Every Friday Night EP used to put up a solid economic related documentary, or economics lecture, talk, that is in depth, long, and reasonably accurate.
I'm running out of online economics documentaries, lectures, talks that are valid, not CT, meaning conspiracy theory, or some biased "documentary" that's so in outer space it's really propaganda, funded and put out on the Internets on some misinformation campaign.
There can be bias, but it's limited....stuff claiming the entire world's woes are because of money, as a concept, for example, are best left for the weird to play with.
I'm never ending on the hunt and they need to be online, the full video, no "teasers" or "previews", and preferably embeddable (but I can make them playable if they are not). But you can watch them, in full, somewhere.
Politics, history, labor, are all good too when referring to events in history, or economic policy, trade policy and so on.
Also, they have to be free, but there are a host of sites, in other countries, putting full bore copyrighted new materials online that you can watch, but I don't want to use those because it's really some brazen intellectual property theft and the original creators of the content don't see a dime and lose a lot of money because of that....
(folks, just put some ads in your films like a "TV version" to get revenues from your work!)
Anyway, I need some suggestions, links, if you find something really great to watch.
To make matters worse, some recent lectures, the audio is so poor, you cannot even listen to it for more than a couple of minutes. I guess I could clean up the audio track and repost on youtube, as I'm getting desperate to find quality economic related documentaries here.
I guess the spin is in on online free things to watch, the availability has seriously degraded...
which is a bummer. Documentaries and lectures on economics related topics doesn't have a large audience in the first place.
So, firstly that -$40 billion is just the difference between one method to report the trade deficit and the invalidity of adding the China deficit to the Petroleum deficit numbers together.
From the trade report, table 9, this is the not seasonally adjusted, by BOP (balance of payments) basis, trade deficit: -$646.541 billion. The by Census accounting method, not seasonally adjusted: -$633.938 billion.
So, China, for 2010, by Census basis and not seasonally adjusted was -$273.066 billion.
-273.066/-633.938 = 0.4307 = 43.1% for the year.
By end use, for the year, SITC, seasonally adjusted, the deficit is -$646.541 billion. End use is more of a "trade by commodity" accounting method. So, they bunch up everything that has to do with petroleum in one number. This is called SITC and has to do with yet another international accounting standard, this one to compare via the U.N. This is table 9 in the report.
So, the Petroleum is SITC standard. Therefore, the ratio, of Petroleum must be compared against the total amount via the SITC std. Therefore one can only take the ratio of the yearly Petroleum number against the SITC seasonally adjusted total for 2010. or -$265,117/$646.541 = 41% of the total trade deficit.
and they wonder why regular people believe they are just plain lying with confusion like this. :) That said, imagine trying to add up every single little thing that goes in and out of the country and how many times, it's value and what it's being used for. That's why this is so complicated.
There are actually international standards bodies who work on accounting methods, sampling errors, accuracy on this all of the time as well as a slew of Economists and Statistics people inside the various government agencies responsible for these reports.
So, the Petroleum, or "Oil" number is by SITC, which is a completely different accounting method, trying to track the economic functions of products versus their physical totals....
i.e. you import oil, now did you use that import for making gas, or did you use that for making products or worse, did you use that for making chemicals?
The SITC is a "make that", whereas the other system is "brought in what".
Maybe next time I can dig out the "Petroleum" which is partially dug out in the China in comparison to the "oil" deficit number, by the HTS system, seasonally adjusted though.
For more definitions on these various accounting methods, probably a good idea to start with this Census trade FAQ page.
Bottom line here is you cannot subtract and add numbers from different accounting methods and different adjustments.
And you also know, when I run these numbers and write up that our latest trade report shows the U.S. is in huge trouble, almost all of it from China and foreign oil...
you now know I am checking a lot of numbers behind the scenes in an effort to make this English and visual translation credible.
After all, who can read the actual trade report itself, which is a simplified version of what is available publicly on trade data....which is a very simplified version of what kinds of accounting is really being used?
So, that's what I try to do, put some real numbers behind this and some corresponding graphs, with numbers that are valid, by the Census/BEA methods, yet boil it down to English too.
