Don't Worry, China Buys Stuff From The US, Too
from the back-and-forth-trade dept
There's no doubt that one of the biggest threats to China's seemingly boundless economic growth is the prospect of protectionism in the US. Politicians in the US have a number of reasons for wanting to limit trade with China, including China's expanding reserve of US currency and the perceived "threat" of cheap foreign labor and goods. However, while politicians like to pander to worried voters (particularly around election time), many know that any protectionist measures would hurt the US economy equally, so they try to walk a fine line. The Chinese government is, of course, cognizant of all these political issues, so it'll do anything it can to present itself as friendly economic partner, as opposed to an adversary. Along these lines, a delegation of Chinese business leaders has announced that the country will buy over $4 billion worth of technology goods from 27 US companies, including Microsoft, Oracle and Cisco. At a ceremony, the the delegation was joined by California's lieutenant governor to trumpet the deals as an important step in the relationship between the the US and China. Ultimately, though, this is all just a political show. $4 billion is a drop in the bucket compared to the US' annual trade deficit with China. Furthermore, Chinese industrial firms have already been rapidly upping their investments in IT so as to better compete on the global stage, so it's likely that these deals would've happened anyway, even without the desire to address political concerns in the US.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Outsourcing
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Re: Outsourcing
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Rational people argue that the Chinese government's currency market interventions to keep the yuan undervalued vs. the dollar is, in fact, a mercantilist policy that distorts competitive advantage and undermines the classical economic idea that "free trade is good for all."
While I don't necessarily agree, the author of this write-up comes across as naive, ignorant and arrogant, in my opinion.
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Cost to make a BILLION illegal copies of Vista: $3,999,999,601.00
That makes $4 billion invested in US high tech. Case closed.
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Don't forget
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Trade deficit with China
Somehow I doubt a promise of buying 4 billion dollars of anything is going to make much of a difference.
"Considering that we have an unemployment rate of 4.5% right now"
The unemployment rate does not reflect the amount of people that are out of work in the US. The real figure is getting close to 20% according to some reports I have read. This is because the unemployment rate only indicate those Americans actively looking for jobs and not those who have been discouraged from job hunting. The statistic itself has come under question as it is a poor indicator of the amount of people that our currently out of the labor force.
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spelling nazi
by=buy
It's hard to trade evenly with a country that purposely undervalues it's currency and in fact indexes it against the US dollar.
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Possibly.... but I don't know a single soul right now that actually wants a job and can't find one (which is unusual with some of the people I know... lol). I get calls weekly from headhunters, employment agencies, contract companies... asking me if I'm looking for a job.
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Re:
Sounds like you skills are in demand. This may or may not be true for the rest of your fellow Americans. Since we can never have a real discourse politically about the unemployed people of America it is hard to tell.
If there where plenty of jobs that start at $20 a hour I could agree with you. I know a LOT of out of work Boeing employees who just refuse to get work at $15 or less an hour.
So while I agree anyone who wants a job can get one at Mcdonalds not very many people want this type of job or any other minimum pay no benefit joe-job where the treat you like a piece of poop.
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wow
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hmmm
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They are buying our $ paper
To be honest, it is stupid to hold IOU like that. At least, you can invest them into something.
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Unfortunately, that doesn't even come close to the amount of money we're sending back the other direction. In fact, their investment into out technology will simply further increase our cashflow in their direction. This is a sign we're going further backwards, not forwards.
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simple really
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You Have A Choice
Don't forget that you have a choice when you spend your money. I always look at the "Made in ..." label and if it says "China" I check all the other products to see if I can find something "Made in USA". If not the USA then I will select any other country before China.
I never shop at Wal-Mart for the siimple reason that they have practically mandated that all their manufacturing be done in China. I will pay an extra 10-20% for a "Made in USA" product simply because I understand that this purchase helps support American workers.
In fact, Wal-Mart could single-handedly help to reverse this trend if they would simply commit to trying to market a "Made in USA" alternative wherever possible. As they struggle to find a way to burnish their image, perhaps ooe of their managers will stumble upon this idea.
Now this isn't always possible but if more of us paid attention to the label as a component of the purchase decision then we would see a change in the trend and we would begin to have more control over our own destiny as suppliers recognized the trend.
In my view, China views the game as economic warfare and they are playing for keeps. We have sat passively by as they have usurped a dominant portion of the world's manufacturing capacity. I understand the logic of free trade and globalization but we have to hold China to a standard of free and fair trade that will allow us to compete effectively in those areas where we have competitive advantage.
Ken Stadlin
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I don't worry about the US-China deficit and neith
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Don't worry, just be happy (Corporations new anthe
We have all had plenty of plenty of "Let the market handle it" talk over the last 30 years. The market ain't handling it for the little guy anymore and it is only benefiting a small amount of people. The time for ignoring what we can do to make are lives better is over.
There are solutions to the problems of our market economy and sooner or later we will have to implement them. Otherwise we will end up with our own personal third world country inside the United States. Already 50+ Million people are living below poverty levels that are set to $16,000 for a family of four.
I dare anyone who thinks the poor people in this country are well off to live off this meager amount of money.
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Re: Don't worry, just be happy (Corporations new a
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absolutely right,there is nothing to worry about
AmeriChinaB2B (www.acb2b.com; www.acb2b.cn) are the most visited US-China business to business (B2B) platforms in China. More China suppliers visit AmeriChinaB2B’s websites than any other similar websites. AmeriChinaB2B offers three levels of services to help you to sell directly to China: Free Services, Serious Buyer Services, Completed Door to Door Services
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