Posted on 06/19/2004 8:30:52 PM PDT by take
Move to China and get your cheap furniture.
What about these guys driven out of business: "Since President Bush took office three years ago, some 35,000 wood-furniture workers, or 28 percent of the work force, have lost their jobs, the U.S. companies say."
How about the textile industry? Gotta keep making those cotton undergarments in American mills, don't we, to keep the workers on the cotton plantation busy?
It is an absurd and foolish notion that an industry -- just because it hires American workers -- must be continued indefinitely. Times change, demographics change, buying habits change. As mature industries fade into oblivion, new ones rise to take their place.
Nothing is static in commerce, and that's a good thing.
Capitalism provides more choices, more products, more wealth than any other economic system devised.
It's too bad some Americans feel compelled to throttle it.
Guess I am going to have to go get that bedroom set my wife wants now. If I wait, it is going to cost a whole lot more.
Illegal dumping? More like private Chinese companies with a whole lot less overhead to deal with. Forget the difference in wages, the other stuff is what makes it hard for the U.S. companies to compete.
And, many Chinese companies making furniture are under contract with U.S. companies to make the furniture. This guy just did not make the move to China when he should have Now he is crying to the government to bail him out! How ironic.
Also, don't discount that there are many private Chinese companies that are making product for export themselves. They simply don't have the kind of overhead costs that a U.S. company does - taxes, regulatory compliance and other nonproductive expenses.
Saying the Chinese are dumping on the U.S. market needs some definition. It sure is not a case where the Chinese government is paying companies to make the stuff. They already found out that does not work. No one wanted the furniture from those operations.
LOL, You're right, it is. Too funny. I really am going to miss that particle board junk when these American furniture companies go out of business.
Or, cry if they win in getting protection and we have to go back to sagging book cases, wobbly drawers with bottoms that fall out, furniture stapled together.
Really, that is a very profound point you raise. It is better quality, isn't it!
A thoroughly insipid statement. We are not replacing furniture with something else. We are allowing a communist government to undermine our industries. Remember those hated communists? China will not be a capitalist society until they are poised to put us under. Until then, the communists will rule, amassing wealth, till they can deliver us the death blow. And, guess what? We are happily helping them.
I buy my my anvils at garage sales for $5-10, assorted sizes. A free market, ya' know. ;-)
I am aware of that and I understand they are already exporting a small amount of cars. What people need to understand (including some on this thread) is that we are in a global economy whether one likes it or not. And we need to compete on a global scale. Remember the onslaught of Japanese cars years ago? They were superior in quality by far. It forced U.S. automakers to improve their products and they have. That is how an industry competes without barriers.
Those that scream "free traitor" are simply unionists, protectionists, or carry a similar mantra. The key is "free" trade. Now if China is prohibiting imports on specific industries then it is OK to get ugly.
If you're ever in the neighborhood, go to the Fuyong International Furniture Exhibition Center.(near the Fuyong Airport, ShenZhen region, mainland China).
You'll walk through that place slack-jawed. This was the finest, most well-built furnature I've ever seen short of purely custom built stuff. The slack jaw part of it comes when you look at the price. Stuff that was selling for 250-400USD(2000-3000rmb) would cost 15-30 times that here in the states.
We're talking Donald Trump quality furnature cheaper than what you get at Ikea. I say slap a 100% tariff on the stuff, and get it moving here. If it wasn't such an export nightmare, I would have arranged to ship some pieces home.
Stunning stuff.
My son does ornamental iron and steel; he found a scrap of rail from a railroad repair job and turned it into a dandy anvil on his welding table, cost=$0.
I got my anvil, a 180 lb one, at an old junk store in 1973 for $50.00. Five years later the price went to $1.00 a pound.
I have two others I made out of railroad track iron. They do for small stuff but the big one gets more horseshoes made and shaped on it.
All I need now is a spreading chestnut tree! I got no shade!
42 - LOL - The old buggy whip syndrome. You whiplashed?
"You believe manufacturers of buggy-whips should have had relief from the onslaught of automobiles, too?
How about the textile industry? Gotta keep making those cotton undergarments in American mills, don't we, to keep the workers on the cotton plantation busy? "
To Snidely Whiplash, who would sit on the floor naked, as funriture and underwear are out of date.
44 - "They simply don't have the kind of overhead costs that a U.S. company does - taxes, regulatory compliance and other nonproductive expenses."
Why don't you free-traitors remember the workers, who also don't have the expenses of the US workers. Just where in the US can a worker get a descent apartment for $10 per month? Just where can a US worker get lunch for 25 cents?
Why should US workers open their markets to you free-traitors, when all you wish to do is steal their profits?
48 - "Remember the onslaught of Japanese cars years ago? They were superior in quality by far. It forced U.S. automakers to improve their products and they have. That is how an industry competes without barriers."
dumb free-traitors, addressing this, conveniently forget the trade barriers Reagan put up on Japanese cars so that our auto industry could compete. It was these barriers which saved our auto industry.
Why are free-traitors so dumb?
Point: Every company doing business in China must that must sign a contract with the Communist Government of China that states 51% ownership goes to Red China.
Under the agreement of WTO to allow China in we allowed them to do this for eight years.
Now if I was China, I would do what the Japanese did.
That was to steal all the technology then open up a store in America and under cut all their prices and put them out of business.
Do you trust them?
And Chinese furniture is still being dumped in the U.S.
I'm not going to resort to this sort of name-calling when I'm conversing with people who can't, won't, don't see the bigger picture economically when it comes to 'balanced' trade practices in open capitalist markets. However, if you really want to get steamed take a look at the humungous pork in agriculture subsidies. You don't have to buy Chinese furniture if you don't want to, but the government is stealing your tax dollars and paying FOLKS NOT TO PRODUCE and keeping agriculture prices artificially high.
Now that is a travesty my friend.
1) One does not "steal" profits, one "makes" profits.
2) Cost of doing business is often too high in the U.S. If there is too much protectionism (in the form of tariffs or artificially high union wages, forced govt benefits, minimum wage nonsense, for example) the jobs will end up overseas. That is the other side of the equation.
3) Workers don't 'own markets' as you imply, they are free to participate in them as consumers.
4) Us 'free trader types' prefer govt to stay out of the price-fixing, wage-fixing business in the first place.
5) Whether a foreign (Chinese) company is owned by govt is beside the point. No one is being 'forced' to buy the products. They sell it, we buy it. Or not buy it.
58 - "I'm not going to resort to this sort of name-calling when I'm conversing with people who can't, won't, don't see the bigger picture economically when it comes to 'balanced' trade practices in open capitalist markets."
YOU don't understand the bigger picture. The real picture, is not government regulations and taxes, it is the banking systems which aportion cost of living vastly differently in different countries.
Workers in low wage countries have vastly cheaper COSTS of living, not necessarily just standards of living.
I, as an American/foreigner (read - overcharged), can live quite nicely and well in many 3rd world countries for $300 per month. A local can live at the same standard for $50-100 per month. A local apartment costs a local $10 per month, and me as a foreigner about $100 per month, and the same apartment here in flyover country costs $500 per month, and in California or NYC $1000 per month.
Our workers are not getting rich and charging 'unfair' costs for their labor, versus their costs of living.
It's not about taxes, government controls on trade, it is about inequitable distribution and equalization of costs of living.
There will be no free/fair trade until costs of living are balanced.
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