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China Plans Domestic Software Quotas
October_30th writes "In order to fight the alleged Microsoft monopoly, the Chinese government is establishing quotas for foreign software. While the details are still unclear, the government may require that up to 70% of software on Chinese computers is produced domestically. Regulations like this are, of course, expected to come under fierce criticism from the WTO."
You can't convict somebody of being a monopolist, there is legally nothing wrong with having a monopoly in any given market. You can however convict a company of not acting responsibly with the monopoly that they hold.
Bullshit.
There were no such laws passed in the US. There were a whole lot of "Buy American" calls from workers and some politicians but there were no laws passed because it is illegal under the WTO and it anti-competitive behaviour and most people who understand the free-market knows that it would be counterproductive.
Japanese auto-makers opened American plants because during much it was much cheaper to produce the vehicles and sell them locally rather than import them from Japan (or elsewhere) where you are subject to import duties and the vagaries of fiscal economics where the fluctation of currencies can erode profits.
People, please mod the parent post down appropiately.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
America is the continent dipshit.
And Americans are the people who live in the United States of America.
Try telling a Canadian or a Mexican that he's American.
MoFscker
A recent Goldman Sachs article says employment has shifted to low wage sectors. In other words, it's easy to get a minimum wage job; not a real job that can pay the mortgage. Secondly, Labor force participation is way down. This is a better measure of unemployment. Lot's of folks have just given up. The Bush administration is lying about the growth rate and the unemployment rate. The growth rate is more like 0% and the unemployment rate is more like 10%.
I think you got it wrong. Everybody is sick of Bush.
nothing but anecdotal "evidence"
Evidence for dramatic decline in labor force participation:
St. Louis Federal Reserve Data"
This the real "unemployment" measure. It's down
to the rate in 1980s; after a decade of mass immigration and as the echo-baby boom enters the work force. The Bush administration does not count "contractors" who can't get new contracts and people who haven't found a job in more than 6 months.
Uh. 2 other points: Dukakis was a governor.
How is his voting record comparable with Senator Kerry? Also, It's John Edwards who's gonna kick draft-dodger Bush/Cheney's ass.
Japan placed voluntary restrictions on exports to the
l 7 81-32.html
United States of cotton goods (1957), steel (1969),
wool and synthetic fibers (1972), color televisions (1977),
and automobiles (1981).
http://www.jinjapan.org/access/trade/friction.htm
http://www.cpas.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp/cis/asia/eng/85-H
Between Nov 03 and Dec 03, the participation rate went from 66.2% to 66.0%, unemployment rate thus went from 5.9% to 5.7% and everyone hooted and hollered over it. The reason for the drop in unemployment was a net of ~538,000 people dropping out of the work force. The size of the work force and thus the enemployment rate grew between Dec 03 and Jan 04.
The scenario pointed out does happen.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm
St. Louis Federal Reserve Data
This the real "unemployment" measure. It's down to the rate in 1980s; after a decade of mass immigration and as the echo-baby boom enters the work force. The Bush administration does not count "contractors" who can't get new contracts and people who haven't found a job in more than 6 months.Nice use of selective data.
Please try the 56-year-view instead of the 5-year-view you posted.
For those not willing to look, job force participation peaked at about 67.5% in 1999 or so (it's about 66% now). But it's been on a pretty steady rise from 58% or so since 1948. And FWIW, job-force participation probably rose since 1948 because of increasing number of women in the workforce. Please note that there are a lot of factors that effect job force participation ("baby-boom echo" having kids, more moms deciding to stay at home, etc). The parent poster blithely blames this on Bush, after selecting the data he wants to prove his point.
Uh. 2 other points: Dukakis was a governor.
How is his voting record comparable with Senator Kerry?
Kerry was Dukakis's Lieutenant Governer, IIRC. And Kerry's the the most liberal Senator.
Also, It's John Edwards who's gonna kick draft-dodger Bush/Cheney's ass.
He'd better decide to win at least one primary before the convention, then. Coming in a close second in one out of every 18 or so isn't going to work.
IIRC:
Americans work the most hours on average, but are NOT the most productive on average per hour worked - they rank 3rd there, I think. The researchers explained it with some relatively simple logic: after X number of hours, you start to lose some productivity. Sounds reasonable to me. They still win the overall productivity per worker prize, which isn't too shabby.
