How big of a threat is China becoming?

stekim said:

Again, that makes no sense. Selling T-bills to some other country isn't going to affect anything. It's not the country holding our debt that is the issue. It's the debt itself. Jeez.

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The debt itself is indeed a major part of the problem... but there is indeed a bigger picture, though not are able or willing to understand it.

Bodhisattva said:

The debt itself is indeed a major part of the problem... but there is indeed a bigger picture, though not are able or willing to understand it.

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Maybe you could help me, then. Please do tell how a country buying a T-Bill from China will harm the U.S. I'm all ears. Unless, of course, you have no clue.

stekim said:

Maybe you could help me, then. Please do tell how a country buying a T-Bill from China will harm the U.S. I'm all ears. Unless, of course, you have no clue.

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Yeah... you're one of those contrarians that doesn't want to debate, just to hurl stupidity around. Why bother with you, from what I have seen, you think that you are the man and have offered very little to this site or to discussion in general. Tell me, do you represent your signature only our is there a valid reason that I should entertain your hostility and immaturity for another post?

OxymoronP said:

Majour threat, and majour corporate interests are allowing this to take place in the name of cheap labour. We are basically ripping out the heart of Western Industrial strenght,and handing it to China. When the Tigers have finished fighting for the scraps, the Chinese Dragon will swoop down from its lofty cliff and eat us all alive.

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Fortunately, dragons are mythical creatures of quite limited aerodynamic ability and will crash if they tried any such thing.

That, and the problem the US has is not "outsourcing", but too much government borrowing to finance totally unconstitutional public pacification programs.

Bodhisattva said:

I only wish that we had been more firm with China from the onset, rather than allow our greedy business leaders import **** good from China that undercut our own workers...

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If the greedy workers hadn't demanded more wages than the global market would bear, this wouldn't be an issue.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:

If the greedy workers hadn't demanded more wages than the global market would bear, this wouldn't be an issue.

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You are confused. It was not the pay of workers, but the expected returns of investors. You see, worker wages have remained nearly unchanged when inflation is accounted for, since the 1960's. CEO pay and investor returns, however, have increased four-hundred fold. The reason outsourcing began was due to the unrealistic expectation of investors that profit margins increase every year. 200% profit is not enough, they want 300% next year or they are pulling out. Companies realize that there is only so much market share and a limit to profit growth, yet to maintain investors they made cuts where possible, labor. China, Mexico, Taiwan, India... all offer labor at 100x less cost, thus th companies that could and can, have moved manufacturing to these countries and passed the profits to the investors. This has added to unemployment in this country and a strengthening of the other nations.

tlmorg02 said:

You are confused.

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Hardly.

tlmorg02 said:

It was not the pay of workers, but the expected returns of investors.

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Which is dependent on how much workers are paid.

There. Now you're no longer confused.

Or are you going to say that US corporate leades should just stay home and pay every stupid tax and every goonion demand without seeking alternatives, which is their fiduciary duty to their stockholders?

Companies set up shop offshore because taxes are absurdly high in the US, insurance and regulations are absurdly onerous, and goonions make absurd demands.

Each and every reason is in itself a perfectly justifiable reason for anyone in a free country to take his money or his company and move it out of the reach of the people trying to rob him.

Explain why anyone should remain in a country where their livelihood is viewed as nothing except a source of meat for jackals and vultures.

tlmorg02 said:

You see, worker wages have remained nearly unchanged when inflation is accounted for, since the 1960's. CEO pay and investor returns, however, have increased four-hundred fold.

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So what? The reason a person starts a company or invests in a company is to maximize HIS returns. It's not his job to boost worker wages or pay more taxes or anything else. If a worker wants more pay, he should learn skills that pay more.

tlmorg02 said:

The reason outsourcing began was due to the unrealistic expectation of investors that profit margins increase every year.

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And with outsourcing, did profit margins continue to increase annually?

Yes, they did.

Therefore the expectations of the investors was not "unrealistic".

tlmorg02 said:

200% profit is not enough, they want 300% next year or they are pulling out.

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And if they can go to a place where they're earning 50% more than last year, what's the problem? It's their money, isn't it?

You do agree that it's their money, right, not yours?

tlmorg02 said:

Companies realize that there is only so much market share and a limit to profit growth, yet to maintain investors they made cuts where possible, labor. China, Mexico, Taiwan, India... all offer labor at 100x less cost, thus th companies that could and can, have moved manufacturing to these countries and passed the profits to the investors. This has added to unemployment in this country and a strengthening of the other nations.

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Clearly then, we need blame the former employees who scared their former employers away.

stekim said:

Again, that makes no sense. Selling T-bills to some other country isn't going to affect anything. It's not the country holding our debt that is the issue. It's the debt itself. Jeez.

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The actual issue is that the nation that is currently buying t-bills not only stops buying them, but begins selling them. I'm going to assume that even if this were to happen, we would continue running huge deficits as if nothing has changed.

The effects would be catastrophic.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:

Hardly.



Which is dependent on how much workers are paid.

There. Now you're no longer confused.

Or are you going to say that US corporate leades should just stay home and pay every stupid tax and every goonion demand without seeking alternatives, which is their fiduciary duty to their stockholders?

Companies set up shop offshore because taxes are absurdly high in the US, insurance and regulations are absurdly onerous, and goonions make absurd demands.

Each and every reason is in itself a perfectly justifiable reason for anyone in a free country to take his money or his company and move it out of the reach of the people trying to rob him.

