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Has Trade with China helped or hurt the US?

Rivoli

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Has trade with China hurt or help the US?

Three points need to be understood to explain this.
  1. Why did Jobs leave?
  2. Why do we need them?
  3. How do we get them back?

Question 1: From the early 1900’s to around 1976, The US was the worlds factory. Why did the US dismantle its manufacturing and send it to China? What changed in 1976?

Part 1: China’s push

From 1949, to 1976, the number one issue of the Chinese communist party was feeding and employing its 100’s of millions of people. After trying communism for two decades and failing, a man named Deng Xiaoping, a leader of the CCP, initiated reforms to create a mercantilist society with some markets, with the government still taking ownership in the critical industries, subsidizing them with government investment with the end goal not of creating capitalist companies, but maximum employment.

Around the same time Nixon met with the CCP, to normalize relations.

This is key. This was not a poor nation opening itself up to trade. If that was the case, China would never have became what it did. There are plenty of poor countries with millions of cheap laborers.

The key is the mercantilist element. A corporation that is owned by its country with unlimited government funding with the sole goal of maximum employment.

Part 2: US free trade retardation

That was only one side of the coin. The nail in the coffin was free trade. Since the 1950’s, the competence of the US government has generally been in decline. It’s worst incompetence is in free trade. Free trade is supposed to be companies competing with other companies across the world to produce the lowest prices.

But when U.S. Steel competes with Baowu steel, its not free trade. It’s a privately owned (all though traded publicly) company competing with the entire Chinese government. Baowu could take losses without end. To the CCP, Baowu losing market share is the equivalent of increasing starvation and unemployment.

Part 3: China’s assault on our IP.

China is the worlds thief, stealing IP from our companies, spying, hacking (remember, they are the ones behind the equifax breach). The US is the leading innovator in the world, and gets no benefit of it because China steals without regard to international law.

The US, is a “free trade” economy, putting its companies against the Goliath of the Chinese communist party and losing.



Question 2: Why do we even need these jobs? Why do we need factories?


Part 1: Real wage growth


From the early 1900’s to around 1976, The US was the worlds factory. When Apple started making computers, they made them here in California. When you have a factory, you don’t just need assembly workers, you create an entire set of jobs. Accountants, engineers, product designers, marketers etc. When you have a restaurant all you need are a couple of high school drop outs. When you have a manufacturing economy, you have built in incentives for higher value degrees.

Look at economies where manufacturing is a leading sector of economy, and look at the % of grads graduating with engineering degrees (Germany, China etc). Now look at the US in the 1950s-1970’s vs today.

While previously 1900-1976, wages and standard of living was on a ceaseless rise. Now, real American wages have been flat for the last 40 years. Housing, education, and all other costs have increased, while the american worker is poorer than ever. Where before most people would buy a house out of college, now most millennials are basically serfs, who will never own a house and are becoming communist in droves.

Look at this chart of real wage growth. What happened in the 1970s? Dengs Reforms and the opening of China!


31712




If us business owners do not start combating China, along with the smart people in office like Peter Navarro. Mark my words, millennials will be the most communist generation in history, and they wont be going to increase your taxes. They will be going for your assets.

Free trade has created a very raw deal for the average American, they think this is capitalism, when it reality its an crony capitalism where policy makers push “”””free trade”””” while off shoring jobs.

Part 2: Security

There aren’t just economic costs to allowing China’s trade war on us to continue. Two sectors are of critical importance:

  1. Rare earth minerals: China has a stranglehold on the entire world tech economy. They have gutted and impoverished competition in this market with dumping prices to the point they are 90% of the world supply chain. This is extremely dangerous
  2. Drugs: 90% of drugs are made in China. Penicillin isn’t even made in the USA now. China could cut us off in an emergency and kill us.

Question 3: How do we get them back?