Next time I write one of these up, I think I'll make a point to not put China numbers or SITC Petroleum numbers next to BOP monthly trade deficit numbers for less chance of confusion.
Huge mistake, yet at the same time, the numbers by themselves imply "horrificness" for the U.S. economy and really jobs. Deficits like this imply products are being made offshore instead of domestically, a LOT of products.
The total is on a balance of payments accounting method and is seasonally adjusted.
China annuals are on a Census basis and not seasonally adjusted.
Petroleum is reported on an end use category and is seasonally adjusted.
So, these are three different accounting methods and why they will not total together and why you see the difference of -$40B between them. They are still valid.
The bottom of the above post shows the difference between the two main methods of Census vs. balance of payments and the Census explains it on their trade website.
So, you cannot add up the three for they are from different accounting methods. Also, end use means the China numbers has some of the Petroleum numbers in it.
Some work with negative numbers:
-538 - (-498) = -538 + 498 = -40
or -1 * -1 = +1
So, there is a $40 billion dollar deficit difference between the total trade deficit and trying to add the China annual trade deficit and petroleum end use category for components with in the trade deficit.
The reason the numbers for China, Oil do not add up to the reported total trade deficit is the above. But the ratios, the percentages to the total, that are calculated above are reasonable.
It's an apples to apples thing. If they are both seasonally adjusted and of the same accounting method, it works. For example, the China ratios were done using the non-seasonally adjusted Census basis method trade totals from the report. Oil was actually retrieved by NAICS category, separate database of trade data, not seasonally adjusted, so one could have a valid ratio of how bad the China non=oil trade deficit is.
Oil was -$265 billion of the total yearly 2010 and China was -$273 billion for the year. 273 plus 265 is 538. If the US had a -$497.8 billion trade deficit, am I correct in seeing -$497.8 billion as a net and the US is running a 538-498 = $40 billion dollar trade surplus with the rest of the world?
Gold was pushing against $1000 in 2008, then it moved up and pushed against $1200 in 2009. 2010 saw gold pushing $1400.
Is the US Fed is devaluing the dollar working against the rest of the world, but failing against China because of their currency peg?
This seems to be dangerous game in which the US is running up food prices throughout the rest of the world but losing its manufacturing.
I agree with you and Congress needs to pass legislation to label China a currency manipulator as well as introduced corresponding tariffs.
I think it was Webb & Kyl who introduced the bill in the Senate, but they are both not running in 2012, and as usual Senate leadership never meta demand by corporate lobbyists they didn't like....
It's pretty clear to me from other data why there is no U.S. job growth and the above rocket chart of China imports is one place to look at where the jobs really are.
So, the only way this bill is going to pass is if regular people realize how bad the China trade deficit is plus the other issues and demand the bill is passed.
Firstly, there are many methods for counting imports, you are referring to the Census method, which is the at the border assessment.
There are others, Balance of payments method, which removes some intermediate inputs plus price adjusters, import/export price adjustments for the national accounts. Check out the links, it's "grad class advanced accounting and statistics" be warned.
Of course the iphone should be an import because it's labor and the economic activity it generated in making it, that's plant, people, capital, energy uses, all are China economic growth and activity, not the United States. Apple is not the United States, and China is getting the benefit of making iphones.
Secondly, most multinationals already pay close to zero corporate taxes, it's small corporations who are not multinational who risk paying 35%, not corporations like Apple, Google and Goldman Sachs.
Thirdly, currency pegs distort markets as we can see and there is more than one Economist who estimates if the Yuan was floated and thus raised a good 40%, literally the trade deficit would disappear. China would no longer be able to capture the U.S. manufacturing sector through currency manipulation.
Also, the reality is the U.S. has improved it's energy consumption, by volume, it's a flat line on petroleum, it's prices that have increased. This is with an increasing population each year, which shows energy has decreased.
You simply will not reduce the trade deficit by energy. That said it's important, but it's clear China is the real problem and it's a man made one, one that is pure policy and arbitrage and could be corrected in a reasonable period too. Energy, while needs to be worked on, is highly important, has elements of innovation that have not occurred yet, cost effective production...
and here we are, offshore outsourcing manufacturing, the very sector where the R&D spawned by it...could provide some of those very break throughs required.
