I agree we should stop selling them the rope to hang us. That's my point entirely.

I'm also convinced that if Iran goes "postal," Israel is the one in trouble, not us. If China goes "postal," well, take a guess who they dislike the most. Japan or us. That's a toughie.

China also has the means to hurt us. I'm about as scared as our neighbor's wiener dog as I'm scared of Iran.

Great link by the way, Non. I left a comment on it.

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Just a random thought. Maybe Israel is #1 and Iraq #2. There's an entire generation of Iranians who aren't exactly on make out terms with Iraqis.

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Ok. Let me play devil's advocate for a bit.

China calls in the debt. Forecloses.

What do they get at the foreclosure sale?

Do we immediately become serfs?

Or do we become a thorn in the side of any chinese administrator to come and make us do what they want?

Oh, and what do they want us to do?

I always thought that Red Dawn was a pretty dipshit movie. But not for the reasons it usually gets poohpoohed. Its a dipshit movie because not even the Russians were so dumb as to think they could run an occupation government in the USA.

And I find it hard to believe that the Chinese are stupider than Cold War Russians.

Oh, I have no doubt that there are people in China, in and out of government, who have dreams of the sun never setting on the Chinese empire. And yes, I see that those people having enough political oomph to make their will known. China did, after all, find a way to institutionalize the idiocies of the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward. Each of which had negative effects on Chinese life far bigger than Tianamen Square did.

But the notion that such ideas could triumph worldwide, just because the Chinese leadership is evil...I can't buy that yet.

Neither the Soviet Union nor the United States, arguably the two greatest powers politically and economically in modern world history, have been able to subjugate Afghanistan, a landlocked country of 30 million poor, and we should be afraid of the Chinese government being able to subjugate the richest country in the world, made up of 300 million rich bastards.

I have no doubt that they could subjugate me. I'm a chronic wuss, after all.

But foreclose and impose their will on the American people? Mao might have written the book on guerrilla warfare, but we're the country that idealizes John Wayne et al. Hah.

Okay, I understand the debt is probably way too big. I wouldn't lend money to me either.

But foreclosure makes sense only when there's enough wealth to realize a big enough fraction of value. If you've lent me money secured by useless swamps and landfills, foreclosure gets you nothing but a bunch of mosquitos and rats. That doesnt change whether you've lent me a gazillion dollars or ten gazillion dollars. Useless land is still useless land.

So what does China get if they foreclose. Okay, they get Iowa land. Rah. America's farmland generates a whopping 2-3 percent of USA GDP in a year. And that's because American farmers are working their butts off to feed their families and send them to college. You think those farmers are going to be that productive working for Mr. Mao?

And what's true of farmers is true of an awful lot of that wealth of the USA. The wealth of America -- the real assets -- are in its people, and in particular in their minds and hearts and souls.

Are we going to be so traumatized by the Chinese calling us bankrupt scum that we are going to let them control our minds and hearts and souls?

Logistical capability might be a necessary condition for conquest. Its far from a sufficient one.

I still think the bigger danger is ignorance and idiocy. I don't know if there is an "Asian mentality" or not, but my limited experience with Asians suggests that they are, if anything, less inclined to ignorance and idiocy than the rest of us. Not more.

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Wade - They change the law and allow foreign government to own stock in US corporations. We'd be fucked.

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I dunno. I guess it depends on why you think people trade. Do they trade to get power, or do they trade to improve their wealth?

Now if the Chinese trade with us as a way of accumulating power, and we trade with them for the same reason, I agree with you. And certainly there's a long tradition of people who made their trading decisions primarily as another way of accumulating power. Mercanitlism has a long and ignoble tradition, alas.

On the other hand, if the trading occurs because it is a way to mutually increase wealth, I don't. Because the more they trade with us, the more they are tied to us for their well-being. You don't war on people who you want to sell you stuff. If I want to avoid people taking advantage of me, I want more ties of trade with them, not fewer.

Because then if they do something that hurts me, they'll hurt their side of the trade as well.

Now a lot of people trade for power. I don't dispute that. Despite the fact that mercantilists ALWAYS lose in the long run, because it's counter to their best economic interest, we never have a shortage of people who think they can make it work.

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Wade - I read everything you said but wanted to answer this part here.

What kind of morals do you have personally? Do you have a problem trading with a country who suppresses human rights? Do you have problems trading with a country that has nukes pointed at you?

Now let's get hypothetical. What really bothers you? Would you trade with someone who let's just say tells everyone behind your back that they think you are a wife beater? Would you trade with a Cowboys fan? Would you trade with someone who enslaves small children in sweatshops? Would you trade with cannibals? Would you trade with a nation that has a genocidal policy?

I threw in some random ones just to make a point.

Now, on the flip side, I prefer buying products that are organic (clothing/food). I prefer buying products that are hand made if possible. I prefer buying products that are environmentally sustainable. I prefer buying from someone who treats their employees fairly.

Realistically, it's almost impossible to get all those things so we compromise. A lot.

Maybe I'm just willing to compromise than others as I'll readily admit that most stuff people buy, myself included, they don't really NEED.

For the second part of what you said, China has unfair trade policies towards us. Their trade is intentionally slanted one way, and they intentionally violate our copyright laws. They intentionally look the other way as they illegally copy and redistribute our products. I don't get why we do any business with them, other than our greed which is one of the downfalls of this country.

