Based on living in Asia for some forty years and being married into a fairly extensive family of Thai Chinese I can say that the economic theory driving the Chinese is "sell it but get the most you can for it". Normally prices are determined by how much the buyer will pay So I would assume that current Chinese prices are somewhat higher then the rock bottom, can't sell it for that, price. One way to prove, or disprove that thesis would be to track Harbor Freight prices with an allowance for increases in container shipping costs. I don't know, but I suspect that the dollar price will stay about the same as before the fall of the dollar.
What appears, from this distance, to ba the largest problem is the transfer of basic industries to overseas sources. CNC machines, for example. do they make any in the U.S. ? Where does iron and steel come from these days? Even when I still lived there the Japanese were selling steel, FAS San Diag o for less then Lone Star Steel could produce it.
One of the biggest problems is that it is so easy to see what is wrong but so difficult to offer a solution that is acceptable to, even the ones most effected.
Tell Ohio that the answer is to cut taxes, give a 5 year moratorium on business taxes, guarantee a maximum wage and a compliant labor force and offer cheap power and see what they say. But Singapore did exactly that.
Bruce-in-Bangkok (correct email address for reply)
============= The major problem with attempting to target economic segments for protection/growth is that this leads to "crony capitalism," where the selection is based on political influence, prestige, greed, etc. and not actual need. Indeed, "need" has different meanings according to your perceptions of the world, and even an honest evaluation/prioritization by one group will be inane from the perspective of another group.
Historically this policy was called mercantilism and arose in parallel with the nation-state.
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This seemed to be correct (operational) for a while, but then the assumption that the amount of international trade was "fixed" became increasingly incorrect.
This was replaced with a later form called neo-mercantilism, as opposed to the "free trade" (Ricardo) of the UK. The economies of both the Kaiser's Germany and the United States could be described as neo-mercantile, and in the US case with a fair bit of isolationism.
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Historically this seems to have been quite successful in the aggregate for the countries involved, albeit at considerable cost to other countries.
Note that "free trade" is an illusion in that only the dominant/hegemon power [the UK then, the US now] and their clients benefits from "free trade," This is an illusion because operationally this is neo-mercantilism and because of the huge arms races and military/industrial complex, it verges on classical mercantilism. A characteristic is the practice of denominating the majority of international trade in the hegemon's currency, even between two other countries. The illusion of "free trade" collapses when the underlying neo-mercantilism collapses when hegemony is lost, either through a military defeat, economic stagnation, failed financial speculation, political degeneration, or a simple failure to adapt to changing circumstances.
Many countries are now practicing "industrial mercantilism" or more broadly "techno-industrial mercantilism," with varying degrees of success. In the more successful versions of this, the central planning agencies are insuring not only techno-industrial "success" but are also implementing common sense actions to preserve the national existence such as securing an adequate internal food supply (possibly beans, beans, and more beans, with imports in the up cycle), and adequate affordable medical care for the people. Note that this is not autarky, but rational contingency planning.
A major problem is that of the "wolf in sheep's clothing," where a trans-national corporation pretends to be a national corporation (as they may have been at one time) to obtain tax and duty preferences, but then evades the actions and restrictions that a truly national corporation would exhibit. This is particularly true in the financial areas, where available capital is reinvested outside the nation. This can be encapsulated neatly in the [no longer operational] syllogism "When American corporations do well, American does well, and when America does well, Americans do well." The problem being there are no more American corporations, only trans-national corporations, which were American at one time, which are still domiciled in America.
Unka' George [George McDuffee]
------------------------------------------- He that will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils: for Time is the greatest innovator: and if Time, of course, alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end?
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman. Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).
Huge raids on the federal treasury [i.e. the taxpayers] starts. See below for the gory details.
To locate your representative and to use their web mail click on
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Be sure to bookmark this and your representative's web-mail site
To locate your senators and to use their web mail click on
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Be sure to bookmark this site and your senators' web-mail sites.
Feel free to use any or all of the following email I just sent to my Senators and Representative. The money you save may be your own...
