U.S. Job Losses Blamed on China's Currency

[VolcanoJen]

My, my. Here's an interesting new spin of Hoover's, I mean Chimpy's, I mean Rove's...

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/26/business/worldbusiness/26CHIN.html?hp

Excerpt:

With unemployment high and American manufacturers reeling from three years of misery, politicians and businesspeople around the country have found a villain to blame for these troubles: China, or more specifically its currency.

In South Carolina, the Republican governor, Mark Sanford, cites the currency, the yuan, as posing a major threat to his state's struggling textile industry by making Chinese exports unreasonably cheap.

In Erie, Pa., executives and workers at scores of industrial companies are planning a loud protest on Labor Day over "unfair competition" — and one of the biggest targets will be the seemingly obscure matter of the yuan.

And in Washington, the Bush administration is gearing up to put direct political pressure on China next week when Treasury Secretary John W. Snow makes a highly publicized trip through Asia. The subject was near the top of the agenda when President Bush met with his economic team two weeks ago in Crawford, Tex.

[Don_G]

1. Yeah...Right....

The Manufacturers turn to China for a source of cheap goods and blame everyone other than themselves for exporting jobs out of the U.S. to make a healthy profit?

[VolcanoJen]

2. Yep, Don. That's pretty much what they're saying...

... and I suppose they expect we'll follow in lock-step and blame everyone but our own Fearless Leader.

edited because Chimpy's spelling is better than mine

[Don_G]

7. A Little More To It Than Just That

Considering China now makes all the semiconductors for our Cruise Missles and we can't station the CIA in "their" plant....

Where do we---as a country---draw the line between self-sufficiency and pure profit for greed's sake?

[OldEuropean]

3. It is called

free market. I thought Bush supports that?

I wonder when they will start to blame the problems on star constellations...

[VolcanoJen]

5. Star constellations!!!

Don't give them any ideas, OldEuropean!

Next thing you know, we'll blame it on Mars.

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[Zhade]

6. And don't forget...

...Mars will be at its closest in 57,000+ years on Wednesday.

Watch as "terrorists" attack us from Mars! :eyes:

[C_eh_N_eh_D_eh]

16. Why not?

You've already got a president from Ura<The remainder of this message has been eliminated as a public service. Now for the poster. -- International Bad Joke Police, Ottawa Division>

[zoidberg]

18. No free market here

China ties their currency to the dollar. You can't trade it like you can the dollar, euro or yen. Manufacturers have been complaining about this long before Bush took office.

[Maple]

4. it's called 'competition'

the very thing Americans promote.

When it actually happens though, suddenly it's determined to be 'unfair' competition, and then barriers are put up.

And then America wonders why people don't like trading with them, and the jobs and investors go elsewhere...places where there IS a level playing field.

[dfong63]

9. the "level playing field" is a myth

there never has been, and probably never will be, a level playing field. all there has been is corporations using that myth/dogma to argue for changes that they perceive to be to their short term advantage.

[Democat]

8. It's always the Commies

That or Clinton's penis.

[Pert_UK]

10. I thought that the Chinese currency, RMB, was tied to the US$...

I thought that the exchange rate was locked together so that RMB and $ always had the same value against each other....I'm not an economist, so even if I'm right I'm not sure whether that prevents the problems cited.

However, the Chinese currency is RMB or Renminbi, which translates as The People's Money. Yuan is one denomination of it...there are 100 jiao in 1 yuan (pronounced yoo-en).

P.

[zoidberg]

19. You are correct

One dollar buys you 8.28 Renminbi, regardless of how strong or weak the dollar is. So when the dollar is especially weak (as it has been recently), Chinese exporters benefit because they get to take advantage of favorable exchange rates. If the Renminbi were traded like most other currencies, it would no doubt get stronger.

[radfringe]

11. now it's China's Fault?

doesn't this mis-administration take responsibility for anything?

[DannyRed]

12. HAHAHAHAHAHA

Right in the middle of two extremely dragged out, economically, spiritually, and mentally sapping guerrilla wars, during an economic downturn in which the trade deficit is huge and the volume and value of currency and bond holdings by both China and Japan are up into the TRILLIONS and the expenditures on our various wars are approaching 5 billion or more a MONTH

These MORONS want to start a trade war with China???

Are they CRAZY??

China will HOWL WITH LAUGHTER....as they sell their bond and currency holdings, gear up their factories and sell even more cheap stuff, and let NKorea off its leash ... while blaming the US (rightfully so) for the heavy handed, stupid, destructive trade policies, aid policies, military and political foreign policies that have so destabilized the East Asian spehere.

Result in ten years?

My wild ass crazy prediction is that the US will be OUT of SKorea, OUT of Taiwan, and maybe even OUT of Japan...and the old Japanese imperial dream of the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere will be realized....by China...who is already doing all KINDS of business with Indonesia, Vietnam, and assorted other nations in the region.

Napoleon was very right about China.

My advice to the Neo-cons...leave China alone at worst...and maybe even make nicey-nice to China and they will help with Iraq.

[teryang]

13. You beat me to it

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

[havocmom]

14. So all the tech and call center jobs going to India

is because of Chinese currancy? Ah huh. Gee and here we all thought it might be the unconscionable greed of overpaid CEOs whose only contribution to productivity is to cut payroll and move to offshore tax evading schemes in an attempt to pretend they are making $$ so they can sell more stock.

So who is gonna buy their stock (we know they aren't really trying to sell goods and services) when most Amerikkans are flipping burgers? Oh, I forgot, we gotta put Social Security $$ into the stock market. Gotta force the working poor into participating in the Wall Street House of Cards!

[mbee]

21. Bill Moyer's NOW showcased a report on white collar jobs going

to India. Check it out on your public TV website. The Neocons should be very happy now that they won't have to worry about those bad old immigrants since the companies are taking our jobs directly to them in their own countries.

[yellowcanine]

15. What happened to Clinton's Penis?

I thought that was the cause of all of our troubles.

[alfredo]

17. Yeah sure, blame it on the Chinese

[Neutrino]

20. It's stupid, but it's always the same. China has kept her

nose to the grindstone working while (other countries) make War, and
has prospered and grown. So now China is being pressured to shape
rmb to make the Dollar look better, so Chimpy can look better and
get re-elected so he can do more to destroy the American Economy,
and whine like a spoiled brat and point more fingers in blame.
It's like telling your neighbor to get a smaller house 'cause it's
making your own look bad.

Tell 400 of the Fortune 500 Top Corporations doing Billions of
business in China to go home--you can't have it both ways.