dagblog - Comments for "A realistic trade policy: none"

And the Kaffir engineer might

Flavius — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 04:27:17 +0000

In reply to See? The problem with those

And the Kaffir engineer might undermine some useful stereotypes.

Anecdote. I sent three guys to do a complicated job on a distant island.. Two West Indians and Ralph a pleasant guy from San Diego. After a couple of days one of the Islanders came to me and suggested I reassign Ralph. Said he was a really nice guy, good company , competent. Trouble is he liked to stop at sun set. They liked to keep working but they were quitting with him in order not to embarrass him . But it was slowing them down.

I agree with this, Pericles,

Saladin — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 22:04:05 +0000

In reply to However, capitalism has taken

I agree with this, Pericles, and even the viability of other forms of capitalism, but I should note that once everything becomes subservient to the dollar. The basic logic of the system creates outcomes that subvert other capitalisms. That Marxian insight is just as true in Germany today as in the US (witness Germany's decade of unpopular pro-market reforms). Right now we have a global elite ruling an international governance regime supporting "free trade", but very little else. Therefore trade's interest is winning, over labor, the environment, quality of life, and even the future (e.g. our derivatives futures markets are particularly insane). Money has become more important then culture in regulating our activities. Those other capitalist models you speak of require cultural values to be dominate (community, religion, environment, whatever). When the interests of money outweigh all others, then Marx's insight takes over. That sadly is the era we are living through, and threatens everything. Hopefully a new period is just around the corner.

See? The problem with those

PeraclesPlease — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 19:28:16 +0000

In reply to In the early 90s when NAFTA

See? The problem with those Kaffirs, have to buy an expensive lathe and conveyor belt just to get them to sweep the floors, and you end up employing 10 times as many needed for same amount of floor space. If it weren't for the side-effect of increased output and productivity, probably would have abandoned the scheme long ago.

Of course China has effect on

PeraclesPlease — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 19:25:11 +0000

In reply to This is an excellent comment.

Of course China has effect on jobs - the tickler is how much.

I include one article above that goes into details of important BLS statistics that may be heavily flawed, including the state of manufacturing jobs in the US, etc.

Short of that, I think people misunderstand the number of jobs lost normally in the US - if you say "15 million people lost their jobs" it sounds horrible without saying "but 18 million new hires happened". The big problem is that the new hires now are not exceeding the new losses. The solution is likely not just to fix all these jobs in one place, limit offshoring - without having some idea how this would actually affect wages and quality of work.

I have trouble believing we could have maintained the types of manufacturing we were doing even without a China - in steel we had heavy pressure from small new efficient mills in Brazil - micro-production in key locations vs. large scale production straight out of PA. There are areas where Japan rigged the deck to take over, say TVs, but even there, I'm not convinced we were really focused on maintaining leadership.

Oddly one place where we were is automobiles. The number of years we maintained the lead despite Detroit inefficiencies is amazing. That China hasn't produced a competitive car is an idea how hard it is. Toyota's success has relied greatly on government support. Still, it wasn't that long ago, about 2006, that Chrysler was still highly competitive in trucks for example.

But we also have new successes like Apple of the last 6 years, Amazon, Google, HP in PCs, Walmart & Costco of course, but Facebook, Zynga, and certainly lots of interesting competitors in other spaces like Safeway, Caterpillar, Kraft, Procter & Gamble, and I assume much more in medical technology, et al. (being reluctant to mention any positives in oil/energy, finance & insurance due to all the corrupt insider practicies)

I guess one point I'd like to make is the difference between being successful in 1999 and the losses of post-2008 isn't so much our capabilities or the opportunity in the market - it's the structural distortion that's sucking needed capital out of both individuals and the industries themselves. We should be leading in alternative energy - creating new jobs in the US and many more in China in being ahead of the curve. Part can be blamed on China protectionism and unlevel playing field, and part also on our system that favors pouring investment into sure theft rather than risky but important new ventures.

In the early 90s when NAFTA

Flavius — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 15:53:02 +0000

In reply to But also, workers in the

In the early 90s when NAFTA required some legislation ,on Washington Week in Review Tom Friedman forecast it would be and should be passed to reduce illegal Mexican immigration.

But the subsequent rounds of trade negotiations made it more economic for us to import from other countries with the result that rather than an increase in Mexican domestic employment many of the maquiladora closed .

There is a lengthy list of countries with an almost infinite supply of unemployed workers (think of all of Africa) who will accept subsistence wages to produce products for our market.

If we let them.

An anecdote.

In the early 70s I was visiting a South African factory. The Anglo Production Manager who was showing me around complained bitterly that the Government required him to employ out- of- work Boer farmers. He was only able to hire Blacks(he may have called them Kaffirs) to sweep the floors.

We went around a corner and there was a Black with a welding mask repairing a large piece of metal cutting equipment. The Supervisor looked at me, hard, and said

"He's sweeping the floors".

But also, workers in the

Peter Schwartz — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 02:49:29 +0000

In reply to In yesterday's FT Gillian

But also, workers in the developing countries pretty quickly start demanding higher wages. Don't know the speed or trajectory of this, but you already see in China, e.g., the Foxconn strikes/riots that led to 60% raises.

