Time to sue China?

[Russell17au]

6 minutes ago, JackThompson said:

Speaking of the USA, in most cases, they buy our stuff, add value to it, then send it back and collect profit on the value-added price.  That's called "mercantilism" - and it is working very well for them (and Mexico, Vietnam, and others).  That's why the huge trade-deficit exists, which makes it a Net-Negative for the USA.  

 

Being an advanced Western nation, I am sure Australia could also produce their OWN products from their OWN raw-materials, and sell those - instead of selling the raw-materials, like some resource-expoited 3rd world country.

Australia USED to produce its OWN products but they closed them down and exported the Raw materials to China and those industries that Australia closed will never open again

[ChouDoufu]

2 minutes ago, Logosone said:

Trump doesn't need the WTO to enforce. Just has to add more tariffs.

 

If China escalated the trade war, that would have been detrimental to China. It was always China that were more interested in a deal, as we saw. China is the big exporter, not the US. Tariffs hurt China pretty hard.

did they really?  china exports to the usa amounted to about 10% of total exports before the trade war began.  not sure what it was down to later.

 

after the inconclusive trade war, and the virus disruptions, no telling what trade will look like in the future.  they certainly won't be buying $40 billion in gmo soy this year or next.

 

will trump add tariffs now, cause china isn't buying soy now?  will china respond by adding export tariffs to the usa on masks and ventilators and pharmaceuticals - or prohibiting export of those products altogether for national security reasons?

[JackThompson]

7 minutes ago, Logosone said:

Not an argument.

 

Every country started that way. The US copied Britain, Germany copied Britain. Japan copied Germany.

 

Then comes a point when a copying country makes the transition to improving and creating quality products itself. China has already made that transition.

I hope the Chinese people benefit from that production, and wrest control of their country from those who run it.  The rest of us cannot trust them (or any foreign-nation) to be key suppliers to our consumer-markets. 

 

Note that Thailand is smart about this - look at the products in BigC or Lotus, and notice the vast majority are "Made In Thailand" - a wise choice, facilitated with nationalist-tariffs which support national-security, in the most broad sense of the term (not the ridiculous "immigration" sense of it).

 

5 minutes ago, Russell17au said:

Australia USED to produce its OWN products but they closed them down and exported the Raw materials to China and those industries that Australia closed will never open again

Maybe they will, NOW.  There is no fundimental reason they cannot do so.

Edited April 5, 2020 by JackThompson

[monkfish]

15 minutes ago, Russell17au said:

No they wont. You need to open your eyes because a lot of the industries in Australia closed because the raw materials were sold to China and those industries will never be able to open again. So the only export for those raw materials is to China

So Australia's totally dependant on China?
Always wondered what kept Auz ticking.

[JHolmesJr]

9 minutes ago, Logosone said:

If China escalated the trade war,

 

Personally I see the events that unfolded out of wuhan to be just that.

Chinese version of escalation...they have no problems killing a few of

their own as long as it meets the larger Party objectives.

[Logosone]

14 minutes ago, JackThompson said:

I have no illusions that profit-seeking corporations will give up their cheap-labor and "freedom from" environmental and safety provisions, which China offers - of their own free will.

 

No, they don't.  The harm done to Western economies by the eviceration of our middle-class, which was outsourcing to China facilitated, did far more harm than the few cents of labor-cost per-item from shifting production to China.

 

Don't get me started on Trump; while I disagree with most "popular criticism" of him - by those whose policy-prescriptions are Worse - he has NOT done what he was elected to do. 

So how would you stop corporations from producing and selling in China?

 

If you check the income development in the US, it has grown substantially since 1945. There has been a massive growth in prosperity in which the middle class has shared significantly.

 

I think you're underestimating the benefit of having cheap consumer goods, stopping chinese production would make everything vastly more expensive for the consumer. But you're overestimating the supposed damage to the middle class.

[Russell17au]

2 minutes ago, JackThompson said:

I hope the Chinese people benefit from that production, and wrest control of their country from those who run it.  The rest of us cannot trust them (or any foreign-nation) to be key suppliers to our consumer-markets. 