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But our trade with China is not mutually wealth increasing. It is increasing China's wealth (and secondarily its power) while diminishing ours. Last year alone they sold to us over $225 billion more in goods than they bought from us, and that doesn't take into consideration the billions of dollars they lent our government and invested in our corporations. If China were interested in our mutual betterment, the disparity would not be so glaring. So I think it's fairly safe to say they trade with us as a way more to increase their power than to mutually increase wealth. I would speculate they're also quite interested in obtaining as much of our technology as possible for the purposes of reverse engineering  it, but I'm willing to freely admit my bias against China may color my opinions there.

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Sigh.

Where do I start.

If trade is not wealth-increasing, why the heck do people do it? Seriously.

To be fair, I should have been clearer on what *I* mean by wealth. By wealth I mean "what people value having more of rather than less." I trade when I think the benefits received (usually by me) as a result of trading are greater than the value of what I see as being given up (also usually by me). If I don't think the benefits greater than costs, I don't trade.

Oh, there's lots of times I'd rather get *more* value than I do. And in such cases, like anyone else, I can sometimes be heard complaining that the trade is "unfair."

It's "unfair," for example, what I take to teach the classes I teach. But I still teach, despite all that unfairness, because the value of what I do receive is more than what I give up to teach. And as soon as I'm convinced that it isn't, I'm going to quit teaching. Bet on it.

I only trade when I get more from the deal than I give up. And I'm convinced that's true for anyone. Or they're dumb.

And yes, I know, trade isn't always voluntary. Trade with Guido the Mob enforcer, say. But most trade is. Because what the person is selling almost always has substitutes. Even so called "necessities": if I don't like what the grocery store sells, I go to another store or I grow a garden in my closet.

Most complaints about trade, whether it is China (today), Japan (when I was in college), OPEC (when I was in high school), or the French (ag products for my entire life), go not to who benefits from trade, but who benefits more. That's that fairness question, not the question of whether trade is beneficial or not.

Trade with China is beneficial -- I get a shitload of benefit every day from my made-in-China MacBookPro, e.g. Oh, I'd rather have paid netbook prices, sure. I'd rather have been able to pay cash rather than buy it on the Visa time plan. But I have no regrets and I sure as heck am not going to blame China if I chose wrong and can't pay my credit card bill this month.

I guess in the end, I don't really care whether China is guided by our mutual betterment or not. I care about whether I'm bettered, yes. And if China can help me better myself, I'll trade with them again and and again.

Which brings me to zombieslayer's questions...

You ask me what kind of morals I have. I expect, especially after you hear what I'm about to say, you might say I have none. Or at least none worth having.

(It's a common criticism of economists, particularly those of my radical pro-trade sort. So much so that the person I consider the single most important teacher of economics since Adam Smith, the late Paul Heyne, wrote an essay titled "Are Economists Basically Immoral?" on the question.)

But, to get back to your question. Other than the case of cannibals (who I know of none who sell anything I am remotely interested in) and genocidal maniacs (from whom I know of nothing I have bought), I not only would trade with them. I have. And I will again.

Why do I do so? Well, partly because I believe in Adam Smith's teaching about "sympathy." You used the word compromise, but I like the word sympathy better: when we trade with someone, to some extent we have to act in a way that affirms/supports those we trade with; but then again, so do they. If China insists on taxing that Apple computer too outrageously, even a MacHead like me will say "the price is too high". The need to please me *at some level* keeps their abuses somewhat in check. Not where I'd like them to be, but better than they'd likely be if they didn't have me to sell to.

But to be honest, often the reason I buy from those people for the same reason I buy from anyone: they offer more value for what I give up. I'm not going to spend my time checking up on their employment practices or whatever.

Now if a credible source tells me that they are enslaving their workers, I'm not going to buy from them. (But be clear, I think very few workers today are in fact "enslaved". "Paid poorly" and "enslaved" are, to me, very, very different things. By the standards of the time, the average slave in the American south c. 1850 was paid quite well; they were profoundly enslaved, however. Someone who has "no better choice" is not enslaved, merely tragic; being enslaved also requires "no freedom to choose".)

Working where I do, most people around me are big believers in fair trade. That doesn't bother me too much, since most of what they want fair trade for (coffee, say, or native arts), I either rarely buy or have no problem paying more for. But I don't buy the expensive coffee because it's "fair." I buy it because it tastes good enough to give me value greater than the 3 bucks or so that the cup requires.

But when my students complain about textbook prices as unfair, I ask, well if the book isn't worth at least that amount to you, why on earth did you buy it? To which they usually say, "well, without it studying for class is too hard." And that leads me to respond, "well, it sounds like its worth it after all."

As for going organic, I don't. I think *it* an immoral practice. Norman Borlaug convinced me long ago that we're far better doing things the other way. More sustainable. Our resource use practices could be much better; but going organic is the wrong way IMO: I don't want to encourage practices shown already to be unable to support more than maybe 20 percent of the world's current population. When organic farmers convince me their methods can feed 7 million people, I'll go organic. Not before.

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The existential threat to Israel has not gone away, if anything, it is only increasing.

Iran will not have the bomb without Israel (or someone) responding militarily, imo.

Atlantic-How an Iranian bomb will alter Israel's existence 

...And it's gonna be ugly.



It's a bye week, others are stirring old turds, thought I'd join the fun.

you gotta stop reading Atlantic, Foster. It's rotting your brain.

:)

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It's one of the commie rags my pinko father subscribes me to :tongue3:

without my foreknowledge or consent.

I have a lot of that shit goin' on in my life...

e.g.-- I taught a class that included a bunch of commie profs-- Two of them from Pack 93z's alma mater---

I have been receiving that liberal rag ever since, (On Wisconsin, or some such shit--alumni rag) and they both blame ea other for signing me up, both tongue in cheek in denial.

Friggin' commie bastards, lol