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The great fall of China
LA Times ^ | December 30, 2007 | Walter Russell Mead

Posted on 12/30/2007 11:56:06 AM PST by Parmenio

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To: A.Hun

With lots more of those magical, all-important manufacturing jobs, to boot. After all, those are those are the only jobs that count according to Ted Kennedy et al.

I wonder if the Dems will notice? :p


41 posted on 12/30/2007 1:13:25 PM PST by Constantine XIII
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To: DB

OK I was done ranting, but I really want to explain: I wasn’t deliberately calling you a name. No offense!

To clarify, you are not Neville Chamberlain. My apologies, if that was unclear.

I’m sincerely sorry.

You just think, like him. :)


42 posted on 12/30/2007 1:15:08 PM PST by Cringing Negativism Network (I'm a proud Yankee Doodle Protectionist)
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To: Clemenza

I’m glad someone else remembers these things you’ve listed. I’m no economist, but I remember the fears people had of the Japanese in the 80s. A horrible movie, Gung-ho, was made about it (I believe that’s the name— Michael Keaton??).


43 posted on 12/30/2007 1:16:07 PM PST by I_like_good_things_too
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To: I_like_good_things_too

Yes. I even remember seeing clips of rather portly folks smashing a Toyota to bits on the nightly news, and how the Japanese would “own” America by 1990. Didn’t quite happen that way.


44 posted on 12/30/2007 1:17:52 PM PST by Clemenza (I NO Heart Huckabee)
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To: Cringing Negativism Network

“China is REPLACING America economically, and we’re subjected to clueless, sleepwalking bluster like this.”

Yes, factual statistics are clueless, sleepwalking bluster.

I will disagree with the author on the value of exchange rate (market) comparisons, though, particularly for a country like China which is so heavily dependent on trade. Few economists would have called China the world’s largest economy had they surpassed us by PPP valuations in 2012, though I’m sure plenty of “progressives” and anti-Americans would have seized on it.


45 posted on 12/30/2007 1:18:34 PM PST by Sandreckoner
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To: bajabaja
Baja, excellent post. Few people realize that Mexico has FAR from a free market. It may have given up on complete "import substitution" (a fancy word for protectionism) but Mexican law effectively encourages duopolies/monopolies in the interest of "stability" and the "national economy."

It never ceases to amaze me how many Freepers these days want to adopt the economic policy of import substition which was so popular in Latin America and much of Asia from the 1950s until the late 1980s. For all their ranting about "third world immigrants" (and, I must interject here, that I am for deporting ALL illegals myself), they certainly want to adopt the protectionist policies so popular in the Third World until relatively recently.

46 posted on 12/30/2007 1:22:20 PM PST by Clemenza (Ronald Reagan was a "Free Traitor")
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To: Cringing Negativism Network

Bahahaha!


47 posted on 12/30/2007 1:24:54 PM PST by Earthdweller (The liberal MSM...Buddies of Romney F Kerry and the socialist march to China)
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To: All
China, it turns out, isn't a $10-trillion economy on the brink of catching up with the United States. It is a $6-trillion economy . . .

. . . and it's got 800 million often pissed off peasants.

48 posted on 12/30/2007 1:25:17 PM PST by WilliamofCarmichael (If modern America's Man on Horseback is out there, Get on the damn horse already!)
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To: aruanan; Zuben Elgenubi; Parmenio
Hey if you guys want to be logical...

Maybe he read the paper version or the on-line version before it was posted here.

I do think that it would take a lot of expertise to be able to contradict the opinion piece and I would like to know how he arrived at his view.

49 posted on 12/30/2007 1:27:38 PM PST by Positive (Nothing is sadder than to see a beautiful theory murdered by a gang of brutal facts.)
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To: Constantine XIII
I wonder if the Dems will notice?

I seriously doubt it....they will be busy pushing "the worst economy since the depression" BS.

50 posted on 12/30/2007 1:28:51 PM PST by A.Hun (Common sense is no longer common.)
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To: Positive
"Maybe he read the paper version or the on-line version before it was posted here."

We Freepers get the News from everywhere (I'm sure it throws of many a urnalist)....we chew it up like a giant bagal..swish it around and then spit it out. You never know from which direction we shall spew!

51 posted on 12/30/2007 1:31:17 PM PST by Earthdweller (The liberal MSM...Buddies of Romney F Kerry and the socialist march to China)
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To: Clemenza

India and China were the biggest adherents to these policies, until gap between their economies and the economies of the West became too glaring to ignore. Both had convinced themselves that the West’s (relatively) open trade policies impoverished them, until they cut themselves off and discovered the meaning of real poverty.


