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The standard line has it that the U.S. consumer gained from this trade because prices for goods which could be imported from China fell. There are a few things wrong with this superficially appealing story.

1. The reduction in costs registered by consumers has been estimated at around $150 billion a year-- roughly 1/10th of toal corporate profits. In other words, consumers' rather modest gains have been far surpassed by the profits reaped by corporations making stuff in China at huge reductions in cost and then lowering the price a bit on the finished retail goods.


This is akin to telling the guy who lost a $30,000 a year job that he should be happy because he saved $300 a year on the crap he bought at Wal-Mart.

2. And it is crap. If the "full lifecycle costs" of the poor quality goods being imported from China were compiled, that "low price" turns out to be much higher than a superficial accounting reveals.

The junk imported from China falls apart so quickly that it must be replaced again and again. Over a decade, three "cheap" items cost far more than one quality item.

3. A substantial slice of these outsized profits result from the avoidance of environmental "scrubbing" and other regulations imposed in the U.S., Japan and Europe. With environmental costs dumped on China, the savings flow directly to global corporate bottom lines.

4. Ditto for labor costs. We all know labor costs are much lower in China and other developing nations, but protections for workers were also modest. So workers could be pushed into unsafe conditions, their wages ripped off, their pensions dismissed, etc., all without fuss--as long as the Party bigshots received a share of the profits.


In other words, exploitation played a big part in reaping these gigantic profits.

These bitter realities don't show up in the footnotes of those glowing, sanitized profit statements or in the rosy accounts spewed by apparatchik economists about the "benefits of global capital flows."

No wonder Americans are increasingly skeptical of the "benefits" of "free trade": Americans Sour on Trade (WSJ.com). Perhaps they have realized that they have reaped few of the benefits.


So who harvested all these enormous U.S. corporate profits? The top 10% who own most of the financial assets of the nation. I reprint this pie chart often, just to remind readers that "ownership America" is concentrated in the top 10%.


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/ignor...#ixzz11YwwBhdD



http://www.businessinsider.com/ignor...-china-2010-10



ok fagot, then what? what else can these evil fuckign capitalist pigs think of to fuck profits out of people?