OT: Trump: "China thinks we are dumb SOBs"

I agree (not very often) with Trump that we should tax China. It would impact my customers but as long as it is the same for my competitors.

What do you think? 10%, 20% or 30% across the board?

Not practical.

We should replace income taxes, especially corporate taxes, with sales taxes. That way, Chinese goods get taxed same as US-made stuff, and companies have a better chance of surviving here.

It's ironic that a major contributor to unemployment is the unemployment tax that employers must pay.

John

If we cut the size of government we will not have to tax our productive people as much and they will be able to compete with the Chinese and we will then kick all their collective butts and America will triumph once again. Unfortunately, we have too many people in high places who want us to lose - by design.

While I'm often all for reducing government spending, even if our government spending dropped to 1/10th of what it currently is, you still could not begin to build, e.g., a television in the U.S. for anything close to what it costs to do so in China.

Perhaps, but we also have far too high of a standard of living to even begin to try to compete. Would you work for a couple thousand dollars a year? The Chinese will.

---Joel

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Yes, I would. Average workers make couple hundred dollars. Average managers make couple thousand dollars. Average government officials make couple wan4 (10,000) dollars, tax free, as long as you don't get caught. They put their smartest people in government and we put our dumbest.

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Our system was designed to have the dumber people in government , and have the smartest people out of government , making money and producing things WITHOUT GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE. Our model is going to break down though, because the ninny smart people who can't do anything but went to an ivy league school want to run things now. They want the Chinese system here.

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If the Chinese want to make 100,000 televisions in exchange for an airplane, I have no real problem with that. Consumer products are not really as important to an economy as it may appear.

It is hard to say if our standard of living is too high. We will know in about 5-10 years when outsiders quit purchasing our debt.

But we can out compete with the Chinese or anyone, but we need to pick the arena of conflict. But we need to get government out of the way.

And Trump's just plain wrong. China hasn't stolen our jobs, we're driving them away every day--outsourcing is just capital, fleeing oppression.

Yes. The more I think about the Fair Tax, the better I like it.

Poetic, in a schadenfreudliche meter.

-- Cheers, James Arthur

Say that someone thought up the idea of making baby food out of animal left overs, you know - brain, spinal chord, entrails, eyes, penis that sort of stuff. Say they have the bright idea of labelling it 50% chicken, 40% carrots 10% onion. 100% natural goodness!"

Surely they could make more money using that (cheaper) stuff, rather than the nice meaty bits? That would translate into higher profits.

Perhaps they don't do it because of government interference aka regulations and laws.

Or do all companies do business on the basis of a morally upright, responsible and fair attitude to their customers and the environment?

I actually thought you were starting out your argument here talking about the Chinese and how they make profits.

Ever hear of trademarks? This is why trademarks are so important in a free society. And yeah, I have more faith in an honorable trademark than I do in the government keeping me safe.

When it comes to my food supply, I'm comfy with some good trademarks on the stuff I buy.

I don't build commodity products and there is no way I could compete in those areas. In our niche market, customers who only look at the purchase price never even consider us and buy imports. But still our market share is growing with people who look at price/performance and support. I don't need the headaches of building 10,000's to 100,000's of some commodity with crummy margins when I can get good margins on short run niche products.

Mark Walsh

I think a tax, designed to equalize the added cost of environmental regulations followed here and not in China, should be applied. Same with Mexico.

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WHACK!

It's a lot more fun, too.

Naaah. They eat that stuff prepared as delicacies. The baby food is made out of Falun Gong. (not really)

Ahhhh. This is how differences of opinion should be carried out on the internet! "I have faith in this and am comfy with that." :-)

Good. I can live with that. I have less faith in companies (or politicians(*) ).

The whole system you propose (I'm guessing here at: in the long term the customers will know which companies provide quality goods and which don't. They will then decide, having balanced quality / price, which product they wish to buy) might even actually work, were it not for the fact that individual people (managers) might not see their personal interests and those of "their" company in perfect alignment.

You might have a family-run traditional baby food company that gets itself a reputation for making excellent baby food at a reasonable, fair, good price (**). Then they decide to capitalise on their good name and go public. Eventually they loose control. Now the company is run by managers with contracts that say "if the share price goes up, your income REALLY goes up! If the share prices go down, we kick you out." Somewhere else the manager insists on a clause "if I get kicked out before 2015 I get a whacking big golden handshake." That's not so hard to put in, because all managers insist on it, and everyone else on the board has it too.

Now, unfortunately, the prime goal of the company is no longer "make good baby food at a fair price" but "increase share value as much and as fast as possible, and damn the consequences. Because I don't need to give a shit about the consequences."

(*) my slightly cynical take is "politicians (and companies) only ever to things which are 'good' by accident, or as a side effect."

(**) whatever that might be :-)

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They do need to give a shit about the consequences--ruin a company's reputation, and you ruin the company. The company's 'greedy' self- interest is to prevent those sorts of incidents, to self-police.

Nefarious men can already do all the things you list as bad, laws and regulations or not. One of the biggest food offenders for delivering sub-par food? The federally-funded school-lunch program, feeding slop and disease to kids for twice the cost of top-quality food.

If a company's motive is maximizing profit (generally, by providing a quality product at a competitive price), what motivates a politician?

If you distrust ambitious men, and thereby all your fellow men, why would you heap trust in the most ambitious of them all, politicians?

-- Cheers, James Arthur

Import duties are always an option, one that has been used by many developing countries to help build their economic structure and avoid massive losses due to unpayable foriegn debt.

As well, another step is to disallow foriegn ownership of american assets, and real property of more than say 25%... Any existing excessive foreign ownership would have to revert to American ownership within a given (typically a number of years) or be forceable taken.

That's because those same people (like Gore, Obama, Clinton, name any politican at the federal level) all win in this situation while the American public looses eventually.

Good idea generally, but China could retaliate.