All the nukes ever made could never destroy the world even once.
You seriously need to take a class in history if you actually believe that.
The Soviet advantage was overstated on nearly all occasions.
The effect of those overstatements was that the US overspent on the military. This led to the Soviet Union increasing spending. Regardless of the Soviet overstatement or not, the effect was the same.
Note that this implmentation detail is still classified, but it doesn't take much more than a proper nuclear lab to figure it out.
You also need a trained mind to do the figuring. The US should not be in the business of training those minds.
Anything can become a weapon.
Tell me how studying French could become a weapon. Tell me how studying anthropology could become a weapon. I can certainly tell you how studying nuclear engineering could become a weapon.
If foreign students from these 12 countries want a US education, then they can study humanities or business or something else that isn't harmful to US interests or the rest of the world. We don't HAVE to teach them nuclear engineering or something that could create a weapon.
As it stands, we don't have the jobs to hire all the educated American citizens we already have. We can't produce the jobs to employ ALL the educated from other countries as well.
If foreign students from these 12 countries want a US education, then they can study humanities or business or something else that isn't questionable. They don't HAVE to learn nuclear engineering or the like.
While your thesis with reguards to China is accurate, you over simplify things.
HELLO! This is Slashdot.
The Soviet Command Economy wasn't terribly interested in a spending war with the US nor is there a great deal of evidance to suggest that increased military spending was responsible for the Soviet Collapse.
Excuse me? Remember the nuclear arms race? When one side had enough nukes to destroy the world five times over, the other side had to get enough nukes to destroy the world ten times over. Then the other side had to get enough to destroy the world twenty times over. This outrageous behavior went on for decades.
Remember all the tanks and planes and conventional weapons that were ready to roll into Europe at a moment's notice? The Soviet Union had numerical superiority in these systems, so the US had to spend $$$ for developing advanced fighters and helicopters in order to take out these Soviet weapons. In the meantime, the Soviets made improvements and churned out more tanks and planes and weapons. And again, this behavior went on for decades.
Remember all the minor wars that we entered in? North Korea and Vietnam both came out of cold war fears. The Soviet Union had Afganistan.
Finally, remember Star Wars? We spent huge sums of money on this, regardless of whether it actually worked or not. Do you honestly believe that the Soviets did not spent gobs of money on something similar?
ALL of these events took massive amounts of money. Given our economy, we were better able to afford these expenditures while the Soviet Union bankrupted itself attempting to compete. Gorbi didn't stand a chance by the time he got into office.
Contrary to popular belife, the construction and development of nuclear weapons technology isn't terribly difficult - just hugely expensive.
Maybe for a uranium nuclear warhead. But, if you want to get into the big leagues with a plutoninum warhead, then the design is considerably more complex.
If you've got access to the materials the actual know how isn't too far off.
We shouldn't make it any easier than you say it already is by also training their personnel.
Its generaly considered a good thing when you've got more than one major power.
Considered a good thing by who? Certainly not the single, major power.
China is a Maoist Oligarchy, not a Communist Dictatorship (such a thing is a contradiction in terms).
And therefore, it's more excusable if we teach Chinese citizens weapons knowledge? The nitpicky details of just how evil China is misses the point. Getting into an argument of the structure of China's government misses the point. China was merely an example of a country where we SHOULDN'T be shipping this information. There is also Cuba, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Libya, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Sudan, and Syria. Stick to the topic.
Taiwan isn't a country... at least it's not internationaly recognised as such.
Again, by who? There are countries that recognize Taiwan. Even so, China has recently made threatening statements to Japan as well because of what Japan puts in its textbooks. Again, stick to the topic.
Sure, Chinese students can go back over to China. But it's not as if what they're studying is classified. US Students can post that same material to the web. US Students can be hired by a Chinese firm. Are we going to start restricting the travel of anyone with a masters in Electrical, Mechanical, Computer, or Nuclear engineering now?
No, it's not classified. However, what they are studying is sensitive information that CAN be used to make weapons. There is no reason whatsoever that we should be training Chinese nuclear engineers. While they MIGHT not go back and make nuclear weapons, they certainly COULD.
As for US students, I'm not worried about them, their loyalties generally lie with the US. They're not likely to go make nuclear weapons for China, Iran, North Korea, etc.
This is not about trading technology. This is about us training their nuclear engineers and other students for weapons. Frankly, we do not need to be exporting those skills to a country that has been openly hostile to us in the past.
If lack of individual freedom was what caused a downfall in the Soviet Union, then we should have already seen China and a great deal of other countries fall. The Soviet Union collapsed because their centrally-controlled economic system was disasterously inefficient and they attempted to get into a defense spending war with the US. They effectively ended up bankrupting themselves.
