The US is suspicious of UK prime minister David Cameron and his trade policies with China.
Well why not? But the reverse is true as well. The UK has every reason to be suspicious of president Obama.
Such is the nature of trade politics where every country every country is out for itself.
There is really nothing new about this, but I will point out that massive trade disputes are hallmarks of deflationary times.
The Financial Times reports Cameron Adds to Pressure on China Over Maritime Disputes.
David Cameron arrived at the Group of Seven summit in Japan on Wednesday and added his voice to pressure on China to abide by international law in disputes in the South China Sea.
The British prime minister is suspected by the US of toning down criticism of China as he tries to make the UK the “best partner in the west” to Beijing, setting up an awkward G7 session on Asian security issues on Thursday.
Britain is far from alone in seeking to boost exports to, and inward investment from, China. Angela Merkel, German chancellor, and President François Hollande of France, who are attending the G7 summit, have also made big trade pushes.
Officials in Washington have criticized the “constant accommodation” of China by Britain.
Suspicion
US Hits China and Others with More Steep Steel Duties
Please consider US Hits China and Others with More Steep Steel Duties
The U.S. Department of Commerce has imposed more duties on corrosion-resistant steel imports from China and elsewhere in an effort to protect its industry from a glut of steel imports from around the world.
On Wednesday, the department’s International Trade Administration, which has conducted an investigation into the “dumping” of steel products into U.S. markets, said it had found the “dumping of imports of corrosive-resistant steel (CORE) products from China, India, Italy, Korea and Taiwan” by various steel producers that it named within those countries.
As a result, the department said that Chinese corrosion-resistant steel would be subject to a final anti-dumping duty of 210 percent and anti-subsidy duty of between 39 percent and up to 241 percent.
Steel Worker Cuts Steel Billets
Can someone tell me why a human worker and not a machine is doing that job?
Obama Sounds Like Trump
Forgive me for pointing out the obvious, but president Obama sounds more and more like Donald Trump.
Is there any politician anywhere who actually believes in free trade?
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Fair Trade and Cheap Labor
If you are a “Fair Trade” believer as Paul Krugman is now, this is the post I would most like you to read: Fair Trade is Unfair; In Praise of Cheap Labor; Are Bad Jobs at Bad Wages Better than No Jobs at All?
We’re All Bernie Sanders Now!
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Only we’re not totally in “deflationary times”. That is, in terms of food, energy, education, healthcare and rent/housing…all that stuff in limited supply that people need. Or art, collectibles, gold (real metal), rare coins…all that stuff in limited supply that might store VALUE.
“Deflation”? CREDIT is contracting. Prices of financial assets, currency depreciation-beggarized raw material exports and indeed anything in which central planners have caused oversupply, yes.
Might be time to check the price of tins of baked beans, as per David Stockman…
“Only we’re not totally in “deflationary times””
During inflation you can probably find things that are dropping in price.
Plasma TV’s were like $12,000 when they first came out. As production increased, the price dropped dramatically.
It is the waterfall collapse of credit that produces the fire sale collapse in prices. The powers that be figure that helicopter money will stave that off.
I just need to say the 1962 version by Elvis is still the best!
Often imitated. Never duplicated.
“Can someone tell me why a human worker and not a machine is doing that job?”
In China that labourer will be earning two or three hundred dollars a month.
http://www.clb.org.hk/en/content/steel-workers-shaanxi-and-sichuan-strike-higher-pay
Or
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/strike-02092015173158.html
Whereas in the US it might be well over ten thousand dollars a month.
http://globalmidwest.typepad.com/global-midwest/2012/07/new-midwestern-labor-wars.html
“Can someone tell me why a human worker and not a machine is doing that job?”
In China that labourer will be earning two or three hundred dollars a month.
Whereas in the US it might be well over ten thousand dollars a month.
( Relevant links posted/delayed)
The British Pound has been the one “hard currency” to stay below the dollar this year. That says to me “no problem with inflation in Britain”… which is an odd thing to say actually as I can’t think of anything that they make that can provide it’s citizenry with a good inflation hedge.
Good for Scottish Banks I imagine but if these general strikes spread from France to Britain that could create an all too real economic crisis there I would think.
The USA is not a little island so if the US dollar gets crushed…well, equities keep hitting one record high after another so that doesn’t seem to be a problem. Treasuries are soaring in value and plunging in yield as well.
‘Can someone tell me why a human worker and not a machine is doing that job?’
The need to employ the prols, otherwise they’ll revolt. The low wage doesn’t hurt either.
Impossible to be that close to steel at that temp …the photo is doctored.
I was wondering that myself
How hot is that steel?
Not necessarily “doctored,” just posed. Most photos of this sort are not “candid” shots taken by someone walking by with a cell phone. The professional photographer tells the worker this would make a good shot; so please stand or crouch here and look like you are doing something. Then someone thousands of miles away looking at the photo on their computer screen fabricates a caption.
Most media news stories contain elements of fabrication or omission. Believe photos and news stories at your own risk.
.
Step one:
Have your banks malinvest precious new credit money on tract homes in Modesto. Ever been to Modesto?
Step two:
Piss and moan because the innovative products and industry you should have created with that squandered credit money doesn’t exist.
Is the money precious?
I don’t think so since they print it from thin air without care.
Now the resources marshalled and missallocated with the follow-on lack of care.
Those resources are precious and there lies the crime against humanity.
Mish, they say the same “lie” can be repeated by politicians every six years, as by that time there is “amnesia” with regard to past events. You are thinking economics and what makes economic sense. Obama is a politician, and he is just doing what politician do best, playing politics. This has nothing at all to do with economic illiteracy.
Obama is just repeating George W. Bush’s strategy to win Ohio against John Kerry a bit over a decade ago (“amnesia” has had ample time to take hold). Bush II’s steel tariff strategy hurt a lot of other industries, including steel consumers like the automobile and construction industries (well-documented). But steel tariffs likely helped Bush II win the White House. Political organizer Obama will likely get lots of union workers campaigning door to door in Ohio, Pennsylvania and other key states as a result. Just raw politics as practiced in Machiavelli’s era. Obama wants to cement his socialist legacy (e.g. Obamacare) as a foundation stone of the increasingly totalitarian USA, and this means keeping Trump out of the White House at all costs.
Expect more of the same.
That steel looks to be about 1800 degrees F, there is no way the rubber cutting torch lines and operator could be that close to the hot steel. That torch would have a difficult time cutting steel that thick. Not a good photoshop job. Notice that the sparks don’t originate at the supposed cutting site, instead they were sprinkled in at random in a very unlikely place.
The spectral response of silicon camera detectors does not match the human eye. Hot objects like those steel hard look brighter to the camera than to us. This makes the bars look hotter than they are. That worker likely uses a shield over the hot bar below his knee normally.
“Is there any politician anywhere who actually believes in free trade?”
Politicians, at least ambitious/successful ones, can’t afford to believe in anything but reelection. What’s more fundamentally troubling, is that the population has been so successfully duped into not realizing that there exists no separate, independent entities called “free trade”, “free speech”, “free markets”,……
But rather, you are either a free individual, who can say, buy and trade whatever you wish with whomever you wish, or you are simply not free, period. And instead just another bent over, raped, pillaged, stomped into the ground and spat on slave. No different at all from someone being whipped around a cotton plantation, by that era’s equivalents of our banksters, apparatchiks and regulation profiteers.