Our New Master (China)

[Navy1960]

The U.S. trade deficit jumped to the highest level in 10 months as an improving U.S. economy pushed up demand for imports. However, exports rose as well, boosted by a weaker dollar, supporting the view that American manufacturers will be helped by a rebounding global economy.

The Commerce Department reported Tuesday that the trade deficit jumped 9.7 percent to $36.4 billion in November, a bigger imbalance than the $34.5 billion deficit economists had forecast.

U.S. Trade Deficit Jumps 9.7% to $36.4B - CBS News

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- It looks as if China still can't get enough of one of America's finest exports: our debt.

Despite some public chastising in the past few months by Chinese officials about how much the U.S. government is spending to get out of the recession, the latest figures from the Treasury Department show that China has continued to buy up U.S. bonds this summer.

As of the end of July, China owned $800.5 billion in U.S. Treasurys. That's up $24.1 billion, or 3%, from the prior month and follows a slight dip in China's holdings from May to June.
China keeps buying U.S. debt. But how long will that last? - Sep. 16, 2009

China's space program is poised to surge ahead at a brisk pace in 2010. In fact, over the next 12 months, China's activities in space may be such that when all is said and done, 2010 could well rank as one of China's top years thus far in terms of the total number and variety of missions launched.

Part of the reason for this is the sense, created by reports that two or three major Chinese space programs are running behind schedule, that China has some catching up to do. This might help to explain the rapid sequence of launches of the Yaogan VII and Yaogan VIII remote sensing satellites by China last month.
Asia Times Online :: China News, China Business News, Taiwan and Hong Kong News and Business.

WUXI, China — President Obama wants to make the United States “the world’s leading exporter of renewable energy,” but in his seven months in office, it is China that has stepped on the gas in an effort to become the dominant player in green energy — especially in solar power, and even in the United States.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/25/business/energy-environment/25solar.html

Put simply, you cannot keep borrowing money without some plan to pay it back, you cannot accept products and services from one nation that is unwilling to accept yours. When you set out to cut competetion in this nation in science, space, aviation, and energy and then borrow money constantly from your competetor do not expect that your place in the world will be nwar the top. More so you will end up being a slave of your competetion as we are increasingly are. Until such time as we address these issues we will watch as China passes our nation by. Our nation has the ability to compete in ANY sector in the world if our Govt. would simply like all other Govts. give them the chance to do so. This is not a lot to ask for American industry and its people, but you cannot do these things if your willing to accept that American industry is incapable of doing so.

 

[Gadawg73]

Good points but take a look at where the shoes you are wearing were made.
It starts there.

 

[uscitizen]

Just look at where the monitor you are looking at was made, the keyboard you are typing on, etc...

 

[Navy1960]

EL PASO, TEXAS
Showing off the bootmaking plant founded by his famous grandfather after a stint in the US Cavalry, Rudolph Lama can't help sounding a little patriotic.

"There are three things this country can still be proud of," he says with a glint in his eye, "Harley-Davidson motorcycles, Wrangler jeans, and Tony Lama cowboy boots."

It would be hard to find a product more emblematic of America than cowboy boots and Tony Lamas are considered top of the line. But reach inside and the label may read: "Made in China."

Chinese-made cowboy boots?
Even the cowboy boot now sports 'Made in China' / The Christian Science Monitor - CSMonitor.com

I understand what your saying and have worn Tony Lama boots for a long time now, but you know in some industries we have let it deteriorate so badly that they have little choice if they wish to continue to make the products they sell to get supplies from China. A REALLY good example of this is the US Textile industry that doesn't exist anymore for the most part and has been sold off.

 

[Xenophon]

I welcome our new Chinese overlords.

 

[Navy1960]

I understand where they are made now, citizens of this nation need to start demanding that products be made in this nation. It's no different with a Dell computer or whatever brand you use.

The deal is the latest example of how Dell has abandoned its once industry-leading strategy of building PCs to order in its own factories. While that structure helped Dell become the world's largest PC maker by volume at one time, the company has struggled in recent years. Since 2006, Dell has been outpaced by rivals Hewlett-Packard Co. and Acer Inc., whose outsourced manufacturing operations have become cheaper and more efficient than Dell's.

"They've been trying to get rid of plants for some time," said Shaw Wu, an analyst at Kaufman Bros. who said the deal is "positive" for Dell since owning factories can be a drain on PC makers' bottom line. "It's just become overhead for them."

In addition to getting rid of the Poland plant, Dell this year has closed its factories in Ireland and North Carolina. Last year it closed a plant in Texas. A Dell spokesman said the company still has factories in Texas, Brazil, China, India and Malaysia.
Dell Reaches Deal to Sell Factory to Foxconn - WSJ.com

 

[uscitizen]

Learn to love cooked fish.

 

[Conspiracist]

I believe this is exactly what has caused our recession. The housing stuff and all that did its number sure, but losing our jobs to insanely cheap labor across the great pond is what did it to us. Ross Perot, as nutty as he was, warned us of this. Scary stuff for sure. I am all for going into Isolation and only dealing with our known allies and undoing this madness of not building our own products.