 

Note that Thailand is smart about this - look at the products in BigC or Lotus, and notice the vast majority are "Made In Thailand" - a wise choice, facilitated with nationalist-tariffs which support national-security, in the most broad sense of the term (not the ridiculous "immigration" sense of it).

 

Maybe they will, NOW.  There is no fundimental reason they cannot do so.

It is easy to see that you know nothing about any of this or you would know that it would take over 100 years to rebuild what was closed and to rebuild it all the materials would have to come from China

So there is a fundamental reason why it will not be done.

[Logosone]

6 minutes ago, JackThompson said:

I hope the Chinese people benefit from that production, and wrest control of their country from those who run it.  The rest of us cannot trust them (or any foreign-nation) to be key suppliers to our consumer-markets. 

There is going to be a lot of thinking on those lines and I think that is a valid point.

 

Many countries will rediscover the importance of manufacturing and turn away from services.

 

It is the case that vital supplies, say face masks, should not be monopolised by China and should be made in home countries. However, luxury items, say laptops, that is a bit of a different story, we all benefit from cheap chinese production, and it is hard to see a vital aspect to certain electronic goods.

 

But yes, for vital live or die products, definitely a lot of countries will now switch to producing those themselves.

Edited April 5, 2020 by Logosone

[ravip]

1 hour ago, Logosone said:

A virus did originate in Kansas, the Spanish flu pandemic.

 

"Nonetheless, in seven years of work on a history of the pandemic, this author conducted an extensive survey of contemporary medical and lay literature searching for epidemiological evidence – the only evidence available. That review suggests that the most likely site of origin was Haskell County, Kansas, an isolated and sparsely populated county in the southwest corner of the state, in January 1918"

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC340389/

 

Last I checked the people in Kansas did not have an obsession with exotic foodstuffs. The virus can arise anywhere, it's a fact. It could equally arise in domestic cats, it does not need to be transmitted by eating, aerosol or touch is fine.

 

By the way, Australians eat more bats than the Chinese:

 

"Bats have been hunted by Aboriginal Australians for thousands of years, extending into modern times. Popular game species are the black flying fox and the little red flying fox. In 1997, it was estimated that the Aboriginal people of the Top End consumed 180,000 flying foxes each year"

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_as_food

 

 

 

By the way, Australians eat more bats than the Chinese:

Shhhhhhhhhh! These things should be whispered!

 

[ChouDoufu]

16 minutes ago, tifino said:

besides... just 'what' comes out of China that is of quality? - in that whatever has quality, has been some direct copy of something originally from a different country!

 - take military products: where anything decent in their armoury was originally of Russian design... copied and not necessarily Licenced manufactured from either.

remember the stuff they export to the west is produced in accordance with the contracts.  our corporate overlords specifically went to china to find the cheapest plastic carp possible, to sell at walmart and dollar general.  they did this to increase their profit thru lower wages, no unions, no pensions, no environmental regulations, no health and safety standards, no workers rights, and no accountability.

 

we're getting exactly what we demanded.  cheap carp.  our buyers visit the factories, they inspect the goods.  they know exactly what they're getting.

 

they can and do make quality products, but only if we request it and pay for it.

[ravip]

1 hour ago, Why Me said:

Sure the Chinese Govt. bears a lot of responsibility but try suing them. Just like try suing the US for genocide and killing and maiming millions in VN, Iraq and on and on.

 

Meanwhile, tinpot African dictators (see Omar al-Bashir and a dozen others) and two-bit Serbian generals (see Mladic and Karadzic) get convicted for crimes against humanity.

 

Rich and powerful countries are above the law. It's the way the world is. Deal with it.

 

Heck, guess tourists from which country brought the virus to Italy? Next guess which country the Italians are now so effusively praising for one military plane after another bringing med supplies and personnel.

 

Prediction: in two months the Chinese who are out of their C-19 funk already will be leading the world economic recovery. And countries like Thailand and Italy will be clamoring again for Chinese tourists and the billions they spend.

 

Like I said, if you've money and power you ain't ever guilty of nothing. (I could give you another simple example of this closer to home but I won't).

if you've money and power you ain't ever guilty of nothing.

