i wonder why US politicians are planning to impose tariffs and quotas on Chinese goods to force China to revalue their currency. Is this a good action?
bad bad bad. The US population will be basically writing a check monthly for the manufacturing business owners and workers, all in the name of 'protecting americans', I don't like to protect people who are trying to rip me off or who are just plain inneficient
Well, too bad they are the one with the money, and could get the politian to do what's "best for america"
Do they still laugh at the Treasury secretary when he brings up the idea of letting the currency float?
Look at what tariffs did for the US small-truck or LCD-panel industries. By artifically raising the cost of imported goods, you just give domestic companies a blank check to raise their prices up to that same level. The domestic companies sit pretty on their bigger profits (coming out of the pockets of us consumers). Yet they don't do any extra R&D or innovation with that extra money, just get fatter and richer. In the meantime, the foreigners feel the need to develop superior products at a lower price in order to gain market share. Eventually, even with a tariff, the imports still end up with lower-cost, higher-quality products while the domestic companies get complacent because they're "protected" and they just fall behind. Today, there are absolutely zero US manufacturers of LCD panels because they've been left in the dust. The Japanese own the entire small-truck biz and what do we have in response... the Ford Explorer... a vehicle of abysmal quality, severe problems in crash-testing, and one of the poorest safety records out of anything on the road.
Yes, I believe the U.S. should impose tariffs on Chinese goods until China not only allows the renminbi to float but also imposes and enforces labor and environmental laws that are equivalent to U.S. laws. The U.S. needs to send a message that the days of unfair trading advantage enjoyed by China are over. It makes no sense for the U.S. to allow free trade with a partner that has a lower cost of production by exploiting labor and polluting the environment. Fair competetion can only occur if the overhead costs of labor, benefits, safety regulations, environmental regulations, etc. are reasonably equivalent.
Well, the last time we put on protective Tarrifs, that worked out real well... (1931?) Actually, let's encourage the chinese to further weaken their yuan, and let's continue to drive their prices down on commodity goods, so that they get less wealth in return. Eventually, we won't even need to work! Oops, sorry - that's happening to us...
Actually tariffs were instrumental in the growth of the early United States. In the late 1700's tariffs were imposed to fund the government (there was no income tax then) and to protect nascent American textile makers from cheaper British goods. It worked well -- domestic business flourished, people were employed, and our new country gained an economic foothold. The day may come when we might have to do the same thing -- use tariffs to allow the U.S. to reestablish domestic industry. As a nation we can't import everything, export all of our jobs, and be nothing but a consumer. To paraphrase Lee Ioccoca: "we have to manufacture goods, we can't just service each other."