Whereas, China is pure policy, bad trade deals, multinational corporations and FIRE pulling the policy strings and could be easily fixed with the will of the American people.
See the scale in the above numbers? How goods trade dwarfs services? See that breakdown of the goods trade deficit? How petroleum was about half, but the rest, with out Petroleum is China?
You cannot dig up Saudi oil fields and plunk 'em down in the corn fields of Indiana.
New World Trade Organization data showed the trade gap between the United States and China rose to a record level last year. It hit a record $273 billion in 2010.
The small steps the Chinese government has taken will never allow the yuan to appreciate to its real level. China's central bank controls the exchange rate by actively buying or selling renminbi increasing supply or demand as needed. Administration strategy to press China for better market access is no more relevant. China is waging an economic war with the US. It uses its economic power as weapon, especially its foreign exchange reserves. State-owned Chinese company have a monopoly over electronic payment processing. China systematically imposed duties on certain types of U.S. steel. The procedures and decision-making employed by China in its trade remedy investigations, always led to serious restrictions on exports of American goods. Negotiations time on trade tensions between the two countries was teen years ago. Washington should do more than combat currency manipulation. Obama administration should impose duties on China’s goods ASAP. There is damage done that should be repair by China.
China’s strategy do not only target the United States. That country is also rising by oppressing its neighbours. Countries like Japan, India, Vietnam, Australia, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Korea now suffer China aggressive behaviour. China's neighbouring countries should not have to support this. They should not be bullied to bend to China’s interest. An increasingly assertive Chinese military had push many of them to sought closer military alliances with the U.S. The United States should give them the freedom to defend themselves. Each time India tried to cooperate with China it got conned in one way or the other. Obama should do more than support India for a permanent membership in the United Nations Security Council. The U.S. should be highly interested in forming a very strong anti-China alliance. It should send a strong message about its relationship with India and permit transfer of strategic technology. India has become as a market for the American defence industry. It is now time for an exchange rate war and a trade war.
I read recently that the cost of assembling iPhones in China was $6/phone, that all components and software are created outside China, but the value of the import to the US Is booked at the full iPhone import price of $180.
If $174 of the $180 iPhone import price has nothing to do with China, why is China given credit for $180 of exports? How often does this occur and for how many products?
At present energy cost and import volumes, oil and gas imports will total at least $350 billion in 2011. Imagine the employment boost and mulitplier effect increase in GDP if energy production could be repatriated. Imagine the cash flow to the Treasury.
Leave China alone. Drop our own corporate tax rates to Chinese levels, compete successfully and repatriate energy product by allowing drilling for gas and oil to proceed full steam ahead.
I propose the above while we with all reasonable haste improve gas mileage in our fleets, employ cost efficient alternative non carbon energy sources and become more efficient users of energy in all our civil and industrial capacities.
foreign controlled domestic corporations, that isn't so surprising to me, but the body shops are really incredible, for they operating within a country, yet refuse to hire anyone from that country and bring in India only workers, i.e. "no locals need apply".
But with all of the private equity, mergers, buy outs, grand finance or FIRE instead of the "real" economy that scales, gives jobs, none of this is so different from the U.S.
(oops I keep noticing that).
We can win any battle but the long wars and occupations are tough.
Now that we're half way through the second act of this and one group of crooks is gone, we'll have to see how the organizers handle their cause. I think that they understand both subtitles and determination. If the Army is smart, they'll enhance their investments (and there are quite a few) but turning Egypt into a modern nation. What a gift to everyone.
I tried to follow the ownership of one of them and got hung up in Thailand. It is curious that there would be so much of this foreign ownership. The managers of some of the companies have been quite abusive and, of course, they despise unions. What a deal. You can only be in one union and that union can't strike.
The India IT bodyshops, notorious to labor arbitrage, displace technical workers, were airlifted out of Egypt. Well, in Egypt, I believe they have the education and skills, plus their wages are comparable to low PPP India...
So, what the hell are they doing using outsourcers in Egypt when they have such high unemployment rates among the young and plenty of people (obviously) who have technical skills who could handle the nation's I.T.?