  1. End “””free trade”””, remove China’s PNTR status immediately. Tariff every single good from China that comes from a subsidized source and enact REAL free trade. Companies can compete with companies, but any state owned company is tariffed to oblivion. Do NOT listen to “””economist”””. They will say this will hurt “”American companies””””. They are right. This will hurt Wall Street backed corps who sold their souls to China, and have no problem with wages being crushed and China sucking the wealth out of the US. But when they say this remember two things 1) to look at that graph of real wages^ and ask yourself, how bad does it have to get to realize before we could have a serious discussion about “”””free trade””” and 2) since Trump has started tariffs, real wage growth has increased 3% in the US.
  2. Mandate production of critical materials in the USA. 100% of drugs should be made here. Open up Mountain Pass and invest in it heavily, to bring back 100% of rare earth ores here in USA.

Do not fail for the “jobs will never comeback” meme. The data shows otherwise. And after implementing protectionist policies, they will come back.
 
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G-Man

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@Rivoli you might find some people are open to the basic premise that unfettered trade with China is a net negative, even if they don’t agree with all your conclusions.
That said, you communicate your ideas in a way that alienates instead of persuades. Calling @Vigilante names would be an example.
Have you read anything by Scott Adams? He a fan of the president’s persuasion ability and a very insightful person on how to communicate in a way that persuades instead of alienates.
 

Rivoli

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@Rivoli you might find some people are open to the basic premise that unfettered trade with China is a net negative, even if they don’t agree with all your conclusions.
That said, you communicate your ideas in a way that alienates instead of persuades. Calling @Vigilante names would be an example.
Have you read anything by Scott Adams? He a fan of the president’s persuasion ability and a very insightful person on how to communicate in a way that persuades instead of alienates.
Let me just say I’m joking about Vigilante being a CCP commissary if that needs explained..obviously he is not.

But I have to say we have to really sober up about this issue. We are really in a geopolitical struggle with a very formidable enemy.

China wants to eat our lunch, and not only that, most of the flaring up of issues can be traced back to this real issue of wage growth.

I think the most dangerous aspect isn’t just the trade war. Its the interior affects. Theres a reason millennials vote for Bernie Sanders and we need to fix this issue before they have even more reason to hate capitalism, before its too late.
 
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ChrisV

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Look at this chart of real wage growth. What happened in the 1970s?

31712
That's wage growth, meaning how much it increased from the previous year. If we look at actual income from 1965 and up, things look much different:

united-states-income-by-different-measures-1913-2005-visualizing-economics.png

And the dip in economic growth ~1973 was mostly due to the oil crisis.

 

Vigilante

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@Rivoli you might find some people are open to the basic premise that unfettered trade with China is a net negative, even if they don’t agree with all your conclusions.
That said, you communicate your ideas in a way that alienates instead of persuades. Calling @Vigilante names would be an example.
Have you read anything by Scott Adams? He a fan of the president’s persuasion ability and a very insightful person on how to communicate in a way that persuades instead of alienates.

There are a ton of people on the forum that agree with his basic positions, but that can never be mobilized because even after 337 posts, he still doesn't understand that the FastLane Forum operates with a different set of decorum. This place is an oasis from the rest of the wild web. We foster ideas, harness entrepreneurship, and springboard ideas. Along the way, we absolutely call out a lot of bullshit, but generally for the benefit not only of the OP but of people that come along behind us.

Before his inevitable banning, I can only hope what he takes with him is a recalibration. He's a super intelligent guy, but needs to spend some time at Toastmasters. When I was at Walmart, they sent me through Dale Carnegie class. One of the best takeaways from that paid "MBA in 8 weeks" was the book
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0671027034/?tag=tff-amazonparser-20

Best wishes @Rivoli. May you find what you are looking for out there. There are a million places for you and others to wage flaming ideological and political diatribes. This just isn't one of them. You've violated nearly every rule the forum has, and @MJ DeMarco has tolerated it hoping you'd calm down. You appear to be ramping up your personal assaults. Your most recent sparring partner is no friend of mine, but even he knows when enough is enough.

