The Political Party

[VanHalen]

This is how the United States got sold to China:

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From Wikipedia.com:

China

Main article: 1972 Nixon visit to China

President Nixon shakes hands with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai upon arriving in Beijing

Nixon laid the groundwork for his overture to China even before he became president, writing in Foreign Affairs a year before his election: "There is no place on this small planet for a billion of its potentially most able people to live in angry isolation."[115] Assisting him in this venture was his National Security Advisor and future Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, with whom the President worked closely, bypassing Cabinet officials. With relations between the Soviet Union and China at a nadir—border clashes between the two took place during Nixon's first year in office—Nixon sent private word to the Chinese that he desired closer relations. A breakthrough came in early 1971, when Chairman Mao invited a team of American table tennis players to visit China and play against top Chinese players. Nixon followed up by sending Kissinger to China for clandestine meetings with Chinese officials.[115] On July 15, 1971, it was simultaneously announced by Beijing and by Nixon (on television and radio) that the President would visit China the following February. The announcements astounded the world.[116] The secrecy allowed both sets of leaders time to prepare the political climate in their countries for the contact.[117]

In February 1972, Nixon and his wife traveled to China. Kissinger briefed Nixon for over 40 hours in preparation.[118] Upon touching down, the President and First Lady emerged from Air Force One and greeted Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai. Nixon made a point of shaking Zhou's hand, something which then-Secretary of State John Foster Dulles had refused to do in 1954 when the two met in Geneva.[119] Over 100 television journalists accompanied the president. On Nixon's orders, television was strongly favored over printed publications, as Nixon felt that the medium would capture the visit much better than print. It also gave him the opportunity to snub the print journalists he despised.[119]

President Nixon greets Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong (left) in a historic visit to the People's Republic of China, 1972.
Nixon and Kissinger met for an hour with Mao and Zhou at Mao's official private residence, where they discussed a range of issues.[120] Mao later told his doctor that he had been impressed by Nixon, whom he considered forthright, unlike the leftists and the Soviets.[120] He also said he was suspicious of Kissinger,[120] though the National Security Advisor referred to their meeting as his "encounter with history".[119] A formal banquet welcoming the presidential party was given that evening in the Great Hall of the People. The following day, Nixon met with Zhou; the joint communique following this meeting recognized Taiwan as a part of China, and looked forward to a peaceful solution to the problem of reunification.[121] When not in meetings, Nixon toured architectural wonders including the Forbidden City, Ming Tombs, and the Great Wall.[119] Americans received their first glimpse into Chinese life through the cameras which accompanied Pat Nixon, who toured the city of Beijing and visited communes, schools, factories, and hospitals.[119]

The visit ushered in a new era of Sino-American relations.[104] Fearing the possibility of a Sino-American alliance, the Soviet Union yielded to pressure for détente with the United States.[122]

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Five years after these visits to China, the USA manufacturing jobs began to decrease at a rapid pace. So, you can thank Richard Nixon for selling us out to China... but we all share blame in the venture. By buying $15 blenders, $9 coffee makers, and $300 LCD TVs, we partnered with Nixon to sell out our kids' futures. It is an addiction that we cannot seem to resist. 

When I was younger kids used to have factories to work at when they graduated high school if they decided not to go to college. Those factories are now all in China employing Chinese workers thanks to WalMart and the like, and we are now raising a generation of gangbangers and slackers that would have worked in factories (many of them are now employed by WalMart, ensuring that their customer service remains crappy).

If you start from USA's manufacturing’s peak in 1979, 7 million manufacturing jobs have been lost, a fact made even more severe by the fact that the American population has grown by 70 million during the same time period.

In addition to Nixon and ourselves being to blame for USA being sold to China wholesale, we have to give a big congrats to WalMart!! You were successful with your "Falling Prices" campaign and your "Let's Drive Alll USA Factory Jobs To China" campaign.

[yumpy]

wal-mart used to be "made in the usa", so i don't know.

haven't been there in 12 yrs but i still have towels and clothes i bought, long before i moved to HK. 

bought some in china and now use them for the dogs.

i was impressed when nixon went to china. it was a good move. 

too bad mandarin or japanese wasn't offered in high school like french or german. 

[yanktar]

It was 10 years later in 1982, when Reagan signed into law all kinds of tax incentives for companies to "help" developing nations by moving manufacturing there, ouf the USA, as one of his many ways to destroy the unions, their influence over corporations, and their influence over elections because the vast majority of them favored the Democratic Party.

Reagan sold out the nation for a political edge for Republicans and to benefit corporations proven to have no loyalty to America.

