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 ...
How do you stop it without political argument?
Then what?
When we have lost all capacity to manufacture anything anymore, will we design our armed forces on Lenovo computers????????????????????????
What on earth are you talking about. A Chinese engineer designed Bowing's first seaplane in 1916 and they have always maintained ties with China. The Chinese already make parts and buy many planes from Boeing. In fact a new 600 million dollar contract. Put tariffs on China they cancel contracts with American companies. It would lay off 25,000 at Boeing alone.
From what I understand, our economy was already well in the tank due to the dust-bowl, and the market crash of 1929. I'm still doing research on the SH era, but am still not convinced that the tariffs actually caused problems. I wonder if we were a net exporter, or net importer at that point. That needs to be taken into account as well when predicting possible outcomes of present-day tariffs.
Given a choice between China or Mexico, I'll buy Mexican-made instead because it might keep folks on that side of the border!
China is a very difficult problem, primarily because of their man power. They could lose half their people and still have more workers than we do. While we invaded Iraq to free its people, we need to work hard to bring freedom to the Chinese because right now their gov't (and its puppets like N Korea) is a risk to everyone.
Throughout history, it is shown that a strong economy is necessary to wage war. Warfare, political systems, and economy cannot be seperated, no matter how hard some would wish. Gold is the life's-blood of any army or government.
Back in the 50s and 60s, far more families could afford to raise a family with just the father working as well. While Americans can afford more usesless toys such as consumer electronics, it is more difficult to afford housing, fuel, medical and send children to college.
Thanks for the picture of a great american hero, selfless to the end. It made my day. Please post it often and forever, that we may never forget the ultimate sacifice he made for our freedoms, one of which is free discussion herein.
Comparing China to Japan and using that to make an asessment about the theat of China's ascendency makes no sense whatsoever. Completely different political system, military allegiances, access to raw materials, and population size.
Which is exactly why we need to stop doing business with our enemy and start choking off their slave-labor economy.
Good question.
If you look at the nations and societies in Asia, there's a situation common to many. You find ethnic Chinese, behind the scenes, own and run things.
The Chinese are brilliant businesspersons.
We, being the smug Yankees we are, for a long time saw them as third world peasants. Now we're pretty much confused and ambivalent.
That's progress, but we're about 20 years behind the learning curve.
It seems to me, the primary political belief driving conservative support for free trade, specifically with China - is that China, given enough of *our* money, will become a big Taiwan. A democracy, a great big 51st state.
That's ridiculous.
The CCP (Chinese Communist Party) is really not much different than 5,000 years of Chinese emperors and dynasties. Sure it's brutal, and you still have got to admire that lone protester who stared down the tank in front of the Beijing Hotel.
But China's not going to become a democracy. No matter how much money we send them.
It's not going to happen.
We need to deal with that fact.
The People's Republic of China, is a significant competitor.
They are entirely capable of outmanuvering us. Imagine the Soviet Union. Without the inefficiencies of the Russian bureaucracy.
China can eat our lunch.
Nobody is going to stop them from doing so, if we don't.
Since when did the right to prop-up a brutal foreign dictatorship make the bill of rights?
This is hogwash! Foreign trade is no less subject to regulation than is interstate trade under the US Constitution.
BS somebody is playing you. Every banker and every trader knows what the basket of currencies are and at the moment Asian countries are meeting to consider adopting a single currency for the Asian Pacific countries, Japan, S. Korea, Taiwan, and Indonesia. the Yuan is most favored. I made some money on the Yuan when it was revalued. What they want is the Yuan pegged to the dollar at a higher rate. Both the dollar and Yuan are freely traded. You can buy as many as you want. Every countries decides what their currency is based on and is then approved by the world bank.
Also our freedom to buy any product. There is nothing in the constitution that includes Americans must buy american made items, or American must have a decent paying job. A lot of people here needs to learn econ 101...
Who's buying that Passat? The common worker?
Actually, there used to be plenty of money in it for US workers. It was called 'high-tech manufacturing'...
Plenty of American workers made a nice living working at assmebly plants for IBM and others back in the '80's. The reason those jobs are being shipped abroad is to avoid US wage standards.
Well, as my teamster friend says, the biggest problem with the labor unions is that they have been too sucessful. Their members move to the suburbs and send their children to college. Then they get confused about voting and call themselves independants.
"“If goods can't cross borders armies will.”
–Frederic Bastiat"
What a pantload. Almost every war in history has begun between formerly peaceful trading partners. Protectionism rarely has anything to do it. Ideology fuels wars, not protectionism.
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