============ Not only no -- but HELL NO! -- A THOUSAND TIME NO!!
It is sickening (but expected) to see the same individuals that vehemently opposed Social Security, Medicare, Food Stamps, and WIC [Women's, Infant's and Children's] food programs, now first in line at the Federal money trough. These individuals are also the ones directly responsible for the financial implosion currently sweeping the economy, and to a large degree the elimination of the U.S. Dollar as a reserve currency.
These are the same "masters of the universe" that bitterly opposed and evaded reasonable regulation such as prudent loan reserve requirements and accountability efforts such as Sarbanes-Oxley, which if enforced would have at least contained if not prevented many of their problems
Bear-Stearns is simply the first in a long, long line of "high roller" institutions including brokers, banks, private equity funds, and hedge fund that are insolvent and desperately need money.
While the bonds and other obligations/guarantees covered by the "full faith and credit of the United States," must be protected, there is no logical, moral or ethical reason that the organizations and individuals responsible for the current debacle should be rescued to repeat their market manipulation and speculation activities resulting in yet another disaster.
NONE OF THESE INDIVIDUALS OR INSTITUTIONS SHOULD GET EVEN A SINGLE DIME OF TAX PAYER FUNDS.
I suggest the following when any of these "tin cup" organizations enters receivership:
(1) All existing officers and directors should be removed, and their offices and records are sealed, including emails.
(2) All bank accounts should be frozen, existing signature authority over checking accounts rescinded, and all company credit cards revoked.
(3) All company assets such as laptop computers and proprietary software should be inventoried and secured, and removal must be prevented.
(4) A bankruptcy administrator with RICO experience should be appointed to liquidate all operations with-in 180 days, with all records made available to the appropriate enforcement and regulatory agencies such as the SEC, FBI, IRS, etc. for possible criminal prosecution.
(5) All existing employment contracts should be voided, and all deferred compensation and undistributed bonuses are at least sequestered.
(6) All executive and director pension plans should be voided, the assets transferred to the PBGC, and any recipients are paid by the PBGC according to the established schedule. Any company paid "trust funds" or annuities benefiting officers or directors should be sequestered
(7) Compensation or guarantee payments are made from the "bottom up," that is the small investors and creditors are paid first.
The news items that caused this email to be sent include:
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pledges to supply cash By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer
WASHINGTON - The Federal Reserve invoked a rarely used Depression-era procedure Friday to bolster troubled Bear Stearns Cos. and said it will provide even more help to combat a serious credit crisis.
Senior Federal Reserve staffers said the arrangement allows JP Morgan Chase to borrow from the Fed's discount window and put up collateral from Bear Stearns to back up the loans. JP Morgan, a bank, has access to the discount window to obtain direct loans from the Fed, but Bear Stearns, an investment house, does not. This type of procedure, Fed officials said, dates back to the Great Depression of the 1930s but has rarely been used since that time. ===========
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Bear Stearns bailed out by Fed, J. P. Morgan By STEPHEN BERNARD, AP Business Writer
NEW YORK - Bear Stearns Cos., one of Wall Street's venerable investment banks, received a bailout Friday by the federal government and JPMorgan Chase & Co. in a surprise, last-ditch effort to save the 86-year old institution.
The Federal Reserve responded swiftly to pleas from Bear Stearns that its coffers had "significantly deteriorated" within a
24-hour period. Central bankers backed an arrangement to bolster the company, and stood ready to provide extra resources to combat a credit crisis that now threatens one of America's biggest financial institutions. Bear Stearns, the nation's fifth-largest investment bank, made its fortune dealing in opaque mortgage-backed securities - a strategy that might be its undoing amid the worst housing slump in a quarter century. The bank has racked up $2.75 billion in write-downs since last year, and faced a possible collapse without some kind of lifeline. Bear Stearns lost half of its value within 30 minutes of the market open, before clawing back a bit to be down 41 percent, or $23.51, at $33.49 by midday. The news rattled investors, pushing the Dow Jones industrial average down about 150 points. ==========
Unka' George [George McDuffee]
------------------------------------------- He that will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils: for Time is the greatest innovator: and if Time, of course, alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end?
