China's Superpower Economy

The Heritage Foundation ^ | December 28, 2007 | John J. Tkacik, Jr.

[Earthdweller]

The question cannot be answered without a comparison to the percentage of the population or positions that were previously available.

I don't do one dimensional answers.

[1rudeboy]

The question cannot be answered without a comparison to the percentage of the population or positions that were previously available.

Great. When do you plan to get started?

[Earthdweller]

As soon as you stop acting like Helen Thomas.

[1rudeboy]

Are you planning to elaborate on that as well, or are you also going to blow it off?

[2harddrive]

I was in a Coldwater Creek store this Dec 24th, Christmas shopping. I NEVER DID find anything in the store that did not have “Made in China” on it....not clothes, not jewelry, not pots and pans, not nic-nacs, etc. They are nothing but a retailer of ChiCom goods. Then, I went next door to a Chico’s store. After the first 5 or 6 garments were Chinese, I did find a FEW made in India. NOTHING in EITHER store was made in America. NADA.

[Jacquerie]

My concern is their Navy. I hope ours is keeping a weather eye on them.

[snowsislander]

Yes, this article is a better interpretation of the World Bank data and its recent re-evaluation than what appeared in most of the popular press.

As to manufacturing employment in Red China, there is a fairly recent paper at the BLS (produced independently, though, I believe) that is interesting to read:

Manufacturing Employment in China

As 1rudeboy pointed out in post #17, Red China's published economic numbers are not of high quality. The paper attempts to point out some of the anomalies and tries to work up some more reasonable numbers.

There is a longer, related paper that also deals with compensation at the BLS:

Manufacturing Employment and Compensation in China

[Towed_Jumper]

The one item not mentioned here is the fact that those 1.3 Billion Chinese ants manufacturing their little hearts out still have to EAT. IIRC there was a recent article posted on FR about how, in the very near future, China was going to be forced to by grain and other foodstuffs from somewhere else. It will be interesting to see how the Chinese intend to solve their Guns vs. Butter issues.

Does China have a large and growing manufacturing capability? Sure, thanks to global corporations in a “race to the bottom” looking for low-wage labor markets.

Can the Chinese shoot down low earth orbit satellites with rockets? Yep.

Are they building a Blue Water navy? Yep.

Will they take over Taiwan via military invasion after the 2008 Olympics if HRH Clinton is elected el Presidente? Sure—and the U.S. won’t stop them.

The problem (in my opinion), remains however the size of their population. They all have to eat...and if, in the future, they can’t feed everybody then their’s another set of issues they’ll have to deal with as a “superpower”.

I think their answer will be to become another culture in love with death: Euthanasia of the old and sick and “undesirables”, continuation of the “one child” policy via abortions on a massive scale; tens of millions of unmarried males hornier than Bill Clinton but who can’t breed. Rising death rates due to the environmental pollution “byproduct” of their massive economic build up.

Cultures in love with death always get their wish—their culture dies.

[1rudeboy]

Thanks, I was thinking of going to the BLS also, but I couldn’t get my mind around applying U.S. numbers to the Chinese workforce/population. At first blush, it would seem that the assumptions necessary would destroy the result.

[The Pack Knight]

China lost a greater percentage of their manufacturing jobs than we did. 15% to our 11%.

The reason we have less people in manufacturing jobs is the same reason we have less farmers. The Industrial Age is ending, just as the Agricultural Age ended before it.

[The Pack Knight]

Those numbers are from the Heritage Foundation, by the way. The same organization that produced the article this thread is based on.

[1rudeboy]

Do you have a link to those numbers? (Not that I’m disputing you or them). I’d like to see what’s behind them . . . for the same reason I was unwilling to assume Earthdweller’s negative.

[sam_paine]

In 2006, America's manufacturing sector produced about $2.7 trillion in goods. China's manufacturing sector produced about 8.74 trillion yuan in goods, or about $1.124 trillion at the prevailing exchange rate of 7.77 yuan to the U.S. dollar....

[but]...the World Bank... determined that, in China, one only needs about 3.4 yuan to buy what would be a dollar's worth of goods on the U.S. ...

Then again, if we make up an altogether different arbitrary rate, different from the arbitray PRC peg rate of 7.77 or the arbitrary BigMac defined rate of 3.4 or 2.8 or whatever, then we can post an altogether more or less inflammatory and more or less informative article.

How bout I give you $1 Million dollars in the US or $15 Million Yuan and you have to choose to live, work, invest only in the respective country for the rest of your years. Your choice would be what?

[Strategerist]

Bingo.

[sam_paine]

I was in a Coldwater Creek store this Dec 24th, Christmas shopping. I NEVER DID find anything in the store that did not have “Made in China” on it....not clothes, not jewelry, not pots and pans, not nic-nacs, etc..... Then, I went next door to a Chico’s store. ...I did find a FEW made in India.

NOTHING in EITHER store was made in America. NADA.

So let's summarize:

You are an American Consumer with money to spend at popular/trend-setting mall-type retail outlets.

These trendy stores are publicly owned (Tickers: CWTR, CHS) companies employing some probably low wage, part-time labor in that store? Young high school girls maybe?

Chicos employs 5250 fulltime workers according to YHOO. CWTR: 3,038 fulltimers.

So there's 8000 people. Let's just say you buy them out. 8,001 employees-you're the boss.

You close those stores and move all those full-time employees to a factory in Alabama to produce Made In the USA clothes to be sold at WalMart instead of Made in China.

How do you think that works?

Point is. There is no market for Made In USA anymore, because America Consumers may be miffed, but they will pay for the cheaper, faster, trendier clothes from China and India....and local kids/old ladies/part-timers would rather work in a trendy retail store and gossip on their cell phone at the register than to learn how to sew in a stinky manufacturing plant.

[truemiester]

Move the manufacturing plants to Mexico. That was what was supposed to happen with NAFTA. The mexicans would stay in mexico and work there. Then China would lose business as the plants went south instead fo east.

What happened? Mexicans are here, no plants in mexico and china is stonger than ever.

[1rudeboy]

Well, that pretty much covers the zero-sum argument. Thanks.

[Calpernia]

Must read too:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1945273/posts
Chinopoly

[Earthdweller]

You can't compare job-for-job with the numbers reported in this paper on trade deficits with China. The lopsided employment growth in the U.S. economy has become owing to the unbalanced U.S.-China trade relationship. In short..we lost jobs that we would have gotten if not for the trade deficit.

The rise in the U.S. trade deficit with China in the last ten years has displaced production that could have supported 2,166,000 U.S. jobs. Most of these jobs (1.8 million) have been lost since China entered the WTO in 2001.

[Zhang Fei]

Problem is, we can’t believe any of the economic numbers coming out of China.

I think we can believe some of social phenomena emerging out of all this - mobs of thousands sacking police stations and trashing PLA schools - all this in a police state where you can be taken away in the middle of the night for thought crimes (let alone demonstrations) and literally disappear. This is a society under tremendous stress, and cracks are appearing that may cause the collapse of whole shooting match.