The Great Brassiere War

The Wall Street Journal ^ | Wednesday, November 19, 2003

[presidio9]

The Bush Administration added to its miserable trade record yesterday by imposing quotas on certain Chinese textiles, including robes and brassieres. The dollar promptly sold off, which ought to be a warning to the White House that the world's investors don't like trade wars.

[grobdriver]

This is great, IMHO.
The fewer brassieres in America, the better!

[xzins]

I think that if someone has a great theme park they should charge a premium for someone to play there.

Likewise, a great business park charges more companies to locate there.

And a great economy, the world's best, should charge players a premium to get to play.

[Doug Loss]

You're clearly thinking about the Playboy/Penthouse/Victoria' Secret subset of American womanhood. I agree, those ladies should go without bras (at least in my presence, if that ever happens... :-) ), but if bras disappeared across the board from the US I think you'd be pleading for them to return in a day or two...

[Maria S]

"You're clearly thinking about the Playboy/Penthouse/Victoria' Secret subset of American womanhood. I agree, those ladies should go without bras (at least in my presence, if that ever happens... :-) ), but if bras disappeared across the board from the US I think you'd be pleading for them to return in a day or two..."

LOL! You can't BEGIN to know how very CORRECT you are!!! As a female, I can testify with confidence that... Oh, never mind.

[americanSoul]

I agree. The reality is that with these countries like China, America has an ever increasing trade deficit.

This does not even address the national security vulnerability posed by outsourcing high tech manufacturing and IT development.

[presidio9]

And a great economy, the world's best, should charge players a premium to get to play

Great. Guess who the paying customers are.

Hint: Find a mirror.

[PBRSTREETGANG]

Not very uplifting news.

[JustAnAmerican]

"The Bush Administration added to its miserable trade record yesterday by imposing quotas on certain Chinese textiles, including robes and brassieres. The dollar promptly sold off, which ought to be a warning to the White House that the world's investors don't like trade wars."

And Americans don't like the EU all that much either. If it came to a trade war(hope,hope,hope), the EU along with the European economy would just fold up, while America's economy would experience a bump in the road, like so many bumps we have overcome before. The only people that might be hurt by this are the greedy CEO's and those that think lots-o-moola at the expense of America and Americans is ok, to them I say (expletive deleted).

[Cronos]

Ain't they making mountains out of molehills? ;-P

[spokeshave]

Someone post a bullet bra pic....terrorists beware....

[presidio9]

Your ratiocination of economics is facinating.

[gipper81]

[najida]

Oh dear,
I wondered where the tornado took my laundry.

[PBRSTREETGANG]

Wonder what the cup size is in that photo?

[xzins]

Your sense is that if China has to pay more that they'll charge more for their clothing and plastiJunk. That, you believe, will cause Sears to charge more for its clothing. Actually, it should result in absolutely no price increase for american made products. It will result in Chinese made goods.....already the rock-bottom priced to be a little higher.

But, in terms of china, it will mean that their profits go down. And since their profits go directly to their war machine, I will GAIN value in the area of defense because they will have less money to spend on threatening me.

[shuvlhed]

Careful what you wish for.

[JustAnAmerican]

Why is it that the pro-WTO folks always resort to "If ya don't agree ya must be a Marx admirer"? Ahh well, at least I put America and Americans first, unlike the "New World Order" folks.

[gipper81]

To introduce a tariff bill into a congress or
parliament is like throwing a banana into a cage
of monkeys. No sooner is it proposed to protect
one industry than all the industries that are
capable of protection begin to screetch and
clamor for it.

Economist, Henry George, 1886

[gipper81]

Smoot Hawley

[JustAnAmerican]

Agreed, however we are talking about "Fair" competition, which is what the "Free-Traitor" crowd seems to conveniently pass over. China pays it's workers $1.00 per hour or less, China refuses to allow its currency to float just like every other "Trading Partner" which means it's pricing on goods/labor will never fluxuate no matter what. Show me a true "Free-Trade" agreement and implement it and I will be behind it 100 percent. Until you do, please refrain from the statements that suggest that what China is doing is ok.

[gipper81]

This will be a thread and mantra for those interested in 'perfect' free trade for the next one hundred years.

This is today's marketplace, this is the new reality and it is not going to change. We better get used to this and adjust our business habits accordingly.

The proposed POLITICAL "cure" to this situation will be worse than the current reality. The cost/benefit ratio to any kind of protectionism is always, always negative to home country consumer.

[presidio9]

Actually, it should result in absolutely no price increase for american Dominican made products

Any artificial price increase is a bad thing. And, militarily, China is no threat to us. They can threaten a tiny island with 1% of their population located 100 miles off their own coast. What is it about China that keep underemployed IT specialists awake at night? Is it fear-mongering?

[presidio9]

Why is it that the pro-WTO folks always resort to "If ya don't agree ya must be a Marx admirer"? Ahh well, at least I put America and Americans first, unlike the "New World Order" folks.

Not at all your reliance on class warfare is straight out of the Communist Manifesto. As soon as you start talking about government intervention to protect the little guy from corporate fatcats, you might as well substitute the words workingclass and proletatiat and bourgoise, that's where you're headed. Your heart's in the right place, but your solution is inefficient and it doesn't work. Tariffs put individual industries first at the expense of Americans in general.

[Rebelbase]

The assault upon the Bra industry is coming from within:

www.BraFree.org, :where we celebrate healthy breasts"

[talleyman]

Read closer:

bras had been lifted in recent years

See? things are looking up!