I wish you success. I wish you peace. And I wish you health.
 

Rivoli

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That's wage growth. If we look at real income from 1965 and up, things look much different:

View attachment 31713

Chris, my chart is REAL WAGES adjusted for inflation. Your’s isn’t.

 
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Rivoli

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There are a ton of people on the forum that agree with his basic positions, but that can never be mobilized because even after 337 posts, he still doesn't understand that the FastLane Forum operates with a different set of decorum. This place is an oasis from the rest of the wild web. We foster ideas, harness entrepreneurship, and springboard ideas. Along the way, we absolutely call out a lot of bullshit, but generally for the benefit not only of the OP but of people that come along behind us.

Before his inevitable banning, I can only hope what he takes with him is a recalibration. He's a super intelligent guy, but needs to spend some time at Toastmasters. When I was at Walmart, they sent me through Dale Carnegie class. One of the best takeaways from that paid "MBA in 8 weeks" was the book
How to Win Friends & Influence People: Dale Carnegie: 8937485909400: Amazon.com: Books

Best wishes @Rivoli. May you find what you are looking for out there. There are a million places for you and others to wage flaming ideological and political diatribes. This just isn't one of them. You've violated nearly every rule the forum has, and @MJ DeMarco has tolerated it hoping you'd calm down. You appear to be ramping up your personal assaults. Your most recent sparring partner is no friend of mine, but even he knows when enough is enough.

I wish you success. I wish you peace. And I wish you health.

But it starts with us. There are 7 million employing businesses in the US. We are the business owners. We owe it to our country to re-think this stance we’ve had. I spent time righting this specifically to post here. We need to wake up as entrepreneurs to the cause and effect of what we’ve been doing sourcing things on alibaba to sell on Amazon.

We can shut our eyes to it, but its still goin to happen.

Is anything I’m saying really that inflammatory? Maybe it really is pointless to talk about these things. If this isn’t worthwhile I’ll just go back to lurking I guess.
 

Tourmaline

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initiated reforms to create a mercantilist society with some markets, with the government still taking ownership in the critical industries, subsidizing them with government investment with the end goal not of creating capitalist companies, but maximum unemployment.

Did you mean maximum employment here?
 

Rivoli

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ChrisV

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Chris, my chart is REAL WAGES adjusted for inflation. Your’s isn’t.

Yes that chart definitely is adjusted for inflation. It's in constant 2011 dollars.

You said it was "wage growth."

Look at this chart of real wage growth. What happened in the 1970s? Dengs Reforms and the opening of China!

That's a year-over-year difference from the last.

Think of if as if I'm measuring the growth of a plant every week. There are two ways to measure that. How tall it is, and how much it grew (growth) in comparison to the last time it was measured.

How tall: 4 inches, 7 inches, 9 inches, 11 inches, 12 inches
Daily difference: 4 inches, 3 inches, 2 inches, 1 inches.

The reality is that the plant is still growing, but it's just growing at a different rate.

My chart is the actual size, your chart is the weekly difference.

All that chart shows is that the rate of growth slowed a little, but people were still significantly richer.
 
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Tourmaline

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This seems like a fundamental problem of incentives. No amount of words will matter as long as the incentives continue to gives businesses a reason to use china as cheap labor.
 

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ChrisV

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@Rivoli I think this might be the chart you're looking for:

GDP per capita adjusted for price changes over time (inflation) and price differences between countries – it is measured in international-$ in 2011 prices

maddison-data-gdp-per-capita-in-2011us-single-benchmark-2.png


I wrote a thread on this not too long back


I would read Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now (or at least watch this talk)

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piUqV0xo8us
 

Rivoli

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Yes that chart definitely is adjusted for inflation. It's in constant 2011 dollars.

Your you said it was "wage growth" That's a year-over-year difference from the last.

