opelmanta1900
7 years ago
I'm an idiot when it comes to this stuff... I used to buy a lot of bulk stuff from China... Any time I was buying something on Amazon I'd go and check the Chinese equivalent...

Sometimes it was cheaper because it was a knock off, but not always... Sometimes it was just cheaper, often times much cheaper...

Then I did some light thinking and realized, these Chinese goods are cheaper mostly for 2 reasons:

1. Inhumane treatment of employees (low pay, being forced to live at work, child labor).

2. No expensive environmental regulations.


So I stopped buying from China... Kinda seems like if you do business with them, you're fighting against the American system of liveable wages and protections for the planet...

Seems like if someone levied some sort of tax that made Chinese products roughly the same price as goods from countries that don't treat their workers like government owned slaves, it would encourage people from places like America to buy from places like America... Or to manufacture in America, recognizing that the expensive environmental regulations that make our prices non competitive with communist countries are there for the protections of generations to come...

Ok now someone tell me why I'm wrong cuz I know it's more complicated than what I've made it out to be...
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dstieger
7 years ago
So, I guess what China needs is unions and significant government regulation?

JK...

You might want to add
3. Lower development costs, since its cheaper to steal ideas than R&D them
4. Ignore intellectual copyrights and patents instead of paying to use them


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opelmanta1900
7 years ago
If you wanna get murdered in China, my guess is that attempting to start a workers union is amongst the quickest ways...

But as much as I hate our unions, They were good at one time, and they could be good for China for a time...
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Krazeehorse
7 years ago
I think the tariff situation will be short term pain for long term gain. It would work more quickly if we got our allies to adopt similar policies. The Chinese are without a doubt the United States' biggest threat, both economically and militarily. No need to feed the beast.
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dstieger
7 years ago
A bit ironic in that many (most?) people would associate unions with socialism or even communism
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Krazeehorse
7 years ago
One key difference is that American unions would strike against private entities, not the government. Plus if it got really rough the union people had guns.
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opelmanta1900
7 years ago
Again, self proclaimed idiot on these things, but it seems to me that unions in America once did what the government wouldn't...

But now the government has and enforces laws that protect worker safety, worker treatment, and even guarantees them a minimum pay...

Unions lost their relevancy, but not their thirst for money...
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dstieger
7 years ago

I think the tariff situation will be short term pain for long term gain. It would work more quickly if we got our allies to adopt similar policies. The Chinese are without a doubt the United States' biggest threat, both economically and militarily. No need to feed the beast.

Krazeehorse wrote:




I agree that they are a big threat...but I'm uncertain as to what that means.
I guess the US is going to figure that out if we want to change that.
Do we see a risk of a hot war in the future? If so, do we want to avoid it? Do we avoid it through diplomacy and statesmanship or military deterrence?
What does it mean for them to be an economic threat? Is China/US economic relationship a zero sum gain?
I'm ok with them succeeding economically, if they play by rules that we agree are 'fair'.

So....I'm also an idiot on the topic, but I think that if China were to
-Stop (and reverse?) their South China Sea island building and occupying
-Respect and enforce intellectual property rights
-Reduce (not necessarily remove) barriers to US commercial participation, especially tech
-Stop manipulating the value of their currency...or at least not manipulate it any more than we do
-Get a bit more like us with regards to freedoms and human rights

If they would just be more like us.....
:)
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Krazeehorse
7 years ago
I agree with both #7 and #8. I think one risk economically is that American companies may feel their hands are forced in order to compete with the Chinese in the world market. If the Chinese don't pay their workers and don't show any regard to environmental concerns then they definitely have lower production costs than a similar product made in the US. A buyer in BFE is gonna go with the cheap one IF quality isn't an issue.
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DrafterX
7 years ago
I heard TW took some Chinese Viagra and it made it fall off... 😟
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dstieger
7 years ago
Population control?
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teedubbya
7 years ago
It's just like any other tax intended to influence behavior. Gas tax, slurpee tax etc. You are implementing a tax to get someone to act like you want them to or pay for not doing so.


Then it comes down to which behavioral taxes you support and which you do not. And in this case the retaliatory tax the Chinese are imposing on their folks to change behavior in the other direction


Despite what grand master T says, the "tarrifs" we implemented on Chinese goods are paid by Americans and do not bring in money from China. They should be called increased taxes on American citizens choosing to buy Chinese products. But that doesn't sound very low taxy or less governmenty.


