Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

China

drewdevault.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 497 posts

Re: China

#161

Post by viscanti »

keiferski wrote: post #40
koube wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article focuses on human rights abuses which I think is a cogent criticism of China-US trade. On the economics issue though, readers should know he disagrees with economists, who nearly universally agree that trade with China benefits Americans as a whole, with the caveat that there are concentrated losses in certain populations. Economists are highly certain on this, with uncharacteristically few people respondi…

I’m not sure these economists have spent time in the Rust Belt, then. Entire cities were economically destroyed from the offshoring of jobs to China and other low-cost areas.

But don't a lot of people who live in the Rust Belt shop at Walmart and benefit from cheaper prices generally? I haven't seen any "made in America" competitor to Walmart that's thriving because there's so much demand from customers who are willing to pay more to buy domestic made goods.

Having access to cheap goods might not make up lost jobs, but weren't most of the manufacturing jobs in the Rust Belt automated away rather than being offshored? Since 1990, production of metals in the U.S. has held roughly constant, but the number of people employed in the industry has fallen steadily. So it's not like the steel mill jobs from the Rust Belt were shipped overseas, they were just automated away.

Re: China

#162

Post by borkt »

Barrin92 wrote: post #60
remarkEon wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>increase in price I, and I’m sure many many others, would be willing to pay a little more if I know that money is staying here and supporting families in this country. I can do without more plastic crap from China, and I consider it strategically important that high tech manufacturing comes back to the US. For defense reasons, among others. I’m sure someone will link the Wikipedia page with some neat plots from “eco…

Well you may be fine if you have a lot of disposable income, but many poor Americans will not. Which is of course the opposite story that the OP tried to tell. If you are a minimum wage US worker paying hundreds of dollars more for basic goods is a drastic cut into your quality of life. This mercantilism on display here will be extremely harmful to people in America who rely on low cost imported goods just for the sa…

Not everyone is as materialistic as you. The goods you are talking about are luxury products we can do without - have you read of the sacrifices people make on the homefront during all out war? Even basic necessities such as food are rationed. To complain about not having the newest iPhone is a slap in the face of the sacrifices made by our ancestors in order to endure the world wars and stave off facism.

Re: China

#163

Post by ddevault »

yorwba wrote: post #116

> Note: if you are interested in conducting an independent review of the factuality of the claims expressed in this article, please contact me. Since the author reads HN, I'll assume this comment counts. > The Chief Executive of Hong Kong (Carrie Lam) is elected directly by the mainland Chinese government, and the people have no representation in the election whatsoever. The Chief Executive is elected by the Election…

Hey yorwba, thanks for the comments. I received similar comments from HKers earlier wrt the Chief Executive office. Minor corrections are on the way out.

The changelog for this article is here:

https://git.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/drewdevault.com/log/master

I have no plans to block Chinese citizens from using my services, though I wouldn't be surprised if the great firewall had other plans.

Re: China

#164

Post by toraobo »

mc32 wrote: post #2

>”It’s economically productive for the 1% to maintain a trade relationship with China. The financial incentives don’t help any Americans, and in fact, most of us are hurt by this relationship...” So true, since its inception with GHW, its execution and realization through Clinton and then once fully engaged the timid, supplicant responses from GW and BO, China has contributed to the stagnation of the blue collar work…

> It’s economically productive for the 1% to maintain a trade relationship with China.

This leading argument is not specific to China at all and would equally apply to India and most poor countries. Severing trade with all those countries would severely hurt their economies and their citizens.

It's the same logic behind "dey terk er jerbs" but somehow made reasonable by throwing accusations of fascism.

Re: China

#165

Post by Aunche »

gregwebs wrote: post #59

I don't necessarily disagree with the article, I just want to point out that outside of the US others will readily view this line of thought as hypocritical and self-serving. As a US citizen, I try to consider how the rest of the world may view our actions (glass houses and all). Following the logic here it would make sense for the rest of the world to cutoff trade with the United States due to the Iraq war, which ha…

The US has always valued "principle" over actual results. In Iraq, Saddam was "evil", so he had to go, even though it would leave the entire country in the power vacuum and destroy the livelihoods of the average Iraqi. Ditto for Gaddafi in Libya.