The countries of concern listed in this article are China, Cuba, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Libya, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Sudan, and Syria. All have relatively different societies in terms of government and individual freedom. All all have great reasons for not sharing sensitive information with them.
The fact of the matter is that academics running their mouths off concerning sensitive data has hurt us significantly. The article even points this out with the example of Qian Xuesen. This guy was a Chinese student in the 1950s who excelled at both the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the California Institute of Technology. He went on to become the father of China's nuclear weapons program.
Now, the last time I checked, the Chinese government is still an evil, Communist dictatorship bent not only on the repression of it's people, but also of local countries such as Taiwan.
It sounds like a great idea to limit information that can be used for military purposes from students out of China. These students are going to go back to China some day. They'll need a job. And heaven knows, their government is going to want to hire them.
Yes, and Indians high school grads are dirt-poor. Many haven't even seen a computer until they reach college. They only get into computer science because that's where the money is.
On the other hand, you have students in developed countries that have worked on computers since before they could walk. They started programming in middle school. Some, like the creator of Firefox, have gone on to work on open source projects and make major contributions before they even finished high school. These students get into computer science because they love it, not because they'll make a great deal of money. (Heaven knows that all computer science jobs are heading overseas.)
In the end, who would you rather hire? Someone who is intelligent, but who hasn't worked with computers long, and is only in it for the money? Or someone who's worked with computers their whole lives, has been programming since they before they hit puberty, and is in it for the love of development?
This is ridiculous. The vast majority of the people in IT have NO use for calculus. The ONLY time I've seen it used is in game development, which is a small part of the overall IT industry.
India is only taking over IT because they're cheap, not because they're better.
The board is not necessarily the primary shareholders. In many cases, the board members are officers that work in the same company. So, you have this circular relationship between board members and the CEO where each is the other's boss. In these cases, there is NO incentive to reduce anyone's pay at all, except of course for the low-level workers.
If China weren't pegging the value of their currency to the dollar, then their "DVD players and other shiny crap" wouldn't be so "cheap-ass". It is exactly this cheapness that is the problem. China pumps up our economy, makes US goods more expensive than theirs, and kills US businesses that don't outsource to China. At some point, China WILL stop pumping up our economy. They'll take all the knowledge learned from outsourced US goods and copy it for their own companies. And no one in the US will be left that knows how to make half this stuff. We'll have created our own competitor while removing our own knowledge on how to compete with them.
Personally, I'd prefer to have the peg removed and have US companies actually have a decent chance in the marketplace against Chinese goods.
Sure. Do you want a reference for the trade imbalance on US ag imports to exports, or for the effects of US subsidies on foreign markets?
Both would be good. I'll start with this one you provided from another thread.
This "flood" coming from America you talk about might have been true at one time. However, the year-to-year trade balance appears to be decreasing, not increasing. If anything, it appears that a "flood" of cheap produce is now heading to the US and swamping American farmers, therefore dramatically increasing our imports.
Me: China can get by on old machinery due to the fact that they have a billion people to throw at them
You: Which makes them less competitive.
How? If they can throw 1, 2, or 3 million people at producing socks, how does that make them LESS competitive? They're still paying their factory workers almost nothing. It's the machinery that costs them money. If they can get by on an older type of machinery, they they're paying almost nothing to produce socks. How does paying almost nothing make them LESS competitive?
Preliminary U.S. data showed a 1,505 percent increase in imports of cotton trousers from China in the first four months of 2005, and increases of 1,346 percent for cotton shirts and 347 percent for cotton and synthetic underwear.
That doesn't sound like they're uncompetitive to me. However, this currency manipulation by the Chinese certainly looks much worse in this light.
Furthermore, growth means *new* production, which means newly acquired machinery.
That's not necessarily true. If you throw more people at production on the old type of machines, then you have growth as well. You make the same kind of sock with an old type of machine that you can with a new machine. It's just that with the new type of machines, you make them much faster. When new-fangled machines cost more than employing a new worker, then you stick with the old machines and just add a bunch of new workers.
Me: China is roughly the size of the US with plenty of its own resources
You: The resources need to supply a billion people for example, they're the second largest importer of oil on the planet. China's exports in the first half of 2000 (first article I found) were 114.5B$, and their imports were 102.1B$. Sustaining a heavy industrial economy requires a lot of imports even in the most mineral-rich places.
From the CIA World Factbook:
Exports: $583.1 billion f.o.b. (2004 est.)
