Chinese Billionaire Linked to Giant Aluminum Stockpile in Mexican Desert

Post by Kenji » Sat, Sep 10, 2016, 1:27 AM UTC

oxryly1 wrote: post #57

Kenji wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I loathe farmer subsidies. I have no idea why our government gives farmers so much money and so many advantages - nobody in our society really benefits from those incredible spendings and it's a significant fraction of our state budget.

Some (likely outdated) idea to do with treating farming capacity as a strategic reserve.

Post by oh_sigh » Sat, Sep 10, 2016, 1:32 AM UTC

zo1 wrote: post #58

oh_sigh wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The simple version: If a foreign government is unfairly subsidizing an industry, America will slap a tariff on it. This is good policy - imagine, for example, if Airbus could afford to sell their planes for $1, because they are being entirely subsidized by the French government. Everyone buys airbus, no one buys Boeing any more. Boeing(along with tens of thousands of jobs) goes bye bye, and now Airbus starts selling…

Wait, what about the part where everyone buys cheap Airbus planes and hedges them for when the price goes up? At some point, Airbus has to sell them for a profit, and it's at that point that people start selling their stockpiles of cheaply-bought Airbus planes. They could sell it for anywhere between $1 and whatever the price Airbus will eventually want to charge, and still make a profit, while simultaneously taking…

Post by oh_sigh » Sat, Sep 10, 2016, 1:39 AM UTC

enoch_r wrote: post #37

oh_sigh wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The simple version: If a foreign government is unfairly subsidizing an industry, America will slap a tariff on it. This is good policy - imagine, for example, if Airbus could afford to sell their planes for $1, because they are being entirely subsidized by the French government. Everyone buys airbus, no one buys Boeing any more. Boeing(along with tens of thousands of jobs) goes bye bye, and now Airbus starts selling…

To play devil's advocate, can someone provide a single historical example of a case where dumping "worked," in the sense that one country's manufacturers were able to rake in large profits after their foreign competitors went out of business due to subsidies? Because unless dumping actually succeeds at that goal, and I don't see any evidence that it does, it seems indistinguishable to American consumers from a huge t…

Post by gdwatson » Sat, Sep 10, 2016, 1:46 AM UTC

cperciva wrote: post #53

liztsai wrote: post #46

This is a simple duty arbitrage play. For anyone wondering what he actually did wrong, there are a few key points to note. Aluminum (and all materials, really) is exported and imported and duties are paid on the basis of the HS code and (if there is a trade agreement to be taken advantage of) certificates of origin (COO) along with the usual shipping docs. China is inclined to tax exports of primary aluminum because…

A similar, and perhaps more amusing, situation happened in Canada a few years ago. We have a 245.5% import tariff on cheese (why? Because dairy farmers are more important than poor people, apparently) but there was a much lower tax on "food preparations", including packaged pizza toppings. So companies would package up "pizza topping kits" in the USA, import them to Canada as "food preparations"... and then remove th…

Post by wskinner » Sat, Sep 10, 2016, 2:20 AM UTC

malchow wrote: post #40

ryanmarsh wrote: post #25

One of the reader comments said: "Extradite him to the US and then prosecute him. Getting rich without any merits is horrible." and I thought: you must be new here

Really? Wouldn't you think U.S. has the lowest proportion of "rich without merits" as %age of rich of any nation in the world – and indeed in history of world?