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China Probes US Renewable Energy Policy
PolygamousRanchKid writes "China's Commerce Ministry on Friday announced an investigation into U.S. government policy and subsidy support for renewable energy, after a U.S. decision earlier this month to probe sales of Chinese-made solar panels in the United States. 'The Ministry of Commerce has decided to initiate a trade barrier investigation into policy support and subsidies for the U.S. renewable energy sector,' a statement on the ministry's website (www.mofcom.gov.cn) said. The announcement said Chinese companies argued that the U.S. policies 'constitute a trade barrier against the export of Chinese renewable energy products to the United States.'"
Harley was nearly shuttered due to bad management and an image which the mass market didn't want to be associated with. They would never be able to compete on price with Honda or Suzuki. Their saving grace was a genious marketing manager who turned the "biker gang" image into a "weekend warrior" image.
Their financial problems started long before cheaper bikes being imported.
Harley was nearly shuttered because of their engineering and managerial incompetence. Congress's solution made the problem worse: they instituted an enormous tariff on any motorcycle with more than 700cc of engine displacement. This just meant that the Japanese manufacturers subsequently figured out how to wring absurdly large amounts of horsepower from small-displacement engines, while Harley continued to sit around with their thumbs up their asses. Today, any of the big four Japanese makes produce a bike with a 600cc engine that produces over a hundred horsepower, whereas a 1200cc Harley engine struggles to break 45hp. So the Japanese companies sell all kinds of bikes to every market all over the world while Harley sells gaudy, incompetent cruisers to an increasingly aging market of American fanboys.
That's a drastic oversimplification of the thing, from what I've read, so much so that it's hardly a fact. The loan was neither approved nor approved of during the Bush administration.
Yes, the loan program that Solyndra was approved under was started during the Bush administration. Yes, Solyndra was selected as a possible loanee during the Bush administration. No, the loan was not approved during the Bush administration. The loan went up for review before Obama took office and was denied. (Note that that doesn't mean the Bush administration was necessarily opposed to the loan.) During the Obama administration it was revived and revised. It was pushed forward more quickly than some were comfortable with, with groundbreaking ceremonies being planned and scheduled while review of the loan was still pending. Communications show the worry that officials had that the groundbreaking would be leaked just before the OMB might recommend against the loan.
I'm not trying to take a side either way here, just fill in some details. Maybe it will help prevent the "partisan pissing content" and flamewars you seem to want to provoke.
I vote based on politicians' actions, unless contrary to my preconceptions. Often wrong, never uncertain. #iamthe99%
and lots of inflation
That/s pretty much true and in fact on-going in China. But it raises the question whether it is effective at all to manipulate one's currencies. Today, the Japanese Yen, Taiwanese Dollar, Korean Won, etc all have a lower exchange rates than that of Yuan. Yen is like 80:1 against USD, while Yuan is 6:1. But we don't seem to complain too much about Japanese manipulation of Yen. Why? Because the wage inflation in Japanese has pushed up the final cost. Today, inflation is running high in China; market force would have restored the true market costs which are not that high given there are something like 1 billion laborers. The cost advantage in China is mainly due to its massive supply of labor -- simple supply and demand.
Another interesting thing in China is the black market which is prevalent there. Like the Intel processors in most PCs are smuggled into China. Same for Yuan. Back in the early 1990's, the official rate was 3:1, but nobody exchanged at that rate. The black market rate at that time was 8:1, 2.5 times lower than official rate. Eventually, the Chinese government gave up and reset the rate to 8:1. Today, there is still the black market for currecies, but the rate is pretty much close to the official rate. (There are limited "white" markets for Yuan in Hongkong now, trading in amount of the billions of Yuan, at a slighly lower rate for Yuan.) Would that signal the official rate is in fact not too much different than what a free market would support?
The invisible hand exists even if the official market is not really free. And why didn't our politicians make such complain back in the 1990's but do now? It feels like the accusation are at least partially an excuse made up by our politicians to hide their own ineffectiveness.
So in the list of people involved with the loans:
* homeowner
* mortgage company employee
* loan approval officer
* mortgage security trader
* investor
* ratings company employee
you want to blame, for the collapse of our economy, the one person who has no financial training nor any responsibility beyond their one tiny loan? That's taking "blame the victim" to new levels.
There are lots of books which try to explain all the problems leading up to the recession; I recommend "All the Devils Are Here". Please read one or more before you try to blame the crisis on any one group or on any simple cause. It took lots of effort by many many people who knew better to cause it.
Actually, your free trade agreements are usually weapons written by the RIAA, MPAA, Big Tobacco and Big Pharma to neuter foreign countries with policies they don't like, often including collateral damage to the United States itself. Cases in point the free trade agreement with Australia that allowed British American Tobacco to sue the Australian government for billions in damages because the Australian government passed a law requiring all cigarette packets to be blank (BAT argued that this devalued their trademarks), or the TPPA which will allow Big Pharma to sue the New Zealand government or Medicaid/Medicare for "failing to reflect the value of (the) pharmaceutical patents" during supply negotiations.
So yes, please do stop writing Free Trade Agreements.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".