Posted on 03/25/2006 8:07:17 PM PST by ncountylee
The Durabrand 10-inch portable DVD player available at Wal-Mart retails for $199.94. A group of senators would like to raise the price to $254.67. The Creative Zen Nano Plus 512-megabyte MP3 player seems like a bargain at $89.72; less so at $114.39, the price the senators would prefer that you pay. The price hikes would be the result of a 27.5 percent tariff on goods imported from China, a proposal sponsored by Democrat Chuck Schumer of New York and Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and is scheduled to come up for a vote in the Senate this week.
Schumer and Graham aren't crazy, of course—they know better than most that taking money out of voters' pockets is a sure way to be sent packing. In other words, that 27.5 percent price hike won't be coming to a retailer near you anytime soon. But as an attention-getter, it's pretty good, and attention is what the two senators, and a number of colleagues who support them, are after. The chief bogeyman they want to flog is China's communist government, which—according to Schumer and the rest—deliberately keeps its currency undervalued in order to sell more cheap imports to the United States and other countries. Reasonable economists differ on that question. The tariff, if you buy the argument, would bring prices on Chinese imports closer to their unsubsidized value, leveling the playing field for honest tradespeople in, say, New York and South Carolina, who can't possibly produce goods as cheaply as the Chinese and still earn enough wages to buy all the DVD and MP players that they need.
(Excerpt) Read more at usnews.com ...
How do you explain the huge deficit that China pulls with Japan, Taiwan and South Korea? The Chinese seem to have no problems buying Korean and Japanese products.
The strange thing is that in nearly every Asian country (including Australia) China is pulling a deficit; while it is pulling surpluses in Europe and the US.
I don't buy it. Sell it to someone else.
Zot, already. It's amazing to me that no one has suggested it yet.
They already did that in the 60's-70's, today it's just tennis shoes.
Hong Cong is a scary place.
That would be your choice I have always relied on myself for ecomomic security.
buglemanster: "The more benevolent we are, the greater pressure the Chinese people place on their government to reform and be like us."
Based on my travels to China, I'm afraid there's a great deal of hatred for the US in China. They don't want to be like Americans, except in one respect - they want to be rich. The general sentiment appears to be that China is destined to fight a nuclear war with the US, after which China will emerge triumphant, at the head of the table. The mind boggles, but that's what they really think.
buglemanster: "The more hostile and Sinophobic we become, the more strength and justification the Chinese government obtains, the more the people in China suffer, and the greater danger we face through their instability (see North Korea)."
We're not Sinophobic, any more than we are Islamophobic. We admitted 41,000 Chinese immigrants in 2003. Most countries admit none. The fact is that the average Chinese is extremely hostile to the United States. They're not hostile on a personal level, but their views about American foreign policy aren't too different from that of the average Muslim "moderate". A majority of the Chinese I encountered in China celebrated 9/11 - they stood up and applauded as the events were broadcast live on Chinese TV. This was a diverse group of people I encountered on many separate trips - Party members, entrepreneurs, yuppies, seniors - and I spoke to them in their vernacular as they related their recollections years after the event in question.
My impression from listening to Chinese talk radio stateside and in China is that my experiences were no fluke. The sad reality is that inside every Chinese isn't an American struggling to get out. They really have their own world view - a whole separate system of beliefs and thought processes - that are, unfortunately, diametrically opposed to our own.
Idiot. What do you know of Che? Would you let your kids wear a Hitler Tee? Or maybe Himmler Nikes?
A sweatsuit worn by Castro?
Where do you draw the line, as a father?
You should have told that to Spain before they invested in Columbus. America was built by investment.
I'm not Spanish.
A sweatsuit worn by Castro?
Where do you draw the line, as a father?
Well, you must really be young and foolish. When I came back from Vietnam the antiwar and hippies loved him and I saw plenty of Che tee shirts. You expanded that to my kids and what type of father am I. However one of my kids graduated from GA.Tech and will be returning from Iraq, his third combat tour in 40 more days. My daughter majored in computer science with a perfect 4.0 in computer science and she and her husband retired when she was 34. You should study Che a little more. You have more in common than you think.
Yep, dealing with Communists is profitable.
None. Trade regulations haven't a thing to do with regulating private wealth. They're a tool to keep from enriching the public coffers of corrupt and potentially adversarial regimes.
You actually think Hitlery or Schumer would do something to upset the Chinese? Can you not recognize political theater when you see it?
This little trip is just a PR stunt to keep from getting lynched at the ballot-box come November. Meanwhile all they're doing over there is reassuring the Chinese in the wake of the UAE ports-deal. Hillary sat on Wal-Mart's board of directors while they were busy moving our manufacturing base to China in the first place. Her husband is one of the biggest Commie traitors in our nation's history. He'd be sitting in Gitmo right now if it weren't for his lodge-affiliation.
Wake up! This situation has Billary's fingerprints all over it. You think these two wouldn't sell you out to 'the Revolution' in a heartbeat?
A total embargo would not be able to prevent future Chinese growth in the long term. It would however change the orientation of the Chinese economy to internal-demand driven. A total embargo would also mean open confrontation with the Chinese across the globe and that would cost Americans enormous resources.
This, my friend, would not only make a great tagline but sums up the difference between free traders (like us) and Kool-Aid drinking free traders, like Clinton & Bush.
The reason why many Chinese are hostile to the US is that the US meddles in the Taiwan issue and tries to spin it as protection of democracy against communism.
After buying a new vacuum approximately every two years because the cheap crap fell apart, 3 years ago I bought a Filter Queen, which I'm fairly certain is made in USA.
Yes, he was a patriot.
And what is someone who values a few dollars more than the economic well-being of America and Americans?
That, my good fellow, is because you know that Mr. Tillman gave his life for America and all Americans. The proponents of free trade won't even give a few bucks.
Oh, but it's quite an apt analogy.
By the way, we neutrinos never use capitals. There are way too many of us for such pretensions.
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