Octopus Overlords

Grifman wrote: ↑Fri Mar 09, 2018 9:46 am I'll start with this - our friends are not happy

Remus West wrote: ↑Fri Mar 09, 2018 10:28 am On a side note, is there an over/under on how long it takes Trump to turn us officially into a third world nation.

The U.S. economy enjoyed the biggest hiring spree since mid-2016 in February as workers streamed in from the sidelines of the labor force, but inflation pressures remained muted amid signs the pay gains that spooked financial markets last month haven’t taken hold.

Payrolls rose 313,000 in February, compared with the 205,000 median estimate in a survey of economists, and the two prior months were revised higher by 54,000, Labor Department figures showed Friday. The jobless rate held at 4.1 percent, the fifth straight month at that level. Average hourly earnings increased 2.6 percent from a year earlier following a downwardly revised 2.8 percent gain.

U.S. stock futures and bond yields rose, as the report signaled the labor market remains strong and will keep driving economic growth. The wage figures show a cooling from a pace that spurred financial turbulence last month on concern that the Federal Reserve could raise interest rates faster.

While the unemployment rate remains well below Fed estimates of levels sustainable in the long run, the rise in participation suggests the presence of slack that would keep policy makers to a gradual pace of hikes.

Rip wrote: ↑Fri Mar 09, 2018 1:50 pm Yea it is horrible.

The only company in the United States making beer kegs fashioned from American steel is struggling to survive. The president’s newly signed levies on imported steel are unlikely to help.

The American Keg Company of Pottstown — its prices undercut by kegs imported from China, France and Germany — slashed its workforce by a third earlier this year. Only 20 people now work where 30 were once employed.

“The cost of an imported keg just barely covers the raw materials on one of ours,” said American Keg CEO Paul Czachor. “It’s very difficult to compete.”
...
But if the price of imported steel is inflated with a defacto tax, shouldn’t that make American-made products more competitive?

No. And the reason is counterintuitive, said Czachor. He believes the cost of American steel will rise while “American businesses will suffer,” he said.

“If there were no tariffs, that would keep the domestic steel prices lower,” Czachor said. “We understand the administration is trying to solve a problem, but it is not holistically getting addressed.”

The newly enacted taxes will not apply to finished steel products produced outside the U.S., Czachor said. And that’s where he sees the real trouble. Imported kegs, tools and heavy equipment are not subject to the new tariffs.

“Downstream imported products, made outside of the U.S. that use a lot of steel, will still be priced cheaply,” he said. “If the Chinese make lockers for a high school, people can import them with no tariff. The imported kegs will still come in using low-cost steel.”

Rip wrote: ↑Fri Mar 09, 2018 1:50 pm Yea it is horrible.

Octavious wrote: ↑Fri Mar 09, 2018 2:32 pm Hit us up in 8 years when the country is a burning crater from all these horrible policies he is coming up with.

YellowKing wrote: ↑Fri Mar 09, 2018 4:51 pm My Debbie Downer side says the economy is going to go gangbusters until midterms and the Democrat wave rolls in. Then Trump's policies will actually start to take effect, economy will tank. new Congress will be blamed, and we'll all be looking at four more years of Trump in 2020. It's what keeps me up at night.

Trump announcing new tariffs: “The word is reciprocal. That’s the word I want everyone to remember. Reciprocal. Mirror. Some people call it a mirror tariff or a mirror tax. Just use the word reciprocal.”

El Guapo wrote: ↑Thu Mar 22, 2018 4:39 pm Right. So everyone will impose *reciprocal* tariffs, making our stuff more expensive there, too.

The punitive actions unveiled by President Trump on Thursday — about $60 billion in tariffs a year and other penalties targeting Chinese goods, as well as new restrictions on Chinese investment in the United States — will put Mr. Xi on the spot, forcing him to consider retaliatory action that could send a shudder through the global economy and complicate his efforts to sustain China’s rapid growth in the face of rising debt and an aging population.

Chinese leaders are judged in part on how they manage relations with the United States, and a damaging trade war, if handled poorly, might diminish Mr. Xi’s political standing and test the wisdom of the highly centralized power structure that he has erected around himself. If he retreats and offers significant concessions, however, Mr. Xi risks looking weak and inviting criticism in a political system that has fanned nationalist and anti-American sentiment.

Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing, said that Chinese leaders had been so successful over the years in deflecting criticism of the country’s trade practices in the United States that they may have been slow to realize the gravity of the confrontation brewing.