Think of if I'm measuring the growth of a plant every week. There are two ways to measure that. How tall it is, and how much it grew (growth) in comparison to the last time it was measured.

How tall: 4 inches, 7 inches, 9 inches, 11 inches, 12 inches
Daily difference: 4 inches, 3 inches, 2 inches, 1 inches.

The reality I'd that the plant is still growing, but it's just growing at a different rate.

My chart is the actual size, your chart is the weekly difference.

All that chart shows is that the rate of growth slowed a little, but people were still significantly richer.
My graph isn’t of the growth rate, its the weekly earnings in real wages for each year, when it goes down, the rate of growth doesn’t go down, it goes negative.

I dont understand your sources graph, there are multiple lines, which one are we looking at?
 

Rivoli

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@Rivoli I think this might be the chart you're looking for:

GDP per capita adjusted for price changes over time (inflation) and price differences between countries – it is measured in international-$ in 2011 prices

View attachment 31716


I wrote a thread on this not too long back


I would read Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now (or at least watch this talk)

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piUqV0xo8us
That graph is meaningless to my point though. The US has gotten richer, but instead of the average person being a capitalist and participating in that increase, its all gone to the corporatist who can off shore jobs to China.

Thats why wealth inequality is so bad. The top makes money off of this scheme while the working class people have to compete with the CCP’s state owned companies.

You don’t pick that up in per capita analysis averages, because companies like apple are getting richer and throw off the average.

You have to look at real wages to see the story.
 
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ChrisV

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Tourmaline

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That graph is meaningless to my point though. The US has gotten richer, but instead of the average person being a capitalist and participating in that increase, its all gone to the corporatist who can off shore jobs to China.

Thats why wealth inequality is so bad. The top makes money off of this scheme while the working class people have to compete with the CCP’s state owned companies.

You don’t pick that up in per capita analysis averages, because companies like apple are getting richer and throw off the average.

You have to look at real wages to see the story.

Wouldn't median income show it as well?

Edit: Oh you can see it in the initial graph Chris posted, the red and green lines are median incomes.
 

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That graph is meaningless to my point though. The US has gotten richer, but instead of the average person being a capitalist and participating in that increase, its all gone to the corporatist who can off shore jobs to China.
Believe it or not - the rich are getting richer, but the poor are also getting richer. The rich are getting richer at a higher rate, but the poor are also getting richer.

07ff29d2e2e637e5c74515d2282051bc.png
 
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Rivoli

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Rivoli

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Believe it or not - the rich are getting richer, but the poor are also getting richer. The rich are getting richer at a higher rate, but the poor are also getting richer.

View attachment 31720
Look at the red line dude.
this graph is proving my point
 

Tourmaline

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Which is about as good as it gets, and what is natural. The rich have far more leverage, and thus will naturally get richer at higher multiples. At least without government intervention.

But as long as the poor are also getting richer, to me all is well.

Income inequality is not inherently bad. It's just a stat. And an easy scapegoat for populists.
 
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ChrisV

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Look at the red line dude.
Which has gone up an average of 15K/year.

Which is exactly what I said.. the rich are getting richer, and the poor are also getting richer.
 

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Which has gone up an average of 15K/year.

Which is exactly what I said.. the rich are getting richer, and the poor are also getting richer.
Chris, you’re giving up.

look at the relational growth for all sectors preopening of China and post. look at the relative growths before and after.

the Top5% are the winners of globalization. That’s what I’ve been saying. The top 5%growth is way beyond the middle class.

let me ask like this, would you agree the middle class has been destroyed in the US? Would you agree with that statement?

I am not a communist, obviously. I’m just saying if we do not check this trend, the reaction to it will kill us all. Bernie sanders will look like Ayn Rand compared to what’s in the pipeline if this trend continues. And it all goes back to China!
 

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Top5% are the winners of globalization
if you go by the numbers, everyone appears to win from globalization... some people just win more.

Every single country is wealthier.