And, BTW, you look like a fool when you say "USian" (I am NOT calling you a fool, only saying you appear as one to someone who doesn't know you, such as myself). People who live in the USA are "Americans". People who live in North Americans are called "North Americans". People who live in South America are called "South Americans". There is no continent called "America", last time I checked, and thus there is no reason to get confused unless you're a total moron. By the same token, calling Mexicans "Americans" is idiotic, too, because they're not. They're "North Americans".
Sorry about that, but it's a pet peeve. Just refer to residents of the United States as that ("residents of the US"), if you can't bear to bring yourself to say the hated term "American" (which, you know, is accurate: "United States of America". Hence, "American", for the last word).
-Erwos
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
You're confusing a single economic policy with an entire socio-economic political philosophy there. The governments of most countries were protectionist prior to the mid-XIX century (for instance, England had the infamous "Corn Laws" and "Navigation Acts"; and, in the U.S., the New England States nearly seceded in the late 1820's over tariffs), but that didn't make these governments socialist in the least. It was classical liberalism (today's conservatism, at least in economics) that proposed free trade. Quite the contrary, as modern socialism didn't even exist then.
In fact, IIRC, isn't Marxism opposed to tariffs, at least in theory? Aren't they mostly used to become economicly self-sustaining, so socialist states don't need to rely on their capitalist opponents? I could be wrong on that, it's been a long time since I delved very deep into the subject.
China is not a "communist dictatorship." Take a trip over there and see for your own eyes. America is far more restrictive than China - in everyday life. There is a lot of freedom in China. Yes, it's one party, yet people come to consensus and make a decision. It's not one dude making all of the decisions. My fiance is a Chinese Communist Party Member and she has lots of say. Tell her she's in a dictatorship and she will roll her eyes. Enlighten yourself. Thanks. P
I'm not sure why such vague flamebaiting by an AC was modded up so highly, but if anyone wants to examine the issues beyond nationalistic ranting, you might take a look at what the US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick said on the issue U.S.-China Trade Relations in a recent speech at the Asia Society.
China is a vast nation with great diversity matched by a turbulent history. If current trends continue, sometime in the 2030s China will become the world's largest economy. Trade with China is crucial to the economic well-being of both the U.S. and the planet.
Soemthing similar happened with hardware and software in Brazil in the 80s.
Eventually, the exception system was widely abused. Some companies used the protection to develop, some companies suffered of the lack of competition.
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
- the Conprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)
- the Treaty Banning Antipersonnel Mines
- the Rome Statue of the Internaitonal Criminal Court (ICC)
- a protocol to create a compliance regime for the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC)
- the Kyoto Protocol
- the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
The report continues: "The U.S. is also not complying with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the Chemical Weapons Commission (CWC), the BWC, and the UN framework Convention on Climate Change". And as the parent comment mentions, there are plenty of violations of the WTO as well.Dear Mr Bush: It's not your 'FREEDOM' that the terrorists don't like...
Ho! Haha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! Thrust!
The parent poster was not wrong. Legal standards to claim a vehicle is "US made" mandate a 70% domestic parts content. Read the post carefully before asking for it to be censored.
Boycott everything - they're all trying to fuck you one way or another
The long term is not entirely how you think it really is. My father worked as Plant President of one of these "sweat shops" in the car industry. His hardest decision was whether or not to employ child labor.
The problem of child labor and the labor conditions is that what we consider right and what the people of the country consider right are two entirely different things. That is the entire problem in a nutshell.
In the case of child labor my father could have not employed children and that would solve nothing as the child would get work elsewhere. Or he could employ child labor with a minium age of say 12 and make sure that they do work which they can, get a fair wage like other workers and if possible get the entire family to work there. At least under those circumstances child labor is least disruptive for all those concerned.
Now about cheap labor? Well with time cheap becomes more expensive and people's standard of living improves. I have seen it happen in many countries and it will continue to happen.
HOWEVER, and here is what I think the root of the problem is. Many "non civilised" countries are becoming very bright and adept at doing what we took for granted (eg software, design, hardware). And that hurts because it shows Western Civilization better wake and start smelling the coffee!