The world's second-largest economy has responded to President Donald Trump's controversial trade tariffs.

China's commerce ministry proposed a list of 128 U.S. products as potential retaliation targets, according to a statement on its website posted Friday morning.

The U.S. goods, which had an import value of $3 billion in 2017, include wine, fresh fruit, dried fruit and nuts, steel pipes, modified ethanol, and ginseng, the ministry said. Those products could see a 15 percent duty, while a 25 percent tariff could be imposed on U.S. pork and recycled aluminium goods, according to the statement.

The statement did not go into greater detail. U.S. agricultural products, particularly soybeans, have been flagged as the biggest area of potential retaliation by Chinese President Xi Jinping's administration.

stessier wrote: ↑Fri Mar 23, 2018 9:30 am We export ginseng to them? That surprises me.

One of the most popular holiday gifts in China is ginseng, stamped with an unusual guarantee: 100% American.

Few consumers are more faithful to American products than Chinese users of ginseng: the U.S. exported $77.3 million in ginseng roots last year, most of it to Hong Kong, and American ginseng fetches the highest price of any cultivated variety.

The Asian market prizes the American strain for its stronger flavor and high levels of the active ingredient that is said to unlock the root's myriad but unproven health benefits.

The other part of the U.S.' competitive advantage is favorable feng shui. Ginseng grown in North America is said to have a "cool" nature and calming effect, which means it can be taken daily; Asian ginseng is considered "hot" and must be consumed in limited quantities.

American ginseng is cheaper in the U.S. than in China. In the San Gabriel Valley, herbal stores cluster on streets near hotels popular with tourists, their shelves loaded with red boxes covered in quality seals and branded with American flags.

But an American flag is no guarantee of American authenticity, said Tom Hack, international marketing director for the Ginseng Board of Wisconsin, where he says up 95% of the U.S. crop is grown.

In a recent survey at an Asian food expo in Southern California, the board found that less than 12% of ginseng products labeled as Wisconsin ginseng actually came from Wisconsin.

Hack says American ginseng purchased in America is more likely to be Canadian, or....
...
As proof, he offers some math. Wisconsin produces about 700,000 pounds of ginseng a year — 95% of the American crop, according to the Ginseng Board. About 80% of that is exported directly to Asia. That leaves roughly 140,000 pounds of genuine Wisconsin ginseng for distribution in the U.S. — a small fraction of U.S. sales.
...
U.S. ginseng suppliers typically aren't selling Wisconsin-grown ginseng, Hack said, because so little of it is available in the domestic market. The U.S. imports a lot of ginseng for domestic use — about $31.3 million of it in 2014, according to WiserTrade, an research firm that compiles data on U.S. foreign trade.

LordMortis wrote: ↑Fri Mar 23, 2018 10:16 am People around me who otherwise avoid discussing politics at all costs are pissed about this. I think there is a lot of 401k fear happening right now and 2008 and massive layoffs everywhere in my area is still fresh in everybody's memories.

Trade War appears to be the sound of Trump losing Michigan in 2020 irrespective of Grand Rapids and the Rural areas controlling the state legislature.

(And of course whether my fellow Michiganers realize and accept it or not, we benefit heavily from NAFTA as well)

Carpet_pissr wrote: ↑Fri Mar 23, 2018 10:35 am

LordMortis wrote: ↑Fri Mar 23, 2018 10:16 am People around me who otherwise avoid discussing politics at all costs are pissed about this. I think there is a lot of 401k fear happening right now and 2008 and massive layoffs everywhere in my area is still fresh in everybody's memories.

Trade War appears to be the sound of Trump losing Michigan in 2020 irrespective of Grand Rapids and the Rural areas controlling the state legislature.

(And of course whether my fellow Michiganers realize and accept it or not, we benefit heavily from NAFTA as well)

I'm sure the Fox spin doctors will figure out a way to make it sound like Obama or Hillary's fault that this trade war is starting. "Because Obama didn't act accordingly during his tenure, Trump is now having to do this unpalatable action that may affect American workers adversely in the short term, for the long term good of the country. Thanks, Obama!"

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Fri Mar 23, 2018 10:44 am "international banking conspiracy"

In 2016, a stunning 68.0 percent of China’s overall merchandise trade surplus related to sales to the U.S. In 2017, that figure increased to 88.8 percent. Trade-surplus countries, as history shows, generally suffer more in trade wars.

