MSNBC is helping stoke the flames of the latest anti-China hysteria over the safety of goods made in China. Remember the panic over toys painted with lead paint that were coming out of China? Children were supposed to be turning up retarded all over the American countryside thanks to those diabolical Chinese and their lead paint. Yet, somehow America survived that sinister attack.
Now, it’s the Chinese and their tires that will be the death of us. This likely wouldn’t even be a media issue if it weren’t for the Obama administration’s effort to re-create the glories of Hawley-Smoot by raising tarriffs on Chinese tires while undoubtedly feeling around for other tarriffs to raise as well.
I’m curious however, as to who is working behind the scenes to make the safety of Chinese tires an issue. The article begins with a reference to the United Steelworkers Union, which has likely been raising little passive-aggressive questions about the safety of Chinese tires while accusing the Chinese of “unfair” trade practices.
Americans need free trade now more than ever. Yes, consumers buy tires, but the biggest benefits will come from inexpensive tires purchased by producers who rely on fleets of trucks, tractors, or other kinds of capital that rely on cost-effective tires. Low cost tires mean lower cost goods for the rest of us.
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Nonsense Mr. McMaken,
The American consumer will prosper by buying more expensive tires. The money we shovel out for tires will of course trickle down to our wages once more, and we will become stupendously wealthy! I mean, unemployment during the Great Depression was near 0% right, and if I recall pretty much everyone was wealthy? Right? [/sarcasm]
Why should it be the president’s business to decide which tires I will buy or if I should buy health insurance or not ?
I don’t see how the interferences of a third party will “fix” the economy.
The economy is between me the consumer and them the producers. I just don’t see where Barack Obama fits in between.
Yes, we must rely on the “made in the US” propaganda in order to support more of the statist’s agenda. State coerced price/wage, labor, and manufacturing control is “good” for the US worker. I guess so “good” that we often forget the Bridgestone/Firestone debacle of the 1990′s. Let us repeat. http://www.irs.princeton.edu/pubs/pdfs/461_revisedB.pdf
I don’t think the sarcasm tag was needed in the last comment, that however has nothing to do with my comment. I have an issue which I hope the like minded readers can help me with. I would like advice on arguing, I have had the tire tariff argument with several people who just deny deny deny that it will have the same results as Hawley-Smoot, it is like arguing with a brick wall, normally I would call it quits but it’s fun proving people wrong. Any advice?
@ William Frable
Yea, quit. It’s a waste of time arguing with people who do not listen to you.
You could do something useful instead like cutting your toenails of scratching your back.
Yeah, your best bet is probably an after-the-fact I-told-you-so, but even those are usually deftly rationalized away.
Sigh. I need new friends.
William Frable,
How about:
- Improve your method of identifying open-minded individuals, e.g. they don’t start the conversation with a sermon.
- Try to identify signs indicating whether a conversation is destined for endless debate or a change in belief. For example, if one person is constantly speaking in vague terms while the second is always trying to get the other to commit to specific beliefs, then it is probably a fruitless debate.
- Lower your expectations until they’re satisfied. You’ll be less upset when something goes wrong if you can say to yourself, “I knew it – I’m surrounded by assholes.”
And the furore over lead paint! Houses have been drenched in lead paint as well lead in the fuel tanks of cars for decades until do-gooders banned it. Lead is most healthful.
Kevin B,
Nice points.
William,
I suggest you use your time and energy in more productive things. After some time, simply employ the I-told-you-so method to rest your case, as Mike suggested.
I will be the first to admit that I really do not know much about economics. However, I visit sites such as this to learn a little bit more each day.
I have a question (or questions) that I’m hoping some of you will venture to answer:
How does a country such as the U.S. bring back parity to global trading? If countries such as China have artificially pegged their currencies lower to the USD to bring imbalanced trade, what can the U.S. do to counteract such policies?
It seems that tariffs bring negative consequences to global trade. However, the U.S. needs to produce something that the rest of the world would want to consume in order to balance out global trade. Selling I.O.U’s clearly is not the answer.
Thoughts?
John,
Great question. May I suggest a world war? It’s easier to sell goods to the rest of the world when the world doesn’t have the industrial capacity, because it was destroyed, to produce those goods themselves.
btw..I think the tariff on Chinese tires is riduculous, and of course the Chinese are fighting back via their importation of U.S. chickens. It’s all very silly, but hey, POTUS has to throw a bone to the unions who were instrumental in getting him elected.
