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 ...
See my post #21
We need to stop the damage first.
The political arguments can come later.
You can stop any damage but in the long run China has four times the market place and four times the people. Last year they graduated 500 thousand engineers, we graduated less than 70 thousand. Over half of the US PHD's sought employment in other countries. We are now 24 out of the top 25 countries in math and science. Many of Americans now oppose science and think it not necessary. If we want to stay prosperous we are going to have to improve education.
You apparently like government-induced inflation. Where were you educated?
Sorry, post #16
Money fuel armies and political systems...
There is no seperating the economic war from the political or military. To state otherwise is to demonstrate short-sightedness almost beyond belief.
Hmm. Propose a better solution, maybe?
Boeing just sold China 80 new Boeings. China bought them rather than airbus because of France's trade policies.
"Also our freedom to buy any product."
Free-traitor fallacy #1001. Why do you think it's illegal to buy Cuban goods? That freedom you mention is nowhere in the Bill of Rights or constitution. Trade agreements with foreign nations are subject to change and/or cancellation at any time and fall under the jurisdiction of the executive branch of government.
Yes. But Toyota isn't Volkswagon and 1941 isn't 2006.
And a Porsche isn't an Infinity.
Just wait. China will buy more French military hardware. They can't wait to end the embargo.
If we boycott China, I'll throw a party and make some for you. Unless you'd rather have a bowl of chili con carne. ;)
What about Joe's Plastics down the road, here in there states.... they make brush handles for a good price. But Chinese brush handles can be shipped here and sold for less than half the COST of Joe's handles. Fair trade? Not when Joe's employees earn $8-$10 an hour, and the Chinese equivalant earns that much in a day, if that.
it is more of a tax increase on imports but if you want to look at it that way feel free. As I said I offer you a bridge cheap.
Well, the PRC better attack soon, because their one child policy is rapidly aging the population. Plus, imagine the political difficulty when every Chinese soldier killed in battle is the sole remaining descendant of six other people (four granparents, two parents). In a country where ancestor worship thrived for several millenia, getting one's only child/grandchild killed isn't going to be very popular.
You got that right. Amen.
You are wrong. The tax rate s in the 50's were still 90% on the wealthy. People didn't hire as many women because the men fought it. They tried to keep the head of the family as the provider and the jobs were protected for married men. Many women did not want to go back home after the war but their were not enough jobs. The wage at Westinghouse was the best in my town. It was ~$60 a week for a 48 hr. work week mandated in 1943.
No thanks. I don't like price controls either.
That detail aside, I won't buy either of the example products. In Robert Kiyosaki's "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" parlance, these things are non-essential "doo dads". A terrible way to invest your hard earned money. Raising the price higher just makes them more expensive "doo dads" that are less worthy of purchase. I'm happy to "do without" such items. I would rather invest that money into something that will pay me in the future.
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