Almost none will admit to this, just for the sake of saving face syndrome. It is easier for them to accuse other people, just to feel secure themselves. A shameful act, but done openly in abundance.

 

[JackThompson]

13 minutes ago, Logosone said:

So how would you stop corporations from producing and selling in China?

The same way we did in the "Great America" days - with high-tariffs on all foreign slave-produced products.  That was status-quo until the 1990s.  We did Great.

 

Quote

If you check the income development in the US, it has grown substantially since 1945. There has been a massive growth in prosperity in which the middle class has shared significantly.

That reversed in the 1990s, due in large part to removing the tariffs that protected American manufacturing jobs.  The shift of the nation's total-gdp-profits to the top 1% increased due to the closing of American production, and falling-wages due to the use for imported laborers.  This has created an income-differential not seen since the 1920s.

 

Quote

I think you're underestimating the benefit of having cheap consumer goods, stopping chinese production would make everything vastly more expensive for the consumer. But you're overestimating the supposed damage to the middle class.

No, I am not underestimating at all.  The savings per item's retail-price is Not Significant to the consumer.  It does "add up" when the measured in terms of "millions of products," however - which is why the corporations do it.  They didn't move production to China, and throw us into poverty-ditch by so doing, because they "cared about us."

Edited April 5, 2020 by JackThompson

[Lacessit]

38 minutes ago, Russell17au said:

So let China stop buying American farm produce, farm chemicals and stop buying Australian iron ore and farm produce and you can kiss the American and Australian economies goodbye because China whether you like it or not is the largest buyer of materials from America and Australia. So it is not China that needs to co-operate with America and Australia it is the vice-versa

Yes, China is a large buyer. It is also a large seller, and there is many a US dollar ( reserve currency, remember ) that is parked outside China by the Chinese themselves in case the Communist paradise goes pear-shaped. So what happens if Chinese assets outside China are expropriated? Not a lot of foreign capital invested in China, tit-for-tat won't work there.

Remember the Russian occupation of East Germany? They literally took the kitchen sinks as well in reparations.

 

[rumak]

1 hour ago, Why Me said:

Sure the Chinese Govt. bears a lot of responsibility but try suing them. Just like try suing the US for genocide and killing and maiming millions in VN, Iraq and on and on.

 

Meanwhile, tinpot African dictators (see Omar al-Bashir and a dozen others) and two-bit Serbian generals (see Mladic and Karadzic) get convicted for crimes against humanity.

 

Rich and powerful countries are above the law. It's the way the world is. Deal with it.

 

Heck, guess tourists from which country brought the virus to Italy? Next guess which country the Italians are now so effusively praising for one military plane after another bringing med supplies and personnel.

 

Prediction: in two months the Chinese who are out of their C-19 funk already will be leading the world economic recovery. And countries like Thailand and Italy will be clamoring again for Chinese tourists and the billions they spend.

 

Like I said, if you've money and power you ain't ever guilty of nothing. (I could give you another simple example of this closer to home but I won't).

if i wrote that it woulda disappeared before you could say freedom of speech.   maybe i need to change my name to mairu araileey  

[OneMoreFarang]

Looking at the thread this wonderful quote comes to my mind (sorry, I don't know who said it first):

 

There are always easy solutions to complex problems - and most of the time they are wrong.

[ravip]

1 hour ago, monkfish said:

Yea that's been the big mistake of the World driven by greed of a few becoming dependent on a country like China now hopefully the world will wake up and reverse that trend.

 

Not only China. The world should not depend on any one country. Is there any one country that is honest and can be trusted?

Now China is the target as the super heroes have fallen dismally... ouch, it hurts.

[JackThompson]

12 minutes ago, Logosone said:

There is going to be a lot of thinking on those lines and I think that is a valid point.

 

Many countries will rediscover the importance of manufacturing and turn away from services.

 

It is the case that vital supplies, say face masks, should not be monopolised by China and should be made in home countries. However, luxury items, say laptops, that is a bit of a different story, we all benefit from cheap chinese production, and it is hard to see a vital aspect to certain electronic goods.

