Krugman embraces Nixon & Trump

[gurn]

I'm a conservative Republican. But I support Trump right now because of his position on economic policies,
foreign policy and the Imam Barack's birth certificate.

I also agree with everything Liberal Paul Krugman writes about China.
And I disagree with everything else he writes.

In his March 15th, 2011, he praised Nixon's 10% surcharge on imports. Also, without mentioning Trump
by name, he suggested a 25% tariff on Chinese goods. That is exactly the tariff Trump advocates.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/15/opinion/15krugman.html?_r=1

"Here, we have to get past a common misunderstanding: the view that the Chinese have us over a barrel, because we don’t dare provoke China into dumping its dollar assets....

In 1971 the United States dealt with a similar but much less severe problem of foreign undervaluation by imposing a temporary 10 percent surcharge on imports, which was removed a few months later after Germany, Japan and other nations raised the dollar value of their currencies. At this point, it’s hard to see China changing its policies unless faced with the threat of similar action — except that this time the surcharge would have to be much larger, say 25 percent.

I don’t propose this turn to policy hardball lightly. But Chinese currency policy is adding materially to the world’s economic problems at a time when those problems are already very severe. It’s time to take a stand."

Krugman & Trump know that the likely outcome of any tariff vs. China is that China will cave in quickly--or it will
descend into chaos. China buys US Dollars out of weakness - not strength. 

It really cannot compete without manipulating its currency. Not only that - if its currency is accurately valued
- a large percentage of its population will go hungry.

Krugman & Trump get it. The vast majority of American politicians from either party does not.

[Chris_]

Krugman is a ******* idiot.  He might be right on a single subject, but he's wrong on everything else.

[gurn]

Conservative British Columnist Ambrose Evans Pritchard, Liberal Paul Krugman, Genghis Khan & the Donald all agree:

China has succumbed to hubris. It has mistaken the soft diplomacy of Barack Obama for weakness, mistaken the US credit crisis for decline, and mistaken its own mercantilist bubble for ascendancy. There are echoes of Anglo-German spats before the First World War, when Wilhelmine Berlin so badly misjudged the strategic balance of power and over-played its hand.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/7442926/Is-Chinas-Politburo-spoiling-for-a-showdown-with-America.html

Genghis Khan:

Heaven grew weary of the excessive pride and luxury of China.

Pritchard points out the obvious that few commentators notice.

We have talked ourselves into believing that China is already a hyper-power. It may become one:
it is not one yet. China is ringed by states - Japan, Korea, Vietnam, India - that are American allies when push
comes to shove. It faces a prickly Russia on its 4,000km border, where Chinese migrants are itching for
Lebensraum across the Amur. Emerging Asia, Brazil, Egypt and Europe are all irked by China's yuan-rigged export dumping.

What nobody has pointed out yet - but what many people should be thinking is that
we are living in a very dangerous time.
 
If the paranoid criminal syndicate that governs the PRC senses a strong President taking over from Obama
in 2012 - it may strike somewhere. This is more likely if inflation rises uncontrollably and there is domestic unrest.

I disagree with Pritchard on the reliability of the 'allies' who surround the PRC.
I don't think the US can rely on any of them.
 
Believe it or not, the country most likely to side with the US in a China dispute, might be Russia.
I could see a situation where it would take advantage of its neighbor - as it did Japan after WWII.

IMO, the most salient part of Pritchard's analysis is here:

Michael Pettis from Beijing University argues that China's reserves of $2.4 trillion - arguably $3 trillion - are a sign of weakness, not strength. Only twice before in modern history has a country amassed such a stash equal to 5pc-6pc of global GDP: the US in the 1920s, and Japan in the 1980s. Each time preceeded depression...a clash would not be "mutual assured destruction", as often claimed. Washington would win.

Contrary to myth, the slide to protectionism after the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act did not cause the Depression. Trade contracted more slowly in the 1930s than this time. The Smoot-Hawley lesson is that tariffs have asymmetrical effects. They devastate surplus countries: then America. Deficit Britain did well by retreating into Imperial Preference.....ex-diplomat George Walden writes in China: a Wolf in the World? you cannot feel at ease with a regime that still covers up Mao's murderous nihilism. He reminds us too that China has never forgiven the humilations inflicted by the West when the two civilizations collided in the 19th Century, and intends to exact revenge. Handle with care.

In the words of Conway Twitty, "Think about it, darlin'."