I beg to differ. The Chinese are used to hard times and living a spartan lifestyle. Americans aren't. We have had it good for so long that our concept of poor is very different from China's concept of poor. The USA will come out on the losing end of a trade war. If China stops purchasing all of the government bonds the feds issue there will be nobody to fund our social programs and down comes the nanny state.

I am sorry Robert Perales. You have it wrong. Every revolution in the past has happened in times of rising prosperity, only to have it falter a little. The iron fist of Peking knows this, and realise prosperity has to keep increasing to maintain their dictatorship. Yes, the Chinese HAD it hard, but the new generation only know growing good times and will not take it lightly if it is taken away from them

The previous generation who experienced life before China's recent boom are still alive and kicking, and life right now isn't so easy either--the Chinese are still investing in the future.

The US had been perusing a "weak dollar" policy for a least the last five years. What cave have you been living in?

Your assessment that "it is bad for Americans because it will cost more" is a childishly simplistic argument.

Yes, it will raise the price for some imported goods...but maybe not as much as you think. America has such purchasing power that they sellers might just have to absorb some of the extra cost.

The QE2 actually increased the value of my investments by more than 1 years take home pay....which would more than make up for any price increase. The declining $$ also make my wages cheaper on and international scale and thus discourages out sourcing. It also make our factory output less expensive.

The declining $$ is a mixed bag and for the average person, I believe a net positive.

Yes, I remember that. They said what we lost will be low tech blue-collar jobs while the high-paid white-collar would increase. It turn out to be false. We are losing both manufacture jobs and white-collar jobs. I have friends, business lawyers, architects, and scientists, couldn't find jobs here. They either found jobs at China or their Company moved/sent them to China if they wanted to keep their jobs. The only job increase here is the lowest-paid service job.

This goes all the way back to Nixon. Note Nixon's 'friendships' with Libertarian/Anarchists like Milton Friedman, the Koch brothers, etc, etc.

It is not about a 'service based' economy or anything like that. It is about the rich getting richer, and f**k the rest. PERIOD.

Both the Republicans and Democrats have kow-towed to this idea, because they have been bought and paid for by this lobby.

The US is falling. It is poetic justice and the country's population is lazy, uneducated and does not appreciate what they have.

The US deserves to fall and it is doing so.

An attitude change would hellp most.

So far it doesn’t look like we will be able to reduce our deficit. We certainly can forget about reducing our debt. The only option left is borrowing and printing more money. Naturally, this will reflect to the value of our currency. We can either let it devalued slowly or let it dropped suddenly. This is nothing to do with who is in power right now.

Pro-life activist

I would beg to differ. Americans are just as hard-working as anyone, anywhere in the world. I am an immigrant, working with Americans. I work for a bank, in the IT area, and the bank out-sourced for a while. After about a year of outsourcing, we performed an in-depth analysis, and found that out-sourcing was actually costing more. We, in America, were pushing out better quantity and quality. End result, out-sourcing has been severely curtailed. A lot of the promises that were made by the Indian IT companies were just not met.

I have spoken to people in other areas, like textiles, apparel, etc., with the same conclusions. So, why do companies continue to out-source? It's about money, in the form of tax-breaks, lax labor laws, etc. If we had to reduce working conditions and salaries to Third World standards, then the jobs would come back! This is a scenario that I think, to most Americans, is just too ghastly to contemplate.

What to do? Scrap the Free Market and globalization. These are not part of, nor are they synonymous with capitalism; and capitalism is the American creed. Bring back trade and tarriffs, and start some level of protecting American jobs. Europe is pondering this right now, and they are recovering from the recession faster than us. Let the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy expire - we can not afford this. Get Wall Street back into line, they exist because of the American people, and American buying power. There is a lot more that we can do; but this will take too long to type.

We are Americans - and we can get this economy back on track. All it takes is hard work, and the legislation to help us achieve this goal. Voting for the Tea Party/Democrats/what-ever is not the solution. We need to go on a national strike to show the politicians what we, the people are all about. Then roll up our sleeves and get on with the task of rebuilding the nation. Do not expect the blow-hards like Palin, Beck, Obama, etc to help without a solid kick in the pants.

PATRIOT-2574614,

The point is Trade isn't the only activity causing the apparent disparity between those Countries with large Surpluses & those with large deficits, which is what was of concern in the subject article.

I commented above about the Trade Imbalance, so's to illustrate some of the reasons why I believe there is such a Trade imbalance.

The Fiscal deficit is a far worse problem than the Trade Imbalance. When it starts to sound corny, is when people in the Administration start blaming Others for their Spending beyond their means, as if they had been hypnotized by these other Other Folk, into so doing.

Take a look at my comments, which I'll post again here. Posting:

------------------------------------------------------------------

"I was just looking at an Export Fact Sheet for U.S. Exports-year 2008. This is downloadable at:

'export-factsheet_021109'.

What I see here is a very steady growth of U.S. Exports, particularly when represented as a % of G.D.P.

However the Trade imbalance continues to widen. The main Items being exported, are the backbone of U.S. Mfg. & Factory production. The effect of 'Devaluing' the Dollar by 'Printing' another 600 Billion Dollars, is supposed to make U.S Exports more competitive. I do not see from that Export Fact-sheet, where the Items in demand elsewhere, as laid-out in the Fact-sheet, would get any boost in demand because of a Devalued Dollar.

