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sc94597 on 13 May 2016
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fatslob-:O said:
sc94597 said:

Is China really winning big time in the last year or so? Their artificial bubbles are about to burst, and a few of the smaller ones have already done so. Exporters, like mainland China, are racking up deficits too, just not by the same means and not in the same way. China's total debt as a percentage of GDP is something like 268%.1 I mean there is a credit bubble in China just waiting to burst, and it is going to burst quite massively when it does. Deficits aren't caused by a loss of manufacturering jobs, but principally by overspending on the part of governments, and China's government is as bad as it gets. Also economic independence is a fantasy land in today's world. Too many people benefit from trading with people in other countries. To have economic independence (if a thing ever existed) is silly. It is the concept of state socialists like those found in Cuba, U.S.S.R, North Korea, and Venezuela that a country can have "economic independence." It has no place in a free-market society based on the private ownership of the means of production by individuals and not nation-states.

So what are Trump's solutions to all of this? Probably just as bad as Bernie's: tarriffs and exit taxes. Sorry those are archaic ideas left in the time of mercantilism. If we want to have costs of living go through the roof then we should vote for Trump. Otherwise I don't want to spend more for my clothing, electronics, and home appliances just because a group of people pushed all of their opportunities out of this country by unreasonable wage and benefit demands and now want protectionism to benefit only them. Sorry steel workers and car manufacturers, demanding $70,000 (when adjusted for inflation) salaries in the 1960's and 70's was ridiculous and foolish and they are now paying the consequences for it. Don't make the rest of us pay for their mistakes.

1. http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2015/05/09/chinas-total-debt-load-now-over-280-of-gdp/#7fa4c6cc67ab

That's household and corporate debt included with the public debt, right ? Anyways I was talking about exports and China is still very much the winner compared to America owing just about every country ... 

If your sources have taught me anything, most of the deficit is owned by the likes of individuals and corporations and not by governments ... 

Total economic independence is unrealistic at this point but it won't be impossible for highly developed countires to be largely economically independent when automation will come, a huge epiphany is going to strike just about everyone ... 

Tarriffs probably aren't the best thing but sooner or later everyone is going to have to stop overstepping their spending bounds ...

Yes, but China's household debt is very low (Asians like to save.) The central government debt (excluding SOE's) is also relatively low (60% of GDP) but the local governments and state-owned enterprises  have a lot of the debt share there.

Yes, certainly as more things become automated we'll see disruptive changes, but that total automation is still a long way off. People might become economically independent in that circumstance.

I agree 100% about reducing spending. Maybe that is the one consistently good thing about Trump's economic rhetoric. He seems serious about reducing the debt level, but I am unsure what that means with Trump. Too many risks to go along with for that chance(protectionism and his issues with free speech being paramount.) If you've ever watched Milo Yiannopoulos (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milo_Yiannopoulos ) he is a big Trump supporter who happens to be gay and calls him "daddy." lol Anyway, his theory is that what makes Trump appealing isn't his policies but rather what he represents, a push against cultural progressivism and political correctness, almost symbolically so. For that reason Trump is more of a cultural symbol than a political one.  I think he is quite accurate, as it seems many people who in the past were quite ideologically consistent forgive Trump's flip-flopping with ease, because they like him and what he represents, and how he represents it.