Exports - commodities:
machinery and equipment, plastics, optical and medical equipment, iron and steel
Exports - partners:
US 21.1%, Hong Kong 17.4%, Japan 13.6%, South Korea 4.6%, Germany 4% (2003)
Imports:
$552.4 billion f.o.b. (2004 est.)
Imports - commodities:
machinery and equipment, oil and mineral fuels, plastics, optical and medical equipment, organic chemicals, iron and steel
Imports - partners:
Japan 18%, Taiwan 11.9%, South Korea 10.4%, US 8.2%, Germany 5.9% (2003)
Their low currency can't be hurting them much since they can export much more than they import.
Considering the US receives 21.1% of their exports while only contributing to 8.2% of their imports, I believe that the US has a legitimate complaint regarding China's currency manipulation. This manipulation appears to be done to the express detriment of the US.
If you actually read the article, the only way Washington farmers are competing are by purchasing expensive machines. Even so, this won't last long since Peru is also looking at buying these same machines.
As for your other claim that we're flooding the world markets, give me a reference. As far as I'm concerned, your claims are worthless until substantiated.
On the China machinery claim, that's also worthless. China can get by on old machinery due to the fact that they have a billion people to throw at them. Modern machinery is only necessary when labor is relatively expensive. They don't need to spend the money the US spends on this.
With raw materials, yes they need to spend some money. However, China is roughly the size of the US with plenty of its own resources. On top of that, the majority of the cost of items is labor. And again, labor is so cheap in their country that this is not a major expense.
First off, the agriculture sector in the US is less than 1% of the US economy. Any US subsidy going to the farm sector is insignificant compared to the subsidy that China provides to it's ENTIRE economy by keeping it's currency artificially low. These are orders of magnitude different and therefore not worthy of comparison with one another.
As for saying that poor nations cannot complete, that is not true. Poor nations do not have to hold to US environmental laws. Poor nations do not have to pay the US minimum wage to their workers. Poor nations do not have to pay the US cost of living that US farmers have to pay. I could go on with all the things that poor nations do not have to pay, but I'm sure you get the point.
Finally, it doesn't matter whether the subsidy makes it so that the US food supply is just "enough" or they "flood" the market when it comes to national security. (Where's your source for this flooding claim, by the way?) My definition of "enough" includes much more than what the US would consume in any given year. Your definition of "enough" makes it that much easier to hurt the US in time of war since ANY destruction of the food supply would cause starvation in the population. There is also the need for surplus in time of war in order to feed US allies. In either case, it is in the best interests of the US to produce more than just your definition of "enough".
It is not correct to compare US agriculture subsidies to currency manipulation that undervalues ALL of China's goods up to 40%.
First off, the economic effect is orders of magnitude different. The fact that the US supplies subsidies to one small sector of their own economy does not excuse the massive subsidies China dishes out that effects their entire economy. There are plenty of economic sectors in the US that receive no subsidy.
Second off, there is a compelling national defense interest to having enough domestic food production for your entire population. Should the US be cut off from food suppliers during war time, they want to be able to have food to eat.
Certainly, China could attempt to use national security as an excuse for this action. And I could grant that as reasonable when dealing with military and high-level government systems. However, there are plenty of low-level systems that require no great deal of security. One could reasonably argue that any platform could be put in place on these systems.
It is also not correct to compare China's current actions to US actions in Iraq's contract biddings. Unlike China, the US did not limit those bids to domestic companies only. Companies from outside the country were eligible to bid, granted that they had a policy favorable to the US.
I'm not going to bother considering continuing a serious discussion with someone as ill mannered as you have demonstrated you are
When you speak bullshit, then I'm going to call bullshit. However, if you've noticed, I then go on to explain WHY it is bullshit. It appears that your false indignation hides the fact that you have no rebuttal for my explanations.
I'm not going to tone down my rhetoric just because you want to proceed at the verbal level of a child.
...no more effective than seperating your vaunted government departments and then allaying blame away from certain sectors thereof onto other sectors of the same whole and thus claiming the whole is somehow guiltless.
Our government is not one giant monolith. It is made of separate branches and departments within those branches, each with their own powers, responsibilities, and agendas. If you do not realize that, then you need a civics lesson.
All I can say is if most Americans are like you, I suppose you deserve what you get with regards to your approval of your military and foreign policies.
When I say that our military provides self defense, which includes our economic interests, that is NOT a statement of approval. That is a statement of fact.
We are stable in that we are not having bloody revolutions every few years. Crime is low. Corruption is low. Our police actually protect us and don't expect payment when they pull us over. And while the government may change political parties every few years, not a whole lot changes that much for the average person.
All of these things benefit the rich more than the poor since the rich have more to lose were the government unstable.
