[bootlegga]

DanSC DanSC:

Unless you're Uighur. Then you're just boned.

True, but Xinjiang province (where most Uighur live) is almost as much of a problem for China as Afghanistan is for the West.

I guess I should have been clearer, the CCP only cares about the Han Chinese - which is 92% of the population (not that I agree with that POV).

[bootlegga]

ShepherdsDog ShepherdsDog:

Don't get too shame faced, I see Canadians(Aussies, Kiwis, Britons and South Africans) behaving the same way here.

Yep, there's jerks (and conversely great people) in every group.

[andyt]

PostFactum PostFactum:

$1:

The U.S. is an empire in decline,

- Wow, did I lose something?. US was an empire, maybe it was empire of jeans and cola, now it's empire of fatness (Without offences). I'm tired because of US turkey arrogance, maybe because I live in Europe. When I was 18, I was working in city police volunteer group. Once, one drunk man in winter at 11 pm was swearing in English, kicking glass bottle and sticking to girls. I weared bracelets on him and guys used effort to put him in police car. The whole road he was shouting : "I'm citizen of the US". He was thinking that we will hear this, make him free, and he will prolong his drunk disgraceful behaviour on the street. When he was sober, he was saying that he's american and need to be free, because he has rights. He wasn't paying any attention to his actions, feeling sorry, excusing etc. Only because of his unconscious treat to his actions, we made for him max punishment: 2 month of municipal work, two hours every day during 2 month he was cleaning snow around municipal school, city hospital for pregnant and half of hour as English teaching tool in school for kids with no possibility to leave country till punishment time.

You can get dickheads like this from any country. I don't think it says much about American empire.

[rickc]

I do not see anyone addressing the topic at hand. The article is about the decline of the American Empire, and how the U.S. and China appear to be on a collision course. Then we veer into a thread about wealth redistribution in the U.S. We are talking apples and oranges here. Exactly how is raising the tax rates on the wealthy in the U.S. going to stop corporations from setting up sweat shops in China? Is higher tax rates on the wealthy going to quench Americans thirst for cheap goods being imported from China?

I agree with the author of the article. The American empire is in decline. China is rising. We do appear to be on a collision course.If we were serious about doing something about the situation, we would be talking about tarriffs on goods from China. We would be making it much more expensive for U.S. corporations to do bussiness in China. We would be making it cheaper for corporations to set up shop in the U.S. Put more Americans to work building things. China is not beating us at anything, we are giving it away.

[Robair]

rickc rickc:

Is higher tax rates on the wealthy going to quench Americans thirst for cheap goods being imported from China?

No, but lower taxes on everyone else might.

A lot of folks down there would buy American if they could afford it.

[andyt]

rickc rickc:

Is higher tax rates on the wealthy going to quench Americans thirst for cheap goods being imported from China?

It's vicious circle. Offer cheap crap from China which puts American jobs out of business, and pretty soon that thirst for the cheap crap comes from the fact Americans can no longer afford anything else. Income distribution is relevant because since Raygun, the wealthy have been taking almost all of the increase in GDP, while the middle class stagnated. Higher tax rates would be a way to redistribute some of that wealth back to all those consumers that are supposed to be driving the economy. For a while this scheme worked, because people's house prices were increasing, so they could borrow against the equity to increase their consumption, even as their incomes stagnated or went down.

Remember "if we stop shopping, the terrorists have won?" Looks like Bart doesn't even agree economically with his idol GWB. The American elite has played a big con game with itself, where those who first outsourced jobs made a killing. But slowly it dawned on them what has been known by the left for decades - if you want a healthy consumer society you have to give the consumers good paying jobs. Outsource those jobs and the whole system crashes.

[andyt]

Robair Robair:

A lot of folks down there would buy American if they could afford it.

And they could still find made in America products.

[Psudo]

I doubt that, Robair. People buy the cheapest thing that meets their bare minimum quality threshold. Except for a small patriotic minority, they don't buy American when American-made means more expensive than necessary.

[Psudo]

Macguyver Macguyver:

The tax rate for this group in 2008 was 33%. If Bart made $300,000 that year he pays $99,000 in taxes. If the tax rate were increased 5% to 38% to offset the decrease for the other 96% of the population he will pay $114,000 in taxes.

This will never be on topic, but it's a pet peeve of mine so I'm going to bring it up anyway:

If a tax rate of 33% were increased 5% it would become 34.65%. You'd raise the tax rate 5 percentage points to reach 38%. Percent (symbolized by %) refers to a part of a whole, whereas percentage point is a discrete unit of measure. They are entirely different things.