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman. Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).
Not a yes. But just because someone tried something and screwed it up doesn't mean they shouldn't have tried. And I'm not so sure we couldn't do better than the Japanese. Maybe, maybe not. But I think that is the direction we need to head in. You can be cautious, which is probably a wise thing to do.
That may be true but sometimes you need to keep an industry for other reasons. Take steel. Say we are not competitive in the free market sense and we let the industry go to where it can be done better and cheaper. But now we have no access to steel, which we may need in a war. How would it be if we needed steel from China but that is who we go to war with. We'd be screwed. So there are some industries a country may want to keep even though they don't do as well as others. Japan shouldn't be growning rice at all but they are protecting that market so the local farmers can stay in business even though they can't compete in a global market. Now rice isn't steel but the point is the same. For whatever reason the country may want to keep an industry even if it's a bloated, useless, and noncompetitive clunker. We should be making the choice not leaving it to the "market".
70% of the cars they sell in the US are made here right now. That means they are made by Americans, in America, and sold to Americans. Sounds pretty American like to me. Looks like the only thing that isn't American is the people running the business, which pretty much shoots to hell the idea that Americans are the best at running a business.
Since I've never seen a French car that I wanted to buy that's kind of beside the point. Maybe there aren't any is because we don't want them? I don't know what the deal is between the US and France regarding autos but I assume they are protecting their manufacturers and we are retaliating by not allowing them to be sold here. But if nobody wants them we're not hurting them much. If I remember Peugeot and Citroen were always garbage. They probably wouldn't sell anywhere but in France anyway. But we agree sometimes protection is a good thing. The only question then is when and how much.
I'm pretty sure you'd vote for McCain despite anything I did. Old habits die hard. If you're a conservative they never do. Unless some change is forced you will continue to repeat the same pattern. That's unfortunate because it's so anti intellectual. The idea is that you don't "tamper" with markets. You protect what you think is in the national interest to keep or to stop other nations from damaging you. Sure, you can go overboard and mess things up but this is one area where being conservative is a plus. It's like grinding. You can always take away but once you grind it off you can't put it back on. So going slow and cautious is the way to do it.
conservative
Pain will be necessary because of the excesses and mistakes already made. Corrections usually hurt. But we have to get back on track and that means putting people in charge who don't believe in unfettered free markets. They are the ones who got us in this mess. Trade needs to be balanced and some protection will help. We really need a whole new policy in this area and we have to be honest and not go with the ideologues. We need to examine what isn't working and change it and we need to see what is working and expand in those areas. It's really just a matter of replacing incompetent managers with competent ones. There are some good people out there, they're just not working for us right now.
Industrial policies and industrial planning are one area where neoliberal economics is right, based on experience. Central planning can never keep up with markets and always leads to big market distortions and big inefficiences as a result. I was a big advocate of planning and industrial policies for years, but I eventually got it pounded out of me by researching and reporting on world manufacturing and trade. It's not good, Hawke.
We damned near did hothouse steel in the '70s. That's when reporting on the steel industry was my #1 job. I was all for it.
Fortunately, we didn't do it. If we had, Nucor would have been stillborn. Now we produce about 100 m tons of steel and consume 123 m tons. That's not bad. And most of that steel is from mini-mills, ala Nucor. What they did is to make the basic steel industry almost obsolete, but it wouldn't have happened if their parent company wasn't under pressure to find a cheaper way to produce steel.
Whatever we do to control trade, or to slow down change, I hope it's nothing like what the Japanese have done with rice. The reason they protect rice is because of political pressure from rice growers, who are enormously strong in Japanese politics. It's like our corn subsidies, only worse.
As I think you pointed out, the US car business became an oligopoly, and bred all of the troubles that oligopies typically breed. I'm doubtful that it can be fixed. But the Japanese and some other builders who are operating in the US are starting with a relatively clean slate. That gives them a huge advantage. I'm hoping they'll all move here, permanently.
