[Brilliant]

I don't understand your logic.

Kodak is selling cameras like hotcakes. They've made a profit in the past few quarters after years of massive losses. They blamed the prior losses on competition from the Japanese. They even had the US government bring a trade case against the Japanese, and lost because the Japanese weren't dumping--they just had lower costs.

Now Kodak is making money, and they say that the reason they are making money is that they (unlike the Japanese) are using cheap Chinese labor to make their cameras. If you ban them from doing that with trade restrictions, then how does that create American jobs? I won't. It will create Japanese jobs, and higher prices for the American consumer. We'll be right back to where we were before Kodak started making its product in China.

[Southack]

I'm not saying ban anything, much less Kodak's cameras from China.

But Kodak's profits on those cameras are occuring NOT because Chinese labor is so cheap, but by Chinese currency manipulation that makes those cameras cheaper for the U.S. to buy than what it actually cost to make them in China...by some 40%.

That currency manipulation is therefor distorting our economic view of the global Marketplace. It is also extremely expensive for the Chinese to maintain...though it is addictive because it employs millions more than would be otherwise employed in China and also because it draws in massive foreign investments into China that would otherwise not be there.

Marketplace distortions, however, are bad. Yes, you can profit from them, but that's not the point. There will be considerable pain when China's currency manipulation is finally ended (one day). The sooner that it is ended, the less pain for the global economy (including the U.S.).