F. George McDuffee wrote in
:

On Sun, 01 Jan 2006 03:20:28 -0500, Cliff
wrote:

On 31 Dec 2005 20:30:15 -0800, "jon_banquer"
wrote:

We have very little practical choice when it comes to some products
being purchased that are made in China.

And you always want people to buy Korean.

For all the noise China seems to have a total share of the total
world international trade .... of only about 6 to 8%.
Thus far.
======================
All trade is not equal.

It depends greatly which 6 to 8 % it is.

A billion dollars of commodity items that generate little
employment and are low value added exported, cannot offset a
billion dollars of items that generate high [both level and
volume] employment, that are high value added, and provide a
foundation infrastructure/methodology improvements, that are
imported.

The it's a good thing that the US is the worlds largest exporter. If you
look up the figures we are in the top five in most all of the so called
value added. The most notable exceptions are automotive and computers.


A glance at the input-output matrixes points up how little
activity/wealth is generated within an economy by the production
of a billion dollars worth of agricultural products and how much
is generated by the production of a billion dollars worth of high
tech / high value added items.

Diversification is not a bad thing either. Agriculture adds quite a bit to
the economy. Plus it improves relations with countries that need the food.
We lead the world in aerospace exports.


An additional problem is that capital compounds, even if it is
not in the form of money but rather in machines, equipment,
knowledge-base and methodology. Export/import on this basis is
thus not only a losing proposition [for the commodity exporter]
in the current quarter, but for the indefinite future.

China is barely a blip on the radar in value added manufacturing. Look
through the stats. The EU mations, Germany in particular, along with Japan
are our biggest competitors in the global marketplace. Instead of fretting
about imports of underwear and cell phones from China, we should be asking
why do we keep our markets wide open to countries like Germany and Japan.

The two largest imports into the US are Petroleum in it's various forms and
passenger vehicles. The worlds largest exporter of passenger vehicles is
Germany followed by Japan. The US is way down the list behind the UK.
That's right, the UK now exports more autos than the US.

Machine tools, machine parts, plastics, etc. Japan and Germany lead the
world. The interesting thing is that they don't buy very many low cost low
quality machine tools like we do here. They are also high wage/benefit/cost
countries. In general they spend more on automation than we do, they also
have thousands of bull**** little ways to keep our goods out of their
countries. Neither of them have very good economies either.

Our situation could improve dramatically if the US automotive industry
could get it's act together.

Here is a list of commodities that the US was the number one exporter in
the world in 2004:

MEAT
WHEAT
MAIZE
CEREAL GRAINS
CEREAL MEAL/FLOUR
ANIMAL FEED
EDIBLE PRODUCTS N.E.S.
HIDE/SKIN (EX FUR) RAW
OIL SEEDS ETC - SOFT
RUBBER SYNTH/WASTE/ETC
COTTON
WORN CLOTHING ETC
OTHER CRUDE MINERALS
FERROUS WASTE/SCRAP (interestingly we are the 8th largest importer)
NF BASE METAL WASTE NES
PRECIOUS METAL ORE/CONC.
RESIDUAL PETROL. PRODS
ANIMAL OIL/FAT
HYDROCARBONS/DERIVATIVES
ALCOHOLS/PHENOLS/DERIVS
CARBOXYLIC ACID COMPOUND
NITROGEN FUNCTION COMPDS
OTHER ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
RADIO-ACTIVE ETC MATRIAL
PHARMACEUT EXC MEDICAMNT
POLYACETALS/POLYESTERS..
PLASTIC WASTE/SCRAP
EXPLOSIVES/PYROTECHNICS
OIL ETC ADDITIVES/FLUIDS
ENGINES NON-ELECTRIC
CIVIL ENGINEERING PLANT
MEDICAL ETC EL DIAG EQUI
AIRCRAFT/SPACECRAFT/ETC
MEDICAL/ETC INSTRUMENTS
MEASURE/CONTROL APP NES
ARMS AND AMMUNITION
GOLD NON-MONETARY EX ORE

This list really isn't very indicitive of the whole picture as we are
number 2,3,4,5 in loads of categories. The stats also don't reflect
services which are also a huge value added source of exports for the US.
Here is a list of US exports by commodity. You can click on any of them to
see where we stand vs. other mations.

http://www.intracen.org/tradstat/sitc3-3d/er842.htm


--

Dan