Just another clue on global labor arbitrage. Services are the small part of trade but it's labor intensive. (and of course people should not be something to trade)
Just noticing the beyond belief "bloodless", but that's only in comparison to past overthrows, change of governments like this level. Not saying at all they did not pour into the streets and their is death, blood, abuse, murder that happened.
They had a go-go "free market" philosophy and downsizing. Foreign firms that bought state run businesses complained that they couldn't use the police against the workers like the government did.
There is a difference in economic performance between the Middle East's oil and non oil exporting countries. The non exporting nations (below)
{"MENAP"-non oil exporting Middle East countries
Are Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. Their collective unemployment, measured by IMF, is 18%. The oil exporters bounced back after the 2008 crisis. The non exporting countries did not. Export performance showed a big difference also.
Facebook and Twitter are nice, but they got him out with the blood and bruises of those who risked facing more beatings by keeping going out, every day again, for over two weeks straight.
Looking for historical correlations, variances, adding additional variables, based on a historical series, and does that addition account for the divergence for 2008-2010 and so on. Assuredly not looking for constants with ratios, enough of those wet thumbs in the air methods.
Just to add, food inflation is 17.2% annual, CPI overall was 11.7% in 2010 an projected to be above 10% for 2011. real GDP was 5.3% for 2010.
This should be interesting and good history, for some of these events read like your classic globalization agenda, directly harming the people.
Hasn't the family farm been killed by tortuous corporate farming in the U.S.? Where corn subsidies are the only thing that pays so instead of a variety of local foods we have high fructose corn syrup and "corn feed" unhealthy cows, chickens stuff into small spaces plucking at corn until they are killed in a factory belt manufactured manner?
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. – Albert Einstein
As long as the United States continues to allow China to manipulate the U.S. Dollar and therefore manipulate our trade with ALL our trading partners:
- our balance of trade with ALL our trading partners will be worse than it would otherwise be.
- free trade agreements will work to our disadvantage and we should halt entering into new ones.
The Chinese Government gets result by managing its economy; therefore received the highest governmental trust ranking of 88% in the 2011 Edelman Trust Barometer®. The U.S. Government may not even deserve the 40% rating because it has done little if nothing to combat China’s innovative beggar-thy-neighbor strategy.
Four deficits gave birth to the book and movie I.O.U.S.A, namely, the leadership, trade, savings and the fiscal deficits. Following the releases of the I.O.U.S.A. book/movie, the better financed special interest groups caused the fiscal commission to become a reality, leaving the remaining three deficits, most relevant to the middle-class, to fall by the wayside. These 3 middle-class-relevant deficits, namely the leadership, trade and savings deficits are most causal to our current economic plight, while the fiscal deficit is primarily the result (effect) of the first three. I.O.U.S.A. treatment of the trade deficit was framed in the context of Warren Buffett’s parable Squanderville versus Thriftville. The portion of my post, titled, An America Lost in Squanderville deals with the trade deficit:
The United States’ trade gap is the proverbial “leak-in the-dike” with its de-simulative effect on our recovery. In November 2003, Warren Buffett in his Fortune, Squanderville versus Thriftville article recommended that America adopt a balanced trade model. The fact that advice advocating balance and sustainability, from a sage the caliber of Warren Buffett, could be virtually ignored for over seven years is unfathomable. Media coverage that China has kept it currency undervalued is a gross understatement, it has actually been keeping the U.S. dollar over-valued; which adversely affects all U.S. trade with ALL U.S. trading partners, not just trade with China. Until action is taken on Buffett’s or a similar balanced trade model, America will continue to squander time, treasure and talent in pursuit of an illusionary recovery.
The Leadership deficit can be best addressed with campaign financing reform that really works. The savings deficit can be best addressed with increased productivity, similar to Japan post-WWII economic miracle pioneered by W. Edwards Deming, an American statistician and replacing federal employment and most federal income taxes with a federal consumption tax, like those used by most industrialized countries, except the United States.
Every Friday Night EP used to put up a solid economic related documentary, or economics lecture, talk, that is in depth, long, and reasonably accurate.
I'm running out of online economics documentaries, lectures, talks that are valid, not CT, meaning conspiracy theory, or some biased "documentary" that's so in outer space it's really propaganda, funded and put out on the Internets on some misinformation campaign.
