Increased Import Of Low Quality Products From China Has Been The Leading Cause Of Us Declining Economy And…?
Posted by China Sourcing CommentatorOct 31
…low quality of life. What is your take on this issue? What is your practical suggestion as to what each American citizen can do to turn the US economy around and bring back our high quality of life?
Thank you for your input.
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I think it is the result of our government and military spending
our resources like drunken sailors. We have been producing
multi million dollar aircraft, billion dollar rockets, billion dollar
air craft carriers, as well as declaring war on Iraq to try out
our hardware. I understand that semi truck loads of US cash
have disappeared in Iraq.
What did I read, we have military based in 139 nations. Big bases
in many countries. How much does it cost to operate an aircraft
carrier with 5 to 6 thousand men per day? I think we have ten or
twelve carriers.
We probably have more people working for various levels of
governments, ,city county, state and federal than we do in industry.
Then we have about 540 Representatives with maybe 60,000
assistants – all well paid with big expense accounts.
The reason we import so much low cost products from China
and other places is because our US companies sent the
manufacturing jobs there for low manufacturing costs. Means
big bonuses for our company management, but damn little for
stockholders or employees.
And did you read about hundreds of rich americans stashing
hundreds of billions of untaxed dollars in safe haven foreign
banks? IRS is working on that, but probably thousands of lobbyists
will be working congress for breaks on that.
In the early 80s our Congress voted to remove the usury penalties
from credit card companies. Thus they can and do charge you
whatever thy want. It is just a contract between adults they
said. Now they just got a lot of good press for partially reversing
that credit card fiasco.
This proposition that low quality products from China are the leading cause of a declining US economy and low quality of life lack a reasonable foundation. First, we cannot say with any degree of certainty that we are experiencing a low quality of life. Second, the decline in the US economy is due to several macroeconomic factors, mostly involving credit and debt.
Turning the economy back around requires a definition of a time frame. There is nothing we can do to affect a material change in the next year; however, various spending habits can create changes over different time periods. Too much frugality and a return to savings can cause a deflationary situation that could stagnate the economy for a long time, but will eventually raise a large capital pool for economic growth. Too much spending will re-invent the current problems.
To be more direct, citizens need to focus more on pragmatic spending.
Regionalism; This is an economic model that states each ‘region’ should maintain a certain percentage of manufacturing and industrial independence, producing the goods that are used in the region. It doesn’t have to be 100%, but it needs to be something greater than 0.
Here is an example. My company sold a product that requires galvanized steel pipe. The product was place on back order several times, until the wait time was ridiculous. turns out that our sub supplier used a Chinese manufacturer who ran huge runs for galvanizing. But it only ran specific sizes at a time. Our product wasn’t even on the schedule for a run, it could take a year to get what we needed. The problem was that we were not informed of this issue up front, and our customer paid the price by delayed product.
We had to cancel the order and go with a company who did the process in Texas.
My ultimate solution? Place a terrif on imported goods that equals what the goods would cost if the Chinese employer paid a ‘world wage’. this ‘world wage’ should be at least 70% of a US worker. That way, US workers get to keep their jobs and Chinese workers are treated with dignity, given purchasing power that would allow them to develop their own economy
Nonsense. If these products represent such awful value, why are they selling so well? You sound like Woody Allen — “the food is terrible and the portions are so small.”