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are we really going to pretend that the Bush Admin didn't try to privatize Social Security, or, that Cato was "critical" of this "major policy initiative"?
Posted at September 18, 2007 12:18 PM in response to Misunderstood reasons
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Ellen
this is the nub of the disagreement:
"The fact that China's currency is undervalued doesn't prevent it from buying American. It buys American like a drunken sailor -- US Treasuries. And the Asian tiger cubs could do, would do, should do the same."
The fact that the yuan is undervalued is indeed the reason why Chinese consumers don't buy American exports, and, why American consumers buy so many Chinese-imports.
Prices matter, and, the US/China exchange rate is the most important price in the world right now.
Is it possible that following a revaluation other East Asian economies would decide to devalue and ramp up exports to the US? Sure, it's possible. But, all evidence points instead to their desire to revalue as well. Exports aren't the only aim in policymaking - undervalued exchange rates rob households of purchasing power, and, spending large % of your GDP on buying dollars to maintain an exchange rate peg has huge opportunity costs in terms of what that money could've purchased in the way of public investments.
Lastly, even if a bunch of economies decided, against all evidence so far, that they wanted to rush into the breach caused by a Chinese revaluation, they don't have anywhere near the industrial capacity to soak up former Chinese exports one-for-one. Exports from non-China East Asia are up by about 300% since 2001 alone, and, the export capacity of the three countries you mentioned in your first post (Bangladesh, the Phillipines, and Vietnam) are, combined, well under 5% of China's.
The US is the largest economy in the world, and, China is the second-largest and their trading relationship is by far the most unbalanced on the globe; anything which fundamentally affects trade flows between our two economies (say, a big yuan revaluation) surely matters a lot for the global economy and cannot/will not simply be undone by much smaller economies.
josh bivens
Posted at May 14, 2007 6:57 PM in response to Follow-up from Last Week and A Few Related Tidbits
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Ellen
At the risk of pre-empting my EPI colleague, i might take a stab at this one.
Essentially, what matters for bilateral deficits are bilateral exchange rates (at least, what matters in the first-order). So, if China revalues, there's no reason to expect Vietnamese exports to the US to increase at going exchange rates.
Further, it's by now widely thought (might be wrong, but, i don't think so) that many of China's trade competitors in the East Asian sphere would strongly prefer to revalue their own currencies, but, cannot because they'd lose competitiveness to China in the US consumer market if they did. A Chinese revaluation would remove the linchpin stopping global rebalancing - in short, exports from Vietnam, the Phillipines, and Bangladesh would more likely *decrease* over the medium-run due to a Chinese revaluation, as these countries took advantage of the breathing room to revalue on their own.
What we know is that the Chinese revaluation is a necessary condition for this global (and US) rebalancing.
josh bivens
Posted at May 14, 2007 10:54 AM in response to Follow-up from Last Week and A Few Related Tidbits
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brooksfoe
lucas wrote that in 1988, hence it sounds odd today when, as you note, india is doing awfully well relative to the other two.
josh bivens
Posted at March 29, 2007 8:07 AM in response to THE OTHER FUNDAMENTALISTS, OR, THIS POST IS NOT ABOUT ALBERTO GONZALES
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Bento
you're right - we'll never be able to stop arguing entirely about how to get to a decent place on globalization, but, sometimes it helps to step back and talk about the end-goal.
that said, i still think the US still could remain substantially in control of its own economic rules with smart management. if the Nordic countries can carve out a social-democratic state and thrive (and, they do), then surely there's no economic impediment to the US doing the same. What is lacking is the poltical path. i worry that progressives will abandon pushing too hard on the purely domestic track because they overestimate the power of globalization in hamstringing domestic policy agendas.
Dustin - i know we exceeded the EPI quota this week, but, jeez, it's not like i was identified as an independent contractor or something. i'm a little unclear as to what the nefarious "trap" was that people were going to find themselves ensared in by opening up the debate.
josh bivens
Posted at March 2, 2007 9:47 AM in response to Cutting to the Chase
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Emma
I work for EPI and obviously have a stake in this, but, i think you're over-estimating the complexity faced by people if this plan is adopted. You seem to think it's a problem that small firms that struggle now to provide insurance will choose the public plan while large employers will keep providing insurance on their own - it's not, in fact, it's the whole point.
essentially, employers will make a simple decision as to whether it's cheaper for them to pay the 6% payroll levy or provide insurance on their own for their workforce. If the former, they pay and their employees are enrolled in the public plan, if the latter, their employees keep the coverage they've already got.
there's are a couple of advantages to this - substantive and political. The substantive advantage is that it allows competition between private and public provision of insurance (bounded by the requirement that all insurance meet a minimum standard of comprehensiveness of care) to dictate where coverage will be taken up. If private coverage proves leaner and more efficient, more and more firms will provide on their own. If the public plan is more efficient than more firms will have their employees rolled in it. I have my own guess as to where efficiencies will be (the public plan), but, anybody who can tell you w/ certainty what will happen w/ the future of health care is showing an awful lot of hubris.
The political advantage is that those who have good, affordable insurance right now will see no change in how it's delivered. There is a subset of American firms (generally large and high-wage) who actually do a good job in providing insurance. It seems like good politics to let them keep doing it.
Lastly, and, also political, allowing firms who are currently providing coverage to keep doing it keeps the tab down for new government money needed to expand coverage.
joshb
Posted at January 11, 2007 1:36 PM in response to Health Care for America
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sef23
man, you said exactly what i was going to say. i think LBJ accomplished more domestically than JFK would have, but, Logevall's book convinced me against all my priors that LBJ is totally indictable on the charge that he lacked the courage to stay out of Vietnam.
He essentially bullied himself into committing the US to the war, driven by fear of right-wingers' criticism.
it's a great book.
joshb
Posted at August 22, 2006 7:56 AM in response to Hey, Hey, LBJ
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Sebastian
I find it pretty ambiguous as to whether this list is those killed or those killed or wounded. This is at the head of the page:
"Chronological list of events along Israel's northern border in which Israeli civilians and/or soldiers were killed since the IDF pullout of Lebanon in May 2000."
But, right before the list this description appears:
"The following is a chronological list of events along Israel's northern border in which Israeli civilians or soldiers were killed or wounded since May 2000:"
Reading it, it strikes me that the latter description sounds more plausible, but, i could well be wrong.
joshb
Posted at July 31, 2006 1:55 PM in response to How Bad Was It?
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Mary
you seem to log-in only to post factually incorrect statements, whether it's the sample of recent polls on the CT Senate race or the number of deaths in Israel attributable to terrorist attacks since 2000.
You claim over 11,000. You should tell the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs about your radically high estimate - they think the real number is less than 10% of this.
Actually, I'm pretty sure you did check, since their list of victims mirrors closely your own. Unclear why you felt the need to make a number up.
joshb
Posted at July 26, 2006 12:07 PM in response to Is it OK for Cuba to Bomb Targets in Miami? Or Washington? Or both?
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Matt
for government employment, and, non-profit employment, respectively, check out these cites.
punchline: state and local combine for about 14% of total employment, with non-profit (less precisely measured) about 8% of private employment (so, about 7% of total employment).
hope it helps.
http://www.bls.gov/iag/government.htm
http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2005/09/art3full.pdf
Posted at April 19, 2006 8:59 AM in response to A Little Bleg