There can be bias, but it's limited....stuff claiming the entire world's woes are because of money, as a concept, for example, are best left for the weird to play with.
I'm never ending on the hunt and they need to be online, the full video, no "teasers" or "previews", and preferably embeddable (but I can make them playable if they are not). But you can watch them, in full, somewhere.
Politics, history, labor, are all good too when referring to events in history, or economic policy, trade policy and so on.
Also, they have to be free, but there are a host of sites, in other countries, putting full bore copyrighted new materials online that you can watch, but I don't want to use those because it's really some brazen intellectual property theft and the original creators of the content don't see a dime and lose a lot of money because of that....
(folks, just put some ads in your films like a "TV version" to get revenues from your work!)
Anyway, I need some suggestions, links, if you find something really great to watch.
To make matters worse, some recent lectures, the audio is so poor, you cannot even listen to it for more than a couple of minutes. I guess I could clean up the audio track and repost on youtube, as I'm getting desperate to find quality economic related documentaries here.
I guess the spin is in on online free things to watch, the availability has seriously degraded...
which is a bummer. Documentaries and lectures on economics related topics doesn't have a large audience in the first place.
So, firstly that -$40 billion is just the difference between one method to report the trade deficit and the invalidity of adding the China deficit to the Petroleum deficit numbers together.
From the trade report, table 9, this is the not seasonally adjusted, by BOP (balance of payments) basis, trade deficit: -$646.541 billion. The by Census accounting method, not seasonally adjusted: -$633.938 billion.
So, China, for 2010, by Census basis and not seasonally adjusted was -$273.066 billion.
-273.066/-633.938 = 0.4307 = 43.1% for the year.
By end use, for the year, SITC, seasonally adjusted, the deficit is -$646.541 billion. End use is more of a "trade by commodity" accounting method. So, they bunch up everything that has to do with petroleum in one number. This is called SITC and has to do with yet another international accounting standard, this one to compare via the U.N. This is table 9 in the report.
So, the Petroleum is SITC standard. Therefore, the ratio, of Petroleum must be compared against the total amount via the SITC std. Therefore one can only take the ratio of the yearly Petroleum number against the SITC seasonally adjusted total for 2010. or -$265,117/$646.541 = 41% of the total trade deficit.
and they wonder why regular people believe they are just plain lying with confusion like this. :) That said, imagine trying to add up every single little thing that goes in and out of the country and how many times, it's value and what it's being used for. That's why this is so complicated.
There are actually international standards bodies who work on accounting methods, sampling errors, accuracy on this all of the time as well as a slew of Economists and Statistics people inside the various government agencies responsible for these reports.
So, the Petroleum, or "Oil" number is by SITC, which is a completely different accounting method, trying to track the economic functions of products versus their physical totals....
i.e. you import oil, now did you use that import for making gas, or did you use that for making products or worse, did you use that for making chemicals?
The SITC is a "make that", whereas the other system is "brought in what".
Maybe next time I can dig out the "Petroleum" which is partially dug out in the China in comparison to the "oil" deficit number, by the HTS system, seasonally adjusted though.
For more definitions on these various accounting methods, probably a good idea to start with this Census trade FAQ page.
Bottom line here is you cannot subtract and add numbers from different accounting methods and different adjustments.
And you also know, when I run these numbers and write up that our latest trade report shows the U.S. is in huge trouble, almost all of it from China and foreign oil...
you now know I am checking a lot of numbers behind the scenes in an effort to make this English and visual translation credible.
After all, who can read the actual trade report itself, which is a simplified version of what is available publicly on trade data....which is a very simplified version of what kinds of accounting is really being used?
So, that's what I try to do, put some real numbers behind this and some corresponding graphs, with numbers that are valid, by the Census/BEA methods, yet boil it down to English too.
Next time I write one of these up, I think I'll make a point to not put China numbers or SITC Petroleum numbers next to BOP monthly trade deficit numbers for less chance of confusion.
Huge mistake, yet at the same time, the numbers by themselves imply "horrificness" for the U.S. economy and really jobs. Deficits like this imply products are being made offshore instead of domestically, a LOT of products.