 

But yes, for vital live or die products, definitely a lot of countries will now switch to producing those themselves.

Sadly, I think the production-shift for US-sold products will be to Mexico - not to the USA.  I would not count-out Vietnam, either.  And even when Trump gets a new factory announced (Foxconn), he immediately says we need to "bring in workers ... we will train" (CPAC speech) to take the jobs, so that Americans cannot have their decent lives back. 

 

While I would love to see an "awakening" sort of political shift to bring back fully-domesitic production, I don't see evidence Americans (or Europeans) are clued-in enough to demand it.  Most still think they 'could not afford stuff' if it were made domestically - having Not Been Alive when production was domestic, and having had this lie drilled into their heads their entire lives.

[monkfish]

21 minutes ago, Russell17au said:

It is easy to see that you know nothing about any of this or you would know that it would take over 100 years to rebuild what was closed and to rebuild it all the materials would have to come from China

So there is a fundamental reason why it will not be done.

What 100 years to rebuild what China did in 30?
More like 5-10

Don't forget who invented the Phone, Electric, Computer, Tv, Cinema, Car, Plane etc. etc etc it certainly wasn't the Chinese.
We only make it there because it's cheaper you know?

Edited April 5, 2020 by monkfish

[ravip]

1 hour ago, scorecard said:

So perhaps the families of all Chinese (and Indian, Bangladeshi and Cambodian) children who have worked (and been held) in slave conditions to make big name very expensive sports shows for half a dollar a day (if they ever got paid) should sue the USA (and others)?

Whats your suggestion. Or the slave masters are OK to go on with their trade?

[ravip]

1 hour ago, Enzian said:

Giant Made In China sticker on everything that comes from there? No little hidden labels. Then we all have a choice.

Who cares a Bat where it is made, as long as the price is right and the quality is OK?

[Lacessit]

33 minutes ago, Logosone said:

Not an argument.

 

Every country started that way. The US copied Britain, Germany copied Britain. Japan copied Germany.

 

Then comes a point when a copying country makes the transition to improving and creating quality products itself. China has already made that transition.

Please let me know when you will be buying an MG in preference to a Toyota, because I want to see how you get on with your warranty claim.

China is a long way behind the Japanese and Koreans in quality terms, just ask any Thai trying to sell the TCL brand.

[bkk6060]

5 hours ago, colinneil said:

Crazy comment, so in your opinion, the world should punish the Chinese population for the wrong doings of their masters.

?

People everywhere and many on here verbally punish those from the US because they hate Trump.

They are all lumped in although 50 million + did not even vote for him.

Edited April 5, 2020 by bkk6060

[Fex Bluse]

5 hours ago, UbonThani said:

Not crazy at all. They spread it via the people on purpose.

 

 

I agree. There is strong evidence that this was a coordinated biological attack. WW3 has just started, silently. 

[Logosone]

10 minutes ago, JackThompson said:

The same way we did in the "Great America" days - with high-tariffs on all foreign slave-produced products.  That was status-quo until the 1990s.  We did Great.

 

That reversed in the 1990s, due in large part to removing the tariffs that protected American manufacturing jobs.  The shift of the nation's total-gdp-profits to the top 1% increased due to the closing of American production, and falling-wages due to the use for imported laborers.  This has created an income-differential not seen since the 1920s.

 

No, I am not underestimating at all.  The savings per item's retail-price is Not Significant to the consumer.  It does "add up" when the measured in terms of "millions of products," however - which is why the corporations do it.  They didn't move production to China, and throw us into poverty-ditch by so doing, because they "cared about us."

High tariffs on foreign produced products would mean US companies can not compete with other manufacturers.

 

If US companies were prevented from using standard tactics like producing in low cost economies, that would still be available to other countries without those rules, then it would basically mean the death of US companies in the international market as they would be outsold by companies that can produce more cheaply. Less profit abroad would mean less innovation, poorer quality products, how does that benefit anyone?

 

But how would you stop companies from selling their products in China?

