[maui_hawaii]

I am curious what agricultural products are they concerned about?

I have read one report regarding corn.

One of the US' largest export markets is to the Asia Pacific. They are being undermined though in the international arena.

Here's how. The Yen is a supposed floating currency...but the Yuan is not...in a strange and complex dynamic, by pegging the Yuan to the dollar Chinese goods not only become cheaper in the US but also in Asia. When the dollar declines, do does the RMB.

The net result is that US corn is more expensive than the alternatives. Its because of the peg.

Our tarriffs have little to do with it. Our % subsidies are dwarfed by China's % of the same. (IE one bushel of corn might have 5% subsidies in the US...the same from China might have 40%...)

The previous poster who mentioned the buying up of dollars as being the problem is correct.

It can actually work in more than one way. They can sell their own currencies too, not just buy ours. They can either drive ours up, or drive theirs down... similar results either way.

I also find the continuing arguement of there go American jobs to be mostly ridiculous. Sure there they go but if not to China they will go somewhere else. Right now the majority of jobs that are being taken by China are not American jobs rather they are Mexican jobs, which were taken from South Korea, which were taken from Taiwan, which were taken from some other location with cheap labor.

In a way you are right, but in a way not. Asia and Mexico are getting screwed too. That by very nature hurts America. 1/3 of all of our exports go to Asia alone, not including China. When they get nailed, we get nailed. For every dollar we have traditionally imported from Mexico we have traditionally exported 75 cents. Thats a tad better than the dollar to ten cents deal with China.

In a complex arrangement, the case and point is that China's peg leads to disruptive price differentials based on artificial means.

In Mexico and Asia they compete, yeah, but its not a solely price competition as in the case of China. Without the disruptive practices of China American manufacturers will often become relatively and absolutely more competitive. Hence investment dollars come here to hire people here.

America can beat China and Mexico and Asian countries like a drum...on a level feild that is.

When the feild gets leveled though, investors realize that, and they hire more people here.

US manufacturers export over $50 billion a month. Just as in the same case with the corn above, Chinese manufacturing (often set up visa via US companies) undercuts our exporting power.

It kills jobs faster than salt on a slug.

The ball game will be changed significantly if things level out in regards to the playing feild.

[Eric Paul]

Where in Asia do our exports go? I know it is not South Korea, having witnessed the incredible protectionism there. Just look at how they managed to actually compete with Japan and America in the automotive market. But, I do not know if it is the other cheaper labor markets or if it is the rich countries like Japan (or as I like to call it the wolf in a kimono.)

If it is just corn then I do not mourn. Already the single largest subsidy in America is for corn more than $10 billion a year. Of course this is said to be hurting Mexican farmers who have seen 1/3 of the market place taken over by American corn since the advent of NAFTA. I hardly think that our highest single subsidy can be dwarfed by the Chinese. If this is the case the US really needs to rethink its spending, there is no country in the world that should be able to out spend us on anything. Once again though I do not think I am arguing with you so much as the article you linked to. The article to me sounds too much like one of those "free trade will solve everything articles." When it is not free trade that we want but to hold onto the advantage. Perhaps just a question of semantics but it is one that drives me nuts.

I have to respectfully continue to disagree that jobs will return to America. I have yet to see any hard evidence of this and believe that in fact no one will know unless something is changed. I just know that for the last half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st the continuing trend has been for corporations to go global finding cheap labor, land and goods. I believe this will continue to be the case. Just as trade imbalance figures often do not contain the fact that many goods bought in America from China are actually being produced and sold by American companies. I feel that often these China trade discussions continue to focus on China and not on the Corporations that are get rich at both ends at the expense of Chinese cheap laborers and American unemployed.

One last thing that I wonder on the job front is are Americans victims of our own success. We have a continually increasing productivity rating if I understand this correctly doesn't that mean that as we get better at our jobs we need demand to rise that much faster in order to continue to employ people. If demand does not rise fast enough but our efficiency continues to rise that means we produce enough but then have fewer jobs to go around.