The total is on a balance of payments accounting method and is seasonally adjusted.
China annuals are on a Census basis and not seasonally adjusted.
Petroleum is reported on an end use category and is seasonally adjusted.
So, these are three different accounting methods and why they will not total together and why you see the difference of -$40B between them. They are still valid.
The bottom of the above post shows the difference between the two main methods of Census vs. balance of payments and the Census explains it on their trade website.
So, you cannot add up the three for they are from different accounting methods. Also, end use means the China numbers has some of the Petroleum numbers in it.
Some work with negative numbers:
-538 - (-498) = -538 + 498 = -40
or -1 * -1 = +1
So, there is a $40 billion dollar deficit difference between the total trade deficit and trying to add the China annual trade deficit and petroleum end use category for components with in the trade deficit.
The reason the numbers for China, Oil do not add up to the reported total trade deficit is the above. But the ratios, the percentages to the total, that are calculated above are reasonable.
It's an apples to apples thing. If they are both seasonally adjusted and of the same accounting method, it works. For example, the China ratios were done using the non-seasonally adjusted Census basis method trade totals from the report. Oil was actually retrieved by NAICS category, separate database of trade data, not seasonally adjusted, so one could have a valid ratio of how bad the China non=oil trade deficit is.
Oil was -$265 billion of the total yearly 2010 and China was -$273 billion for the year. 273 plus 265 is 538. If the US had a -$497.8 billion trade deficit, am I correct in seeing -$497.8 billion as a net and the US is running a 538-498 = $40 billion dollar trade surplus with the rest of the world?
Gold was pushing against $1000 in 2008, then it moved up and pushed against $1200 in 2009. 2010 saw gold pushing $1400.
Is the US Fed is devaluing the dollar working against the rest of the world, but failing against China because of their currency peg?
This seems to be dangerous game in which the US is running up food prices throughout the rest of the world but losing its manufacturing.
I agree with you and Congress needs to pass legislation to label China a currency manipulator as well as introduced corresponding tariffs.
I think it was Webb & Kyl who introduced the bill in the Senate, but they are both not running in 2012, and as usual Senate leadership never meta demand by corporate lobbyists they didn't like....
It's pretty clear to me from other data why there is no U.S. job growth and the above rocket chart of China imports is one place to look at where the jobs really are.
So, the only way this bill is going to pass is if regular people realize how bad the China trade deficit is plus the other issues and demand the bill is passed.
Firstly, there are many methods for counting imports, you are referring to the Census method, which is the at the border assessment.
There are others, Balance of payments method, which removes some intermediate inputs plus price adjusters, import/export price adjustments for the national accounts. Check out the links, it's "grad class advanced accounting and statistics" be warned.
Of course the iphone should be an import because it's labor and the economic activity it generated in making it, that's plant, people, capital, energy uses, all are China economic growth and activity, not the United States. Apple is not the United States, and China is getting the benefit of making iphones.
Secondly, most multinationals already pay close to zero corporate taxes, it's small corporations who are not multinational who risk paying 35%, not corporations like Apple, Google and Goldman Sachs.
Thirdly, currency pegs distort markets as we can see and there is more than one Economist who estimates if the Yuan was floated and thus raised a good 40%, literally the trade deficit would disappear. China would no longer be able to capture the U.S. manufacturing sector through currency manipulation.
Also, the reality is the U.S. has improved it's energy consumption, by volume, it's a flat line on petroleum, it's prices that have increased. This is with an increasing population each year, which shows energy has decreased.
You simply will not reduce the trade deficit by energy. That said it's important, but it's clear China is the real problem and it's a man made one, one that is pure policy and arbitrage and could be corrected in a reasonable period too. Energy, while needs to be worked on, is highly important, has elements of innovation that have not occurred yet, cost effective production...
and here we are, offshore outsourcing manufacturing, the very sector where the R&D spawned by it...could provide some of those very break throughs required.
Whereas, China is pure policy, bad trade deals, multinational corporations and FIRE pulling the policy strings and could be easily fixed with the will of the American people.
