Moonbeam, please tell me you don't take Hegel seriously, or else I'll have to e-bitch-slap you!
Who? I wouldn't know Hegel from Smeagol. Are you telling me he knows opposites resolve in higher understanding? And bitch slapping won't make a sikl purse out of a sow's ear. I are a very ignorant person.
TwinsenTacquito
Senior member
- Apr 1, 2010
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nonlnear
Platinum Member
- Jan 31, 2008
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Now you're just playing coy.
And for the record, e-bitch-slapping is a purely symbolic measure, much like an internet cookie. A real bitch-slap wouldn't help anything, although it might knock a sow's ear off of a person's arm who had been under the impression it was in fact a silk purse...
Fern
Elite Member
- Sep 30, 2003
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China would want to be damn careful here.
That sort of thing might devalue the US dollar, meaning big losses on their holdings of US Treasuries. Their imports would also decline as the US dollar fell in relation to the yuan. I.e., their products would become more expensive to us.
This strikes me as the exact opposite of what they'd like to achieve.
I suspect our spendthrift gov is China's biggest headache and financial concern.
Fern
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Please restate the argument you think you have won. I have a feeling it's part of that imagination you carry.
if the private charity is done right, people will not think they deserve it. The way charity was SUPPOSED to work, the church would do things like feed the poor and take care of them. Worked great in Roman times. Now the church is complacent and unwilling to give more than 10%, of the few that do tithe.
With a local community involved in the process it wasn't a blank check. Even simple things like forcing them to go to church and listen if they want that check, and maybe occasionally help an old lady garden and pull weeds or something.
But if this were entirely internal to the church (no gov't giving the church money) then only the churches that are headed towards what Jesus taught in the Bible, and not away, would have members that ended up donating lots. And you rarely find those sort of people that will voluntarily give up lots of their income in churchss that have bad teaching. So eventually the poor/homeless would start seeing themselves in a different light as they're sitting under a good pastor preaching God's word. The real help they need is Jesus, because some people are so stuck in lethargy and sloth nothing will pull them out (well hunger might, but we don't have the stomach to let others go hungry).
(If you don't agree with this, please understand my view is one where "man is evil" and "not inherently good", ie, he is incapable of saving himself from his 2nd-Law-of-Thermodynamics tendencies).
But the church failed to provide for the poor so the government had to step in-- because God cares for the collective-poor, whether or not his people are willing to be a part of the process.
You mean well I believe and you conform to a religious teaching, but I don't believe what you believe. The only reason that man can be helped is not because he is inherently evil, there is never any help for that, but because he is inherently good. People feel that they are evil and that makes it true, but those feelings are a lie. That is why Jesus can save you, if you die to that lie.
Well, things like electronics-- at first there was a hefty profit margin in manufacturing computer components, and building computers. But companies like Asus and Acer starting eating into the profit margins of people like Dell and HP, so Dell and HP had to lower their prices. Now you can pick out any $449 computer from the Dell magazine and it's going to be everything and more that grandmother needs. This is why we need friendly small-business laws-- aka not what Great Britain has-- so that new guys can come in and exploit a profit margin to get a piece of the action and cut out some of HP/Dell's profits, and in doing so lowering the cost of products to us, thereby giving us more value for our money.
Or little widgets you used to have to buy at stores, now you can buy straight from Ebay shipped free from Hong Kong for $4.99, like my mom's SATA to PATA converter. Sure it takes 2 weeks to get here, but it was only $4.99. Just search for Chinese Wholesale to see what I mean. There's on main one that I'm forgetting about, but I bought a 5mW green laser pointer from them for $10.09 free shipping. 10 years ago that cost $100 from Edmund Scientific, I could never afford that as a kid but I wanted one so badly. So as consumers start to find these websites through the internet, state-side retailers are going to have to start dropping their prices to compete.
Also ebay-- I bought a tungsten-carbide ring online a year ago. You try to buy that at the ring store in the Mall, they'll charge you $500 (or something). I got it for $24.99 shipped. Looks great.