52 posted on 12/30/2007 1:33:21 PM PST by Zhang Fei
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To: Earthdweller

It throws off many a urinalist


53 posted on 12/30/2007 1:33:46 PM PST by Earthdweller (The liberal MSM...Buddies of Romney F Kerry and the socialist march to China)
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To: Cringing Negativism Network
"China is a huge, growing dragon. A very powerful, very cunning, and very resourceful dragon."

While you may be right, past performance could be an indication of their style of cunning and resourcefulness.

For example; the Chinese leased Hong Kong to the British for 200 years. After Britain made Hong Kong and economic powerhouse China retook possession.

The opinion piece indicated that China's overtaking of the USA in economic productivity may be a decade into the future rather than now...not that it wouldn't happen.

Meanwhile, I think China's biggest impending problem is the rapidly growing gender gap. There are just too many boys for too few girls...social unrest is inevitable.

54 posted on 12/30/2007 1:36:36 PM PST by Positive (Nothing is sadder than to see a beautiful theory murdered by a gang of brutal facts.)
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To: Zhang Fei
Import substitution is a VERY old idea, one that impoverished medieval Spain (which also had trouble keeping out black/grey market Flemish textile) to the Latin/Asian nations of the late 20th century.

In the US, we never adopted a strong "import substitution" policy, except for selected industries (steel, agriculture) at certain portions of our history, and even in the latter cases, we had tariffs contra foreign imports, but never blocked them entirely (due to high demand). Even Pat Buchanan has admitted that we were never a truly "protectionist" nation.

Until the mid-20th century, the pattern was generally for the industrialists/residents of the industrial states (the NE and upper Midwest) to support protectionism, while the South and, to a lesser extent, farmbelt states supported liberalized trade (due to the lucrative ag export markets, and the high cost of goods that resulted from tariffs).

What few people realize is that the national income tax was pushed by the very same western and southern states that are viewed today as being very antitax. Southern Senators frequently condemned the tariffs on imported goods as being "robbery" on the part of the northern states. The income tax was pushed by such folks in the belief that the burden would be placed on wealthier individuals in the north in place of the high tariffs that were hurting southern/western consumers (as well as their prospects for agricultural exports).

55 posted on 12/30/2007 1:40:46 PM PST by Clemenza (Ronald Reagan was a "Free Traitor")
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To: kabar
"Having visited China, it is far from being absurd. China is still very much a third world country. Hell, more than 40 million people don’t even have access to electricity."

40 million of 1400 million, 1 of 35...isn't that about the same ratio as in the U.S.A.?

56 posted on 12/30/2007 1:43:56 PM PST by Positive (Nothing is sadder than to see a beautiful theory murdered by a gang of brutal facts.)
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To: Cringing Negativism Network
"You do know, Chinese consumers own more cell phones, than we do?..."

There are also twice as many bicycles in China than there are people in the U.S.A.

If all of the Chinese riding bicycles were to switch to Mo-Peds, the would consume all of OPEC's production of oil.

The greatest producer of Green House Gases in the planet is the Chinese population exhaling...

57 posted on 12/30/2007 1:51:15 PM PST by Positive (Nothing is sadder than to see a beautiful theory murdered by a gang of brutal facts.)
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To: Positive

Twelve or so million Americans have no access to electricity? rrrrRight...


58 posted on 12/30/2007 1:53:04 PM PST by nkycincinnatikid
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To: Cringing Negativism Network
Don't know if you noticed but American industrial productivity continues to improve, and the value of industry continues to increase.

At the same time a variety of non-automatable or inherently polluting industries have been exported.

China has been getting more than its fair share of such industries.

We've been keeping the good stuff.

Last year's American productivity improvement was 4.9%. Unemployment is at record lows. At the same time private individuals have imported up to 35 million near-slaves to assist them in their daily ablutions, night time habits, and lawn maintenance.

We are literally wallowing in wealth and don't know how to handle it.

59 posted on 12/30/2007 1:53:54 PM PST by muawiyah
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To: Cringing Negativism Network
"We cannot afford, to continue giving away the farm."

We are not "giving away the farm", we are trading a renewable resource (paper) for goods.

If you are right, in the end the Chinese will be left holding the bag, paper bag that is.

60 posted on 12/30/2007 1:54:39 PM PST by Positive (Nothing is sadder than to see a beautiful theory murdered by a gang of brutal facts.)
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