On Mon, 13 Oct 2003 22:59:44 GMT, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:

"Carl Byrns" wrote in message
.. .

The official minimum wage in China is 31 cents/hour. In the interior,
footwear and textile workers often are paid 17 cents/hour. In the coastal
cities, the "illegal immigrants" (those are the rural peasants who moved to
the cities without permission; the number is well up in the millions) also
make less than 31 cents/hour.

The 80 cents/hour figure comes from a report of what moldmakers are paid in
coastal cities. Engineers often make $1/hr or more, sometimes more than $2.
An engineering director in a substantial manufacturing company may make
$10,000/year. Roughly half of the people in China are rural peasants, and
they make almost nothing per hour. They live in a classical peasant culture,
which is to say, it is nothing like living in true poverty in the US.
Chinese peasants have a life.

No, the game isn't over, unless you think you have to sacrifice yourself on
the pyre of "free" trade ideology. It pays to remember what Mickey Kantor, a
former US Trade Representative (that's the head of our Trade Office, Dept.
of Commerce) said about free trade. He said there is no such thing.

How are you going to overcome such a huge difference in wages?
Build a wall _around_ China?
If the US decides to restrict trade with China, so what?
Will every other market instantly cease to exist? Of course not.
Canada, Mexico, and Europe won't stop buying Chinese, will they?

As far as free trade goes, you cannot find an example where a
protected market flourished. Doesn't happen. Can't happen.
I can find some outstanding examples where a protected market failed
in a major way. The best would be the former Soviet Union with Brazil
a close second. Or Cuba, which was going to be a gross exporter by
1962, IIRC.

Trade barriers are a slow, certain death.

Don't forget it. And then analyze our policies with a critical and
non-ideological eye, questioning every presumption. That's the only way
we'll figure a way to deal with it.

Ed, the only thing that sells is price. Bang for the buck. Bottom
line.

That's not a glib statement- there are many on this NG who realize
that one $200 US built power tool is worth more than three $49.95
Chinese ones.

On the flip side of that, there are many on this NG who would buy one
$49.95 Chinese tool if they knew that it would most likely only be
used once or twice, or was going to used where it would be damaged.
Dropping a HF belt sander in the lake doesn't hurt as bad as dropping
a Milwaukee. That's just plain sense.

The only way for the US to lower price is to contain labor costs and
increase quality _and_ output. That ain't gonna happen with organized
labor in the driver's seat. We've both seen by example US unionized
workers close a plant rather than accept a no-pay raise contract. Just
like lemmings jumping off a cliff.

-Carl