I don't have any specific examples of what has stayed the same price the whole time, I'm just making the point that there is a period where, after the free trade begins, before other firms enter the market to provide the same good at a lower price, wealth shifts to the top, because businesses only charge the rate they need to be competitive with everyone else. Previously this has enabled businesses to employ "Marketers" and various levels of unnecessary middle management. While this is good for the economy short term, in that there is money still changing hands and marketers can now consume other people's products, it would be better for our GDP if those marketers and middle management were actually engineers, producing more products. Once the consumer knows about your product (and there have got to be better ways to inform them than pay hundreds of marketers to fly all over the country and try to sell your product at some business' door step-- actually I am of the opinion if your product does not meet a need, then it need not exist, because if it met a need you wouldn't need marketers, because once people heard about your product that meets need XYZ, they would evaluate whether or not they need that. Note I'm not condemning mass-marketers like the guys that make TV commercials, just the inefficient ones that get people and businesses to buy things and stuff they don't really need)-- So once a consumer simply knows about your product and the need it fills, then the job is done.
I'm sure you or I can come up with some ideas of things that have stayed the same price. I mean even at the cheap prices walmart charges for stuff, they still only charge just less than as much as they can get away with. These shoes probably cost $2 to manufacture, from start of the line to stocking on Walmart's shelves, but they're charging $14, not $6, and in the meantime they are putting all the mom-and-pop PayLess Shoes stores out of business. It would be no problem to justify for the mom-and-pop guys going out of business, except for the fact that they can't participate in the economy as well, and have to go work for walmart. If the shoes were $6 then it wouldn't be a big deal because they could easily afford those on $7/hour labor, but when it's $14 and it's everything in Walmart, not just the shoes, then it adds up. If walmart did something like only charge wholesale to their workers, that would go a long way towards stemming the hate they've received for undercutting everybody.
Now, yes, the mom-and-pop people should get re-educated, but there are only so many educated-people jobs available, right, because there are only so many consumer-needs that companies can work to fill.
I forsee the world's economy staying stagnant for...the rest of my life, for this very reason-- there are no growth-driving sectors of the economy that will genuinely be creating new consumer-wealth via new ideas and new problems-solved. Health is the only sector where we can really hope in to pull ourselves out of this mess (and we do export a lot of health-technology so there is that as well), but we just shot ourselves in the foot with our Universal Healthcare. Not short-term, but long term that bill is completely unsustainable are we are inevitably going to start setting the price we're willing to pay for care to be (cost of delivering care)*110%. IE, just give the makers an extra 10% profit, which in the health sector is nowhere near enough when you as a pharmaceutical have got to research 100 potential cures to find the one medication that actually works.
There will be various attempts to fix the economy and they will work as stop-gaps for a little while, but long term I'm pretty sure we're dead in the water. It certainly doesn't help when we bail out firms that make less than stellar products (GM/Chrysler), because that takes sales from people like Toyota and Honda who could hire more workers to produce more cars that last longer (in the case of Honda especially, at least 2x as long as GM's cars, and Toyota's still last damn long-- 250k at least and you can hope to push to 300k miles). But the way we're doing it now GM dilutes the market with crap that people shouldn't be buying and everyone suffers because of it-- because their car only drives to 150k not 250k, which means they have less money to spend on other things, because they're making car purchases more frequently. If you want to talk about letting GM go through bankruptcy and shed their union obligations and become a leaner, but still profitable, producer of crap, then OK; but otherwise we're bailing them out with everybody money when the consumer has already decided the cars are not worth the money-- the value of their used car re-sales is proof of that.
SO basically cliffs are
1). nothing new under the sun. There aren't enough genuine needs that need solving, for the market to continue growing. Because of this, long term, market stagnant. Hopefully other countries can still grow, they probably could with a stable, peer-reviewed political structure (Peer reviewed in that they can't make bad fiscal decisions with their money (China, looking at you)).