The number of people living in extreme poverty (defined as living on one dollar per day, inflation adjusted - as always) in the world declined by 80 percent between 1970 to 2006.

Extreme-Poverty-projection-by-the-World-Bank-to-2030-786x550.png

31723

let me ask like this, would you agree the middle class has been destroyed in the US? Would you agree with that statement?
No. That's a myth.
 
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Most of your arguments are pointless. Especially "There are plenty of poor countries with millions of cheap laborers.".

There are not many plenty of poor countries with millions of cheap laborers. There is China, India, Pakistan and Indonesia. Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey etc. are not really in a position to offer "millions of cheap laborers". There is a reason why China stuck out of these.

1. You are referring to an age before 1976 as America's golden age, where there was no Internet for masses, information was not so fluid and societies were not this connected.

We live in 2020, where everyone has access to any kind of information. Now U.S. and other industrialized countries like Germany, UK, France do not have that big of a know-how advantage anymore like previously. Where you are born matters less than in 1976.

2. Globalization did not happen because U.S. was dumb and you guys allowed it.

Globalization happened, because it could happen and it served capitalistic interests of people.

Manufacturing went away, because it could go away. Service jobs did not go away, because I would rather buy my insurance in person from Jack than on the phone from Chang or Ravanaphutam with broken English.

3. The other reason (and the reason why China and India could stick out) was that these markets are huge. Almost every second person on the planet is either Chinese or Indian. If they earn money, they can consume. If they can consume, they open up new markets, new opportunities for the benefit of the whole world.

The reason, why China has been better than India was because it has a more meritocratic method of governance. It is ruled by an educated elite of Communist Party, rather than democratically elected salesmen. You cannot make populism in China, because it is an dictatorship.

Also in China, there are not really high regards to human life. As a person, you are just an instrument for the government. If communists say, you cannot move to another city and work there, you just have to obey, or you get detained. So people can actually be marketed.

There are many more things to this like culture and so on, but these are the two things that stick out.

Summary: Many of the unfair advantages in the world vanished because of new technologies like Internet, vaccines etc. and other countries could do some of the low-quality stuff that westerners were too expensive for.

Now Jack has to work as much as Chang, because Jack does not have unfair advantages over Chang like his father or grandfather did.

And Jack complains on entrepreneurial forums because he now sees that he is as dispensable as Chang was in 1976, if Chang works harder or adapts to changes in the world more swiftly.

Jack also should not open up threads like "Chinese are our enemy" because Fastlane Forum is a global thing and Chinese, Indian or Indonesian (or in my case, Turkish) people hang around here as well. The world does not consist of United States only.

Jack should sit down, adapt to the world, build a work ethic and work.
 

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if you go by the numbers, everyone appears to win from globalization... some people just win more.

Every single country is wealthier.

The number of people living in extreme poverty (defined as living on one dollar per day, inflation adjusted - as always) in the world declined by 80 percent between 1970 to 2006.

View attachment 31722

View attachment 31723


No. That's a myth.
You would like George Gilder's words on the matter.
I sub his free email newsletter, and he talks a lot about the US-Chinese relationship.

His solution on the matter in a few points:

1. Learn from China, on how it scales tech and does business.

2. Innovate on what is learned, and come up with better things to create new advantages.

3. An overall more innovative, peaceful and productive globe.

China is not 100% perfect, but those imperfections may give US entrepreneurs more ideas to continue innovating.

But if we are not to keep all manufacturing eggs in one basket, such as China's, might as well not do it. :rofl:

EDIT: Found this article that quotes some Gilder, and shares his views.


I like this quote on IP theft:
"To all this, the allegedly wise among us will say that “you just don’t understand, the Chinese are stealing our IP and business secrets. They’re not our friends."

To which I’ll respond that the lifting of ideas is as old as commerce is, that it’s the norm among all innovators; whether Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, the late Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and every dynamic industry that’s ever prospered.

Show me a booming industry, and I’ll show you endless imitation.