I actually think it's not a bad idea if we stick to it for the long haul and it's not just a short term thing for political purposes. We do need to level the playing field. My only issue is the constant lying about what it really is.

Then again I have no issue with gas taxes, tobacco taxes etc. to a degree.

It's all about which ox you are ok with getting gored. Or something like that.
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teedubbya
7 years ago

I heard TW took some Chinese Viagra and it made it fall off... 😟

DrafterX wrote:




I got peronies from it and it became an ingrown hair. We had to pluck it.
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opelmanta1900
7 years ago




Despite what grand master T says, the "tarrifs" we implemented on Chinese goods are paid by Americans and do not bring in money from China. They should be called increased taxes on American citizens choosing to buy Chinese products. But that doesn't sound very low taxy or less governmenty.

teedubbya wrote:


Only paid by Americans if they continue purchasing goods produced in China - goods produced unethically and at the cost of our planet and our own economy...

If it's something China manufactures and we don't, it's because China undercut our manufacturing costs through unethical means...
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delta1
7 years ago
it's more complicated, but I'm not very knowledgeable about int'nl trade either....China's economy is intertwined with the US economy...there are thousands of US companies with factories or production plants in China, to exploit cheap labor...if Trump is serious about improving trade with China, he would develop economic policies to incentivize American companies to return home, or to punish them for moving off-shore...

http://www.jiesworld.com/international_corporations_in_china.htm 

that's not going to happen...an example is Harley Davidson, who said they would stay while Trump was campaigning, then left anyway for greener pastures...


imposing tariffs only raises the costs for American consumers, and marginally affects demand for Chinese goods, which can be sold elsewhere...so Trump should band together with all the other nations that are markets for Chinese goods, to work out a trade agreement...oh shucks, he backed out of TPP...


so , Trump's America First nationalism may be a policy objective that sounds good, and appeals to a small segment of Americans who want to make America great again by going it alone, but ignores the globalization that is rapidly becoming the standard world economic practice, and America should try to reassert and maintain leadership towards that effort, by partnering with a greater number of countries with diverse markets and resources to increase our bargaining position, which will benefit us more...
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opelmanta1900
7 years ago
Al, the "globalization that is rapidly becoming the standard economic practice" that you speak of is exactly what we need to get away from...

If a Chinese made product is manufactured in an environmentally safe way and the producers of that good are paid decent, livable wages, then there's no way that product is financially worth shipping to America...

What makes that product valuable to Americans is low manufacturing cost, which is achieved through worker exploitation and environmental damage...
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teedubbya
7 years ago

Only paid by Americans if they continue purchasing goods produced in China - goods produced unethically and at the cost of our planet and our own economy...

If it's something China manufactures and we don't, it's because China undercut our manufacturing costs through unethical means...

opelmanta1900 wrote:




No argument here. Still a tax designed to address a behavior someone decided is undesirable just like smoking, fossil fuels and big gulps/ junk food. It's always good to be the decider.


But unlike those others there is another decider on the other side that can impose their own on their own people.
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delta1
7 years ago

Al, the "globalization that is rapidly becoming the standard economic practice" that you speak of is exactly what we need to get away from...

If a Chinese made product is manufactured in an environmentally safe way and the producers of that good are paid decent, livable wages, then there's no way that product is financially worth shipping to America...

What makes that product valuable to Americans is low manufacturing cost, which is achieved through worker exploitation and environmental damage...

opelmanta1900 wrote:




we can influence how other producers operate more effectively by partnering and becoming bigger than them...by isolating ourselves and insisting they follow our rules is like a little monkey telling the gorilla to shape up or else...we are not able to close off the other markets to China, without partnership agreements (globalization)...we do not have enough materiel to go it alone, and the American consumer will not tolerate paying multiple times the cost of goods...


by partnering with more countries who share our values, we can try to get China to budge in how they pay their workers and how they regulate their industries...it worked with the Mexican economy, though they were a midget compared to China
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dstieger
7 years ago
picking nits, but you've mentioned gas tax a couple times, tw and I don't think that is in the same category...at least not on the fed level

I see it as a means to pay for transportation costs moreso than to change behavior -- if it were more of a sin tax, it would have gone up more than once in the past 25 years to something far greater than the .18 or whatever it is now.
Hopefully, some of that tax also goes to the cost of regulating it...epa, weights and measures, etc
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opelmanta1900
7 years ago
Al, No amount of "partnering" with a communistic government will ever achieve livable wages for the people...
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