"Hawke" wrote in message
...

"Bruce in Bangkok" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 10 Mar 2008 22:16:38 -0800, "Hawke"
wrote:


GeoLane at PTD dot NET wrote in message
.. .
On Sun, 9 Mar 2008 22:07:39 -0700 (PDT), Millwright Ron
wrote:



labor is the cheapest. It comes about by lobbying for "free trade"
such as the NAFTA and CAFTA legislation.

Yay. Way to go Ron. Bring back the Smoot-Hawley tarriffs of the
1930s. We can repeat history. The financial leg of our economy is
already weakened by the mortgage mess. Lets impose punitive tariffs
and take out another leg.

RWL

The Asians impose punitive tariffs on our goods and it doesn't seem to
have
hurt them at all. In fact, they are kicking our asses. Maybe if we had
brains we'd copy them. We would say we're all for free trade but then
have
protectionist policies just like Japan and China. We're not smart enough
to
do that though and will continue having our asses kicked. And we'll
complain
a lot.

Hawke

The fact is that most Asian countries import very little from the U.S.
But you are correct that there are high import duties in most asian
countries, with the exception of Singapore, where duties are so low
that it is effectively a duty free port.

The reason that they are "kicking our asses" is simply that they
manufacture goods at an attractive cost and thus "sell" more goods
then they need to "buy".

In Thailand for example, nearly all the imported goods are either raw
materials or luxury goods while they are the main manufacturer (world
wide) for Toyota and Isuzu pickups.

The real answer is that the U.S. has priced themselves out of the
world market.

Let me give you one simple example: I buy Zestril, a medicine for
hypertension, in Thailand, for the equivalent of US$ 12.90/30 tabs. I
saw it advertized on the Internet, for sale in the U.S. for $48.00/30
tabs. The same medicine, made by the same people, in the same factory.
Does that give you a hint why the U.S. is losing business?


Bruce-in-Bangkok
(correct email address for reply)

It's more complicated than that. The same company that makes that drug
probably sells it across the Canadian border for a lot less too. Our
pharmaceutical companies have the government by the balls and get
sweetheart
deals you wouldn't believe. If they had to really compete we'd be paying
the
same, or nearly the same as you are.

Nope. They aren't competing at all. What it takes is government price
controls on drugs. Everyone has them but us. That's why most drugs are
developed in the US. Our prices reflect all of the development costs. To
make money in Europe, they use a different accounting -- one in which all of
the development costs are sunk (in the US).

Another example, Bill Clinton was in
Africa promoting anti AIDS programs. They had one where drugs were being
supplied from Europe and it cost about 200.00 a year to keep someone alive
who had AIDS. The same medication in the US was 10,000. There is something
horribly wrong when you see that kind of a difference in costs of
medication.

What it says is that we're paying for the world's drugs. When you sort out
the arguments over this, you wind up with an accounting debate over whether
we're making it up in pharma jobs and corporate taxes. I've tried to sort it
out but it looks hopeless.

snip

--
Ed Huntress