See the scale in the above numbers? How goods trade dwarfs services? See that breakdown of the goods trade deficit? How petroleum was about half, but the rest, with out Petroleum is China?
You cannot dig up Saudi oil fields and plunk 'em down in the corn fields of Indiana.
Time for a trade and exchange rate war
New World Trade Organization data showed the trade gap between the United States and China rose to a record level last year. It hit a record $273 billion in 2010.
The small steps the Chinese government has taken will never allow the yuan to appreciate to its real level. China's central bank controls the exchange rate by actively buying or selling renminbi increasing supply or demand as needed. Administration strategy to press China for better market access is no more relevant. China is waging an economic war with the US. It uses its economic power as weapon, especially its foreign exchange reserves. State-owned Chinese company have a monopoly over electronic payment processing. China systematically imposed duties on certain types of U.S. steel. The procedures and decision-making employed by China in its trade remedy investigations, always led to serious restrictions on exports of American goods. Negotiations time on trade tensions between the two countries was teen years ago. Washington should do more than combat currency manipulation. Obama administration should impose duties on China’s goods ASAP. There is damage done that should be repair by China.
China’s strategy do not only target the United States. That country is also rising by oppressing its neighbours. Countries like Japan, India, Vietnam, Australia, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Korea now suffer China aggressive behaviour. China's neighbouring countries should not have to support this. They should not be bullied to bend to China’s interest. An increasingly assertive Chinese military had push many of them to sought closer military alliances with the U.S. The United States should give them the freedom to defend themselves. Each time India tried to cooperate with China it got conned in one way or the other. Obama should do more than support India for a permanent membership in the United Nations Security Council. The U.S. should be highly interested in forming a very strong anti-China alliance. It should send a strong message about its relationship with India and permit transfer of strategic technology. India has become as a market for the American defence industry. It is now time for an exchange rate war and a trade war.
I read recently that the cost of assembling iPhones in China was $6/phone, that all components and software are created outside China, but the value of the import to the US Is booked at the full iPhone import price of $180.
If $174 of the $180 iPhone import price has nothing to do with China, why is China given credit for $180 of exports? How often does this occur and for how many products?
At present energy cost and import volumes, oil and gas imports will total at least $350 billion in 2011. Imagine the employment boost and mulitplier effect increase in GDP if energy production could be repatriated. Imagine the cash flow to the Treasury.
Leave China alone. Drop our own corporate tax rates to Chinese levels, compete successfully and repatriate energy product by allowing drilling for gas and oil to proceed full steam ahead.
I propose the above while we with all reasonable haste improve gas mileage in our fleets, employ cost efficient alternative non carbon energy sources and become more efficient users of energy in all our civil and industrial capacities.
foreign controlled domestic corporations, that isn't so surprising to me, but the body shops are really incredible, for they operating within a country, yet refuse to hire anyone from that country and bring in India only workers, i.e. "no locals need apply".
But with all of the private equity, mergers, buy outs, grand finance or FIRE instead of the "real" economy that scales, gives jobs, none of this is so different from the U.S.
(oops I keep noticing that).
We can win any battle but the long wars and occupations are tough.
Now that we're half way through the second act of this and one group of crooks is gone, we'll have to see how the organizers handle their cause. I think that they understand both subtitles and determination. If the Army is smart, they'll enhance their investments (and there are quite a few) but turning Egypt into a modern nation. What a gift to everyone.
Take a look at this. These are Indonesian textile companies operating in Egypt, with Egyptian workers.
http://www.list-of-companies.org/Indonesia/Keywords/Textile/
I tried to follow the ownership of one of them and got hung up in Thailand. It is curious that there would be so much of this foreign ownership. The managers of some of the companies have been quite abusive and, of course, they despise unions. What a deal. You can only be in one union and that union can't strike.
Mission accomplished.
The India IT bodyshops, notorious to labor arbitrage, displace technical workers, were airlifted out of Egypt. Well, in Egypt, I believe they have the education and skills, plus their wages are comparable to low PPP India...
So, what the hell are they doing using outsourcers in Egypt when they have such high unemployment rates among the young and plenty of people (obviously) who have technical skills who could handle the nation's I.T.?