Seems that the questionable worth and fairly indisputable bloat of the Interstate highway system is a poor defense to the degree to which you are taxed, what of those of us who have no need for such a road?
Bullshit. While YOU may not use that road on a daily basis, the truck that delivers your groceries, your gas, your clothing, your mail, your chairs, your computers, your etc, etc used that highway. Unless you live like a hermit on a farm, grow your own food, and knit your own clothes, then you ARE dependent on that highway system.
Again, the rich are also the largest consumers with the most goods flowing along the highway system. So again, the rich benefit primarily.
Is it still acceptable that we be forced at the point of a gun to pay for it?
Riiiight... IRS auditors come to your house with guns. Bullshit.
Even if they did, I would say YES. I do think it's perfectly acceptable for them to force you to pay what you owe. You should not get away with paying nothing when I pay my fair share.
You'd think someone were trying to take your candy. Quit whining like a little girl.
Furthermore, keep in mind that government projects are notoriously inefficient compared to their private counterparts, consider the amount of funding spent on the system in it's current incarnation compared to what could have been achieved in a completely voluntary commercial project.
If highways are so profitable, then why don't we have commercial highways everywhere? Traffic is so shitty in so many places that there would be great demand for an extra highway here or there. Hmmm... Must be because companies can make more money elsewhere.
Government must be involved in highway construction because they are the only ones who can make it happen.
If you didn't have such a large military sprawled out all over the world with it's fingers in the various pies of other nation states globally, oftentimes seen as meddling, sometimes leading to direct hostile action on your home country civilians, it'd be questionable how worthwhile this asset is from a standpoint of attempting to minimise invasion of your country, take note
Our interests do not just lie in self defense. It also lies in protecting our economy as well. That is why we have fingers in "various pies of other nation states". That is why again, the military benefits the rich.
I can't believe you're honestly positing your prison system as an asset worth paying for, do you really want to go down this path? I'll give you an option to reconsider, keeping in mind the following;
The prisons only hold the criminals. It's the legislators that decide the laws, the police who capture the criminals, and the judges who convict the criminals.
The prisons are doing their job just as they were designed. They keep criminals from running loose and stealing or damaging your person or property. Again, since the rich hold the most property, prisons benefit the rich the most.
I'm curious about your 95% figure, do you have references to back it up?
BZZT! Wrong. I only said that I had ALSO read that somewhere. It's not my figure, someone ELSE brought it up. Ask THEM for the reference.
40% of your earnings on a 100k salary? so to put this another way 40% of your time wasted in slave labour to a central government authority you do not exercise direct control over? Serious question, how can you possibly promote such blatant theft?
As someone earning more than most people in our economy, a person making $100K gets more benefits than the average person making $43.5K. Since they benefit more from society, it only makes sense that they pay more.
Secondly, someone making that much money can afford to pay a higher percentage than someone making less. The reason someone making $10K is effectively not taxed is because that person needs every single penny to pay rent, electricity, groceries, etc. Someone making $100K can easily cover these necessities, thus giving him considerable discretionary income. A rich person is not hurt as much as a poor person in paying a higher proportion in taxes.
I care less that it would discourage people than the fact that it's just plain wrong, taxation is theft, *especially* to the degree to which it is prevalent in modern life.
I would agree if you got nothing of worth in return. For your money, you get a stable government, a large military to protect our interests, a modern highway system, jails to keep criminals from your belongings and family, etc.
As far as the economic period you mention there, I question both the validity of the 95% figure as well as point out that any increase in production or economy could easily be attributed to wartime more than high taxes.
I have seen that 95% figure as well. It is valid.
The war was over in 1945. One could argue that we did so well in the post war period because everyone else had been bombed to the stone age. Even so, that 95% taxation certainly didn't hurt our economy, although it might hurt it now if it were currently in place. That said, I think we could use higher taxation for the wealthy.
Then again, you are a communist, I assume, and all of this is fairly par for the course for your ilk, yes?
No one here is arguing for complete government control of assets.
Slashdot Mirror
All the nukes ever made could never destroy the world even once.
You seriously need to take a class in history if you actually believe that.
The Soviet advantage was overstated on nearly all occasions.
The effect of those overstatements was that the US overspent on the military. This led to the Soviet Union increasing spending. Regardless of the Soviet overstatement or not, the effect was the same.
Note that this implmentation detail is still classified, but it doesn't take much more than a proper nuclear lab to figure it out.
You also need a trained mind to do the figuring. The US should not be in the business of training those minds.
Anything can become a weapon.
Tell me how studying French could become a weapon. Tell me how studying anthropology could become a weapon. I can certainly tell you how studying nuclear engineering could become a weapon.