2). Wealth has shifted to the top, and will have to move back towards the middle (this will probably happen through insanely high income taxes, like the previous times we've had the debt levels that we currently have), but even doing this won't be that useful because of 1). above-- we'll just being buying more crap, not stuff that actually improves standard of living.
3). Health could have been a growth sector if barrier to entry were lower (can't participate in the economy until you're 28 and working a doctor's job), and we weren't shooting ourselves in the foot with broken legislation that isn't sustainable long-term.
4). Stop bailing everything out, economies can't be efficient unless you cut the dead weight like GM, overly-risky banks, etc.
But the real problem is #1 I think, especially in the face of baby boomers retiring and drawing on Medicare, Social Security, a thus smaller working class, and with no way to pay for it all.
I hope you found this interesting, just my thoughts.
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Musillini, Hitler, Chairman Mao-- there is no evolutionary need to be cruel, that is why no animals exhibit cruelty, but we do. Animals do not have a conscience and cannot make moral decisions, humans do, yet some by choice become extra-ordinarily evil. You need to prove that there is an evolutionary need to be ruthlessly evil like Chairman Mao, before you can say that humans are basically good.
The point is, show me a single 75 year old that's lived a life of drunkeness, sleeping around with all the women he can, and doesn't have a broken life because of it and doesn't regret his decisions, and I'll show you 75 Christians that previously were living a life like that man, but found restoration, hope, peace, and Truth in what Jesus said, and follow God because of it.
This is the fundamental difference I think between Liberals and Conservatives (probably Republicans too, but I don't like Republicans)-- one believes humans are basically good and will do better if their circumstances are improved (and so come up with ideas like projects where you put poor, non working citizens next to wealthy, hard working citizens) in hopes that they will change [and it does help crime some, but right across the street from my school somebody gets mugged every Friday night like clockwork]. The other admits that humans are basically evil and will remain so without negative consequences-- hence they come up with ideas like "we'll give them money, but they need to be wiling to work first, we don't just give them a blank check-- for example, God commanded the gleaners of the field, if they missed some wheat, to leave it behind, so that the poor and homeless could come and at least have some food-- but the key was that he did not command the gleaners to go back and pick it up and bundle it for the homeless and poor-- they did have to work for it-- but it was easy work that they could easily get involved in, just look around for the dropped wheats and grab them and you've got food to satiate your hunger. You see, hungry people are very motivated people.
The way this SHOULD work is the way the Christian Puritan founder of the Cadberry chocolate company did it-- he realized he had an obligation, as a Christian, to the men that worked for him, and he did things like provide busing services to the poor parts of town so that if you wanted to work, all you had to do was be there at 8am or whatever and you had a job. Then he pioneered the first pension in the Western world, and the first healthcare-- paid the doctors himself through the company. If the people in the church would do more things like this and were more aggressive about it, we might not have to have welfare. The way God says DOES work, if we just follow it, but usually we don't because we think we've got it figured out better.
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When it comes down to it, China would be utterly decimated by a trade/currency war with the US. They could "dump" our debt, but that'd only destroy their own financial position as well as make it impossible for them to trade with us. The dollar would fall so low and the Renminbi so high as to make it impossible for the US to buy their goods, destroying their economy overnight.
The US could easily stop spending, it'd send a shockwave through our economy and likely throw us into a GDv2, but it wouldn't destroy the country. However, tens of millions would instantly lose jobs in China creating a population of pissed off workers who would then revolt.
China has a ton of problems of their own, including bad debt estimated into 50%+ of their GDP.
The US could easily stop spending, it'd send a shockwave through our economy and likely throw us into a GDv2, but it wouldn't destroy the country. However, tens of millions would instantly lose jobs in China creating a population of pissed off workers who would then revolt.
China has a ton of problems of their own, including bad debt estimated into 50%+ of their GDP.
While what you said maybe true, Chinese communist could withstand famine during great leap forward that killed millions, mass riot during cultural revolution that killed another millions, but if anything like a mild recession happens in the US, US politicians pays big time.
The question you should be asking is which government/political system has the stomach and the ironclad control to suffer through the fallout of a trade currency war, and my bet is on Chinese government.