Beijing, therefore, is generally vulnerable to being pushed around by Washington. “If trade is so unimportant to China, why has China’s trade predation lasted so long and taken so many different forms?” Alan Tonelson, an independent Washington, D.C.-based trade analyst, asked, in comments to The Daily Beast over the weekend.

Second, the American economy is far bigger than the Chinese one. Beijing claimed gross domestic product of $12.84 trillion in 2017. America’s economy, by way of contrast, clocked in at $19.39 trillion last year.

China’s GDP numbers are surely overstated because, especially during the last two years, the country’s growth was less than half that reported by the official National Bureau of Statistics. America’s larger economy is, at the moment, in fact growing at a faster clip than China’s.

Pyperkub wrote: ↑Mon Mar 26, 2018 3:45 pm “If trade is so unimportant to China, why has China’s trade predation lasted so long and taken so many different forms?” Alan Tonelson, an independent Washington, D.C.-based trade analyst, asked, in comments to The Daily Beast over the weekend.

Alan Tonelson (born 1953) is an American Research Fellow at the U.S. Business and Industry Council Educational Foundation. ... He argues that U.S. economic policy should aim for "preeminence" over other countries, just as, he believes, other countries' economic policies seek their own national interests. He is critical of various forms of "globalism" and internationalism.
...
Books
The Race to the Bottom: Why a Worldwide Worker Surplus and Uncontrolled Free Trade are Sinking American Living Standards, Basic Books, 2002.

The United States Business and Industry Council (USBIC) is an NGO lobbying on behalf of family-owned and closely held US manufacturing companies. It was founded in 1933.

China has increased tariffs by up to 25 percent on 128 U.S. products, from frozen pork and wine to certain fruits and nuts, escalating a dispute between the world’s biggest economies in response to U.S. duties on imports of aluminum and steel.

The tariffs, which take effect on Monday, were announced late on Sunday by China’s finance ministry and matched a list of possible tariffs on up to $3 billion in U.S. goods published by China on March 23.
...
The Ministry of Commerce said it was suspending its obligations to the World Trade Organization (WTO) to reduce tariffs on 120 U.S. goods, including fruit and ethanol. The tariffs on those products will be raised by an extra 15 percent.
...
Eight other products, including pork and scrap aluminum, would now be subject to additional tariffs of 25 percent, it said, with the measures effective starting April 2.
...
U.S. President Donald Trump is separately preparing to impose tariffs of more than $50 billion on Chinese goods following an investigation under Section 301 of the 1974 U.S. Trade Act.

The U.S. administration says China has systematically misappropriated American intellectual property - allegations China denies.

About the Section 301 investigation, China had “yet to unsheathe its sword,” the official Xinhua news agency said.

Sometime this week, the Trump administration is expected to unveil a list of Chinese goods that could be subjected to new U.S. tariffs.

U.S. technology industry officials said they expected the list to target products that benefit from Beijing’s “Made in China 2025” program, which aims to upgrade the domestic manufacturing base with more advanced products.

Owner, Trump Casino wrote:When you’re already $500 Billion DOWN, you can’t lose!

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Mon Apr 02, 2018 4:02 pm Reuters

China has increased tariffs by up to 25 percent on 128 U.S. products, from frozen pork and wine to certain fruits and nuts, escalating a dispute between the world’s biggest economies in response to U.S. duties on imports of aluminum and steel.

The tariffs, which take effect on Monday, were announced late on Sunday by China’s finance ministry and matched a list of possible tariffs on up to $3 billion in U.S. goods published by China on March 23.
...
The Ministry of Commerce said it was suspending its obligations to the World Trade Organization (WTO) to reduce tariffs on 120 U.S. goods, including fruit and ethanol. The tariffs on those products will be raised by an extra 15 percent.
...
Eight other products, including pork and scrap aluminum, would now be subject to additional tariffs of 25 percent, it said, with the measures effective starting April 2.
...
U.S. President Donald Trump is separately preparing to impose tariffs of more than $50 billion on Chinese goods following an investigation under Section 301 of the 1974 U.S. Trade Act.

The U.S. administration says China has systematically misappropriated American intellectual property - allegations China denies.

About the Section 301 investigation, China had “yet to unsheathe its sword,” the official Xinhua news agency said.

Sometime this week, the Trump administration is expected to unveil a list of Chinese goods that could be subjected to new U.S. tariffs.

U.S. technology industry officials said they expected the list to target products that benefit from Beijing’s “Made in China 2025” program, which aims to upgrade the domestic manufacturing base with more advanced products.

The U.S. administration says China has systematically misappropriated American intellectual property - allegations China denies.