Nobody is going to order 2 D8 Caterpillar Tractors instead of 1, because the Dollar is 10-15% lower. I mention this, because if one carefully looks at the Export Fact-sheet, it is easy to see from where the Trade Imbalance is coming. And Yes, as we all expected, The Walmart Items.

These are the 'Items' which some many years ago, were Mfg. in the U.S. by small business's. Some years ago, the 'Cowboy' George Bush, held up about a 4-6 inch thick of 'Forms', in order to visually demonstrate what a Small Start-up Business person would be facing with a 4 inch thick of 'REGULATORY PAPERWORK', before venturing into Business.

That situation has not improved, in fact, has got worse, with 'Paperwork' & Regulations coming out the 'Wa-hoo'. Most folk gave up long ago trying to bother with this kind of major headache, to start-up any small Mfg. operation.

Walmart got wise to this years ago, & simply decided to make China, & other Pacific rim Countries be their Suppliers, & have simply cornered that end of the Market. No amount of Currency Gerrymandering is going to make one hoot of a difference, with the Items that they sell.

Just as how the AFL-CIO brought G.M. to bankruptcy, the onerous amount paperwork & regulation, has put Small Business out of Business. What many folk don't yet realize is that the Govt. is now responsible, & is picking-up all the 'Legacy Costs' of old G.M. New G.M. do not have to carry these Costs on their Books, when calculating Profit. If old G.M. had, ever had a deal like that, they'd be paying shareholders top Dollar, with Dividends, on their Investment.

This Crowd in Business, make the Key-Stone Cops, in Law-Enforcement look like professionals, & the sooner everybody realizes that for many years, there has been a franchising-out of 'Tammany Hall' type of Business all across the U.S. In fact I would say that Chicago, because of excellent 'Community type' leadership' is a perfect example of 'Tammany Hall' on STEROIDS.

This Administration has nothing to resort to, except to get their 3 Card Men to sharpen-up their Trade

At least Rap music is still a product dominated by USA. We don’t produce many products like that anymore. If the World likes it, so be it.

RichMJones@rcn.com,

Take a gander at my comments, just a couple above yours.

The rap video version of contemporary issue ... is a progression ...

a generalization of which says that when much too much is on the plate all at the same time,

then we try to talk about it, and it becomes too difficult to talk about,

then we try to write about too many issues, and writing becomes too difficult,

then we try to sing about too many issues, and singing becomes too difficult,

then we try to dance about too many issues, and dancing becomes too difficult,

then we try to make videos about too many issues, and video making becomes too difficult,

then we try to make computer animations about too many issues, and computer animations becomes too difficult.

This progression is a very difficult thing to understand, and hard to see how this progression represents a problem with discussing complex and interrelated local, political, and economic and financial, and policy issues.

When I mention, other rap videos, it was intended to suggest, that this possible progression is one analysis of why that these complex issues never quite get resolved.

Too much and too many inputs, too much distraction, too much of a noisy riot, from which escalation predicts chaos.

Chaos, is exciting, but only if you never experienced it.

Computer technology has interconnected the world, or has cause communications, ranging from idle talk to a force against which reason has not yet harvested productively.

Frankly I like the old habit writing long professorial dissertations, presenting them to captive students, and after many years, learn everything I can from students. These are modern times, and the students are wired together in ways that rule out long professorial dissertations, and completely destroy the experience gathered over those many years. The old times where the professor did the talking are gone, where the students exchanged knowledge among themselves and the professor benefited from student discourse are gone.

Replaced by students that are wired together and are quite capable of creating whole new theories, over a single night, this is riot. The general public who were never good students in the first place, and less likely to seek to inform themselves, formulate a intelligent statement, to present to the professor, and lead the discussion (while the professor took notes). The general public has become wired, and is ignorant, undisciplined, unpracticed, and unorganized and the professor is in hiding from the riotous mob crashing the gate. The rioters have gained the power to make decisions, but not the slightest idea of how to harness, that power to make a productive change. When history follows this course, it very likely to do something stupid, but has the power to do what is most stupid, and history follows as it always has. History is unable to predict the future in any meaningful way, except to say that it repeats itself. To plan for a positive outcome is wish for success, and nearly impossible to achieve influence over a historical event. It a wonder that progress has ever been made in the past.

Now, today, this very moment, we are experience the flood of communications, communications that are central to, above, by and for the technology revolution that has enabled them. Just because this clue is being ignored, does not reflect on the truth or falsity of the proposition that communications so fouled up may or may not contribute a positive solution to the problem. All the proposition says is that this serious revolution, it is power revolution, and such power and ferocity has seldom of ever succeeded, or civilizations are known to commit suicide.

This comment and indeed most of the comments in Newsvine will be lost on the compost of this civilization.

Yeah, 2 foot no good. 4 Foot twice as good.

Hey, maybe a good idea is to send them, China, a bill for all that 'Stolen Intellectual Property', & just tell them that this will simply 'Contra' all that is owed to them.

Maybe Pelosi's idea, that the I.R.S. should set-up collection centers in places like Beijing, should be followed through, why borrow from them when you could simply just 'Tax' them, & tell them it's about time they started paying their 'Fair Share', as that is - 'what is right for America'.

Perhaps, you, Queen Victoria, could along with the 'Consort to the Queen', travel on a Royal Visit to Beijing, & simply inform them that it is about time they start paying their 'Fair Share'.

Don't mince words with them, shoot straight from the hip.

p.s. Don't let Consort wonder-off into any of those 'Iniquitous Dens of sin'. You may never see him again. Bon Voyage!!!