[Sixstrings]

China's steel producers wield an arsenal of unfair advantages, Nucor complains, from an artificially undervalued currency to near-limitless state credit and free land for new factories, resulting in surplus product landing on global markets at otherwise impossibly cheap prices--sometimes less than the cost of the raw materials.

The worst part of this, fumes Nucor's chief executive Dan DiMicco, is how little Washington does to defend American interests by forcing China to play by the rules of the global trading system.

"As long as we continue to be namby-pamby, weak-kneed negotiators, the Chinese will continue to cheat," DiMicco declared during a recent interview. "History has shown us again and again that if you appease bad behavior, you get more of it, not less of it, and it can lead to something catastrophic. Our very existence gets threatened."

Nucor is merely one voice (albeit a particularly strident one) in a swelling chorus of complaints from American business interests claiming grievous injury at the hands of unfair Chinese competitors.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/10/american-steel-blames-china_n_806112.html

China is impossible to compete with.. their factories have unlimited government credit, they get free land, and have an undervalued currency. According to the article Chinese steel is sometimes less than the raw material cost. So say goodbye to American steel.. it's toast.

[dolanbaker]

Reminds me of a story I heard in the 1980s about the old (infamous) Burma railway, it had been closed for some years and locals were pulling up the rails and making all sorts of things out of them.

The prices of the finished goods (spoons, forks etc) was only marginally above the price scrap metal merchants would have bought the rails for!

The real danger for the west here is the continued export of scrap metal to China, at some time in the future the price China demands for steel products will almost certainly be too high for the west to bear.

At least by keeping the scrap, we will have easy access to cheap (not so) raw material.

[vtsnowedin]

Reminds me of a story I heard in the 1980s about the old (infamous) Burma railway, it had been closed for some years and locals were pulling up the rails and making all sorts of things out of them.

The prices of the finished goods (spoons, forks etc) was only marginally above the price scrap metal merchants would have bought the rails for!

The real danger for the west here is the continued export of scrap metal to China, at some time in the future the price China demands for steel products will almost certainly be too high for the west to bear.

At least by keeping the scrap, we will have easy access to cheap (not so) raw material.

Careful Dolan, the last time we cut off shipments of scrap iron to a pacific rim buyer we got Pearl Harbor for an answer.

[SeaGypsy]

I learned this game the Chinese play over 10 years ago.

In the late 90's my father owned Australia's biggest Venetian glass studio, which he had run at around the $500k mark for most of the last 15 years prior to 2000. It was a very successfull small business.

In 1998/ 1999 we started getting strange visits from Chinese people wearing 1970's style suits.
They would show up in a group of three and space themselves along the public viewing area.
Then they would simultaneously take a series of photographs, begginning with a sweep of the ground view, then the middle, then upper views of everything we were doing. They would be gone in about 2 minutes.

During this same period China was offering $50k jobs for 6 months work to Australian glass art graduates.
Lots of whom took said jobs.

Of course they were setting up Venetian glass studios.

By 2005 there was no money in blown glass unless you were famous already. Emerging artist's careers froze. Chinese glass was now approaching the quality of the better glass workers in the world. They were retailing the product cheaper than I could manufacture the raw glass. Effectively they made it utterly impossible to compete.

The same year, Chen Yonglin defected from the Chinese diplomatic service and announced the presence of over 1000 spies in Australia. That story died as quickly as it was born. The spies were't the usual, targeting military or infrastructure; they were (are) industrial spies. Their job is to look at anything other countries do which makes money and document it to assist setting up competition in manufacturing. Shortly after, another defector confirmed Chen's story but the media sat on whatever crap they were told by our security agencies and nothing was really said.

Our government seems so scared of offending China that it is effectively sanctioning this industrial espionage. Not one spy has been caught or thrown out. I guess our governments have decided that since China is going to be our biggest customer, we have to allow them to become our hardest competition.

The above story is why I have believed that there is complicity in western governments to force manufacturing costs down towards the lowest common denominator; China.