This post is much the same way. A poorer China is only going to deteriorate their human rights. A wealthier China is going to crave for more freedom. This happened in South Korea, which many forget used to be a brutal military dictatorship.

Re: China

#166

Post by tossAfterUsing »

fastball wrote: post #139
Miner49er wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people," former Nixon domestic policy chief John Ehrlichman told Harper's writer Dan Baum for the April cover story published Tuesday. "You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana…

[1] Plenty of countries with homogenous populations have harsh drug laws, so it hardly seems like that was the only consideration, if at all. After all, Prohibition in the US happened a long time before 1968, and alcohol is arguably less destructive than heroin, and nobody was targeting hippies or black people with a ban on alcohol. [2] https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/06/14/_if_to... [3] Black people…

> Plenty of countries with homogenous populations have harsh drug laws

encouraged/demanded by the US economic doctrine for the last 40+ years

Re: China

#167

Post by threatofrain »

siffland wrote: post #126
lazaruzatgmail wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

which means he is voting to keep the incumbent in This is a binary choice dem or repub any other choice is a vote for the incumbent

I have someone I work with who quite literally mocks people for voting for a 3rd party and actually tries to "shame" them for it, usually using a line like "which means he is voting to keep the incumbent in" (usually with more colorful words about the incumbent and the voter). Voting 3rd party exercises your right to say you don't like either of the other 2 candidates. I will not argue which candidate it will help, b…

Can’t you both be right at the same time? Going all in for poker may be interpreted as an exercise of my human rights, but it can also be interpreted as giving all my money to the chip lead.

Of course I don’t wish to argue the efficacy of my poker moves. They are an expression of my free spirit.

Re: China

#168

Post by bcrosby95 »

novok wrote: post #129

I don't think that the cheaper goods that China gave the world only benefited the %1, and actually has helped a lot people in america and the world. I also don't think that the economic miracle that has happened in China is a bad thing, and they could of been more singaporean/south korean authoritarian vs. genocidal authoritarian to achieve it. I really want china to become another Japan or Korea eventually. I do agr…

The logic behind opening things up with China (including allowing them to buy American companies) was that as they become economically successful, they would be more open to things like democracy. At what point do you realize you failed and close the barn door?

Re: China

#169

Post by nsporillo »

baron_harkonnen wrote: post #21

If I might post an unpopular opinion, and let me assure you I'm not secretly a pro-CCP shill: what's happening HK has much more to do with changing economic realities than it does with an evil agenda from the Chinese government. In 1997 HK had 1/3 of the GDP of mainland China and was the only way for Western companies to interact with China. Today HK has 3% of the GDP of mainland China and a huge part of this is beca…

Hong Kong is still extremely important to the CCP. Tariffs can be reduced by first moving exports through Hong Kong because of a first sale rule[0]. The recent bill passed in the US congress puts some of these rules under scrutiny[1].

[0] - https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Trade-war/Hong-Kong-s-tariff... [1] - https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/183...

Re: China

#170

Post by yorwba »

rado wrote: post #41

> Hong Kong is the place where humanity makes its stand against oppressors. Really? I didn’t know protesters targeted the local tycoons who made their lives unbearable in the past 20 years. Not to mention the humanity of laundering money for the worst thugs in the world. Perspective.

You may have heard reports of vandalism. I'm pretty sure the tycoons weren't too happy about their property getting damaged. They'd probably also like to keep the seats in Election Committee that they'd lose if universal suffrage were instated, but that the CCP has guaranteed them so far. https://www.elections.gov.hk/ecss2016/eng/figures.html

If you think the protesters support tycoons because they oppose the CCP, you ought to reconsider whether those are really opposites.

Post reply on HN