[Fred Fartboski]

Initeresting to see on the graph how manufacturing peaked just before Reagan took office. After that it was downhill, except for a couple of spikes, from there.

[Caulk Rocket]

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VanHalen wrote:

This is how the United States got sold to China:

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Automation. 

[Caulk Rocket]

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yanktar wrote:

It was 10 years later in 1982, when Reagan signed into law all kinds of tax incentives for companies to "help" developing nations by moving manufacturing there, ouf the USA, as one of his many ways to destroy the unions, their influence over corporations, and their influence over elections because the vast majority of them favored the Democratic Party.

Reagan sold out the nation for a political edge for Republicans and to benefit corporations proven to have no loyalty to America.

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Reagan did help destroy unions, but he was the most staunch protectionist since Hoover. 

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-- Forced Japan to accept restraints on auto exports. The agreement set total Japanese auto exports at 1.68 million vehicles in 1981-82, 8 percent below 1980 exports. Two years later the level was permitted to rise to 1.85 million.(33) Clifford Winston of the Brookings Institution found that the import limits have actually cost jobs in the U.S. auto industry by making it possible for the sheltered American automakers to raise prices and limit production. In 1984, Winston writes in Blind Intersection? Policy and the Automobile Industry, 32,000 jobs were lost, U.S. production fell by 300,000 units, and profits for U.S. firms increased $8.9 billion. The quotas have also made the Japanese firms potentially more formidable rivals because they have begun building assembly plants in the United States.(34) They also shifted production to larger cars, introducing to American firms competition they did not have before the quotas were created. In 1984, it was estimated that higher prices for domestic and imported cars cost consumers $2.2 billion a year.(35) At the height of the dollar's exchange rate with the yen in 1984-85, the quotas were costing American consumers the equivalent of $11 billion a year.(36)

-- Tightened up considerably the quotas on imported sugar. Imports fell from an annual average of 4.85 million tons in 1979-81 to an annual average of 2.86 million tons in 1982-86. Not only did this continued practice force Americans to spend more than other consumers for sugar, but it created hardships for Latin American countries and the Philippines, which depend on sugar exports for economic development. The quota program undermined President Reagan's Caribbean Basin Initiative and intensified the international debt crisis.(37)

-- Negotiated to increase restrictiveness of the Multifiber Arrangement and extended restrictions to previously unrestricted textiles. The administration unilaterally changed the rule of origin in order to restrict textile and apparel imports further and imposed a special ceiling on textiles from the People's Republic of China.(38) Finally, it pressured Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea, the largest exporters of textiles and apparel to the United States, into highly restrictive bilateral agreements. All told, textile and apparel restrictions cost Americans more than $20 billion a year.(39) The Reagan administration has stated several times that textile and apparel imports should grow no faster than the domestic market.(40)

-- Required 18 countries--including Brazil, Spain, South Korea, Japan, Mexico, South Africa, Finland, and Australia, as well as the European Community--to accept "voluntary restraint agreements" to reduce steel imports, guaranteeing domestic producers a share of the American market. When 3 countries not included in the 18--Canada, Sweden, and Taiwan-- increased steel exports to the United States, the administration demanded talks to check the increase. The administration also imposed tariffs and quotas on specialty steel. These policies, with their resulting shortages, have severely squeezed American steel-using firms, making them less competitive in world markets and eliminating more than 52,000 jobs.(41)

-- Imposed a five-year duty, beginning at 45 percent, on Japanese motorcycles for the benefit of Harley Davidson, which admitted that superior Japanese management was the cause of its problems.(42)

-- Raised tariffs on Canadian lumber and cedar shingles.

-- Forced the Japanese into an agreement to control the price of computer memory-chip exports and increase Japanese purchases of American-made chips. When the agreement was allegedly broken, the administration imposed a 100 percent tariff on $300 million worth of electronics goods. This episode teaches a classic lesson in how protectionism comes back to haunt a country's producers. The quotas established as a result of the agreement have created a severe shortage of memory chips and higher prices for American computer makers, putting them at a disadvantage with foreign competitors. Only two American firms are still making these chips, accounting for a small percentage of the world market.(43)

-- Removed Third World countries from the duty-free import program for developing nations on several occasions.

-- Pressed Japan to force its automakers to buy more American-made parts.(44)

-- Demanded that Taiwan, West Germany, Japan, and Switzerland restrain their exports of machine tools, with some market shares rolled back to 1981 levels. Other countries were warned not to increase their shares of the U.S. market.

