyone complains about WalMart, and say they don’t shop there, but the numbers tell the truth - it was you the American consumers who pushed Walmart to cheaper foreign made products over more expensive local products.
If everyone would make an effort to support local American companies the trade deficit would ease greatly.

Click to expand...

90 billion minus 400 billion = -310 billion. It is pretty simple. You aren't gaining 90 billion in jobs trading with China, you are losing 310 billion. Wal-Mart isn't doing anything wrong by selling people what they want. It just doesn't work for the country long term. Wal-Mart will not change from within because it would make no sense for them to do so, you cannot expect a business to purposely fail. However, if Wal-Mart can make as much or more money selling American goods that put you or me to work then they will. If the government really cared about American workers it would make that possible. Businesses have no ability to do this, the people are incapable of acting in concert, and the government refuses to help by fixing the decades of screw ups they made.

Carthoris,

Comprehension is obviously not one of your best points……

I never said the 90 Billion would create jobs - those jobs exist now because of American exports to China.
Were China to stop importing these goods those jobs would go elsewhere as most of Americas manufacturing jobs have.
The products we export in large volumes are not products that would be easily absorbed by US buyers, so more manufacturing jobs would vanish in a trade war.

We all know that the US has an enormous trade deficite with China, but loosing more exports will not aid in that.
Unfortunately the US could not in the short term manufacture the products domestically to replace those imported from China and elsewhere, so the only answer is to slowly encourage domestic production by voting with our dollars and buying as I suggested earlier.

This would allow American companies to expand thus producing more American jobs, and more American money staying in the USA.
More money staying and being spent domestically would produce even more jobs for American workers.

Japan isn't going to be making much for a while. I wonder who will pick up the slack? Anyone know a country with skilled workers and excess capacity? Oh and there has to be a good business environment also.

Carthoris said:

The end result of the path we are on is everything will even out. Once our level of living has dropped to where China's or China's has risen enough to match ours then it will become a partnership. As it is we are simply supporting China's growth.

Click to expand...

You do realize that while things are "evening out" the richest top 5 % in America have gone from a net worth of 8 trillion in 1985 to a net worth of 40 trillion in 2007. The economy didn't grow five fold in that time, its redistribution from lower and middle income families to investors and shareholders at the top. This extreme concentration of wealth is already hurting the US economy and will get worse if policy doesn't change soon.

I'm not advocating for an anti-business lynch mob ffs, I'm asking for some common sense and to deal with the facts, workers should be keeping more of the profits that are being made.

“There’s class warfare, all right,” Mr. Buffett said, “but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

angelsbandit said:

Carthoris,

Comprehension is obviously not one of your best points……

I never said the 90 Billion would create jobs - those jobs exist now because of American exports to China.
Were China to stop importing these goods those jobs would go elsewhere as most of Americas manufacturing jobs have.
The products we export in large volumes are not products that would be easily absorbed by US buyers, so more manufacturing jobs would vanish in a trade war.

We all know that the US has an enormous trade deficite with China, but loosing more exports will not aid in that.
Unfortunately the US could not in the short term manufacture the products domestically to replace those imported from China and elsewhere, so the only answer is to slowly encourage domestic production by voting with our dollars and buying as I suggested earlier.

This would allow American companies to expand thus producing more American jobs, and more American money staying in the USA.
More money staying and being spent domestically would produce even more jobs for American workers.

Click to expand...

Your strong suit is obviously using straw man arguments.

The jobs exist now, making the same sort of products that we import from China. You may want to actually look at the items being imported and exported. I never said it would make sense to just shut it off all at once. If we did though, that 90 billion in jobs exporting to China is already done in factories and would be absorbed immediately due to the loss of 300 billion in imports that would need to be made stateside. Those companies would have to hire more people to make more of the same products they already make. Not only would we not lose jobs, we would immediately create jobs. We would have supply issues with clothing related goods, which is
the only major thing we really import from China that we don't export also.

Look at our trade with China from a country wide view. We are losing our asses to them. If we forced them to stop manipulating money then Chinese goods wouldn't be nearly as competitive and would bring back manufacturing to America on its own. Trade with China is not a good thing any way you look at it in the current situation. They are purposely fucking us and everyone knows it.

maximus444 said:

You do realize that while things are "evening out" the richest top 5 % in America have gone from a net worth of 8 trillion in 1985 to a net worth of 40 trillion in 2007. The economy didn't grow five fold in that time, its redistribution from lower and middle income families to investors and shareholders at the top. This extreme concentration of wealth is already hurting the US economy and will get worse if policy doesn't change soon.

I'm not advocating for an anti-business lynch mob ffs, I'm asking for some common sense and to deal with the facts, workers should be keeping more of the profits that are being made.

“There’s class warfare, all right,” Mr. Buffett said, “but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

Click to expand...

http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=ny_gdp_mktp_cd&idim=country:USA&dl=en&hl=en&q=gdp+us+graph

The economy increased quite a bit since 1985, from 4 trillion to 14 trillion. It also depends on how you calculate wealth. I am pretty sure if you look at the level of debt that the consumer is holding vs 1985 you will see the difference, I cannot find a graph or numbers for that though. The bottom 90% went on a huge credit spending spree over the last few decades. This is a big part of why the numbers look the way they do.

Carthoris,

Your assumption that jobs would be created immediately is uninformed at best.

The current US trade deficite with China, and elsewhere are untenable, but it will take time, Government action, and most of all cooperation from American consumers willing to pay a little more to support American companies and workers.

How many textile mills are left in the US?
How many rubber tire producing plants does the US have?
How many TV or monitor producing companies are left in the US?
How many big steel plants are left in the US?