In the last 10 years in Australia the following manufacturing sectors have virtually shut down in favour of Chinese production:

Fashion (all but the most high end and even that is only designed on shore.)

Furniture.

White goods, kitchen appliances.

Interior design/ light fittings, tiles, faucets etc.

Toys.

Blown glass.

There would be more and I guess the same is happening everywhere including (perhaps especially) in the USA. Currently Sun Tzu is the philosopher of China, not Confucious.

[Pretorian]

Reminds me of a story I heard in the 1980s about the old (infamous) Burma railway, it had been closed for some years and locals were pulling up the rails and making all sorts of things out of them.

The prices of the finished goods (spoons, forks etc) was only marginally above the price scrap metal merchants would have bought the rails for!

The real danger for the west here is the continued export of scrap metal to China, at some time in the future the price China demands for steel products will almost certainly be too high for the west to bear.

At least by keeping the scrap, we will have easy access to cheap (not so) raw material.

Careful Dolan, the last time we cut off shipments of scrap iron to a pacific rim buyer we got Pearl Harbor for an answer.

There was iron too? I thought it was a mere oil blocade. And with all that Americans have balls to claim they didnt declare war on Japan before PH.

[Tanada]

Careful Dolan, the last time we cut off shipments of scrap iron to a pacific rim buyer we got Pearl Harbor for an answer.

There was iron too? I thought it was a mere oil blockade. And with all that Americans have balls to claim they didn't declare war on Japan before PH.

Scrap Iron. Petroleum. Bank assets. Lots of steps were taken to embarrass the Japanese government and hurt them economically, they were given the choice to knuckle under to the USA demands or go to war.

[Outcast_Searcher]

The above story is why I have believed that there is complicity in western governments to force manufacturing costs down towards the lowest common denominator; China.

In the last 10 years in Australia the following manufacturing sectors have virtually shut down in favour of Chinese production:

Fashion (all but the most high end and even that is only designed on shore.)

Furniture.

White goods, kitchen appliances.

Interior design/ light fittings, tiles, faucets etc.

Toys.

Blown glass.

There would be more and I guess the same is happening everywhere including (perhaps especially) in the USA.

I'll speak for the USA, since I live here, but I can imagine these questions work for some extent to any first world nation.)

Is there a reasonable way to deal with this? We could become isolationists and not allow anyone in, and not trade with anyone.

The problem I see with that is that it makes our citizens poorer, since we lose trade via competitive advantage.

Also, it's hard to see China wanting to buy trillions of our depreciating greenbacks if we refuse to deal with them. (Of course, if we'd LIVE WITHIN OUR MEANS, that wouldn't be an issue, but I digress).

Seriously. Is there a workable solution aside from total isolationism? We can't stop cheap Chinese labor from existing, and I don't see how we can boot every person out of the country who takes a picture. (I don't see an easy way to fix this.)

[eastbay]

Careful Dolan, the last time we cut off shipments of scrap iron to a pacific rim buyer we got Pearl Harbor for an answer.

There was iron too? I thought it was a mere oil blockade. And with all that Americans have balls to claim they didn't declare war on Japan before PH.

Scrap Iron. Petroleum. Bank assets. Lots of steps were taken to embarrass the Japanese government and hurt them economically, they were given the choice to knuckle under to the USA demands or go to war.

... and each of these actions can be considered acts of war. The actual 'declarations' are meaningless. Bombs and bullets don't care.

[SeaGypsy]

Seems no way out of it. Best thing the US could do IMO is try to forget China and do an all out effort at getting off imported oil. This seems internally politicly impossible also.

From what I can see those lucky few who cashed chips in late 2007 are on top while those who had none to cash, blew the lot, or ended up with an underwater mortgage are the losers. These and the next generation have an ever decreasing chance of reaching financial self actualisation.

A percentage of the BB generation have been allowed to slip through and hang on to some wealth, but very few of the next generation will ever get out of debt.

Who is to blame?

We all are, every time we choose to buy a cheaper product from elsewhere, every time we voted for globalist policies, whenever we accept outsourced services for telecommunications or banking products, etc etc.