Christopher,
“May I suggest a world war? It’s easier to sell goods to the rest of the world when the world doesn’t have the industrial capacity, because it was destroyed, to produce those goods themselves.”
There are so many flaws in that argumentation, I don’t know where to start.
If you empoverish your prospective customers by destroying their industrial capacity, how will they pay for the manufactured goods you propose to sell them ?
And will they even want to trade with you after you bombed down their population ?
You risk being ostracized and blockaded by the entire world.
Remember, money only serves as a medium to exchange real savings. If you destroy your customer’s real savings, how are they going to pay you back. You can’t eat printed pieces of paper.
It’s a fatally flawed Kenesian myth to think that war brings prosperity. It doesn’t.
War is a reduction of ressources and brings widespread poverty.
You want your customers to have a robust industrial capacity, that way they will have a lot of sophisticated industrial needs you can meet with an even higher degree of sophistication than them. And they will need your natural ressources so you can sell a lot of that to them.
In fact, the USA is an exact example of why your idea will not work.
Our industrial capacity is extremely reduced but so is our prosperity. The result is that we are doing the opposite of being manufactured goods of others.
We are fast becoming too poor to afford even chinese junk.
We need a robust industrial sector to produce manufactured goods to pay for other countries manufactured productions.
Our best customers are not impoverished african states but other robust industrial countries.
John,
I forgot to add scarcasm. There is a small thread of truth to what I suggested. I was thinking of post WWII.
Christopher,
Post WWII boomed because governments cut their spending, cut their rationing, stopped commandeering the economy and granted more freedoms to the market.
The market did not boom because of the war industry “building”. The market boomed because governments got more out of the way. Back then they could not easily mangle with money like they did today because the USD was somewhat pegged to gold, so they had to stop the splurge.
Surprisingly, cutting government spending has proven to be beneficial to the economy.
Am I the only one who remembers the safety hazard of “made in the USA” Firestone tires on “made in the USA” Ford Explorers?
I wouldn’t be looking for a country of origin label as a safety endorsement.
No you are not the only one. But you may want to inform yourself a little more on the subject. Firestone tires were not the problem. Ford had recommended an artificially low (28 psi) tire pressure. This causes excess heat in the tires, especially when loaded down. We weren’t hearing about Explorers with 1 person in them rolling over. It was always a family of 4 loaded down with all their crap to go camping for the weekend or driving across country. They were overloading the tires without pumping up the pressure. I could make a NEW Explorer with any tires have a similar issue if I put 4 200 lb adults in there, plus 500 pounds of stuff, then inflate the tires to only 28 psi and drive 80mph when it’s 100 degrees! Almost any tire would fail in those conditions.
Why is it so hard to understand that have brought more good and services from other countries than they have brought from us, now we are broke.
We have millions of unemployed if they had jobs maybe they could buy their own health insurance.
People without jobs don’t buy houses.
People without jobs vote for more goverment support and thats a slippery slope.
So why not bite the bullet and start being American jobs back now, before it’s too late.
First of all, the Chinese steal products, patents and technology left and right from foreign countries. Second, Chinese have inadequate safety standards. Third, people can criticize the Chinese. Stop being a angry, intolerant, belligerent a-hole just like the Chinese that believe they are above everyone. The tires were defective and people have a right to complain.
When all the manufacturing jobs were disappearing, the experts said the service industry was where to go. Has anyone noticed that the greatest growth in service industry jobs has been in low-wage fast-food positions? Then the experts said we were moving to an information economy and everyone better get a college degree pronto. Now, thanks to advances in technology, India has begun taking away all of our service industry jobs. It’s conceivable that nearly all American service jobs will be handled remotely from India via phone or video. Meanwhile, millions of illegal immigrants are taking away manual labor jobs, particularly in contruction and agriculture. What jobs are going to be left for American citizens?
During the recent Nobel Peace Prize award given to the leader of United States, a nation that was founded on freedom of religion, we should all just stop and think. Spread democracy and capitalism in small ways. Try not to drive to Wal-mart and buy cheap Chinese goods. Support your local, family owned hardware store. Wash out your plastic bags. Try to consume as least amount of plastic at home. Spend your time thinking of better and more efficient ways to do things, instead of what the government can do for you. We made this mess, let’s get ourselves out of it. Together… for the common goal of religious freedom and world peace.
Security on imported goods much be on top priority. We all understand that chinese goods can evolve a certain lack of security, so do your due diligence before buy anything, specially if we are talking about heavy machinery like tractors, cars, etc. There are also copyrighted questions and brand issues, as well.
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