Everything is moving faster than most had predicted...

In fact, companies are now abandoning China (to some degree) in search of even lower wage countries, like Vietnam.

Maybe you should bite your

Resistance — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 23:29:15 +0000

In reply to Oh.My.God. I'm biting my

Maybe you should bite your tongue; better yet cut it out .

I find it reprehensible that you think it's our obligation to lift the world out of poverty at our expense.

Liberals will be the ruination of America. The Chinese government must think were fools.

Evidently you missed the point of the comparison,

The African slave market, was acceptable, by many Americans, although many knew, long before Harriet Beecher Stowe put it right in their faces; the hypocrisy of Christian values, that turned a blind eye, and rationalized slavery.

Convinced of their righteousness;" better to be a slave in America than a poor African"

Now it can be said "better to be a China man, than a poor American living in poverty?

Now you and others like you, rationalizing, better for Americans to give up a livable wage, so the Chinese worker under communist rule gets out of poverty.

Greedy corporate Americans;, forsaking American workers, who are now faced with record numbers of those at and below the poverty level in America; our homeland, our people.

Proving the point, the real objective wasn't to raise the living standards in China, as the dumb liberals rationalized.

In order to turn a blind eye. (Just as those Americans that rationalized slavery was good for Africans) liberals choose to ignore the real objective of greedy corporations; looking for cheap labor and better yet, slave labor, where collective bargaining is met with punishing consequences.

The real objective of greedy corporations hidden from scrutiny because corporations found dummies willing to give them cover saying. "The corporations have a benevolent purpose, the purpose being raising countries from poverty"

FOOLS; that is not the purpose, Corporations are not benevolent in the sense we value.

They move where there is minimal regulations, they move where collective bargaining is discouraged. ........So much for benevolence?

Corporations finding idiots to parrot the corporate message "They're not greedy at all; they're just raising the people from poverty"

If you really believe Corporate America really cared about lifting the Chinese out of poverty, you're the dupe the corporations are looking for.

Don't just bite your tongue for being a dupe with a corporate message, Cut it out so you cant mislead others.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

One minute were being told by our government, to fear the Chinese and then the next we're giving them the means, to support their rise in financial power.

Wonder what the Chinese are doing with the money we send them, to raise their people from poverty? Are they gaining strength at our expense?

Corporations don't care, and if the military industrial complex has to compensate for corporations giving America’s competitors the means to challenge us.

So be it, no skin off their backs, they'll make more money shorting America/Americans.

Nothing new; betting both sides brings financial rewards

CHINESE SLAVE LABOR Laogai

Resistance — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 23:12:45 +0000

In reply to Oh.My.God. I'm biting my

CHINESE SLAVE LABOR

Laogai which means "reform through labor," is a slogan of the Chinese criminal justice system and has been used to refer to the use of prison labor and prison farms in the People's Republic of China (PRC). It is estimated that in the last fifty years more than 50 million people have been sent to laogai camps.

“While there are many types of Laogai complexes, most enterprises are farms, mines or factories. There are, according to the Chinese government, “approximately 200 different kinds of Laogai products that are exported to international markets.”^[20] “A quarter of China’s tea is produced in Laogai camps; 60 percent of China’s rubber-vulcanizing chemicals are produced in a single Laogai camp in Shengyang … one of the largest steel-pipe factories in the country is a Laogai camp … ”^[20] One Camp alone, Ziangride, harvests more than 22,000 metric tons of grain every year.^[22] Dulan County prisoners have planted over 400,000 trees.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laogai

http://www.gossipgamers.com/chinese-prison-labor-scam-revealed-prisoners-are-forced-to-farm-for-gold/

When you buy slave goods, are you supporting slavery?

In yesterday's FT Gillian

Flavius — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 22:16:50 +0000

In reply to I guess by "bubble" I mean

In yesterday's FT Gillian Tett wrote future historians will look back on the past decade and wonder how in the world any one could have imagined AAA securities could be constructed by combining sub prime mortgages.

They'll also look back and wonder how anyone could have imagined a developed country and a developing one could be combined in one trade area without the impoverishment of the developed country's working class.

Sure , it wasn't true in the colonial period. They didn't have container ships. Now the result must be that in the developed country, ours , working class wages must decline to those of the developing country.

Tom Friedman and others pontificate that this should be dealt with by a massive campaign to educate the next generation so they are equipped with the technical skills required for the demands of the new professions that would spring up .

In a New Yorker cartoon I've quoted here before , two professors in front of a black board filled with equations,one with chalk in his hand, pointing .

The caption " here's where a miracle occurs".

I guess by "bubble" I mean

PeraclesPlease — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 21:20:56 +0000

In reply to Wow. You are remarkably

I guess by "bubble" I mean more a lag - some kind of arbritrage or disequilibrium that gets filled in, but the question is "when". But the Chinese are working on environmental issues - I'm actually not that pessimistic there except the task is quite huge and the timelines are difficult.