[Pretorian]

Seriously. Is there a workable solution aside from total isolationism? We can't stop cheap Chinese labor from existing, and I don't see how we can boot every person out of the country who takes a picture. (I don't see an easy way to fix this.)

You could allow to import nothing but raw materials. You could allow to export nothing but finished goods and labor. Yes, Americans will have to give up a lot of toys but they would be able to throw out a lot of good food as they do now. Steven Hawking suggested that USA &Can, AU/NZ and UK should form an alliance and shut off all commercial contacts with other countries, in order to preserve resources for a bumpy future (though why would they take UK is beyond me, I guess he just wants to find a cosy nook for his country). In fact, world population would reduce pretty quick without food exports from the first 4 countries.

[papa moose]

Seriously. Is there a workable solution aside from total isolationism? We can't stop cheap Chinese labor from existing, and I don't see how we can boot every person out of the country who takes a picture. (I don't see an easy way to fix this.)

You could allow to import nothing but raw materials. You could allow to export nothing but finished goods and labor. Yes, Americans will have to give up a lot of toys but they would be able to throw out a lot of good food as they do now. Steven Hawking suggested that USA &Can, AU/NZ and UK should form an alliance and shut off all commercial contacts with other countries, in order to preserve resources for a bumpy future (though why would they take UK is beyond me, I guess he just wants to find a cosy nook for his country). In fact, world population would reduce pretty quick without food exports from the first 4 countries.

Ah, you almost had me, i was about to ask if this was really a suggestion of "Stephen Hawking"!
Now, who is this idiot, Steven Hawking?
Soooo many holes in this concept.

[Sixstrings]

The same year, Chen Yonglin defected from the Chinese diplomatic service and announced the presence of over 1000 spies in Australia. That story died as quickly as it was born. The spies were't the usual, targeting military or infrastructure; they were (are) industrial spies. Their job is to look at anything other countries do which makes money and document it to assist setting up competition in manufacturing. Shortly after, another defector confirmed Chen's story but the media sat on whatever crap they were told by our security agencies and nothing was really said.

Taking a step back from it all and looking at it objectively.. it really is remarkable what the Chinese have done. If they beat us down into a failed state backwater, then it's a victory well deserved -- they've played the game brilliantly.

The worst part though is that after winning two world wars and the Cold War, the West is going to wind up dominated by a capitalist-totalitarian-communist hybrid monstrosity. Everyone loves to hate the US, but the coming Chinese superpower won't be as benevolent.

I think Napoleon said something like "Let China sleep, for when they wake they will shake the world."

EDIT: I've been playing a game called "Victoria II" lately. It's kind of ironic how in the game, which starts in 1836, China is a potential economic monster. The only thing holding them back is technology. As far as the game mechanics go, if you play China you want to get your tech up and as soon as you can industrialize then voila China is a super power.

[Sixstrings]

There was iron too? I thought it was a mere oil blocade. And with all that Americans have balls to claim they didnt declare war on Japan before PH.

We were justified in trying to contain imperial Japan. You can't let an empire bent on conquest just go about it's business.

From the Japanese viewpoint, since they were bent on conquest, they had to attack us because they needed those natural resources to ramp up and grab China.

Scrap Iron. Petroleum. Bank assets. Lots of steps were taken to embarrass the Japanese government and hurt them economically, they were given the choice to knuckle under to the USA demands or go to war.

Uhm, Tanada.. they were going through Asia like a wrecking ball gobbling up nations. We had to do something, even though Americans wouldn't have supported an offensive war.

[papa moose]

From the Japanese viewpoint, since they were bent on conquest, they had to attack us because they needed those natural resources to ramp up and grab China.

I'm a little fuzzy here, Japan bombed Hawaii because they needed "natural resources" to attack China?
What natural resources? Sugar cane? Pineapples?
How on earth would they help with invading China? Japan invaded China in 1937, the Pearl Harbour attack wasn't until 1941.
Seems like your arguement has a slight hole in it.
Not that i'm sticking up for Imperial Japan in anyway.

