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Anti-Globalization Will "Eat Our Lunch"
- Thread starter ShoeshineBoy
- Start date
Quote from gnome:
Seems to me you're getting only about half the picture.
Some would say that a falling dollar can fuel inflation. However, I would argue that the inflation we have experienced is, for the most part, not related to inputs. The typical American is experiencing inflation due to 1) rising price at the pump and 2) health insurance and, for those with a conscience 3) disappearance of defined benefit plans and 4) very high mortgage payments (because they locked in 2005+).
#1 is really the only one that has a component related to the falling dollar. But even in the case of #1, the majority of the rise in oil is not due to the falling dollar but due to wide variety of factors.
Again, the only thing that is going to save our sorry butts after the inept subprime/banking mess is exports. If we restrict that, I can almost guarantee you that India, China and several other countries will kick our tails for the next century or two.
Our banks are the most pitiful, lame, sorry collection of corporations on planet earth. However, our exporters are world class. From aerospace to media to IT to biopharm: America is king.
In many industries we've got the marines but we're treating them like they're a bunch of toothless security officers at an old warehouse. Time to unleash them...
Quote from Kanzei:
I wish we could be "HURT" by protectionism....
American exporters don't need politicians to baby and pamper them. The politicians will only make things worse. That's their job: to completely screw up and the economy and make things worse for us for generations afterward.
No, our exporters can handle themselves just fine thank you...
Quote from ShoeshineBoy:
Some would say that a falling dollar can fuel inflation.
Absolutely. Inflation is easy to undertand... "Gummint deficit spending + Fed money pump (greater than the population growth) = INFLATION"!
Whatever the politicos do/say to deny and mitigate the impact of "excessive money" are all LIES!!
I just realized there was second response to my post. OK I am gonna spell it. If Gnome says one reason USD is screwed because of high labor cost I say bullshit because Euro is expensive despite even higher labor cost in Europe. And I respond with sarcasm. It makes response shorter.
I guess it's my fault.
I guess it's my fault.
Quote from achilles28:
Shoeshine Boy, you really need to listen to Mgookin.
Not all "Free Trade" is fair trade. Even Ricardo's bedrock theory on free trade and mutual benefit have been questioned in academic circles. Just for the reason Mgookin so eloquently put.
These foreign markets we export jobs too need DECADES of growth before Developed Countries ever see a return on their dollar in terms of 'buy-back' prices that can support our workers.
And once China or India are making near-Western wages, what are they going to buy from us that they haven't already made, or in the process of making??? Remember what turned the US into a financial behemoth?
Big domestic consumption and huge loyalty to national manufacturers. No imports. Just exports.
China, and to a lesser extent India, enjoy the same building blocks.
China is heavily invested in aerospace. Already started its own Commercial Airliner fabricator. Thats a huge engineering milestone in terms of proficiency. They've got a nascent auto industry. WHOOPS!! Guess we won't be selling American-made GM's in China! On and on.
I'm sure they'll start biotech soon enough.
The only edge America has is Defense. This pipedream we would become a "post industrial" economy of eggheads, engineerings and code writers is pure nonsense.
Thats Globalist Marketing Tripe used to sell Welfare Economics to Rich Countries.
Sorry, but I really think you're living in a non-existent world - a world from bygone days that can no longer be.
There is no way to pretend that we don't have to compete globally. If we put tariffs on, other nations will put tariffs on us. And in the meantime the rest of the world will be signing free trade agreements and kicking our heinies. That's just the facts now.
Right now Canada has an FTA with Columbia. But our politicians are doing the typical political grandstanding that will leave our country impotent if it continues.
Seriously, even the conservative National Review thinks that we should get a free trade agreement with Columbia:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NTQyNGM4NDk4NGZkMmFkNmI2ZWQ4MjA5NDE3ZjY1Y2M=&w=MA==
WTF are we exporting? I think this is a farce. The exports are factory machinery that is being shipped over to China. CAT has 16 factories in China, so they produce the equipment they sell to China over there. Boeing is going to start manufacturing there also, and already has subcontractors on the 787 in China. Once all the equipment has been exported, the export numbers will plummet, imo. We are so screwed. We are going to be a half step up from Mexico.
Quote from spidey:
WTF are we exporting? I think this is a farce. The exports are factory machinery that is being shipped over to China. CAT has 16 factories in China, so they produce the equipment they sell to China over there. Once all the equipment has been exported, the export numbers will plummet, imo. We are so screwed. We are going to be a half step up from Mexico.
Some folks tout the "benefits" of globalization. Well, there's a downside to it too and we're on it.
quote from Shoeshineboy:
Some would say that a falling dollar can fuel inflation. However, I would argue that the inflation we have experienced is, for the most part, not related to inputs. The typical American is experiencing inflation due to 1) rising price at the pump and 2) health insurance and, for those with a conscience 3) disappearance of defined benefit plans and 4) very high mortgage payments (because they locked in 2005+).
Methinks you have the cart before the horse. My Webster's defines inflation as "a persistent substantial rise in the general level of prices related to an increase in the volume of money and resulting in the loss of value of currency (as opposed to deflation)". Rising prices do not cause inflation, inflation causes rising prices.