It really is a miracle bra - I've seen it raise the dead...

[Paul Ross]

With the dollar dropping...U.S. production, from oil to manufactures should benefit. With any luck it will shock some of the industries fleeing the U.S. to outsource for cheaper labor into retrenchment...indeed investment reversals... as they find the cheap labor suddenly costs a lot more.

[xzins]

China is NO threat to us?

We definitely live on different planets, parallel universes....something.

Should result in no price increase for american made products is accurate. In fact, if the increase in cost of the foreign goods causes a few more american-made goods to be purchased, it could lead to volume discounts in price on american goods.

[Paul Ross]

militarily, China is no threat to us

With the unchecked stampede of US industry, China is set to eclipse us in total GDP by 2020...and already supplies over 60% of the dynamite needed by the U.S. military. They have already stolen the entire data base of Los Alamos. They know how thanks to that, how to build W-88s and Neutron Bombs. They have threatened us explicitly with the same in a first strike scenario they have PUBLISHED. HELLO? Are you teachable?

They have taken our Magnequench magnet operation (critical to all our JDAMs cruise missiles, F-16/18/22 and JSF etc)...and forcibly relocated it despite its manifest profitability...to China. They...the PLA... have 15,000 Front companies marauding in the U.S. to steal and co-opt whatever military relevant technology they can. And They have stolen with their PLA officers masquerading as 'grad-students' such things as Terfinol-D...the magical material science of the future...which makes fabulous improvements in everything from Sonar to Radar...and a lot of other things.

And, oh, btw, their state-owned media CHEERED ON THE ATTACK of 9-11. Saying loudly 'we got what we deserved'

Nope. Not a threat to us at all.

[presidio9]

Called on the pile-on brigade of people who love their country but not learning about economics, didja? Nope, I'm outta here. If you were interested in learning about how international trade worked, I's be happy to explain it to you. If you were looking for a put-down contest, I have no interest. China has 7 times our population. We can not hold them back forever. But we CAN bring them into the 21st century on our term. Good luck with your flame war.

[Saundra Duffy]

I need a good sports bra MADE IN AMERICA

[lilylangtree]

Bras like panties and men's shorts and briefs are a necessary evil. Bras keep the boobs lifted so that the neck muscles won't age prematurely by saging boobs without any support. Signs of aging occur in the skin of the neck first. That's why a number of older women keep their neck covered with a scarf or whatever to hide those godawful wrinkles since it's difficult to keep the skin of the neck smooth.

[BlazingArizona]

The fewer brassieres in America, the better!

Looks as though the really big boobs are over at the Departmernt of Commerce...

[Jim Cane]

the world's investors don't like trade wars.

The world's muslims don't like wars on terror either. TFB.

Go Bush!

[flashbunny]

If they ever have a protest march, I'm there ;)

[presidio9]

The world's muslims don't like wars on terror either. TFB.

That makes zero sense.

[presidio9]

Bras like panties and men's shorts and briefs are a necessary evil. Bras keep the boobs lifted so that the neck muscles won't age prematurely by saging boobs without any support.

Speak for your self sister. I know it's big and heavy, but I'll go commando if I want to. I can live with the wrinkles on my stomach ;>

[Paul Ross]

As do you. Not to flame you, but frankly, I believe that you are ignorant of the fragile condition of the American military industrial base. You express an military over-confidence based on PAST U.S. strength, and geography which is clearly obsoleted by a long-standing Chinese policy of covert-encirclement (can you say Venezuela, Columbia, Brazil, Cuba, Mexico?), U.S. capital-entrapment with their slave-labor honeypot, and their long-term thinking.

And then you are also cavalier with true allies such as Taiwan who have long been in our corner and still depend on us. You are all set to abandon them without a regret. Maybe it has something to do with your being a New Yorker. :-) We have been through 9 years of Clinton-Military down-sizing and hobbling and polital correctness chains being fastened on operations.

How is that you ask? Because GWB failed to do anything his first year (possibly due to Paul O'Neill over at Treasury...thank God he finally got canned!)...to reverse Clinton's massive 'built-in obsolesence' undermining of the American military. Everything he has done that was budgetarily significant was post-9-11. And we STILL haven't restored the 2 Army divisions extra that Dick Cheney honestly said we needed to deploy.

Industrially, We are on the verge of losing Boeing. And Grumman. Etc. Guess where all their tools and technology will then wind up? And I note that rather than confront and debate the military-industrial threat China poses...you just bug out.

[presidio9]

you just bug out

Nope. I bugged out because you pinged in at least 8 people who don't understand international trade but are not letting that stop them. That's too many people for me to deal with. If you want to have this conversation, I welcome it, in email even. You are wrong, and the reasons are pretty clear. But answering 20 people at once is simply too time consuming.

[Paul Ross]

Well your fear of a few on-lookers does not appear to be a valid complaint. It rather appears that those who preach 'international trade' [ irrespective of the damage done to national security ] don't actually believe in the 'free market of ideas' ;-)

Nor do you accord the courtesy of those pinged the basic respect they deserve...who have all demonstrated FRExcellence. Your self-appointed elitism is not persuasive.

Nor have you answered a single national security issue.

[presidio9]

Think wahtever you want. If you're serious about wanting answers don't ping for backup.

[harpseal]

Nope. Not a threat to us at all.

China could have fired off a nuclear weapon over an American city and we would still have people saying we should be nice to them becuase they give us cheap stuff.

I am really tired of the neo-liberals coming on this forum and advocating unilateral disarmament in a trade war.