Crucial here is that as any entrepreneur will make plain, most ideas fail, thus rendering what’s stolen worthless. But more important for this discussion is the basic truth that genius can rarely be stolen. "
 

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Has trade with China hurt or help the US?

Three points need to be understood to explain this.
  1. Why did Jobs leave?
  2. Why do we need them?
  3. How do we get them back?

Question 1: From the early 1900’s to around 1976, The US was the worlds factory. Why did the US dismantle its manufacturing and send it to China? What changed in 1976?

Part 1: China’s push

From 1949, to 1976, the number one issue of the Chinese communist party was feeding and employing its 100’s of millions of people. After trying communism for two decades and failing, a man named Deng Xiaoping, a leader of the CCP, initiated reforms to create a mercantilist society with some markets, with the government still taking ownership in the critical industries, subsidizing them with government investment with the end goal not of creating capitalist companies, but maximum employment.

Around the same time Nixon met with the CCP, to normalize relations.

This is key. This was not a poor nation opening itself up to trade. If that was the case, China would never have became what it did. There are plenty of poor countries with millions of cheap laborers.

The key is the mercantilist element. A corporation that is owned by its country with unlimited government funding with the sole goal of maximum employment.

Part 2: US free trade retardation

That was only one side of the coin. The nail in the coffin was free trade. Since the 1950’s, the competence of the US government has generally been in decline. It’s worst incompetence is in free trade. Free trade is supposed to be companies competing with other companies across the world to produce the lowest prices.

But when U.S. Steel competes with Baowu steel, its not free trade. It’s a privately owned (all though traded publicly) company competing with the entire Chinese government. Baowu could take losses without end. To the CCP, Baowu losing market share is the equivalent of increasing starvation and unemployment.

Part 3: China’s assault on our IP.

China is the worlds thief, stealing IP from our companies, spying, hacking (remember, they are the ones behind the equifax breach). The US is the leading innovator in the world, and gets no benefit of it because China steals without regard to international law.

The US, is a “free trade” economy, putting its companies against the Goliath of the Chinese communist party and losing.



Question 2: Why do we even need these jobs? Why do we need factories?


Part 1: Real wage growth


From the early 1900’s to around 1976, The US was the worlds factory. When Apple started making computers, they made them here in California. When you have a factory, you don’t just need assembly workers, you create an entire set of jobs. Accountants, engineers, product designers, marketers etc. When you have a restaurant all you need are a couple of high school drop outs. When you have a manufacturing economy, you have built in incentives for higher value degrees.

Look at economies where manufacturing is a leading sector of economy, and look at the % of grads graduating with engineering degrees (Germany, China etc). Now look at the US in the 1950s-1970’s vs today.

While previously 1900-1976, wages and standard of living was on a ceaseless rise. Now, real American wages have been flat for the last 40 years. Housing, education, and all other costs have increased, while the american worker is poorer than ever. Where before most people would buy a house out of college, now most millennials are basically serfs, who will never own a house and are becoming communist in droves.

Look at this chart of real wage growth. What happened in the 1970s? Dengs Reforms and the opening of China!


31712




If us business owners do not start combating China, along with the smart people in office like Peter Navarro. Mark my words, millennials will be the most communist generation in history, and they wont be going to increase your taxes. They will be going for your assets.

Free trade has created a very raw deal for the average American, they think this is capitalism, when it reality its an crony capitalism where policy makers push “”””free trade”””” while off shoring jobs.

Part 2: Security

There aren’t just economic costs to allowing China’s trade war on us to continue. Two sectors are of critical importance:

  1. Rare earth minerals: China has a stranglehold on the entire world tech economy. They have gutted and impoverished competition in this market with dumping prices to the point they are 90% of the world supply chain. This is extremely dangerous
  2. Drugs: 90% of drugs are made in China. Penicillin isn’t even made in the USA now. China could cut us off in an emergency and kill us.