Peugeot and Renault were doing pretty well when we had the invasion of European cars in the late '50s until the late '60s. But both companies suffered from a lack of market savvy in the US, due largely, say most observers, to the fact that they were only good at operating in the hothouse of protectionism that was France. They built cars that weren't suited for the US market. Now they make much better cars, but the price of entry, and the fierceness of competition, has kept them out of the US.
I
Nope. They can sell anything they want. They don't want to try. The Italians did the same thing. (Which cost me a bundle, because Alfa Romeo was my advertising client at the time they moved out.)
I'm on the fence and I'm waiting to see how the real campaign goes. I voted once for a Republican president in the last 40 years.
Definitely. Markets are like high-horsepower engines. They need a throttle or they blow up. But you don't want to try to control the valves and the fuel flow while you're driving. (I could extend this metaphor into complete idiocy with no trouble, but I'll stop here. d8-))
Just so we don't foul the spark plugs and kill the engine. (hee-hee! It's endless...)
========== What a choice -- would you rather see the US economy killed by inflation or lack of liquidity.
==> Remember that as tax payers, it is your money that is being used and put at risk. The amounts involved are far in excess of the "tax rebate" that you were promised. This is a direct result of the repeal of Glass-Steagal1 (2) and the systemic evasion of loan reserve requirements. Even the cash under your matress is at risk through the operation of inflation. From the UK some observations on this "rescue effort."
click on
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FWIW -- "Mr. Market" does not seemed to impressed with the efficacy of this "bail out."
Any nominations for the next "goat?" When does Carlyle and Blackstone get the chop?
Unka' George [George McDuffee]
------------------------------------------- He that will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils: for Time is the greatest innovator: and if Time, of course, alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end?
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman. Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).
Ha-ha! It looks like the Pap Attack has taken a few pages from Coulter and Limbaugh. As I was listening to that I was thinking about a 74-year-old guy down in Atlanta, I think, who designed, built, and raced his own Formula Ford back when I was active in SCCA. I heard he wasn't bad, at that.
The age thing is mostly a bunch of hooey, as far as McCain's mental state is concerned. People as active and as challenged as he's been don't lose much, if any mental acuity until quite late in their lives.
If you sit around or just play golf, it's another story.
============= If you have high speed internet watch
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Unka' George [George McDuffee]
------------------------------------------- He that will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils: for Time is the greatest innovator: and if Time, of course, alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end?
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman. Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).
============= More "stinky stuff" floats to the surface about our "ethical" drug companies.
In many ways this parallels the financial sector in that the many highly ethical and committed people involved in building the sector long-term are having their legs cut off by the crooks and incompetents at the top looking for short-term "results" and bonuses. It is called killing the goose that lays the golden eggs....
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?rss=chi&psp=health
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are only some of the latest articles identified in a very quick web search. There are thousands more.
More on research outsourcing [and those high paying jobs]. The reason these are mainly foreign or obscure US sources is that appears to be the main-stream US media is not carrying the story. Possibly advertising revenue is a consideration. Note that in several articles the new GM/bioengineering large molecule drugs are specifically covered. These are only the most recent articles I found in a very quick web search.
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?rsssource=1
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?articleid=43410
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Unka' George [George McDuffee]
------------------------------------------- He that will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils: for Time is the greatest innovator: and if Time, of course, alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end?
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman. Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).
George, I'm a heavy reader, but that's too much for me. Is there a 25-word summary?
Are they about individual crooks in the business, or about crooked corporations? Or is is something else?
-- Ed Huntress
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I read the first one. This is a very, very gray area. In fact, a small part of what I was doing was supporting off-label uses of drugs. This may sound strange or unethical, but, like most things, it's not simple. Doctors use drugs off-label anyway, as that article says. A lot of what they do is based on nothing but unsupported speculation about the drugs' effects. There are several legal ways the drug companies can pass on peer-reviewed research about off-label uses, however, which the docs really eat up. There's a line that you don't cross; perhaps this Lilly exec crossed it, or perhaps the CT prosecutor is looking to create a new type of crime by prosecutorial fiat. I wouldn't judge it yet.
