The "Made in China" kerfuffle
Excerpt:
In a perfect world, here's what Sen. Harry Reid and Rep. John Boehner might have said when confronted last week with the revelation that China stitches together U.S. Olympic uniforms:
"Small potatoes. Call us back after we've fixed the deficit, the economy, Iran, and our real problems with China."
But no such luck. Democrat Reid said we should "burn" the clothes. Republican Boehner said, "They should have known better." Several senators this week spent their time, and the public's money, introducing the "Team USA Made in America Act," which would require that future Olympic uniforms be made—guess where.
... Says an executive with a U.S. manufacturer that has operations in China: "The comments reflect either a lack of understanding of comparative advantage and how trade works (the Chinese are really good at producing low-cost uniforms, the U.S. is really good at innovative technology and advanced manufacturing—which would you rather be?), or cynical politics. More likely both." He doesn't want to be named and get his company in trouble with the politicians.
It's "grandstanding," says another manager with a tech multinational. "There are far more important bilateral business and trade issues for both countries."Comment: Why waste an opportunity to divert the focus off important things! (Check your own clothing labels .... I'm wearing a polo shirt today and guess where it was made!). Unfamiliar with the Law of Comparative advantage? Click the link above (in the article)
Another instructive article: The Case Against “Made in the U.S.A.”
ReplyDeleteWhat is an export? What is an import? These words are defined in reference to political boundaries of only one kind: national boundaries. If there were no such boundaries, there would be no exports or imports. But political boundaries are just that. They are not economic boundaries. To the extent that they can, people go about their business as though those boundaries weren’t there. People cross the Canadian-American and Mexican-American borders to transact business every day. If they give them a thought it is only because governments put up barriers patrolled my armed guards who make them wait in line. People learn early in life that they can gain immensely from trade, and with that understanding comes the insight that it doesn’t much matter on which side of a Rand-McNally line your trading partner lives.
So the very concepts imports and exports are founded on an arbitrary construct that has little practical consequence for people’s economic activities. Back in the 1980s, when neomercantilists feared Japan’s economic success at selling us stuff (seems a little crazy now, no?), I used to ask what would happen to the trade deficit if Japan were made the 51st state. Obviously, the deficit would have disappeared because we don’t reckon trade imbalances between states. Why not?
In reality there are no imports and exports. From my point of view, there is only what I make and what everyone else makes. It’s the same for everyone else. Few people would want to live just on what they themselves could make.
I searched more on the web, and I have learned that the Fusion Battery may be possible in our life span if we will believe Dr. Popa-Simil statements.
ReplyDeleteHe appears on web with a book about the fusion battery published on kindle, very hard to decipher, too many deep concepts on nature and physics, who wants to find it, is at:
http://www.amazon.com/BATTERY-Potential-Outcomes-Applications-ebook/dp/B008G4MHP8/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1344484715&sr=1-5
and a book on nano technologies in nuclear power:
http://www.amazon.com/Applied-Nano-technologies-Improves-Performances-ebook/dp/B007BWGSV0/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1344484715&sr=1-4
and some other books on inventions stimulation, climate change and transportation.
I have also found an interesting article about him in New Scientist:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13545-nanomaterial-turns-radiation-directly-into-electricity.html
where he said:
Popa-Simil agrees, saying it will be at least a decade before final designs of the radiation-to-electricity concept are built.
That was after a paper on the new nuclear power materials was presented on 25 March, at the Materials Research Society Spring Meeting 2008 , San Francisco, California, US.
Some other papers are available on web and several patent applications.
He addressed Blue Ribbon Commission with a proposal that US to take seriously this research, but it seems that until in US will not be a shake-up there will be no “wake-up”, the national labs will sleep happily in their arrogance and mediocrity.
Do you have more information on this?
May I believe what Dr. Popa is writing, or I have to apply caution, as seems to be a foreigner with hard to pronounce name?
May be he comes from a area where was no physics research, and just imagination, because we know so little about East Europe researches, even about China, and we better suppose that there is nothing real. Am I right?