BF2S Forums Fixing America's trade

SuperJail Warden wrote:

Cybargs wrote:

SuperJail Warden wrote:

Tariffs directed specifically at China would be a really dumb thing to do. I meant I expect him to put a tariff on something like imports on a certain kind of wood or minor specialized electronics. Then he can go to American factories and talk about how many jobs he saved with his tariff.

China makes americans pay almost double what other countries pay for visa's entering china. it's part of their diplomacy tool box.

Neat. What does that have to do with my post?

they do the exact same for american products.

threatening to cancel boeing orders over taiwan, put major tarrifs on major american agricultural imports.

state owned enterprises still play a major role in their economy, adding on to trade barriers their essentially protecting their own industries. Why shouldn't america respond in a similar fashion?

SuperJail Warden wrote:

Okay but my post was about Trump. You can find someone else to argue the logic of tariffs.

and same here. he's just doing a tit for tat to what china does to every single american import.

Pocshy2.0 wrote:

I don't know if this has been said yet (and I'm not reading the preceding 3 pages to find out), but why bother talking about a trade deficit figure that focuses on goods? Who cares? Shouldn't we want that if America is an advanced nation? Aren't we concerned with services, especially financial services?

The "we don't have to worry about a trade deficit in goods because we will make up the difference in services" argument has been running 30-40 years now and shows no sign of coming good, so its a safe bet its not going to happen ever.
Plus countries like China are now sufficiently advanced they don't need your services, so there's no reason for it to happen.

The US can continue running a deficit with China, while even less developed countries buy their services from China, not America.
Not to hard see where that's going to lead.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2016-12-23 00:52:37)

That and actuaries and lawyers don't have any real work to do without primary industry to support them in the long term.
There can be a 30 year overhang as industry goes through its death throes, then nothing.

Here its predicted that half of lawyers will be redundant in the next 5-10 years, its already a bloodbath with legal firms collapsing and fighting for work, at the same time everything is going to arbitration instead of court as people get smarter and meaner.

Jay wrote:

Dilbert_X wrote:

Pocshy2.0 wrote:

I don't know if this has been said yet (and I'm not reading the preceding 3 pages to find out), but why bother talking about a trade deficit figure that focuses on goods? Who cares? Shouldn't we want that if America is an advanced nation? Aren't we concerned with services, especially financial services?

The "we don't have to worry about a trade deficit in goods because we will make up the difference in services" argument has been running 30-40 years now and shows no sign of coming good, so its a safe bet its not going to happen ever.
Plus countries like China are now sufficiently advanced they don't need your services, so there's no reason for it to happen.

The US can continue running a deficit with China, while even less developed countries buy their services from China, not America.
Not to hard see where that's going to lead.

They have to spend their dollars somewhere

it's only a matter of time before the average quality
of their goods and services reaches western norms. it's not exactly beyond their ability. there's already a busy industry in technological and industrial plagiarism. they are learning fast. we can't bank on something forever being more desirable because it was 'made in the usa'. that might work for a fender guitar now but it won't work in the future.

what the west will retain a lead in is some 'luxury' or 'prestige' goods, for e.g. elite educations and fancy cars or fashion brands. you can't sustain an advanced economy and society on those petrol fumes, though. we need something else for our own populations. better yet, we should go for fully automated luxury communism, or a universal basic income and redistribution of the wealth we do have to work with. otherwise our traditional labour base are going to become a braying crowd of disaffected fascists.

Last edited by uziq (2016-12-23 03:13:38)

uziq wrote:

Jay wrote:

Dilbert_X wrote:

The "we don't have to worry about a trade deficit in goods because we will make up the difference in services" argument has been running 30-40 years now and shows no sign of coming good, so its a safe bet its not going to happen ever.
Plus countries like China are now sufficiently advanced they don't need your services, so there's no reason for it to happen.

The US can continue running a deficit with China, while even less developed countries buy their services from China, not America.
Not to hard see where that's going to lead.

They have to spend their dollars somewhere

it's only a matter of time before the average quality
of their goods and services reaches western norms. it's not exactly beyond their ability. there's already a busy industry in technological and industrial plagiarism. they are learning fast. we can't bank on something forever being more desirable because it was 'made in the usa'. that might work for a fender guitar now but it won't work in the future.

what the west will retain a lead in is some 'luxury' or 'prestige' goods, for e.g. elite educations and fancy cars or fashion brands. you can't sustain an advanced economy and society on those petrol fumes, though. we need something else for our own populations. better yet, we should go for fully automated luxury communism, or a universal basic income and redistribution of the wealth we do have to work with. otherwise our traditional labour base are going to become a braying crowd of disaffected fascists.

I meant it literally. Dollars are useless to them in their own economy, they have to spend them. Whether it's in services or buying our treasury bonds or buying real estate or trading with other countries that accept dollars, the money has to be spent. When we go to the money changer it seems automatic, but there has to be someone on the other side that is willing to buy our money in order for the conversion to happen. Your pounds aren't destroyed and euros created, a swap has to occur. The Chinese aren't going to just toss trillions of dollars into a vault and sit on it, it would be destroyed by inflation. So they spend it. It's how trade works.

And seriously consider changing your name to pessimiq.

uziq wrote:

Jay wrote:

Dilbert_X wrote:

The "we don't have to worry about a trade deficit in goods because we will make up the difference in services" argument has been running 30-40 years now and shows no sign of coming good, so its a safe bet its not going to happen ever.
Plus countries like China are now sufficiently advanced they don't need your services, so there's no reason for it to happen.

The US can continue running a deficit with China, while even less developed countries buy their services from China, not America.
Not to hard see where that's going to lead.

They have to spend their dollars somewhere

it's only a matter of time before the average quality
of their goods and services reaches western norms. it's not exactly beyond their ability. there's already a busy industry in technological and industrial plagiarism. they are learning fast. we can't bank on something forever being more desirable because it was 'made in the usa'. that might work for a fender guitar now but it won't work in the future.

what the west will retain a lead in is some 'luxury' or 'prestige' goods, for e.g. elite educations and fancy cars or fashion brands. you can't sustain an advanced economy and society on those petrol fumes, though. we need something else for our own populations. better yet, we should go for fully automated luxury communism, or a universal basic income and redistribution of the wealth we do have to work with. otherwise our traditional labour base are going to become a braying crowd of disaffected fascists.

It costs china more money to produce high quality goods than western countries. It's not about whether they can do it or not, it's whether it'll be cost effective.

cost of doing business in china is quite high and it's getting more expensive. their double digit GDP growth also meant income has been skyrocketing.

what i'm really scared of is china's possible and upcoming real estate bubble which is essentially the driving force of their economy now. if it ever crashes i doubt they'll ever recover ala japan.

Even if America collapses at least westerners get to watch China put itself in debt with stupid interventions in Africa for the remainder of the 21St century.

Second time on the same page you miss the point of my post to drop some China facts on me.