Question 3: How do we get them back?


  1. End “””free trade”””, remove China’s PNTR status immediately. Tariff every single good from China that comes from a subsidized source and enact REAL free trade. Companies can compete with companies, but any state owned company is tariffed to oblivion. Do NOT listen to “””economist”””. They will say this will hurt “”American companies””””. They are right. This will hurt Wall Street backed corps who sold their souls to China, and have no problem with wages being crushed and China sucking the wealth out of the US. But when they say this remember two things 1) to look at that graph of real wages^ and ask yourself, how bad does it have to get to realize before we could have a serious discussion about “”””free trade””” and 2) since Trump has started tariffs, real wage growth has increased 3% in the US.
  2. Mandate production of critical materials in the USA. 100% of drugs should be made here. Open up Mountain Pass and invest in it heavily, to bring back 100% of rare earth ores here in USA.

Do not fail for the “jobs will never comeback” meme. The data shows otherwise. And after implementing protectionist policies, they will come back.
There are push and pull factors.

You forgot to mention unions that killed the manufacturing jobs. It is the deal that works for both until it doesn't. China gets the technology and capital investment. U.S. MNC get their high profit margin. U.S. household get the cheap goods that drive inflation low. Chinese trade surplus and turned into treasury purchase and drive deficit spending with low interest. In other words China played her role in affordable social welfare and low cost of living for many Americans.

Again why China. In one aspect It’s the replication of what many Asian economies did in the past. Move rural population urban factories. Capital always look for low cost centers. First Japan, then Asian dragons (Korea, Singapore and Taiwan), then Tiger economies, then China...

In another aspect China didn’t start from zero. Before Deng’s reform China already had decades of public education that eradicated illiteracy and had women participation in the workforce (which India yet has to achieve). A young population and people were motivated to work hard to improve their families living standard, which was sheer poverty back then.

The problem for U.S. was special interest aristocrats who block all reforms against them. Union is one. Retirees another one whose high social security payout is bankrupting the nation. Military industrial complex..Medical and pharmaceutical industries...China is hardly an issue.
 
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Entre Eyes

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Americans know or should know the difference what a pair of Jordans cost to make and what they sell for..same as Iphones. But they buy any way.

No doubt about it , China, N. Korea and many more Countries have designated Agencies to Hack USA.

But add to that opportunists on the inside, collaboration,or incompetence and lax on security, or indifference on peoples privacy.

Yes China would knock off a knock off and even sold fake MEAT with red paint and fake baby formula but they have also created countless numbers of Successful American Entrepreneurs as well. Mixed emotions.
 

Kevin88660

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Its not even Chinese companies vs U.S. companies. Chinese are more like contractor working for U.S. MNC. Think of the Taiwanese Foxconn which provides our Apple phone parts. Their factories are in China.

Why China not elsewhere? Do you have an army of young grade 10 graduates (from village who moved onto cities to find jobs) willing to work 6 days a week, 12 hours a day for 8k U.S. dollar a year?

As cost is rising in China, Chinese factories are relocating to India and Vietnam for lower cost but many of the times the lower cost come with lower worker productivity and poorer infrastructure.

But with China moving up the value chain they are capable of doing more. They have many engineers that can help them build great companies like Huawei.

Whether China is a friend than a foe depends on who you are.

Billionaires wanted to suck up to China for their huge market potential.

Millennials...their issue is not China. They are not waiting for Chinese business owners to move the factories from Vietnam to U.S. so that they can make Nikki shoes. They are not waiting for jobs that even Chinese do not want to do. Therefore I totally disagree with OP’s view in drawing relationships to both. Millennials have too much invested in a middle class aspiration (script?) that no longer exist for most people. I agree that they will be grabbing the assets of the rich for sure if there isn’t a new safety net provided.

If you are in the Pentagon, indeed you could be worried about China. China is the only potential candidate to topple U.S. leadership like how U.S. took it away from United Kingdom...
 

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