If foreign students from these 12 countries want a US education, then they can study humanities or business or something else that isn't harmful to US interests or the rest of the world. We don't HAVE to teach them nuclear engineering or something that could create a weapon.
So what? The UN is not the gold standard of whether a country is internationally recognized or not.
If there are countries that recognize Taiwan, then Taiwan is internationally recognized. And there ARE countries that recognize Taiwan.
As it stands, we don't have the jobs to hire all the educated American citizens we already have. We can't produce the jobs to employ ALL the educated from other countries as well.
If foreign students from these 12 countries want a US education, then they can study humanities or business or something else that isn't questionable. They don't HAVE to learn nuclear engineering or the like.
This is also about the fact that India has nuclear weapons and doesn't appear to be afraid of using them against Pakistan.
While your thesis with reguards to China is accurate, you over simplify things.
HELLO! This is Slashdot.
The Soviet Command Economy wasn't terribly interested in a spending war with the US nor is there a great deal of evidance to suggest that increased military spending was responsible for the Soviet Collapse.
Excuse me? Remember the nuclear arms race? When one side had enough nukes to destroy the world five times over, the other side had to get enough nukes to destroy the world ten times over. Then the other side had to get enough to destroy the world twenty times over. This outrageous behavior went on for decades.
Remember all the tanks and planes and conventional weapons that were ready to roll into Europe at a moment's notice? The Soviet Union had numerical superiority in these systems, so the US had to spend $$$ for developing advanced fighters and helicopters in order to take out these Soviet weapons. In the meantime, the Soviets made improvements and churned out more tanks and planes and weapons. And again, this behavior went on for decades.
Remember all the minor wars that we entered in? North Korea and Vietnam both came out of cold war fears. The Soviet Union had Afganistan.
Finally, remember Star Wars? We spent huge sums of money on this, regardless of whether it actually worked or not. Do you honestly believe that the Soviets did not spent gobs of money on something similar?
ALL of these events took massive amounts of money. Given our economy, we were better able to afford these expenditures while the Soviet Union bankrupted itself attempting to compete. Gorbi didn't stand a chance by the time he got into office.
Contrary to popular belife, the construction and development of nuclear weapons technology isn't terribly difficult - just hugely expensive.
Maybe for a uranium nuclear warhead. But, if you want to get into the big leagues with a plutoninum warhead, then the design is considerably more complex.
If you've got access to the materials the actual know how isn't too far off.
We shouldn't make it any easier than you say it already is by also training their personnel.
Its generaly considered a good thing when you've got more than one major power.
Considered a good thing by who? Certainly not the single, major power.
China is a Maoist Oligarchy, not a Communist Dictatorship (such a thing is a contradiction in terms).
And therefore, it's more excusable if we teach Chinese citizens weapons knowledge? The nitpicky details of just how evil China is misses the point. Getting into an argument of the structure of China's government misses the point. China was merely an example of a country where we SHOULDN'T be shipping this information. There is also Cuba, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Libya, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Sudan, and Syria. Stick to the topic.
Taiwan isn't a country... at least it's not internationaly recognised as such.
Again, by who? There are countries that recognize Taiwan. Even so, China has recently made threatening statements to Japan as well because of what Japan puts in its textbooks. Again, stick to the topic.
Sure, Chinese students can go back over to China. But it's not as if what they're studying is classified. US Students can post that same material to the web. US Students can be hired by a Chinese firm. Are we going to start restricting the travel of anyone with a masters in Electrical, Mechanical, Computer, or Nuclear engineering now?
No, it's not classified. However, what they are studying is sensitive information that CAN be used to make weapons. There is no reason whatsoever that we should be training Chinese nuclear engineers. While they MIGHT not go back and make nuclear weapons, they certainly COULD.
As for US students, I'm not worried about them, their loyalties generally lie with the US. They're not likely to go make nuclear weapons for China, Iran, North Korea, etc.
Like giving weapons knowledge to a evil dictatorship is better than giving it to a evil communist dictatorship.
Why don't you stick to the actual topic instead of starting a debate on whether China is communist or not.
This is not about trading technology. This is about us training their nuclear engineers and other students for weapons. Frankly, we do not need to be exporting those skills to a country that has been openly hostile to us in the past.
If lack of individual freedom was what caused a downfall in the Soviet Union, then we should have already seen China and a great deal of other countries fall. The Soviet Union collapsed because their centrally-controlled economic system was disasterously inefficient and they attempted to get into a defense spending war with the US. They effectively ended up bankrupting themselves.
The countries of concern listed in this article are China, Cuba, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Libya, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Sudan, and Syria. All have relatively different societies in terms of government and individual freedom. All all have great reasons for not sharing sensitive information with them.
