And, having lived in the US the most of the past 10 years (and residing there as I type), I'm very aware of the health-care situation, thank you very much :)
Primary imports from China
85--ELECTRIC MACHINERY ETC; SOUND EQUIP; TV EQUIP; PTS 64,905,504,814 22.6 % 84--NUCLEAR REACTORS, BOILERS, MACHINERY ETC.; PARTS 62,266,097,460 21.6 % 95--TOYS, GAMES & SPORT EQUIPMENT; PARTS & ACCESSORIES 20,891,814,337 7.3 % 94--FURNITURE; BEDDING ETC; LAMPS NESOI ETC; PREFAB BD 19,358,484,067 6.7 % All Others 120,350,885,249 41.8 %
The biggest effect is that the price of electronics goes up. It's this, clothes, and footwear. All these are products that you can hold off buying for a few months, by which time American companies have pulled out of joint ventures, and have increased American imports from the Latin American countries that have no tariff agreements in exchange for using American fabric. And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg
Surely you are aware of food scares seen in the US of late related to foodstuffs immported from China? Fai de bčn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
Chinese food and agricultural imports in the US amount to $4.2 billion (2006). That's peanut compared to the overall US market.
http://www.opencrs.com/document/RL34080
The revenue of Archer-Daniels-Midland alone was 41.35B last year.
It's not like the US or anyone for that matter is going to starve if China stop exporting. China is barely self-sufficient for food.
I know you probably wouldn't notice that you pay $10/month more for food because of a devaluation of the dollar, but there are others who are more than a bit less immune to this. Fai de bčn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
Are you aware of anyone in your own personal circle who must worry about such things? Fai de bčn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
What they do export are low value added electronic compenents that are not part of the follow up purchases.
Now I'd be very concerned if suddenly exports from Ireland, Switzerland, Germany, the UK, and France dissappeared. That would have a huge impact. But to be honest profit margins are so high in the US healthcare sector that they can swallow any increase currency changes bring. And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg
I'm saying that when inflation hits because of a USD devaluation, whether it be sudden or long and slow, it will hit the working poor first and foremost.
These are precisely the people who can least afford it, who by having to pay more for food and clothing will have even less to pay for medicine, doctor visits, much less proper health insurance which many do not have. I did not say that medicine came from China as you seem to suggest.
And yes, I do know people in such straits, my best friend for instance, so I tend to take a dim view of the economically-minded who wave their hands at such things as simple trifles which are of little consequence. Fai de bčn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
It's the "middle class" who live beyond their means, and either don't know how to save money, or feel it below them. Take for example, food choices. By going to Aldi's I can cut my food costs in half, but it's also known as the place the "poor people" go to shop.
Regardless, particularly in food, Mexico and Latin America is a far larger source than China, and Latin America has the excess capacity to start pumping out shirts and the like with American fabric in a short period. And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg
If anything, if the dollar tanks, it would probably help the working poor relatively to the rest of the population because it would make light industrial activity in the US more competitive, which where non-service low qualification jobs are. They would either suffer less or even benefit from the repatriation of those jobs in the US.
And that includes the petrol used to transport California produce to Chicago, St Louis and Minneapolis.
Again, I think the two of you are dead wrong about how this plays out.
As for the middle class in America, I could care less if they get taken down a peg or two, they've got it coming. Fai de bčn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
My original point is not that it would harmless for the US. The point is that it would hurt China a lot more, probably to the point of completely crashing its economy. And, IMHO, if China moved, the political situation in the US is such that it would snowball very quickly and the response would be extremely brutal.
Which is why those Chinese declarations are fairly spooky. Kabuki? Miscalculation? Weird in any case.
We just disagree on who. Fai de bčn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
In English, that's the IR speak for the difference between people who believe that the rules of things like the WTO are permanent in broad terms, versus realists who seem them as fundamentally variable institutions rather than something structural
Domestically, I think that the problem is that the proposition that markets exist in social contexts that generate social protection when economic activity tries to dismbed itself harming the human aspects of life is given terrible form. The rising cost of Chinese goods in American markets, leads to millions of urban workers being forced out. Unable to subsist off the land as before the great transformation, their efforts to restoret the human character of life take root in religous and cultural fundamentalism.
The Chinese Communist Party either channels this anger into the creation of a virulent nationalism, or falls to those who will. And the horrors of the 20th century live once more. Falun Gong, Christians, Homosexuals, and other groups are made scapegoats, are discriminated against, and then genocide.
It's a question of whether China merely implodes or takes East Asia with it.
Now the happy version of this supposes that enough social capital exists in the Chinese state unions and other elements of civil society to faciliate a social democratic response. And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg
