The Dedly Blog

"We Transport American Atmosphere."

"We transport American atmosphere. Empty containers." - A ship captain describing what cargo ships heading back to China from the U.S. are carrying.

Panama is voting to decide if the Panama Canal should be widened to enable larger cargo ships to utilize it. Since China was admitted into the WTO, it's growth has made it feasible to consider this tremendous undertaking.

The Senate is considering imposing tariffs on imported Chinese goods. So, a few of them went over to Bejing to see what was going on. I can hear the free traders raging already. I don't mind free trade when it's fair trade, but the Chinese government continues to manipulate the yuan - dollar exchange rate to a level that makes it impossible for American manufacturers to compete. Of course, the real solution would be for China's labor force to unionize, but that's not too likely to happen. After all, this is the country that used tanks to squash the democracy protests by students in Tianamen Square. Do any of us remember that? Or have we all been paid off with $50 DVD players at Wal-Mart?

Since the Chinese government owns a piece of every Chinese company, we're helping to finance a fascist state. Joy.

posted by DED at 8:55 PM

 David Studhalter said...

This is why I have come to believe that the paradigm of free trade has become an anachronism. Some system to preserve and foster the standard of living of workers in our country must replace it.

3/24/2006 12:31 AM

 DED said...

True. Unfortunately we get rhetoric about educating workers to grant them new skills, along the lines of service jobs. But knowledge workers, like computer programmers, are seeing their jobs sent to India. The answer to that is that we'll have "creative" workers, basically idea men. But there's no reason to believe that can't be offshored too. The Iron Law of Wages will come to fruition because of free trade.

3/25/2006 3:50 PM