 

[Navy1960]

I believe this is exactly what has caused our recession. The housing stuff and all that did its number sure, but losing our jobs to insanely cheap labor across the great pond is what did it to us. Ross Perot, as nutty as he was, warned us of this. Scary stuff for sure. I am all for going into Isolation and only dealing with our known allies and undoing this madness of not building our own products.

Wile I do understand the need to be part of the world community and thats fine, but what I suggest is that our nation at the very least take some pride in it's domestic abilities and at the very least make sure they have some competetive fairness. Every economic power protects its domestic industries to some degree and there is no reason that we should not as well. The way I see it is unless other nations are willing to be part of this so called world community to the same degree we are then we should act no differently than other nations do in that regard. Take yourpick as to the industry, one good example of this would be the USAF Tanker program here you have a domestic builder of aircraft Boeing bidding on a 100 plus billion dollar contract with a EU based builder EADS that has been sanctioned by the WTO for providing development subsidies to its aircraft both of them on equal footing for the same contract for the Air Force. In short our ability to maake our economy strong and keep it that way starts at home.

 

[rightwinger]

China has made miraculous progress in the last ten years. They have embraced Capitalism even though they are a Communist Country. They have moved from a third world country to a global power.

That said, they still have a long way to go to be on a par with the US or EU. The GDPs of the US and EU are still three times that of China with only one fifth of the population. While $800 billion seems like a lot of money, it is still a small portion of our net worth. It reflects the fact that the US is unwilling to make sacrifices to pay its debts....it doesn't mean we are on the verge of bankruptcy

600 million Chinese are still peasants (which is good because it used to be over a billion) and they lack running water, basic housing,education, food and other necessities. The infrastructure of most of rural China is woefully inadequate.

China has a long way to go before they become our "Master"

 

[uscitizen]

China has a long way to go before they become our "Master"

Yep and we are their biggest helpers in getting there.

 

[jigusjaan]

impossible never.
china and u.s.
no comparision

 

[rightwinger]

I'm not sure the modernization of China is necessarily a bad thing. A starving China with nuclear weapons and a hatred of the west is a bigger threat. They are providing some stability to the region and will help to isolate and eventually neutralize North Korea.
1.5 Billion Chinese is a huge potential market. The US needs to find a way to capitalize it.
We will never be able to compete with their labor rate. Even If we could, the work would move to India or some other third world nation.

 

[uscitizen]

We have excess Females of marrying age and China has an excess of males and a female defecit.
Lets export brides to China and seal the bond. China will not want to attack their relatives.

Of course the way youngsters in the US are now it might cause WW3?

 

[Contessa_Sharra]

I'm not sure the modernization of China is necessarily a bad thing. A starving China with nuclear weapons and a hatred of the west is a bigger threat. They are providing some stability to the region and will help to isolate and eventually neutralize North Korea.
1.5 Billion Chinese is a huge potential market. The US needs to find a way to capitalize it.

We will never be able to compete with their labor rate. Even If we could, the work would move to India or some other third world nation.

Some other P.O.V.s on the US/China issue

China cancels 80% of U.S. Debt...Just kidding, it's Iraq's

It is also about alliances, common interests, and what is happening outside of the strictly us/them sphere!

 

[uscitizen]

We have thru our actions committed ourselves to walk the globalization path.
I do not think it is our best path , but it is the path we have startred down.

 

[editec]

China basically dismissed us during the CO2 reduction talks.

If we had a trillion bucks of their bonds, instead of the other way around, that would defintiely NOT have happened.

 

[Navy1960]

BEIJING, Feb. 3 (Xinhua) -- Chinese economists are again concerned about the value of the country's dollar-denominated assets after the U.S. government's budget plan unveiled Monday forecast a record deficit for 2010.

The economists are worried that, if the Congress approved the budget plan, the U.S. federal government will issue more bonds and print more money to finance the deficit, which may prompt dollar depreciation. Dollar depreciation erodes the value of China's holdings of dollar-denominated assets.

The same fears took hold almost one year ago when the U.S. government said it would issue up to 2.56 trillion U.S. dollars of treasury bond debt to stimulate the economy to get through the recession.

This time the budget deficit is larger. The Obama administration on Monday proposed a budget of 3.83 trillion U.S. dollars for fiscal year 2011 with a forecast deficit of 1.56 trillion U.S. dollars in 2010
Record U.S. budget deficit renews China's concern about its dollar assets

While I don't agree with economy killing ideas proposed in Denmark edit is correct in the respect that China and India can afford to ignore any threats the US makes in terms of policy wishes. This same thing applies when it comes to sanctions against other nations such as Iran.

 

[Navy1960]

PARIS (Reuters) - China told other world powers on Thursday that discussing broader sanctions against Iran was counterproductive, striking a blow to a Western push to rein in Tehran's nuclear program.

Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi told a conference during a visit to France that Tehran's negotiating position was evolving and he wanted to see more direct talks with Iran.

"To talk about sanctions at the moment will complicate the situation and might stand in the way of finding a diplomatic solution," Yang said.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/02/04/world/international-us-iran.html

People wonder why Iran has become such a power , think about that next time you visit the local Wal-Mart.

 

[kwc57]

New master? Who do you think paid for your $600 stimulus check Bush sent out? They've been financing our debt for a long, long time.