Trump Makes Xi Happy

 

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  • #39798

    Mayfair Building, Times Square NYC 1951     Dr. D is on a roll.     Dr. D: Since tariffs are in the news again, let’s run down the
    [See the full post at: Trump Makes Xi Happy]

    #39801
    vq12
    Participant

    The thought of rebuilding local economies sounds great. I think projects that people like Vinay Gupta speak about are inline with this concept. Vinay talks about how undeveloped nations can “skip” certain steps to advance due to 21st century technology- an example is skipping the construction of landlines straight to cell phones.

    My fear however is the monstrous growth of B2B. It seems that businesses have figured out, through financialization (alchemy) that they can just do business with themselves and each other and skip the consumer all together. After all building products for the consumer is annoying, you have to spend all the money and time developing something and marketing it, hoping that the consumer will like it over what your competitors create.

    “Globally, by 2020 the B2B ecommerce market will be twice as large as the B2C market — $6.7 trillion vs. $3.2 trillion — according to research provider Frost & Sullivan. The company predicts that China will emerge as the largest online B2B market with $2.1 trillion in sales by 2020.

    In the U.S., where B2B ecommerce is already twice as large as B2C ecommerce, Forrester Research expects B2B ecommerce sales to reach $780 billion and represent 9.3 percent of all B2B sales by the end of 2015. The firm predicts that B2B ecommerce will exceed $1.1 trillion and comprise 12 percent of all B2B sales in the United States by 2020.”

    B2B Ecommerce Growing; Becoming More Like B2C

    #39803
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Dr. D
    Re-industrialization of the U.S.?
    Not going to happen.
    The infrastructure for that is gone.
    Detroit, Seattle, and the other major industrial centers of U.S. industry have all been offshored.
    Not everything, but the guts are gone; and that includes the workers, who had the skills to make it all work.
    Die makers, the core of molding, stamping, and casting have all been replaced by Chinese programers encoding the programs for all of those skills to be done on modern CNC machines with operators; not skilled machinists.
    I worked for 7 OEM’s, from the floor to the CAD/CAM programs, and 3-D modeling for allmost 40 years; manufacturing/re-industrialization is not going to happen in the U.S..
    That’s a Trumpian pipe dream to bullshit the ignorant electorate to believe in fantasies.that will never happen.
    The future for the U.S. is 3-D printing of things like rocket engines and other complex parts; some of which cannot be machined.
    But, it will never replace the past; it will not employ the masses once again; those days are finished for the U.S. and the west in general.
    The future is something entirely different; and that is yet to be…

    #39804
    zerosum
    Participant

    Guess what … I still don’t know why our social/economic system are not changing.
    There are thousands of critical bloggers and 10,000 of critical commentators.
    Almost all of the bloggers are in the 10% and/or are in the well-to-do educated middle class.
    Almost all stand to be the biggest loser if their la-la-land were to change.

    A million student marched to influence the law makers to change the gun laws.

    Guess what … the students outnumber the bloggers.

    I think I got it …..
    Those that have the power and the wealth needed to make changes are called the elites.
    The only change that the non-elite will achieve will be the change that the elites find good for themselves.
    We are invisible and irrelevant.

    #39806
    Chris M
    Participant

    Dr. D,

    Well said. Great article.

    Here are other things to consider:

    When properly used, tariffs are NOT trade measures at all, but monetary adjustment measures. They can, and should be used to equalize differences in the purchasing power of our domestic money (U.S. dollars) with respect to any particular foreign money.

    And:

    “Free trade” cannot take place unless 1) by barter, where substance is exchanged for substance without force or inducement. This is what most people have in mind when they hear “free trade”: no party was coerced or induced to make an exchange.; or 2) between parties using the same money.

    And:

    You cannot cheapen your way to prosperity, as you cannot borrow your way.

    #39807

    VA,

    What I get when combining Dr. D and you is that the US will have to rebuild, re-industralize itself, but won’t. Contradictio in terminus. I think D. makes amply clear that it requires a return to the 19th century, and yet you talk about 3D printing. Contradictio in terminus again.

    What I think, and I’ve said that a few times, is that this whole reset of trade terms was long overdue and everybody knew it, except perhaps for Obama’s team. As D. says, China’s known this for forever and was mostly surprised it took so long.

    Therefore I think the outcome, after many more very very bold headlines, is a rearranging that both sides already knew, if not agreed to, was due long ago. For the US, it’s the intellectual property, Beijing not paying for Silicon Valley’s so-called great inventions. For China, it’s recognition as a serious global power. They’ll give up power to be recognized as a power. Because that comes with perks.

    #39808
    zerosum
    Participant

    We are invisible and irrelevant.
    The street people already know that.
    The street people will be among the survivors.

    #39810
    graffiti
    Participant

    Well reasoned Dr D! In my view China is fiercely capitalistic. The people I have met have homes full of everything and a new car in the car park of their apartment. They’ve embraced ecommerce in an unbelievably advanced manner….you can order anything from fresh apples to an iPad and it will get delivered for next to nothing the next day by a network of Uber style couriers. Remember China is bigger than Australia in size…..here it would cost $50 for that level of service. They are already buyers of their own production.

    #39817
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Ilargi
    I think D. makes amply clear that it requires a return to the 19th century, and yet you talk about 3D printing. Contradictio in terminus again.

    No, not contradictory; it’s a matter of scale. Dr. D speaks to a return to the 19th century to re-industrialize.
    That won’t happen, obviously, and I do not advocate that.
    3-D printing, at this time, is nowhere near the scale of re-industrializing, not even close.
    It’s a brand new form of production and does nothing for labor, or industrializing, at anything but very small scale; boutique manufacturing, at the present time, however; the furure is wide open for this technology, having zero to do with the past.
    Trump? He’ll do as is his wont; China will forge its own future irrespective of the U.S..
    One forgets; the U.S. is one country, on its way down, there are more than 190 countries on this planet; the majority are not friendly towards the U.S. except as necessary…

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