The US does not at present have the production capacity to replace imports - plants will have to be bought, tooled up to produce products, employees hired and trained, and distribution and warehousing would need to be set up.

With all the Government red tape, and the unfriendly business atmosphere present in the USA the above would take years.

angelsbandit said:

Carthoris,

Your assumption that jobs would be created immediately is uninformed at best.

The current US trade deficite with China, and elsewhere are untenable, but it will take time, Government action, and most of all cooperation from American consumers willing to pay a little more to support American companies and workers.

How many textile mills are left in the US?
How many rubber tire producing plants does the US have?
How many TV or monitor producing companies are left in the US?
How many big steel plants are left in the US?

The US does not at present have the production capacity to replace imports - plants will have to be bought, tooled up to produce products, employees hired and trained, and distribution and warehousing would need to be set up.

With all the Government red tape, and the unfriendly business atmosphere present in the USA the above would take years.

Click to expand...

My assumption that jobs will be created immediately is based on the fact that we have manufacturing in the United States and that much of it isn't at full production. It takes all of a week or two to hire and train someone to push a button on a machine or pack things into boxes. Short term the items we sell to china would be sold here as they are the same types of items. In the short term companies would hire to run their current manufacturing at full speed as well as adding shifts.

I would assume if the Government decided to fix the problem then they would also remove the red tape and make the atmosphere better at the same time. The market responds fast.

Only textiles would be a major issue. The USA is the #1 cotton exporter in the world. We have lots of natural resources. We would have to rely on other countries for clothing and such short term. However, I think shortages in clothing or higher prices would be a small price to pay in the long term.

TVs, there are only a few. One of them makes flatscreens under the Olevia brand.

We are #4 in the world for steel production, and those plants are probably not running at 100%.

We have substantial tire manufacturing ability in the United States, for instance Goodyear:
North American Tire Manufacturing Facilities. North American Tire owns (or leases with the right to purchase at a nominal price) and operates 23 manufacturing facilities in the United States and Canada.

• 10 tire plants (8 in the United States and 2 in Canada),
• 1 steel tire wire cord plant,
• 4 chemical plants,
• 1 tire mold plant,
• 3 tire retread plants,
• 2 aviation retread plants, and
• 2 mix plants (1 in the United States and 1 in Canada).
• at least one known hose plant (located in the United States).

We have all the plants to build all of these things, the issue is that they are closed or not running at full capacity. Also, raising tariffs wouldn't completely stop foreign goods from being on the market, only raise their prices so it didn't make any sense to import them. I am not talking about complete isolation, I am talking about making our companies competitive whether it be in the form of raising their prices through tariffs, lowering our through deregulation, or stopping China's manipulation of money.

Carthoris said:

I am not talking about complete isolation, I am talking about making our companies competitive whether it be in the form of raising their prices through tariffs

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You are talking about starting a trade war, christ, you really do want to take us back to the 20's.

Someone didn't pay attention in history class.

Gotta agree with CoolWhip on this one, do some research on the Smoot-Hawley tariff act. It really fucked the USA.

Carthoris said:

http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=ny_gdp_mktp_cd&idim=country:USA&dl=en&hl=en&q=gdp+us+graph

The economy increased quite a bit since 1985, from 4 trillion to 14 trillion. It also depends on how you calculate wealth. I am pretty sure if you look at the level of debt that the consumer is holding vs 1985 you will see the difference, I cannot find a graph or numbers for that though. The bottom 90% went on a huge credit spending spree over the last few decades. This is a big part of why the numbers look the way they do.

Click to expand...

That is true, people did get alot more indebted since 1980, BUT do not blame the people more than the government. The citizens might hold a total of 16.5 Trillion in personal debt, the government has racked up an impressive 60 trillion. Lets also not forget the public debt that government has seen to increase to 14.5 trillion. Government accumulated debt at a rate FIVE TIMES greater than the average citizen.
http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/Current/

NoDrama said:

Gotta agree with CoolWhip on this one, do some research on the Smoot-Hawley tariff act. It really fucked the USA.

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I'm not talking about everyone, just China and other countries like it. It isn't likely that our actual trade partners(the ones who buy from us in return canada and mexico) would raise tariffs if we didn't raise them on them and only China. My issue with China is that they are manipulating their money, not that they are selling us things. If they weren't doing what they are doing with their money the goods from China would lose about 15-40% of their value. This means that they wouldn't have the competitive edge over the US manufacturers. I'm all for free and fair trade, but China is manipulating the rules of the game so it isn't free trade. China is really the only country we have completely lopsided trade with. Some of them we lose money to, but we lose far more to China than any other country in the world. Not only are they manipulating their money, they are manipulating ours by loaning us money. They are going to make the crash we are going to experience much worse. If it weren't for them it might of already occurred and our crazy spending may have been remedied. We could be on the way to fixing it, instead we are making it so bad we might not recover. My issue isn't with trade as much as it is China.

I imagine I know more than the average about the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, and I am not proposing anything of that nature. That is, I know what it is, why it was passed, and that i helped kick start the great depression.

NoDrama said:

That is true, people did get alot more indebted since 1980, BUT do not blame the people more than the government. The citizens might hold a total of 16.5 Trillion in personal debt, the government has racked up an impressive 60 trillion. Lets also not forget the public debt that government has seen to increase to 14.5 trillion. Government accumulated debt at a rate FIVE TIMES greater than the average citizen.
http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/Current/

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Separate issue, that was only in response to the top 5% gaining a percentage of all money vs the rest of us and why that might be. The government is a bunch of fuckheads. I think that is accepted regardless of party affiliation.