Posted on 09/14/2010 1:44:53 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
A State Council think-tank in China has warned Washington that the US will come off worst in a trade war if it imposes sanctions against Beijing over the two nations' currency spat.
Ding Yifan, a policy guru at the Development Research Centre, said China could respond by selling holdings of US debt, estimated at over $1.5 trillion (£963bn). This would trigger a rise in US interest rates. His comments at a forum in Beijing follow a string of remarks by Chinese officials questioning US credit-worthiness and the reliability of the dollar.
China's authorities seem split over how to respond to moves on Capitol Hill for legislation to punish Beijing for holding down the yuan. The central bank has ruled out use of its "nuclear weapon", insisting that it would not exploit its $2.45 trillion of foreign reserves for political purposes. "The US Treasury market is a very important market for China," it said.
However, the mood is hardening on both sides of the Pacific. The dispute risks escalating if China's trade surplus with the US climbs further and more US jobs are lost. US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who has taken a softly-softly line in the past, said on Friday that China had done "very little" to correct the undervaluation of the yuan since ending the dollar peg in June.
Mr Ding reflects thinking among some in the Poltiburo, who seem convinced that the US is in decline and that China's rise as an exporter of goods and capital give it the upper hand.
"They are utterly wrong," said Gabriel Stein from Lombard Street Research. "The lesson of the 1930s is that surplus countries with structurally weak domestic demand come off worst in a trade war."
He described the implicit threat to sell Treasuries as "empty
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
When you find one, let us “Free Trader Globalists” know . . . I’d like to have some words with him or her.
The money that is sold abroad is YOU.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cd-SLRyuRq0&feature=player_embedded#!
Our government spends too much money? Even more than it takes in? What a shock. How has this secret been kept for so long?
The popular term would be *non-sustainable*.
Always buying the more expensive product is your recommendation for saving money?
Always buying the more expensive product is your recommendation for saving money?
99.99%? Are you sure it wasn’t 99.9999%? (As long as you’re being ‘scientific’ about it).
Yes, if it means less of my money to pay for someone else's unemployment benefits, and even less because there are more employed people carrying the load.
And yes, if it means my job won't be shipped overseas so I'll have a paycheck to buy those more expensive US made pens with.
What if we only used US produced oil? Current production is about one-third of our usage. Our costs would skyrocket.
Would that be helpful for American workers?
and even less because there are more employed people carrying the load.
I'm sure the number of US oil workers would increase quickly, do you think that would offset the massive job losses in all the other sectors of the economy?
Except for the fact that you will probably be spending 50 cents to save 25 cents, you might have a point.
1. We do not have to pay the debt they hold in our treasury if we decide so because they have no way to force us to pay it and that is why we are called a Super Power in fact the only Super Power in the world.
2. We can stop importing their products and tens of millions of them will die from starvation and they will have a revolution that will topple the evil communist regime.
3. The Chinese communists can go to hell. They are a murderous evil regime that enslaves 1.2 billions of its own people.
Sadly there are a lot of armchair economists who think we should destroy the American economy and standard of living by returning it to the start of the Industrial Revolution.
America is the king of the information economy - we need to capitalize and consolidate on the future, not the past.
Interesting that you focused on one industry, when there are plenty of others. Besides, from what I've seen most Freepers wish we WOULD drill here.
Our costs would skyrocket.
Assuming that's correct over the long haul, those costs would go back into OUR economy, not out of the country.
I guess now it as good a time as any to say this, but I'm all for energy independence and developing green, renewable energy sources, but I don't go for the dishonest scare tactics the left uses.
Would that be helpful for American workers?
And how did shipping our jobs overseas help American workers. Are those Americans who would be working at those factories that were closed better off collecting unemployment? What about the call centers that were shipped overseas? Are the Americans who lost those jobs better off, and are you satisfied with the service you get from those foreign call centers?
It's easy to talk about the cost of making things here, but you're not feeling the costs of shipping our jobs overseas yet, because we're borrowing foreign dollars to pay for all of those unemployment benefits. When the bill comes, you'll see how cheap those foreign made pens really are.
I'm sure the number of US oil workers would increase quickly, do you think that would offset the massive job losses in all the other sectors of the economy?
To be honest, I don't know what the cost would be. I leave this question for the "drill here" supporters to answer.
You'll find out how much that cheaper foreign made lamp really costs when we start paying back all the money we borrowed to pay for those unemployment benefits.
I'd go drinking with (whatever shift it was) them after work, and their clothes were as clean as mine . . . this whole idea that the U.S. needs to return to the glory days of the Henry Ford empire (and dirty workers) is a pipe-dream. There are workers who get dirty, still, but not in all manufacturing plants.
And you'll find out the idiocy of it all when you realize that you spent $100K to "save" a $50K job.
By spending $0.50 more for a US made notepad? I'm willing to make that sacrifice to keep jobs over here.
You’ve got it all wrong...we need to return to those glory days when 80% of the workforce was in agriculture. There is absolutely no reason why 2% today should do the work of 80% of yesteryear. Taking a bath once a week was pretty cool, too.
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