[Sixstrings]

You could allow to import nothing but raw materials. You could allow to export nothing but finished goods and labor. Yes, Americans will have to give up a lot of toys but they would be able to throw out a lot of good food as they do now.

It doesn't have to be that extreme. Yet again, in a discussion of solutions Americans seem to only see extremist options and that makes the middle impossible. I'm starting to think the corporate media has brainwashed this polar opposite thinking into us so we never get anything done -- and the global corps win by default.

Back on point.. all we need are some tariffs folks. Nixon did this with Japan at one point when they were undervaluing the Yen. The US didn't crash, it just hurt Japan and forced them to compromise with us.

This isn't rocket science here.. we have the ability to manufacture, all that's holding us back are the limitless hordes of cheap labor in Asia. We have to protect our industries -- we must have tariffs so that manufacturing in America is at least economically possible. The steel plant in this article, currently the largest left in the US, they WILL go down if Chinese steal remains cheap. And after driving all other competition permanently out of business China will raise prices on us. That's an old story there, except this time it's we who are on the receiving end.

EDIT: let's not forget this is more than manufacturing, it's all all the call centers and IT jobs and back office stuff done in India. I read somewhere the other day that Walgreens is using an Indian accounting firm now. All our industries are going to Chindia, everything that doesn't absolutely require a person physically here in the US -- and that's almost all low paying work.

[Sixstrings]

I'm a little fuzzy here, Japan bombed Hawaii because they needed "natural resources" to attack China?
What natural resources? Sugar cane? Pineapples?

The Pacific fleet was stationed in Pearl Harbor -- it wasn't about pineapples, they wanted to eliminate our fleet in one overwhelming surprise attack. The plan was to neuter us from getting in the way of their nation-gobbling, and hopefully they'd be stronger by the time we rebuilt the fleet and then they could take us on after having gobbled up some more territory and in a better position to fight us.

[SeaGypsy]

The long term plan was to take Australia, which Japan would possibly have achieved but for the hammering they copped in the Coral Sea.

[Pretorian]

There was iron too? I thought it was a mere oil blocade. And with all that Americans have balls to claim they didnt declare war on Japan before PH.

We were justified in trying to contain imperial Japan. You can't let an empire bent on conquest just go about it's business.

From the Japanese viewpoint, since they were bent on conquest, they had to attack us because they needed those natural resources to ramp up and grab China.

Scrap Iron. Petroleum. Bank assets. Lots of steps were taken to embarrass the Japanese government and hurt them economically, they were given the choice to knuckle under to the USA demands or go to war.

Uhm, Tanada.. they were going through Asia like a wrecking ball gobbling up nations. We had to do something, even though Americans wouldn't have supported an offensive war.

Basically for the public support of the war effort US let PH to be bombed-- just so it can play like an innocent victim. Didnt Dick Cheney said that they need another PH to deal with Iraq or something?

[Tanada]

Scrap Iron. Petroleum. Bank assets. Lots of steps were taken to embarrass the Japanese government and hurt them economically, they were given the choice to knuckle under to the USA demands or go to war.

Uhm, Tanada.. they were going through Asia like a wrecking ball gobbling up nations. We had to do something, even though Americans wouldn't have supported an offensive war.

So when Japan did it in 1932 it was a horror but when the USA did it in North America in 1803 it was A-Okay...

You seem to have forgotten that the French, Dutch, British and Russians had gone through Asia like a wrecking ball a few generations earlier and it was their colonial possessions Japan was invading, not separate peaceful countries as you see today. It is always a mistake to judge the past by the conditions of the present.

[dissident]

You seem to have forgotten that the French, Dutch, British and Russians had gone through Asia like a wrecking ball a few generations earlier and it was their colonial possessions Japan was invading, not separate peaceful countries as you see today. It is always a mistake to judge the past by the conditions of the present.

You better lay off the crack pipe there dude. This is the biggest pile of steaming BS I have encountered in a while. Ever hear of Nanjing? If you would bother to learn some facts you would know that this was not some colonial possession and in fact part of a peaceful country called China.