[demlosers]

China trumped the United States in 2004 as the world’s leading exporter of high-tech goods like laptop computers, mobile phones and digital cameras, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said on Monday.

Uh, you mean that companies from foreign countries use Chinese labor to assemble electronic goods for export. China does not develop most high tech systems - that comes from the West. Furthermore, the profits do not stay in China from these Trans national companies much of it goes back to their respective home countries.

Trade deficits and trade surpluses by country is an obsolete metric to track wealth in a global economy.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

RE: "the profits do not stay in China from these Trans national companies much of it goes back to their respective home countries."

Getting funds out of China is not always easy from what I've read..

Also there's the tax on repatriated funds.

It took the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 which gave companies one year to bring home earnings at a 5.25% tax rate, versus the normal 32% rate.

Companies left their earnings parked off shore while they tried for years to get this deal. The Act is suppose to limit how the corporations use the funds, hence the phrase "jobs creation" in the title of this ruse.. er, I mean law.

[endthematrix]

"Trade deficits and trade surpluses by country is an obsolete metric to track wealth in a global economy. "

Increasingly, so are borders and sovereignty...

[Mr. Rational]

I just read this, after trying to explain my post. You hit the nail on the head.

Andy Kessler has written a few articles trying to explain this exact situation - why the balance of trade appears bad, but the balance of profit is good for US.

[bvw]

China is damn determined to do what you claim they are not doing -- for China WILLs to develop high tech systems, and they WILL. See the old fable I mention above.