How are they going to control them? Chinese are crazy. They get pissed, want their way, and riot to get it. If they don't maintain 8%+ growth/year they're looking at destabilization and a new regime. Serious. You think anyone could control a billion people?
umm with their 7.5 million strong military? Quote Deng Xiaoping "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun". It's sure nice to be able to drive tank over your own people without much political consequences.
Your job was to convince me that what the Chinese leaders do on currency is from fear of Obama or Congress. I believe China will do what is in their interest and that may include devaluing their currency. It would be good for China to have a domestic market for their own goods. No fear required.
nobodyknows
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- Sep 28, 2008
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If we quit buying chinese goods and started making our own stuff then the US would have a booming economy. China would have starvation and go backwards 50 years.
cubeless
Diamond Member
- Sep 17, 2001
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unless there'a a massive change in the regulatory and pay structure in the us, we'd not be able to make the stuff at a price point that would be affordable... that's why it's made in china now... people would be making stuff here if it was profitable... if you triple the price of stuff then a lot less will be produced and sold, not the basis for a booming economy...
If it was in their best interest, they would've have done this years ago. You've only made cliched, useless statements regarding this topic towards me and never sought to disprove what I said. Next time try to have an informed conversation rather than spewing insults. Here's what pressure from Congress can get you:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/09/business/global/09yuan.html?ref=world
China Is Reportedly Set to Revise Currency Policy
By KEITH BRADSHER
HONG KONG The Chinese government is set to announce a revision of its currency policy in the coming days that will allow greater variation in the value of its currency, combined with a small but immediate jump in its value against the dollar, people with knowledge of the consensus emerging in Beijing said Thursday.
While there remains a possibility of a last-minute glitch that could delay the announcement, Chinas central bank appears to have prevailed in its arguments for a stronger but more flexible currency, these people said. They insisted on anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue in Beijing.
The model for the coming shift in currency policy is Chinas move in 2005, when the leadership allowed the renminbi to jump 2 percent against the dollar overnight and then to trade in a wider daily range, but with a trend toward further strengthening against the dollar. For the coming announcement, however, China is likely to emphasize that the value of the renminbi can fall as well as rise on any given day, so as to discourage a flood of speculative investment into Chinas betting on rapid further appreciation, they said.
The emerging consensus within the Chinese leadership came as the U.S. Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, held meetings Thursday with senior officials in Hong Kong and then flew to Beijing for a meeting with Vice Premier Wang Qishan of China.
The Chinese Commerce Ministry, which is very close to the countrys exporters, has strenuously and publicly opposed a rise in the value of Chinas currency over the past month. But it appears to have lost that struggle in Beijing as other interest groups argued that China was too dependent on the dollar, that a more flexible currency would make it easier to manage the Chinese economy and that China was becoming increasingly isolated on the world stage because of its steadfast opposition since July 2008 to any appreciation of the renminbi.
Xia Bin, a member of the monetary policy committee of the Chinese central bank, hinted at the new policy for the currency, also known as yuan, in remarks to reporters in Shanghai on Thursday.
Whether to let the yuan slowly appreciate or let it rise to a tolerable range after careful calculation, I think it is better to have that quick, prompt appreciation, Reuters quoted Mr. Xia as saying.
Mr. Xia later added that, At a certain point, when necessary, it is better to have a quick, prompt appreciation in a bid to fend off speculative capital.
Economists said that the emerging consensus in China reflected a broad assessment by Chinese leaders that inaction on the currency could be as dangerous as holding on to the current value of the currency. The Chinese feel the whole sentiment is against them, so they feel they need to show they are globally engaged, said Frank-Jürgen Richter, the president of Horasis, an organization in Geneva that specializes in economic issues in emerging markets.
Even a small increase in the value of the renminbi is likely to provide a political bonus for the administration of President Barack Obama, which has been under heavy pressure from congressional Democrats to confront China more directly over its currency policy.
Every administration has thought it could get something done by talking to China, Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said in a statement Wednesday. But years of experience have shown that the Chinese will not be moved by words; they only respond to tough action.
