←back to thread

China

(drewdevault.com)
847 points kick | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.213s | source
Show context
mc32 ◴[] No.21585110[source]
>”It’s economically productive for the 1% to maintain a trade relationship with China. The financial incentives don’t help any Americans, and in fact, most of us are hurt by this relationship...”

So true, since its inception with GHW, its execution and realization through Clinton and then once fully engaged the timid, supplicant responses from GW and BO, China has contributed to the stagnation of the blue collar worker on America with the full complicity of Democrats, Republicans and most of Industry and even unions who didn’t oppose their cozy politicians. They all only saw starry dollar signs...

That’s where we are now. People have had enough. That’s why they put up with the guy no one likes because he’s willing to sever that codependent relationship.

Now, if you ask any pol running for the nomination who the greatest threat to America is... it’s not going to be China...

replies(15): >>21585140 #>>21585157 #>>21585158 #>>21585323 #>>21585326 #>>21585341 #>>21585355 #>>21585449 #>>21585659 #>>21585680 #>>21586024 #>>21586078 #>>21586407 #>>21586727 #>>21587541 #
koube ◴[] No.21585323[source]
The article focuses on human rights abuses which I think is a cogent criticism of China-US trade.

On the economics issue though, readers should know he disagrees with economists, who nearly universally agree that trade with China benefits Americans as a whole, with the caveat that there are concentrated losses in certain populations. Economists are highly certain on this, with uncharacteristically few people responding "uncertain" on the survey [0]. You can go through the other surveys on the IGM Forum to see what more common distributions looks like.

[0] http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/china-us-trade

replies(4): >>21585361 #>>21585670 #>>21586808 #>>21587459 #
CharlesColeman ◴[] No.21585670[source]
> On the economics issue though, readers should know he disagrees with economists, who nearly universally agree that trade with China benefits Americans as a whole, with the caveat that there are concentrated losses in certain populations.

The thing is: economists are hardly unbiased and neutral. Their theories are far from scientific truth, and typically embed significant political content.

For instance: "benefit" can be a highly political term. How do "economists" define it and is that the definition we should be using?

This is an interesting article on the subject:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/22/economists-globalizatio...

> ECONOMISTS ON THE RUN

> Paul Krugman and other mainstream trade experts are now admitting that they were wrong about globalization: It hurt American workers far more than they thought it would. Did America’s free market economists help put a protectionist demagogue in the White House?

replies(4): >>21585939 #>>21586144 #>>21586857 #>>21587118 #
1. cowmoo728 ◴[] No.21587118[source]
I do not trust economists on this issue. Many doctors and even prestigious academics and journals are openly admitting that aspects of medicine have been compromised by the processed food industry and pharmaceutical industry. I posit that economics has been even more compromised by multinational corporations and financial entities, but economics is such an insular "science" that they've just built their ivory tower up higher to hide more and more bullshit.

The main benefit that they give for Americans is that everything became cheaper. We can buy cheaper phones, appliances, cars, clothing, and household goods. But that's exactly what most of these things are - cheaper. We're importing a vast quantity of crappy junk, exporting untold pollution and human suffering onto factory workers and laborers in China, and hollowing out the American middle class in the process.

When presented with evidence about the declining quality and huge externalities of imported goods, they hand-wave about rational actors and price discovery and how consumers will just select for the products that minimize heavy metal pollution in some far off mine in rural China. There's similar hand-waving about how Americans will simply find new jobs when all the factories in Ohio automate or close. When products die more frequently because they're not engineered for durability or serviceability, they hand wave again about how consumers are making informed decisions to maximize their utility at the time of purchase.

The truth is a lot of this was a great con with a thin veneer of respectable economics on it. A few of the economists were in on the con, but most of them were taken for a ride. There were a few warning us all along about market failures, wealth inequality, disruption of rapid globalization, and unchecked externalities, but most just wanted in on the money.