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 ...
Take that ratio into account, plus higher medical costs and so on, the picture doesnt look so good.
That was the best job in town. My first jobs were in pulpwood and logging. Paid $25.00 a week daylight to dawn and a half a day Sat. If you didn't live in a town there wasn't even running water. You can use all the satistics you want but I was there. I don't know anyone that even had medical ins. They would have thought it a joke. If you wanted a hot bath you could go cut the wood and heat the water. No phone, no TV, and no electricty if not living in a town. Nearest place to get glasses 60 miles. I remember when the mayor got the first TV next door. I remember gas limited to 4 gals. a month, and food as sugar was limited to the stamps you had. Half the years in the 40's they didn't even make cars. You really don't have a idea of how much better it is today. Until the war there was 25% unemployment.
Total embargo between US and China will mean more than just a Chinese recession. You can kiss your 401k goodbye too.
There are two ways of handling this. Through active encouragement of the Chinese government to follow the path of S Korea and Taiwan, or to be hostile towards relations with the Chinese, instigating not only an economic standoff but also a military buildup. Which one do you think is more realistic? (don't forget people like the Cat CEO.)
Good point. My cost of living in Pocatello, Idaho is significantly less than it was in San Diego, CA. The single area that is not as price competitive is small computer parts. There is a cut throat competition among 50 computer shops in San Diego that keeps parts prices at rock bottom.
Yep. Money and jobs sent - inferior product returned.
Wow - you think we're already that dependant on China? Scary stuff, but I don't buy it. If true, we've already lost.
"You bemoaned the cheap Chinese quality stuff"
Where?
> We can, and I personally do, avoid buying Chinese. But the truth is: CHEAP LABOR = CHEAP PRODUCT. Even if it is a quality item, does that justify such grim working conditions/pay in China/Japan/Korea/India/Taiwan/etc...?? Does it justify saving a few bucks while three or more of your friends get laid off?
buglemanster: "Your conclusion is flawed as you only based your statistics on export data of the US and China. Trade goes both ways."
Actually, we went through something very similar during the Asian crisis in 1998 when US exports to Asia plummeted as Asian countries went through severe recessions (many are only now back to their GDP levels just before the crisis). And yet the US growth rate barely budged as major economic storms buffetted East Asian economies. Before the crisis, it was a truism that when the US economy gots the sniffles, a lot of foreign economies would get the flu. It now appears to be the case that when foreign economies get the flu, the US economy will get the sniffles. And that applies even to events like a bilateral trade embargo.
Yes, and I made a point of saying: "Even if it is a quality item"
Your "Economic Patriotism" will put this country into another depression. All tariffs do is erode your purchasing power and cause inflation. Do you really think that American companies will keep their prices lower on goods? Of course not, they will raise their prices to just under the 27.5% tariff that the Chinese (really the American consumer) will be paying. So now prices are up across the board. Your dollar just turned into 68 cents. It will take you roughly six years at 4% raises per year to reach the buying power that you had before the tariff.
Anyways, your short sighted views will cost you in your wallet because at the rate things are going, with uncontrolled immigration and job outsourceing, my guess is there is going to be a huge shift in national politics, and you will be hit with higher taxes.
Actually not, I have been retired 5 years and went through this same hype when the Japanese started building cars in the US. I won't have to pay taxes on any stocks until I sell them which I probably never will. However the US companies doing business in China are owned by US stockholders and citizens and they reap the profits. Some people just don't like change but you better get use to it, it's coming anyway.
*** We need to keep American products competitive***
Then stop the over-taxation, over-unionization, over-regulation, unlimited Civil Liability, and inane Enviro regs that sent the work overseas IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!!!!!!
HELLO!!!!!!
Planet Earth Calling!!!
Why complain about tarriffs, when it has NOTHING to do with why we lost the jobs IN THE FIRST PLACE!
Protectionism will bring on the NEXT Great Depression, and the chaos will ensure DEM power for DECADES to come.......
> Yes, and I made a point of saying: "Even if it is a quality item"
So the proper American should buy inferior American products at a higher price?
What color Cobalt should I buy?
Far from it. We have transformed a nation that was identical to North Korea just two decades ago into one of the most dynamic societies in the world today, lifting hundreds of millions of people out of abject poverty through simply one thing: trade. China won't bite the hand that feeds it, nor will US do anything to shun the benefits that this trade is bring us. It is China that is controlling our inflation right now and soft-landed our recession a couple of years ago. Call me an idealist, a fool all you want, but the reality on the ground is this, we as Americans are far wealthier than we were 2 decades ago considerably because of the Chinese trade and ditto for the Chinese. More Chinese today learn English than native speakers of English in the US. Sure the Chinese government is barbaric and authoritarian, but it's a farcry to the days of the Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward. The more benevolent we are, the greater pressure the Chinese people place on their government to reform and be like us. The more hostile and Sinophobic we become, the more strength and justification the Chinese government obtains, the more the people in China suffer, and the greater danger we face through their instability (see North Korea). The last thing we should be doing now is to push the Chinese away, especially at this stage when their infrastructure is highly developed and their nation rapidly industrializing. We MUST embrace China to be a responsible world power, and we can only do this through continued trade, policy consistency and moral governance. Let's avoid another Germany of the 1930s, for our and our children's sake.
Naw, Just go and manufacture a superior product at a cheaper cost and put your friends to work. What, impossible? Welcome to the New Economy.
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