The fact of the matter is that academics running their mouths off concerning sensitive data has hurt us significantly. The article even points this out with the example of Qian Xuesen. This guy was a Chinese student in the 1950s who excelled at both the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the California Institute of Technology. He went on to become the father of China's nuclear weapons program.
Now, the last time I checked, the Chinese government is still an evil, Communist dictatorship bent not only on the repression of it's people, but also of local countries such as Taiwan.
It sounds like a great idea to limit information that can be used for military purposes from students out of China. These students are going to go back to China some day. They'll need a job. And heaven knows, their government is going to want to hire them.
Yes, and Indians high school grads are dirt-poor. Many haven't even seen a computer until they reach college. They only get into computer science because that's where the money is.
On the other hand, you have students in developed countries that have worked on computers since before they could walk. They started programming in middle school. Some, like the creator of Firefox, have gone on to work on open source projects and make major contributions before they even finished high school. These students get into computer science because they love it, not because they'll make a great deal of money. (Heaven knows that all computer science jobs are heading overseas.)
In the end, who would you rather hire? Someone who is intelligent, but who hasn't worked with computers long, and is only in it for the money? Or someone who's worked with computers their whole lives, has been programming since they before they hit puberty, and is in it for the love of development?
This is ridiculous. The vast majority of the people in IT have NO use for calculus. The ONLY time I've seen it used is in game development, which is a small part of the overall IT industry.
India is only taking over IT because they're cheap, not because they're better.
Amen, brother. I find this whole IBM story completely ironic considering that IBM recently laid off 13,000 workers.
The board is not necessarily the primary shareholders. In many cases, the board members are officers that work in the same company. So, you have this circular relationship between board members and the CEO where each is the other's boss. In these cases, there is NO incentive to reduce anyone's pay at all, except of course for the low-level workers.
If China weren't pegging the value of their currency to the dollar, then their "DVD players and other shiny crap" wouldn't be so "cheap-ass". It is exactly this cheapness that is the problem. China pumps up our economy, makes US goods more expensive than theirs, and kills US businesses that don't outsource to China. At some point, China WILL stop pumping up our economy. They'll take all the knowledge learned from outsourced US goods and copy it for their own companies. And no one in the US will be left that knows how to make half this stuff. We'll have created our own competitor while removing our own knowledge on how to compete with them.
Personally, I'd prefer to have the peg removed and have US companies actually have a decent chance in the marketplace against Chinese goods.
Sure. Do you want a reference for the trade imbalance on US ag imports to exports, or for the effects of US subsidies on foreign markets?
Both would be good. I'll start with this one you provided from another thread.
This "flood" coming from America you talk about might have been true at one time. However, the year-to-year trade balance appears to be decreasing, not increasing. If anything, it appears that a "flood" of cheap produce is now heading to the US and swamping American farmers, therefore dramatically increasing our imports.
Me: China can get by on old machinery due to the fact that they have a billion people to throw at them
You: Which makes them less competitive.
How? If they can throw 1, 2, or 3 million people at producing socks, how does that make them LESS competitive? They're still paying their factory workers almost nothing. It's the machinery that costs them money. If they can get by on an older type of machinery, they they're paying almost nothing to produce socks. How does paying almost nothing make them LESS competitive?
The fact is that their cost structure makes China more competitive. The US received a flood of low cost clothing from China once trade barriers were eliminated Jan 1st.
Preliminary U.S. data showed a 1,505 percent increase in imports of cotton trousers from China in the first four months of 2005, and increases of 1,346 percent for cotton shirts and 347 percent for cotton and synthetic underwear.
That doesn't sound like they're uncompetitive to me. However, this currency manipulation by the Chinese certainly looks much worse in this light.
Furthermore, growth means *new* production, which means newly acquired machinery.
That's not necessarily true. If you throw more people at production on the old type of machines, then you have growth as well. You make the same kind of sock with an old type of machine that you can with a new machine. It's just that with the new type of machines, you make them much faster. When new-fangled machines cost more than employing a new worker, then you stick with the old machines and just add a bunch of new workers.
Me: China is roughly the size of the US with plenty of its own resources
You: The resources need to supply a billion people for example, they're the second largest importer of oil on the planet. China's exports in the first half of 2000 (first article I found) were 114.5B$, and their imports were 102.1B$. Sustaining a heavy industrial economy requires a lot of imports even in the most mineral-rich places.
From the CIA World Factbook: Exports: $583.1 billion f.o.b. (2004 est.)
Exports - commodities: machinery and equipment, plastics, optical and medical equipment, iron and steel
Exports - partners: US 21.1%, Hong Kong 17.4%, Japan 13.6%, South Korea 4.6%, Germany 4% (2003)
Imports: $552.4 billion f.o.b. (2004 est.)
