"Read a newspaper or book someday. It will prevent you from looking entirely stupid."
I guess you really don't get this. You might start by reading this article. These armor kits are made by government employees at a government arsenal. The arsenal commander says they could produce more but can't get the steel. The steel manufacturer says they could up production by 22% yet the arsenal hasn't asked for more steel. Government employees and a government plant. There is no finer example of the effects of a protected industry.
Perhaps you can show me in your post #217 EXACTLY where you alluded to the thread-head story, eh?
As to the thread-head--the Pentagon writes its specifications, and some suppliers bid for the work.
Others don't. That's what we call competitive.
You will note, however, that the Pentagon is very careful NOT to select suppliers who utilize slave labor, FX-chicancery, or abdication of safety/environmental regulations to submit the 'lowest bid.'
That means that the Pentagon doesn't contract with Red China.
Protected by what? Spitballs?!!
This guy gets a little bit of the big picture in his Fair Comment at Insight Magazine
Communist China Conducting Effective Economic War Plan
Posted Dec. 8, 2003
By Tom Adkins
Corporate profits are up 30 percent. Consumer confidence? Up 10 percent to 91.7, the highest since 2002. There have been 286,000 jobs added to the U.S. economy in three months. Exports are up. And after further review, third-quarter gross domestic product was up 8.2 percent. That's all good news because we need a strong economy to fight the war. No, not against terrorists, not against North Korea and not against France. We need a strong economy to defeat our new enemy - China. We've been at war for quite some time. Listen carefully, you can hear the rumble in the distance.
On Nov. 10, the World Trade Organization (WTO) ruled that the United States unfairly raised tariffs on imported steel way back in March 2002. Predictably, pundits began jabbering about trade wars. But the real story is much deeper.
Three worldwide phenomena simultaneously have conspired to create a perfect economic storm: the fall of communism, the vulnerability of old Euro-socialism and unnatural market forces infiltrating established capitalist markets.
It began in the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush unleashed our great economic weapon with massive tax cuts, outproducing the U.S.S.R. in a race for military supremacy. But that created an unexpected downside. A slew of socialist states such as Indonesia, India, China, Russia and Brazil moved toward market trade. Many had just constructed massive steel and textile mills to impress the world with the amazing righteousness of communism. When the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade begat the WTO, these countries ironically entered the brave new world of open markets with new, fairly efficient manufacturing facilities - and a dirt-cheap workforce.
The result has been a marketplace awash in mountains of unneeded steel and textiles at unthinkably low prices. Every armchair economist knows the paradox: On the one hand, an importing nation gets ridiculously low-priced goods; on the other hand, domestic businesses are lost to inexpensive foreign competition. The success or doom of an importer nation depends upon how strong its economy is and whether the exporter nation is a reciprocal market for exports.
So how did the world's economy cope? The European Union (EU) was formed ostensibly to rival the United States. Instead, the EU found itself staving off cheap Chinese imports. While they have dropped local barriers, EU nations are burdened with powerful unions and sluggish socialism wrapped in a high-tax environment. In fact, Ireland was threatened for cutting taxes. Meanwhile, old capitalist nations that rely on normal growth such as South Korea, Japan and the United States got swamped in a sea of low-price competition.
That may have been the end of it. But there is further intrigue. When China joined the WTO at the end of 2001, it had to fill a series of requirements during the next decade: "most-favored-nation" status, national treatment, quantitative restrictions and transparency. In plain English? Open your markets and play fair.
Given China's history, the WTO allowed nations to claim a number of specific "safeguards," or temporary tariffs, in case China misbehaved. The WTO also offers general safeguards to help nations absorb the shock of world markets flooded with cheaper products. As anyone can tell you, 700 million Chinese workers averaging $67 a week can have a devastating effect on your local knitting mill.
Here's where it gets nasty. First, China is conveniently late in fulfilling WTO policy targets, particularly opening markets to imports. But most important, China has kept its currency, the yuan, "pegged" at 8.28 to the U.S. dollar since 1994. So why is that a big deal? Because normally currency is a tradable commodity, with value against other currencies determined by the relationship of each nation's economic strengths. But by pegging the yuan at a specific ratio to the dollar, Chinese goods are attractive regardless of policies or markets. The yuan is always cheaper. Those great quality shirts for $6? Made in China.
Don't forget to add in China's gargantuan product-counterfeiting market and that pesky prison-labor thing. It's obvious: China is conducting economic warfare. These policies don't happen by accident. China is trying to eliminate our industries and make us totally dependent on Chinese imports. Then one day we'll wake up to higher-priced steel, higher-priced textiles, higher-priced televisions and no industrial base. And we'll be helpless to do anything about it. Sound familiar? Think Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, circa 1979.
China's Sun Tzu philosophy is easy to spot. China certainly deduced that the WTO essentially is an economic United Nations and gauged its strategy and timing accordingly. But China also must assume that, as in Iraq, President Bush is unwilling to surrender U.S. economic security to sniveling bureaucrats who refuse to play fair. Just this week, in the face of WTO sanctions, he enacted safeguards against Chinese TV imports. Meanwhile, WTO nations must consider consequences of crossing paths with the two largest economies in the world.
Fortunately, Bush is steeped in American philosophy. When confronting an enemy, he pulls out the whuppin' stick. If a polite discussion doesn't work, splinters fly. Bush is gambling that his tough stand will lose less jobs than the low-rate, low-inflation-inspired economic rebound will create, and the world will stay out of the economic war zone. And that, folks, is a story worth watching.
Tom Adkins publishes CommonConservative.com and hosts On Fire with Tom Adkins on the Radio Free Republic network.