Joncy wasn't talking about an embargo.

Nor did anybody say anything about China not being a superpower. I mean, China isn't (superpowers tend to have things like, say, spheres of influence that extend beyond their borders while China thankfully keeps their brutality locked up inside of their own horrible country) but I don't know why you keep bringing it up.

I wasn't talking about an embargo, I wasn't talking about sanctions. I was talking about punishing Americans, Canadians, Australians and Europeans who know better and should be outraged over the way China conducts itself. More importantly, China represents everything the Commonwealth stands against, so you especially should know better than to be an apologist. Even if for some reason the economy wasn't able to recover from the loss of China as a profitable source of labor (even though it would), I think it's a worthwhile cause.

.

That political cartoon would be funnier if alternatives existed.

THANK YOU.

Oh nice. You use the "America sucks, you must fail because you are in America" argument again when other points presented don't work.

Pathetic.

The Omypics symbolize much more than a cheap sporting event.


It's about much much much more.

rob, could you please explain just how the olympics are supposed to be much more than a sproting event?

... The Olympics are nationalism personified. Actually, I'm not going to write a long post. You just spent half a thread defending China "because it's a superpower." You're one of those apathy loving fools who likes to let horrible things happen constantly because doing anything about it would be hairy. It's a good thing you're in a country that couldn't do anything anyway.

protesting is serious business

Lulz history.

I was not defending china, I was defending the countries that have economies that rely heavily on exports to china, and how either forcing them to stop trading with china, and punishing them if they continue is a very bad idea.

Did anyone in this thread say anything about an embargo? If the US, alone, limited imports from China, we could thwart their horrific market society in little to no time, create more jobs for Americans, and likely save our own economy. An embargo would be world policing. An American imposed Chinese trade tax would completely shut down their economy, and encourage free trade and fair wages, and might give their people incentive to dethrone their illegitimate "leader."

the problem is that there are nations that export more goods TO China than they Import FROM China.

Also, as I said previously, all stopping buisnesses from outsoucing to China will do is make said buissnesses go straight to the next cheapest country. If you want buisnesses to stop outsourcing, you need to give them a POSITIVE INCENTIVE to use workers from their own country, otherwise they will see no real economic benfit to using workers in their own nation instead of workers from the next cheapest nation's labour force if using Chinese labour was suddenly subject to punishment.

You seem to be missing the point.

Outsourcing isn't necessarily a bad thing. Outsourcing to a country that, in turn, uses the money to consolidate their power and terrorize their own people is.

There's plenty of cheap labor to be found in countries with much better human rights records.

Yeah, the problem IS NOT outsourcing. The particular problem that you're still defending is that CHINA IS A HORRIBLE COUNTRY (and we profit off of it.)

The same way the U.N. exists these days to help poor people.

Massive economic boom for the host country.

yes, but most of the nations with cheap labor and good human rights records tend to have those workers working for buisnesses within their own nation, and the workers who are able to take outsourced jobs probably already have.

Also, please explain how you think that making many chinese people unemployed (by changing were you outsource jobs to) will make the chinese government decide to change their policies. It is just as likely that they will say something along the lines of "If you think that we need to improve our human rights situation, why did you take action that made a large number of our people unemployed, thereby worsening their standard of living".

Just think about it, making people unemployed is not a good way to show that you care about human rights. It is however, a good way to make those now unemployed people not trust you, and therefore not trust the changes you propose to improve the humanm rights situation, as they may not want to risk more people loosing their jobs over more changes.

It is all about trust, and the population of a nation is probably not going to trust you if you cost them their jobs.

I saw the Dalai Lama today.

China sucks.

So wait, you'd rather we invaded China and forced them to have a higher standard of living? Keeping trade with them will not improve their nation. They just started importing food. Do you have any idea what that means? Their main export is labor and their newest import is food. Sounds like a cattle ranch to me.

Okay guys, you can argue about this all you want, but in the end, I am not going to invade china.

They have scary food and girls have tiny feet.

Also, ammo is too expensive to shoot at all those people.

Uhhhhh?

what the hell are you going on about?

also, please to be explaining how removing trade from china will improve the situation there.