Just another clue on global labor arbitrage. Services are the small part of trade but it's labor intensive. (and of course people should not be something to trade)
Just noticing the beyond belief "bloodless", but that's only in comparison to past overthrows, change of governments like this level. Not saying at all they did not pour into the streets and their is death, blood, abuse, murder that happened.
They had a go-go "free market" philosophy and downsizing. Foreign firms that bought state run businesses complained that they couldn't use the police against the workers like the government did.
There is a difference in economic performance between the Middle East's oil and non oil exporting countries. The non exporting nations (below)
{"MENAP"-non oil exporting Middle East countries
Are Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. Their collective unemployment, measured by IMF, is 18%. The oil exporters bounced back after the 2008 crisis. The non exporting countries did not. Export performance showed a big difference also.
Chart & Graph from IMF
Facebook and Twitter are nice, but they got him out with the blood and bruises of those who risked facing more beatings by keeping going out, every day again, for over two weeks straight.
Looking for historical correlations, variances, adding additional variables, based on a historical series, and does that addition account for the divergence for 2008-2010 and so on. Assuredly not looking for constants with ratios, enough of those wet thumbs in the air methods.
Truly amazing, they got him out with Facebook and Twitter? Wow.
Just to add, food inflation is 17.2% annual, CPI overall was 11.7% in 2010 an projected to be above 10% for 2011. real GDP was 5.3% for 2010.
This should be interesting and good history, for some of these events read like your classic globalization agenda, directly harming the people.
Hasn't the family farm been killed by tortuous corporate farming in the U.S.? Where corn subsidies are the only thing that pays so instead of a variety of local foods we have high fructose corn syrup and "corn feed" unhealthy cows, chickens stuff into small spaces plucking at corn until they are killed in a factory belt manufactured manner?
Eygpt had 9.2% unemployment, the U.S. has higher.
Maybe this is what you're looking for, but not sure. http://fairmodel.econ.yale.edu/wrkbook/index.htm
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. – Albert Einstein
As long as the United States continues to allow China to manipulate the U.S. Dollar and therefore manipulate our trade with ALL our trading partners:
- our balance of trade with ALL our trading partners will be worse than it would otherwise be.
- free trade agreements will work to our disadvantage and we should halt entering into new ones.
The Chinese Government gets result by managing its economy; therefore received the highest governmental trust ranking of 88% in the 2011 Edelman Trust Barometer®. The U.S. Government may not even deserve the 40% rating because it has done little if nothing to combat China’s innovative beggar-thy-neighbor strategy.
Four deficits gave birth to the book and movie I.O.U.S.A, namely, the leadership, trade, savings and the fiscal deficits. Following the releases of the I.O.U.S.A. book/movie, the better financed special interest groups caused the fiscal commission to become a reality, leaving the remaining three deficits, most relevant to the middle-class, to fall by the wayside. These 3 middle-class-relevant deficits, namely the leadership, trade and savings deficits are most causal to our current economic plight, while the fiscal deficit is primarily the result (effect) of the first three. I.O.U.S.A. treatment of the trade deficit was framed in the context of Warren Buffett’s parable Squanderville versus Thriftville. The portion of my post, titled, An America Lost in Squanderville deals with the trade deficit:
The United States’ trade gap is the proverbial “leak-in the-dike” with its de-simulative effect on our recovery. In November 2003, Warren Buffett in his Fortune, Squanderville versus Thriftville article recommended that America adopt a balanced trade model. The fact that advice advocating balance and sustainability, from a sage the caliber of Warren Buffett, could be virtually ignored for over seven years is unfathomable. Media coverage that China has kept it currency undervalued is a gross understatement, it has actually been keeping the U.S. dollar over-valued; which adversely affects all U.S. trade with ALL U.S. trading partners, not just trade with China. Until action is taken on Buffett’s or a similar balanced trade model, America will continue to squander time, treasure and talent in pursuit of an illusionary recovery.
The Leadership deficit can be best addressed with campaign financing reform that really works. The savings deficit can be best addressed with increased productivity, similar to Japan post-WWII economic miracle pioneered by W. Edwards Deming, an American statistician and replacing federal employment and most federal income taxes with a federal consumption tax, like those used by most industrialized countries, except the United States.
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