Back to numbers. I forgot to mention, in reference to Bill’s 1.8 million manufacturing jobs lost from the U.S. to China, that in our briefing at Diaoyutai (which by the way means “Fishing Deck” hence my lame headline) we were told that according to calculations by somebody whose name I didn’t catch U.S. consumers have saved $600 billion (yes, BILLION) by buying cheap, that is to say, low priced goods made in China over the past 10 years. I would love to see the methodology for that one. Let’s see, we’ll take as a base goods manufactured in, say, Japan and Germany and then compare that to China….
Once again though, I do have some sympathy for the argument. Americans have had a positive consumer orgy buying all this wonderful cheap stuff. As Bill says this is a very complicated issue. Definitely not a zero sum game. Also one on which politicians can make even bigger fools of themselves than usual. I recall the pride some expressed in a “strong” dollar, a symbol of a strong America presumably. Now it’s the evil renminbi that is, er, too weak, symbol of a weak China, right? Wrong.