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
There is precedent for this in the EU television Directive of 1989.
That Directive requires that European broadcasters reserve a majority of broadcast time for European works.
If China is attacked under WTO rules, they can point to this unfortunate precedent for cultural protectionism.
Lenz Blog
This only applies to one particular country on a reduced time scale, however. As global economic integration progresses, the amount of additional net wealth produced by free trade is bound to "trickle down" to the global (but not necessarily every local) labour market again in the form of increased economic growth, which means more jobs overall.
Hell, we could double your example Chinese worker's salary at a cost of much less than $.25 per T-Shirt. How would this be a bad thing? My point here is that there is no real economic reason for garment workers to be so economicly screwed.
You are engaging in wishful-thinking-economics. Since one white cotton T-shirt can basically be substituted for any other white cotton T-shirt, the T-Shirt market is extremely elastic, that is, suppliers that can provide a shipload of T-shirts for just $10 less than their competitor will get the contract from the supermarket chain, no matter whether or not the individual customer would have been ready to pay $0.25 more or not. If the supermarket chain would indeed add, as a bonus, $0.25 per shirt to benefit the labourers, it would quickly be outperformed by other, not-so-generous supermarket chains, retail margins being extremely low as they are. Suppliers would, as well, underbid each other by approximately $0.25/shirt to get the contract that is now worth $0.25/shirt more to them.
This is called "market economy". Its mechanics have been well understood ever since Smith and Riccardo, and there is indeed a rational reason why trade flows are what they are. To change the equilibrium result, e.g. to raise Chinese worker's salaries, some form of government intervention would be required, which by definition would destroy some measure of wealth by disrupting the equilibrium.
Consider, though, that every single Chinese worker works at $0.25/shirt not because the State forces her to (China is now capitalist in all but name), but because she considers herself better off in that position than in any other (e.g. unemployed, other job). If any social engineering remains to be done, then, it's up to the Chinese government to institute it (e.g. with minimum wage laws), and not the U.S. or European taxpayer.
I'm not a professional economist, but here's what I can summarize from that:
1. Trade doesn't effect wages - Wages depend on supply and demand curves. But trade isn't really about wages, trade is about goods. And with trade, both parties have more goods than they would have without goods. This is the only case in economics where a 'free lunch' exists. Standard of Living isn't how much money you make, but how much stuff you can buy with it. Free trade makes things much cheaper for everyone.
2. Because free trade both destroys some jobs (from importing), and creates others (from exporting), the net effect is 0. From what I read I can disagree with this most strongly. By preventing imports, and thus increasing prices, consumers have less money with which to spend on other goods or to invest in other businesses. This means that while the protected industry retains their jobs, other businesses will be unable to create new jobs. Now the question is whether the amount of new jobs created will be greater than the amount of jobs that would be lost. From what I've read, the net effect is usually positive (at least in the long run, and maybe this is where the discrepency resides), contrary to what Dr. Sykes reports.
But the true benefit of trade is less about jobs and wages, and more about getting stuff for cheaper. That is, the benefit of trade is exemplified in that $3 T-shirt you got at Wal-mart.
Corporations: your universal scapegoat for all society's ills.
You may or may not have a point about software. The difference to other industries are the extreme network effects. This requires some more thought than can be put in this /. post.
The problem with most of the replies here is that they didn't read the article.
requiring a minimum percentage of software purchased by the government be produced in China
So, please, don't cry about companies not being able to choose the best tool. They can. It's more like the decision of the Munich local government. But it seems most of the US-based commenters lose their ability of independent thoughts when it comes to China.
Move Sig. For great justice.
I saw what China's government stood for when I saw the footage of the pro-democracy protesters at Tian'anmen Square being shot in the back of the head. I need no "enlightenment" to recognize a government dedicated to the opposite of freedom. I use the term "dictatorship" even though it is not perfectly accurate for China. Wen Jiabao is not actually a true autocrat. Currently it appears that the Chinese government is changing from a dictatorship to a Facism. I said "dictatorship" in a rather broad sense because there is no better term that I'm aware of.
"Mission Accomplished" -- George W. Bush May 1, 2003