The European commission has mounted dawn raids on pharmaceutical companies across Europe as part of an investigation into possible anti-competitive behaviour that could be preventing new drugs and cheaper generic alternatives from entering the market.
The raids, staged on Tuesday at the offices of companies including GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca, Sanofi-Aventis, Pfizer and Merck, as well as generic firms such as Teva, are part of increasing scrutiny of an industry worth ?200bn (£150bn) a year in the EU alone. They were dovetailed with, among others, the British, French and German competition authorities. The EU is also working with its US counterpart, the federal trade commission, and the Swiss.
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' George [George McDuffee]
------------------------------------------- He that will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils: for Time is the greatest innovator: and if Time, of course, alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end?
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman. Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).
I missed the Staff meeting, but the Memos showed that Gunner wrote on Thu, 13 Mar 2008 09:06:16
-0700 in rec.crafts.metalworking :
Anyone else notice a possible correlation between the Democrats taking control of Congress, the decline of the dollar on the forex markets, and the increases in the price of petroleum? Not that correlation equates to causation...
-- pyotr filipivich "I had just been through hell and must have looked like death warmed over walking into the saloon, because when I asked the bartender whether they served zombies he said, ?Sure, what'll you have?'" from I Hear America Swinging by Peter DeVries
"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire. Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us) off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give them self determination under "play nice" rules.
Think of it as having your older brother knock the shit out of you for torturing the cat." Gunner
Boy! It's a good thing that the dems NEVER obstruct the passage of ANY Republican bills, eh?
So, when the Republicans had the majority, THEY had the power, but now that the democrats have the majority, the Republicans have the power?
Looks as though ol' Nancy the Nutcase lied to you libs when she suggested that the democrats now had control, and things would be different.
Please excuse me for saying this, but that old liberal logic is sure difficult to follow.
Why doesn'y MY mind think that way?
Let's see.....We've been in Iraq for a little longer than 90 days now, so Bush is STILL to blame?.....even though he can send troops for only 90 days without approval from Congress?
It would appear that my grade-school understanding of civics exceeds whatever level of liberal education you have received in your life.........
Maybe it's time for you to dig out your high school civics book, Asterisk. Apparently you forgot how it works.
There will be a quiz, with three questions: First, after Congress passes a bill, who has to sign it? Second, if he doesn't sign it, what are the different things that can happen to the bill? Third, if Congress is going to override a veto, how many votes do they need?
Things *are* different. Now the President is vetoing bills, or threatening veto and the blocking of legislation that contains some necessary provision, provoking standoffs and crises, in an attempt to force a minority's will on the American people. This was expected. Our President is a petty tyrant.
It's not that hard. Most kids pass high school civics. Apparently you found it a challenge.
This is not a question for mortal men to answer, but it could be an interesting subject for research.
================= Its the traditional problem of how things *SHOULD* work [or worked at one time] v. how they *DO* work. Not only do high school civics classes have this problem but also the university political science classes.
For example, Condoleezza Rice earned her bachelor's degree in political science, cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Denver in 1974; her master's from the University of Notre Dame in 1975; and her Ph.D. from the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver in 1981
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Unka' George [George McDuffee]
------------------------------------------- He that will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils: for Time is the greatest innovator: and if Time, of course, alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end?
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman. Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).
Not at all difficult. Particularly if you are in a Ph.D. program. Frequently the Master's thesis is waived for Ph.D. candidates. The school where I got a MS and Ph. D. in chemistry "awarded?" a MS degree fairly quickly to students that failed to qualify for the PH.D. degree. Most students who left the school with an MS (in the chemistry department) actually flunked out of the Ph. D. program. Students who were on a successful Ph. D. track picked up a MS degree as a formality without a thesis in one year including summer school.
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