Explain why anyone should remain in a country where their livelihood is viewed as nothing except a source of meat for jackals and vultures.



So what? The reason a person starts a company or invests in a company is to maximize HIS returns. It's not his job to boost worker wages or pay more taxes or anything else. If a worker wants more pay, he should learn skills that pay more.



And with outsourcing, did profit margins continue to increase annually?

Yes, they did.

Therefore the expectations of the investors was not "unrealistic".



And if they can go to a place where they're earning 50% more than last year, what's the problem? It's their money, isn't it?

You do agree that it's their money, right, not yours?



Clearly then, we need blame the former employees who scared their former employers away.

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You think employee pay is the main factor is profit margin? Seriously?

As to increased profits, no. With China's rate of wage increase, as well as those of other nations, coupled with the rising cost of fuel needed to transport the goods to the U.S., profit margins are planing out once again.

Is it the fault of the employees that the country is in recession? This has cost companies fortunes to lost sales. Oh, by the way, who do you think buys the products manufactured? The people who work everyday for these companies. So when they lose jobs to overseas workers, they can not afford to buy as much, this leads to lower sales.

Employees did not drive employers away, greed did. I blame no one for wanting to keep their money, or earn more. But when you cluelessly leave your own country for short-term gains, that is the ultimate ignorance. By depriving your consumer base of jobs, you lose your target market in the process and that costs you money.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:

If the greedy workers hadn't demanded more wages than the global market would bear, this wouldn't be an issue.

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If greedy oppressive governments did not treat their citizens as a slave labor force, then perhaps our workers seeking appropriate working conditions and wages would not be the focus. If our government officials were not corrupt, allowing companies to outsource to india, mexico and china, then we would not be in debt to our ears...

Seriously... like the shoe maker in Nike was asking for sooo much that the company had to move to slave labor child labor rich Indonesia in order to make a profit... millions more than they were already making.

Get serious for a second...

tlmorg02 said:

It means that China can decrease the value of the dollar by piece-meal selling off our debt into other currencies.

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Why would they choose that method? Wouldn't that decrease the value of debt as a weapon? Piece-mealing it would only reduce the value by small amounts. Say they sold off $20 billion at a time. Large, but not enough to cause significent market price declines. Now, if they sold the whole kit and kabootle at once, $600 billion would instantly destroy the value of the dollar.

obvious Child said:

Why would they choose that method? Wouldn't that decrease the value of debt as a weapon? Piece-mealing it would only reduce the value by small amounts. Say they sold off $20 billion at a time. Large, but not enough to cause significent market price declines. Now, if they sold the whole kit and kabootle at once, $600 billion would instantly destroy the value of the dollar.

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I do not know a nation that would be able to front that kinda of money. Also, all at once would be too revealing into their intentions to destroy the U.S. economy. Piecemeal allows for the transition of the U.S. as the main consumer of Chinese products, to other nations. China cannot afford to do this all at once, as they need to build their own consumer base and foreign ones as well.

tlmorg02 said:

I do not know a nation that would be able to front that kinda of money. Also, all at once would be too revealing into their intentions to destroy the U.S. economy. Piecemeal allows for the transition of the U.S. as the main consumer of Chinese products, to other nations. China cannot afford to do this all at once, as they need to build their own consumer base and foreign ones as well.

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Perhaps, but if China was going to use it as a deliberate weapon, piece meal defeats that purpose. And it does not matter if any one country (or group of investors) could pony up that kind of cash. The whole point is to destroy the value, getting money on it is just a nice side effect. Reduction via piece meal wouldn't be useful as an economic weapon is it dilutes the effect.

obvious Child said:

Perhaps, but if China was going to use it as a deliberate weapon, piece meal defeats that purpose. And it does not matter if any one country (or group of investors) could pony up that kind of cash. The whole point is to destroy the value, getting money on it is just a nice side effect. Reduction via piece meal wouldn't be useful as an economic weapon is it dilutes the effect.

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I agree, it would not be as useful, but to do so openly and all at once would be essentially declaring war, wouldn't it.

There, I made the votes symmetrical.

ARealConservative said:

The actual issue is that the nation that is currently buying t-bills not only stops buying them, but begins selling them. I'm going to assume that even if this were to happen, we would continue running huge deficits as if nothing has changed.

The effects would be catastrophic.

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Selling a bond requires a buyer. Having someone else hold the bond is a total non-issue. But yes, if China stops being our banker and we cannnot sell enough bonds to cover our deficit we're screwed.

I think China is becomming a military threat espeicially with a growing powerful economy. I know Russia has reason to want to join EU and China is one of the reasons.

creativedreams said:

America continues to stick there noses in the businesses of other countries. We do it under the guise of National Security. I find this ironic because I believe we are actually increasing our Security Threat to grave proportions.

Do you believe China is an impending threat to the U.S.?

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The bigger threat is our own oversized government, the one that sticks its nose way too far into both foreign AND domestic affairs.

China has been threatening the U.S. with a currency revolution and is closely monitoring the printing of the U.S. Dollar.

Some very dangerous times are on the horizon for America.

Depends on what you mean by "threat". If you're referring to a military threat, ie. are they going to invade the continental U.S., that's ridiculous. Are they an economic threat? Of course they are, but that's more our fault than theirs, the U.S. has entirely flushed our economic superiority down the toilet. We're a nation of consumers, not producers, there's virtually nothing that we actually make in this country, at best we assemble parts made elsewhere and act like we've done something noteworthy.

China already owns us, lock, stock and barrel and we invited them to do it.