Posted on 08/07/2003 5:25:07 AM PDT by Non-Sequitur
Yes and the controls are becoming stronger.
Cutting off chinese exports now will only delay any possibility of reform there. The pressure is on as long as we continue to import. If we stop, those protective tarriffs will never topple.Lets see now we continue a policy that has not worked because we are convinced that more of teh same will work. Of course that policy harms Americans and seems to build up the current oligarchy in China. Do you have any evidence that opening our nation to Chinese exports has ended the regime in power there? I really would like to see that they have not been investing in military equipment to take over Taiwn and possibly challenge any American attempt to counter such a strike. One might even agrue their build up of dollar reserves is to threaten the USA with a collapse of the dollar should we attemot to counter their interests.
I asked for evidence and you come back with an attack. Lets see now teh last demands for more personal freedom in China were met with tanks. The Chinses government has recently tried to chut down a great deal of Hong Kong's personal Freedom which resulted in demonstrations and I submit itis merely a question of time and propaganda before either that personal liberty ius taken awy legslatively or by tanks.
Just as you have never bothered to meet the Chinese people you so despise, you've never even bothered to read the "atheist" you condemn. Look up the definition of bigot sometime.
Some choice words from the Atheist, Bastiat.
Life Is a Gift from God
We hold from God the gift which includes all others. This gift is life — physical, intellectual, and moral life.
But life cannot maintain itself alone. The Creator of life has entrusted us with the responsibility of preserving, developing, and perfecting it. In order that we may accomplish this, He has provided us with a collection of marvelous faculties. And He has put us in the midst of a variety of natural resources. By the application of our faculties to these natural resources we convert them into products, and use them. This process is necessary in order that life may run its appointed course.
Life, faculties, production — in other words, individuality, liberty, property — this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it. Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.
What Is Law?
What, then, is law? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.
They were not ideologically homogenous. Now when you say founders do you mean the revolutionaries like Patrick Henry or the Founding Lawyers such as the wannabe monarchist, Hamilton?
If you don't even bother to understand the nature of your enemy, you will never defeat him.
Fascism is economically viable.
Not at all. Expansion of trade brings about what capitalism does best - more money and more freedom.
Of course that policy harms Americans and seems to build up the current oligarchy in China
Harms Americans? Hardly. I challenge you to ask any American whether he wants to buy Chinese made widgets at 25 cents each or american union-made widgets at 2.95 each.
Trade restrictions hasn't done much to get Castro out or what about Sadaam - trade restrictions did little there either.
Do you have any evidence that opening our nation to Chinese exports has ended the regime in power there?
Somewhat superficially but in a very short time a market revolution has occurred. Take a walk around Shanghai or almost any part of urban China and you will see major differences between now and just ten years ago. These things take time. I am willing to bet that an emerging market economy will outperform and eventually outlast the State Communist Party of China which will wither away.
About the loss of jobs - you argue that the US is losing jobs to China. Hardly. The more capital is created in China the more value added good nad service the Chinese will be able to buy from us. Temporarirly there is adjustment in unemployment, but I would rather retrain an American worker to design better fabrics for sofa slipcovers than maintain him/her in a job sewing them.
If you're unemployed, you likely will not purchase either. You're gonna say to h*ll with the widgets and worry about putting food in your family's mouth or keeping a roof over their heads.
A consumer-driven economy only works well when there are consumers, people with disposable income, preferably with significant discretionary income that allows them to purchase not only necessities but luxuries. What is bad about this current employment retrenchement, other than the national security issues I noted earlier associated with the "brain drain", is that it has hit the middle class hard, the class that historically has been the backbone of the consumer class. If offshoring continues to erode the purchasing power of the middle class, if their numbers continue to shrink, then it won't matter for the corporations how many tenths of a percent of their corporate budget they saved by offshoring these jobs, because there won't be anyone around who can buy their goods and services and they're going to go out of business in the end. In effect, we've sold ourself the rope that we've used to hang ourself.
Don’t be foolish. Most of the posters on this thread are writing out of philistine concerns revolving around their jobs, bills, and home . I have no problem with business owners or CEO’s who advocate BPO. They are in the game to make money and in the latter case, to show positive returns to their shareholders. The difference is that most of us who want the Fed to do something about this are pretty open about our reasons; we want to either get jobs or keep the ones we have.
It would be nice if the people who are in favor of outsourcing were to explain whether they are proponents for financial or altruistic reasons. Which are you?
Any kind of protectionist ideas the Rats come up with will be to pander to their union base. They won't dare address the H1B or L1 situation because they are beholden to the God of Diversity. Same on (illegal) immigration.
In short, the Rats won't solve the problem, either, but they'll damn sure try to use it to regain power. Bush had better tread carefully on this issue, the Rats are ready to clobber him with it.
I just don't want to see those people, their talents, and careers, needlessly thrown away, or sacrificed for some abstract economic theory.
First, in this sped-up fast-changing world of tech, any tech or scientific field of study is a risk. Hopefully students will better appreciate this going in.
Second, I predict (you heard it here first) that new approaches to "degrees" will develop. Kind of a tiered approach. Maybe learn a "deep" degree (5 years), and also a "basic" degree (2 years), and to top it off a couple of "short" degrees (6 mos.). Mix up the theoretical with the practical.
No problem. Run as a Democrat. Then your liabilities would be assets...
If I could get people to stop thinking that their "career" is someone paying them to sit in an office for 40hrs a week and start thinking about how they can get people to pay them for being uniquely productive we'd go a long way in this debate.
Over the years I've observed that facts, truth and reality make only a very small difference in peoples positions untill they become overwhelming. Even then, there will be those who will continue to invent a fiction to explain the discrepancy between their current state of mind and the state of the world arond them. We're all guilty of this to some degree, it's how rapidly and how well we overcome this tendancy that counts.
The truth is out there.
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