Also, you do realize that china imports more than just food. In fact, the Australian and New Zealand mining industries are involved in quite a lot of trade with China. Just because the US isnt involved in a form of trade does not mean it doesnt exist. Did you ever stop to think that the reason that China imports very little from the US is that there are countries much closer that have the things they need, which mean that they spend less money when buying said things.

words words words encouraging china to adopt the universal declaration of human rights would sink the australian economy blah blah blah

I think a billion Chinese people are more important than some Aussie miners. Of course you remain horrendously ignorant of the fact that they'd be able to sell their raw materials just about anywhere else in the world, given the absolutely gigantic price of copper on the global market right now. I don't know why I expected you to figure out that someone else other than China might want to buy your crap.

And I just figured out what you don't seem to understand about communism.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're talking about, but couldn't the US just make a new trade agreement with China that stipulates that they improve their human rights situation for trade to continue? I know China exports to more than just the US, but nobody consumes like Americans, and I doubt they could afford to lose us.

uhh, maybe its because other countries have closer supplies of copper, and dont want to spend a fortune on delivery costs. Also, I point out that if you loose a trading partner, you will loose quite a bit of money, as it takes time to make new deals with other nations.

And to vinny, the problem is that while they are almost certainly not able to deal with losing the US as a trading partner (as i have said, and the damage that causes would have a domino effect, as it is impossible for a nation that large with that many trading partners not to have domino effects when major things happen), I almost garentee that many US buisnesses (especialy some of the bigger ones) would ALSO be unable to cope with said loss.

Thinking only about the short term when it comes to international trade, and not thinking about the further effects of major decisions is an extremely stupid idea.

Think about it, wal-mart is the company in the US that has the most trade with China. If they were to suddenly be unable to use chinese labor (as they actualy have manufacturing facilities there) until china improoves (which would take a while, seriously, have you learned nothing from every single intervention that the united states has ever done, in which if improovement did happen, it took ages), they would have some incredible financial difficulties. This would quite likely lead to AMERICAN job losses, the exact thing that you DO NOT WANT.

So, in short, anything that you do to try and punish china economicaly will almost certainly also have effects elseware as well, effects that may make the situation even worse.

That's why I'm not saying we should stop trade until they improve human rights, I'm saying we should tell them they need to get better or we may start limiting trade.

And that's why I'm suggesting that we take a cut of the profits from the shareholders of companies that use Chinese labor.

Yeah, you don't seem to listen to what anyone says. You don't embargo them, and you don't completely take their trade away. You simply limit trade and penalize people that associate with (and contribute to) communist China. This in turn will hopefully shift their workforce to sustaining themselves and developing their own country.

And he less money going into china, the less money available to hurt their own people. The less money the people have, the more likely they are to revolt. The reason I asked if you'd rather we invade is that it's the alternative to trade rules. It's probably the only other way to improve living standards there.

Even if it was dirt cheap, how the **** are we going to carry that much over there? All of the ASPs in the area are tiny!

Anyway, alpha1, you don't seem to listen to anyone. You would think that people here would have learned to listen to Jon C. Not agree with all the time, but at least make a reasonable attempt to consider his words. But no, not you, you know how everything works and you aren't afraid to tell us, right!

Hey, I'm gonna play the ******* here, okay?

In society, not everyone can be equal. Oh sure, it would be nice if everyone was rich and had the same opportunities everyone else had. But someone has to clean the toilets. Someone has to pick trash off the streets. Someone has to fix the pipes.

So on a global scale, perhaps countries are the same. We need crappy countries to exploit so we can stay on top.

Better China than us.

Plumbers make a lot of money.

In fact in most places, plumbing is the only utility that a dwelling is required by law to have. Plumbers are in high demand.

Okay, replace that phrase with "shovel horse ****."

You won't be laughing when someone figures out how to use horse **** to fuel cars.

Well, if it's anything like them figuring out how to use corn to fuel cars, it will drive food prices up and actually damage the environment even more.

We level northern Japan and make it into one large ammo dump and armor pool. Duh.

Also, did alpha just use Wal-mart as a reason to stay buddy-buddy with China?