Imports - commodities: machinery and equipment, oil and mineral fuels, plastics, optical and medical equipment, organic chemicals, iron and steel
Imports - partners: Japan 18%, Taiwan 11.9%, South Korea 10.4%, US 8.2%, Germany 5.9% (2003)
Their low currency can't be hurting them much since they can export much more than they import.
Considering the US receives 21.1% of their exports while only contributing to 8.2% of their imports, I believe that the US has a legitimate complaint regarding China's currency manipulation. This manipulation appears to be done to the express detriment of the US.
If you actually read the article, the only way Washington farmers are competing are by purchasing expensive machines. Even so, this won't last long since Peru is also looking at buying these same machines.
As for your other claim that we're flooding the world markets, give me a reference. As far as I'm concerned, your claims are worthless until substantiated.
On the China machinery claim, that's also worthless. China can get by on old machinery due to the fact that they have a billion people to throw at them. Modern machinery is only necessary when labor is relatively expensive. They don't need to spend the money the US spends on this.
With raw materials, yes they need to spend some money. However, China is roughly the size of the US with plenty of its own resources. On top of that, the majority of the cost of items is labor. And again, labor is so cheap in their country that this is not a major expense.
So, their low currency isn't hurting them much.
First off, the agriculture sector in the US is less than 1% of the US economy. Any US subsidy going to the farm sector is insignificant compared to the subsidy that China provides to it's ENTIRE economy by keeping it's currency artificially low. These are orders of magnitude different and therefore not worthy of comparison with one another.
As for saying that poor nations cannot complete, that is not true. Poor nations do not have to hold to US environmental laws. Poor nations do not have to pay the US minimum wage to their workers. Poor nations do not have to pay the US cost of living that US farmers have to pay. I could go on with all the things that poor nations do not have to pay, but I'm sure you get the point.
Finally, it doesn't matter whether the subsidy makes it so that the US food supply is just "enough" or they "flood" the market when it comes to national security. (Where's your source for this flooding claim, by the way?) My definition of "enough" includes much more than what the US would consume in any given year. Your definition of "enough" makes it that much easier to hurt the US in time of war since ANY destruction of the food supply would cause starvation in the population. There is also the need for surplus in time of war in order to feed US allies. In either case, it is in the best interests of the US to produce more than just your definition of "enough".
My logic holds.
It is not correct to compare US agriculture subsidies to currency manipulation that undervalues ALL of China's goods up to 40%.
First off, the economic effect is orders of magnitude different. The fact that the US supplies subsidies to one small sector of their own economy does not excuse the massive subsidies China dishes out that effects their entire economy. There are plenty of economic sectors in the US that receive no subsidy.
Second off, there is a compelling national defense interest to having enough domestic food production for your entire population. Should the US be cut off from food suppliers during war time, they want to be able to have food to eat.
Certainly, China could attempt to use national security as an excuse for this action. And I could grant that as reasonable when dealing with military and high-level government systems. However, there are plenty of low-level systems that require no great deal of security. One could reasonably argue that any platform could be put in place on these systems.
It is also not correct to compare China's current actions to US actions in Iraq's contract biddings. Unlike China, the US did not limit those bids to domestic companies only. Companies from outside the country were eligible to bid, granted that they had a policy favorable to the US.
Again, I see no rebuttal to my actual points.
We couldn't do that. We'd need some spare money to actually go out and buy yuans. As it stands, we're already running a budget deficit.
I know what an ad hominem is. The fact is you are whining. It does make you sound like a little girl.
Even so, that is not the crux of my argument. So, this whole sideline only distracts from the fact that you have no rebuttal to my actual points.
I'm not going to bother considering continuing a serious discussion with someone as ill mannered as you have demonstrated you are
...no more effective than seperating your vaunted government departments and then allaying blame away from certain sectors thereof onto other sectors of the same whole and thus claiming the whole is somehow guiltless.
When you speak bullshit, then I'm going to call bullshit. However, if you've noticed, I then go on to explain WHY it is bullshit. It appears that your false indignation hides the fact that you have no rebuttal for my explanations.
I'm not going to tone down my rhetoric just because you want to proceed at the verbal level of a child.
Our government is not one giant monolith. It is made of separate branches and departments within those branches, each with their own powers, responsibilities, and agendas. If you do not realize that, then you need a civics lesson.
All I can say is if most Americans are like you, I suppose you deserve what you get with regards to your approval of your military and foreign policies.
When I say that our military provides self defense, which includes our economic interests, that is NOT a statement of approval. That is a statement of fact.