[Logosone]

4 minutes ago, Lacessit said:

Please let me know when you will be buying an MG in preference to a Toyota, because I want to see how you get on with your warranty claim.

China is a long way behind the Japanese and Koreans in quality terms, just ask any Thai trying to sell the TCL brand.

Chinese is already producing cars that are better than many Toyotas:

 

https://www.hotcars.com/10-surprisingly-awesome-cars-from-china-and-10-that-are-not-good/

 

It is just question of time until market acceptance and awareness, mass production etc allow Chinese car manufacturers to compete.

 

China's not a long way behind Japan and Korea at all, of course the latter still have a knowledge advantage for now. However, so did Sony in the 1980s, and then Samsung came along.

 

In fact many Huawei products outclass Japanese or Korean products quite clearly. 

[Russell17au]

7 minutes ago, monkfish said:

What 100 years to rebuild what China did in 30?
More like 5-10

Don't forget who invented the Phone, Electric, Computer, Tv, Cinema, Car, Plane etc. etc etc it certainly wasn't the Chinese.
We only make it there because it's cheaper you know?

It just shows that you have very little knowledge about a lot of things. I am talking about large industries that you would not even know about or the infrastructure that are also required. I don't care who invented what, I am talking about huge industries that you are incapable of understanding.

[metempsychotic]

5 hours ago, UbonThani said:

No Chinese should be allowed to travel for 10 yrs

Hmm, like the embargo on cuba.

 

I personally relish punishing the lions share of the world population for the policies of their government.

 

Personally I think the time for racial cleansing is now, when international hysteria is strong and it will be easier to find acceptance.

 

It is time to consider the silver lining here - the rest of the world can unite over the extermination of the chinese, at least until they are gone and we start looking for our next target.

 

 

 

 

Edited April 5, 2020 by metempsychotic

[Logosone]

12 minutes ago, JackThompson said:

Sadly, I think the production-shift for US-sold products will be to Mexico - not to the USA.  I would not count-out Vietnam, either.  And even when Trump gets a new factory announced (Foxconn), he immediately says we need to "bring in workers ... we will train" (CPAC speech) to take the jobs, so that Americans cannot have their decent lives back. 

 

While I would love to see an "awakening" sort of political shift to bring back fully-domesitic production, I don't see evidence Americans (or Europeans) are clued-in enough to demand it.  Most still think they 'could not afford stuff' if it were made domestically - having Not Been Alive when production was domestic, and having had this lie drilled into their heads their entire lives.

Oh, this is already happening in Europe, Basell, Borealis, IneosStyrolution, BASF and Covestro are producing the raw materials for masks and Sandler AG and others are focusing on ramping up mask production. The German government is giving guaranteed contracts and financing to those companies. These incentives will ensure that in terms of masks Germany will never need to source masks abroad again in a few months.

 

I would be astounded if the US are not taking similar measures to create incentives for producing vital supplies in the US. However, you're right, there can not and will not be a shift to full domestic production for the simple reason that people in the US and Europe live too well. They are too expensive. Their lives are too expensive. It is just not economically feasible to produce all your products in the US, Germany or Japan, if you're a global company competing internationally. Companies will always go where production is cheapest. Wages in the US and Europe being what they are a company would be insane not to produce abroad.

 

 

[monkfish]

1 minute ago, Russell17au said:

It just shows that you have very little knowledge about a lot of things. I am talking about large industries that you would not even know about or the infrastructure that are also required. I don't care who invented what, I am talking about huge industries that you are incapable of understanding.

Yea your right I have no idea what you are talking about because we can't do industrie in the west.
During the second world war in the UK Women made War planes and Tanks but yes sure the west has no idea about industry and infrastructure.

[Enzian]

11 minutes ago, ravip said:

Who cares a Bat where it is made, as long as the price is right and the quality is OK?

Some people will care, and some won't. For a long time most (myself included) have taken the attitude implied in your question, but it is possible that might change. It makes a statement, like spending more for an electric car. But I tend to agree that there is realistically in sight no form of direct retaliation that will satisfy those of us who are enraged by this whole mess. But it is a process, and I will watch for something to emerge.