This public service message has been brought to you by the Nitpicky Brady Committee.

Macguiver Macguiver:

The real issue is people NOT SPENDING.

If that's so, then you would want to incentive the people with the money to spend and/or invest that money so the economy has more wealth moving in the system. You could do that by taxing that money and using government to redistribute it to wherever it'll do the economy the most good, or you could do that by providing tax incentives to rich folks to invest that money to those same places. The latter gets the same money to the same places except quicker, with less government overhead, and with less use of force.

This is not just a generic tax cut, it is a targeted incentive. You could do this and raise tax rates on the rest of the rich's money at the same time if you wanted.

[Robair]

Psudo Psudo:

I doubt that, Robair. People buy the cheapest thing that meets their bare minimum quality threshold. Except for a small patriotic minority, they don't buy American when American-made means more expensive than necessary.

Well, speaking as someone who has made a career in the manufacturing industry, mostly in Canada, we could one-up the competition with our preformance AND come in at a cheaper price. The competitor would let them know that our machine isn't made in the USA and we would lose the sale.

That has always been our number one hurtle. I'm talking heavy equipment usually worth between one and two hundred thousand a piece.

[fifeboy]

ShepherdsDog ShepherdsDog:

Don't get too shame faced, I see Canadians(Aussies, Kiwis, Britons and South Africans) behaving the same way here.

And on behalf of all Canadians, let me say that you are forgiven!

[Psudo]

Robair Robair:

The competitor would let them know that our machine isn't made in the USA and we would lose the sale. [...] I'm talking heavy equipment usually worth between one and two hundred thousand a piece.

I admit yours is a perspective I hadn't considered. I was thinking about cheap crap of the kind the USA so often imports from China.

[Robair]

Psudo Psudo:

Robair Robair:

The competitor would let them know that our machine isn't made in the USA and we would lose the sale. [...] I'm talking heavy equipment usually worth between one and two hundred thousand a piece.

I admit yours is a perspective I hadn't considered. I was thinking about cheap crap of the kind the USA so often imports from China.

I was thinking the same would apply, they don't buy American because they don't have the money. When you're in the red, shopping is done from a different perspective.

I know I'll pay a little more for something made in Canada if my bank account is in a comfortable place.

Our bed and our speaker cabinets are the two things I can think of right now. Both made in the great white north, eh. Both more expensive then whatever you can find at Wal-Mart made in Korea.

[rickc]

For the sake of argument, lets say that North Americans are hooked on the cheap crap being imported from China. We just can't live without it. Where is it written in stone that all the cheap crap has to be manufactured in China? The world is full of third world countries that would love to have western corporations set up sweat shops in thier country. Countries whose population does not comprise 1/4 of the worlds population. Countries that do not posess nuclear weopons, and are pursuing a blue water navy to project power around the globe. Countries that are not stealing our intellectial property , hacking our computors, disregarding copyright and patent laws. I read somewhere that China is the number one source for counterfeight products in the world. These are not the type of people I want to do business with. China is acting more like an adversarial power every day. I say it is high time to start treating them like an adversary.

When we were fighting the cold war, we were not setting up manufacturing plants,and moving jobs to Warsaw Pact countries. It was and still is illegal to export advanced tech. to unapproved countries. I cannot legally visit Cuba. I would be charged under the aiding the enemy act. What a joke that is! However I can visit China. I can send them thousands of Dollars a year by buying their products to help them build up their military,and steal our tech. Who is going to be the bigger threat in 50 years, Cuba or China? I say lets starting treating China the same way we did the Soviet Union. Order American companies to pull up stakes and move elsewhere. Put massive tarrifs on products coming from China, or an outright ban. Lets do our best to run China in the ground the same way we did the U.S.S.R. Americans are at their best when they are united behind a common cause. Mustafa riding his camel to work in the desert every day is not cutting it any more. That has ran its course. We need a new boogyman, a real threat if you will. Who better fits the job descpription than China? If China wants to challenge America for world dominance, go for it.We Americans need a challenge. We have grown lazy after the fall of the Soviet Union. We need to awaken from our malaise. Lets see how well China fares when we are not financing their accent. I think we can easily prolong the empire for a few hundred more years if we quit assisting our potential enemies, and get our financial house in order.

[DanSC]

rickc rickc:

Where is it written in stone that all the cheap crap has to be manufactured in China?

Nowhere. I predict that within my lifetime Africa will rival China as a source of nearly-slave labor.