Duh. I guess you haven't gotten into one of those conversations yet. Here, let me highlight one for you.
Not only does this guy think that a CS degree is unnecessary, he has outright disdain for those who have one.
A stable government.
We are stable in that we are not having bloody revolutions every few years. Crime is low. Corruption is low. Our police actually protect us and don't expect payment when they pull us over. And while the government may change political parties every few years, not a whole lot changes that much for the average person.
All of these things benefit the rich more than the poor since the rich have more to lose were the government unstable.
Seems that the questionable worth and fairly indisputable bloat of the Interstate highway system is a poor defense to the degree to which you are taxed, what of those of us who have no need for such a road?
Bullshit. While YOU may not use that road on a daily basis, the truck that delivers your groceries, your gas, your clothing, your mail, your chairs, your computers, your etc, etc used that highway. Unless you live like a hermit on a farm, grow your own food, and knit your own clothes, then you ARE dependent on that highway system.
Again, the rich are also the largest consumers with the most goods flowing along the highway system. So again, the rich benefit primarily.
Is it still acceptable that we be forced at the point of a gun to pay for it?
Riiiight... IRS auditors come to your house with guns. Bullshit.
Even if they did, I would say YES. I do think it's perfectly acceptable for them to force you to pay what you owe. You should not get away with paying nothing when I pay my fair share.
You'd think someone were trying to take your candy. Quit whining like a little girl.
Furthermore, keep in mind that government projects are notoriously inefficient compared to their private counterparts, consider the amount of funding spent on the system in it's current incarnation compared to what could have been achieved in a completely voluntary commercial project.
If highways are so profitable, then why don't we have commercial highways everywhere? Traffic is so shitty in so many places that there would be great demand for an extra highway here or there. Hmmm... Must be because companies can make more money elsewhere.
Government must be involved in highway construction because they are the only ones who can make it happen.
If you didn't have such a large military sprawled out all over the world with it's fingers in the various pies of other nation states globally, oftentimes seen as meddling, sometimes leading to direct hostile action on your home country civilians, it'd be questionable how worthwhile this asset is from a standpoint of attempting to minimise invasion of your country, take note
Our interests do not just lie in self defense. It also lies in protecting our economy as well. That is why we have fingers in "various pies of other nation states". That is why again, the military benefits the rich.
I can't believe you're honestly positing your prison system as an asset worth paying for, do you really want to go down this path? I'll give you an option to reconsider, keeping in mind the following;
The prisons only hold the criminals. It's the legislators that decide the laws, the police who capture the criminals, and the judges who convict the criminals.
The prisons are doing their job just as they were designed. They keep criminals from running loose and stealing or damaging your person or property. Again, since the rich hold the most property, prisons benefit the rich the most.
I'm curious about your 95% figure, do you have references to back it up?
BZZT! Wrong. I only said that I had ALSO read that somewhere. It's not my figure, someone ELSE brought it up. Ask THEM for the reference.
Actually, you're missing a few zeros there. That's 9 trillion, not billion. But yes, I do find it a more powerful statement to list out all the zeros.
40% of your earnings on a 100k salary? so to put this another way 40% of your time wasted in slave labour to a central government authority you do not exercise direct control over? Serious question, how can you possibly promote such blatant theft?
As someone earning more than most people in our economy, a person making $100K gets more benefits than the average person making $43.5K. Since they benefit more from society, it only makes sense that they pay more.
Secondly, someone making that much money can afford to pay a higher percentage than someone making less. The reason someone making $10K is effectively not taxed is because that person needs every single penny to pay rent, electricity, groceries, etc. Someone making $100K can easily cover these necessities, thus giving him considerable discretionary income. A rich person is not hurt as much as a poor person in paying a higher proportion in taxes.
I care less that it would discourage people than the fact that it's just plain wrong, taxation is theft, *especially* to the degree to which it is prevalent in modern life.
I would agree if you got nothing of worth in return. For your money, you get a stable government, a large military to protect our interests, a modern highway system, jails to keep criminals from your belongings and family, etc.
As far as the economic period you mention there, I question both the validity of the 95% figure as well as point out that any increase in production or economy could easily be attributed to wartime more than high taxes.
I have seen that 95% figure as well. It is valid.
The war was over in 1945. One could argue that we did so well in the post war period because everyone else had been bombed to the stone age. Even so, that 95% taxation certainly didn't hurt our economy, although it might hurt it now if it were currently in place. That said, I think we could use higher taxation for the wealthy.
Then again, you are a communist, I assume, and all of this is fairly par for the course for your ilk, yes?
No one here is arguing for complete government control of assets.