-- Accused the Japanese of dumping roller bearings, because the price did not rise to cover a fall in the value of the yen. The U.S. Customs Service was ordered to collect duties equal to the so-called dumping margins.(45)

-- Accused the Japanese of dumping forklift trucks and color picture tubes.(46)

-- Failed to ask Congress to end the ban on the export of Alaskan oil and of timber cut from federal lands, a measure that could substantially increase U.S. exports to Japan.

-- Redefined "dumping" in order "to make it easier to bring charges of unfair trade practices against certain competitors."(47)

-- Beefed up the Export-Import Bank, an institution dedicated to promoting the exports of a handful of large companies at the expense of everyone else.(48)

-- Extended quotas on imported clothespins.

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[Another Brick]

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Caulk Rocket wrote:

Reagan did help destroy unions, but he was the most staunch protectionist since Hoover.

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Yes.  He protected our southern border all right.

[Caulk Rocket]

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Another Brick wrote:

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Caulk Rocket wrote:

Reagan did help destroy unions, but he was the most staunch protectionist since Hoover.

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Yes.  He protected our southern border all right.

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With NAFTA coming down the pipe, it made sense.  

That legislation was planned during Reagan.

[Just Me]

WHO SOLD THE USA TO CHINA TO BEGIN WITH?

  The US citizens who couldnt be bothered, or couldnt afford to buy American made products, the business people trying to appease sharholders by moving jobs overseas, and the politicians who created the environment for all of this to happen.

[Snaporaz]

Once you greedy and spoiled mofos accept to work for $250 per month,

12 hours daily, including Saturday and Sunday, then all jobs come back home.

[LARRY L]

As my wallmart toaster oven stops working right this morning, just out of warrantee I think, is where all this China crap meets with us,,,frustrated. I have worked in manufacturing since the 70's and the chart seems about right. Being in product design and seeing the shortcuts in the quality it all is to me a bad joke. When will we just say NO to the crap? Yet with no alternatives, we are a bit stuck with the sell out. Planning to wait in line at customer service as a regular thing you need do, I guess is all I can think of.

[Snaporaz]

all of the goods in China is so cheap it is not worth thinking about it, but simply buy it new,

for example a pair of UGG women shoes cost $9.90 in China, the same shoes in Europe cost $490

[VanHalen]

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Snaporaz wrote:

Once you greedy and spoiled mofos accept to work for $250 per month,

12 hours daily, including Saturday and Sunday, then all jobs come back home.

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True

[normh]

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VanHalen wrote:

Five years after these visits to China, the USA manufacturing jobs began to decrease at a rapid pace. So, you can thank Richard Nixon for selling us out to China... but we all share blame in the venture. By buying $15 blenders, $9 coffee makers, and $300 LCD TVs, we partnered with Nixon to sell out our kids' futures. It is an addiction that we cannot seem to resist. 

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What part of the decrease of manufacturing jobs are related to the increased use of automation to do things that humans used to do?  Just wondering.

What part does automation play in reducing costs of items?  Just wondering.

A bot can perform a repetitive task longer than a human, with fewer mistakes, more consistently, and sometimes faster.

I think you are placing the blame of decreased manufacturing by humans, or if you wish, by Americans, in the wrong lap.  American manufacturing is at an all time high, there is just lessor need for humans to perform that manufacturing.

[tom watson]

this usa and china are the countries those developed their own weapons...so they have to begin with peace and calmness

[Caulk Rocket]

Manufacturing jobs are leaving China and returning to robots in the US

MAJOR FOREIGN HOLDERS OF TREASURY SECURITIES

China - $1.202 trillion

Japan - $1.120 trillion

I guess it only costs $82 billion to own America. 

[Rudolf von Hag…]

oh, I am on

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Caulk Rocket wrote:

Manufacturing jobs are leaving China and returning to robots in the US

MAJOR FOREIGN HOLDERS OF TREASURY SECURITIES

China - $1.202 trillion

Japan - $1.120 trillion

 I guess it only costs $82 billion to own America. 

Oh, I am on place #7

Sshiiiit, I own more of the US then I thought.

194 billion, that's $43.000 per Swiss.

Damn, we still finance you stoooopid life style.

I have that money payed out to me by the Swiss National Bank

[Rudolf von Hag…]

OMG

just found out that I even own more of the European Union, and China is also mine

[Rudolf von Hag…]

Next Saturday I invite all my relatives to a dinner

http://www.schloss-schadau.ch/en.html

[Rudolf von Hag…]

No wonder the Chinese are so friendly to me.

Now i know why.