In a reversal of the usual interaction between Washington and Beijing, however, the Obama administration has been mostly silent for the past month while senior Chinese officials quarreled in public over what to do. The Chinese Commerce Ministry opposed a move to a stronger currency while the central bank favored one.
Prime Minister Wen Jiabao ended up saying at the annual National Peoples Congress last month that the renminbi would be basically stable a formulation that was widely interpreted at the time as blocking appreciation of the renminbi, but with hindsight seemed to have set the stage for a small rise in its value while reassuring exporters that no large move would occur.
People with knowledge of the policy deliberations in Beijing said that Chinese officials had made the decision to shift the countrys currency policy mainly in response to an assessment of economic conditions in China, and less in response to growing pressure from the United States and, less publicly, from the European Union and developing countries.
A slightly stronger renminbi that fluctuated day to day against the dollar would mainly hurt low-margin, labor-intensive industries like the production of shoes and textile, these people said. But these industries are already starting to move out of China, notably to Vietnam and Bangladesh. And factories for these industries have actually been struggling to find enough workers in the past two months, after the Chinese economy grew powerfully over the winter, the result of heavy bank lending, strong demand for workers in the retail sector and rising government spending on high-speed rail lines and other infrastructure investments.
More high-technology industries, like the production of computers, have actually tended to favor a stronger renminbi. Further migration of labor-intensive industries to other countries could actually free up more labor for these higher-technology industries and make it cheaper for them to import materials priced in dollars.
These industries also compete more directly with U.S. industries, however.
Allowing wider variation in the value of the currency will also make it easier for the central bank to fight inflation, which Mr. Wen, the prime minister, identified last month as a top concern of the leadership. Consumer prices were 2.7 percent higher in February than a year earlier, but prices have been accelerating faster than most economists had expected.
A stronger renminbi helps hold down prices by making imports cheaper and gives the central bank more room to raise interest rates and brake economic growth without reducing the risk of drawing more speculative investments into mainland China.
Mr. Geithner, who arrived in Hong Kong late Wednesday from India, held a series of meetings Thursday with Donald Tsang, the citys chief executive; Tung Chee-hwa, Mr. Tsangs predecessor; and Joseph Yam, the former chief executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and now a senior adviser to the Peoples Bank of China, the central bank of mainland China.
Mr. Geithner attended meetings in central Hong Kong and was flanked by at least five bodyguards as he walked through the International Financial Center. He then took a midafternoon flight Thursday to Beijing. The U.S. Treasury Department issued a brief statement saying Mr. Geithner and Mr. Wang, the vice premier, had exchanged views on U.S.-Chinese economic relations and the global economic situation. The statement made no specific mention of talks on the currency, and no news conferences were scheduled.
The Peoples Bank of China declined to comment on its plans for the renminbi.
In a report issued this week, Tao Wang, a Beijing economist for the investment banking firm UBS Securities, predicted that the exchange rate would fall by years end to 6.4 or 6.5 renminbi per dollar, from the current rate of about 6.82.
Mao Yushi, a prominent Beijing economist and founder of the Unirule Institute of Economics, a Beijing research organization, said that revaluation would not be painless for Chinas economy. There is a very high cost, he said. For example, Chinese exports will drop, which may prompt some unemployment he said.
But, he added, it would also stimulate domestic consumption in China, and so with increased consumption, those unemployed people would be able to find other jobs.
In the long run, Mr. Mao argued, China must allow its currency to float freely if it is to begin a badly needed shift from an economy based on exports to one driven by consumer spending.
Mr. Geithners visit follows a meeting Wednesday between Mr. Wen, the prime minister, and Henry M. Paulson Jr., the Treasury secretary under former President George W. Bush who engineered the first U.S. response to the global economic crisis in late 2008. The English-language newspaper China Daily quoted Mr. Paulson as saying in a speech in Beijing that revaluing the renminbi would help Chinas economic restructuring. He added that it would be presumptuous to suggest how and when it should occur.
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