Should us Europeans only buy European?

netwhizkid

Yes i think us europeans should buy euorpean i always do when it come to electronics and other stuff like that, It is hard to buy european with out paying extra, but the way i look at it for those extra few euros, I am supporting democracy and fair jobs in europe besides salvery (almost) in china and as for human rights forget it. If china is a commounist state im from planet venus, They definatly must be related to Mrs. Thatcher, well that my opinion, I buy euorpean or even American as often as possible, but i boycot British Imports for obvious reasons, nuff said.

Regards netwhizkid

murphaph

I looked in more detail at that comparitive advantage article. In the discussion section it is apparent that the theory is a fairly simple model which doesn't account for a lot of factors, politics seems to be one of them. It's clear that some clever folks are not sure amongst themselves what CA means for a free market and global trade.

Interesting stuff however.

Sand

I think the real issue is should us Kildare people only buy goods from Kildare to protect Kildare jobs from competition outside of the county! Ive nothing against people from outside Kildare, but weve got to think locally first. Kildare has to be self sufficient, and if that means paying 10 Euro for a pathetic example of an orange then so be it! Kildare businesses deserve the right to charge me whatever they want and I should be bloody grateful for the privledge of buying their goods.

And anyway, those poor oppressed souls west of the Shannon thank us for not trading with them and perpetuating their miserable existence.

SkepticOne

murphaph wrote:

Why do national governments always encourage their citizens to buy their own products if it doesn't matter though?

Because it sounds good. It's what people want to hear.

murphaph

Sand wrote:

I think the real issue is should us Kildare people only buy goods from Kildare to protect Kildare jobs from competition outside of the county! Ive nothing against people from outside Kildare, but weve got to think locally first. Kildare has to be self sufficient, and if that means paying 10 Euro for a pathetic example of an orange then so be it! Kildare businesses deserve the right to charge me whatever they want and I should be bloody grateful for the privledge of buying their goods.

And anyway, those poor oppressed souls west of the Shannon thank us for not trading with them and perpetuating their miserable existence.

Your analogy although humourous (which I like ) doesn't work because the market forces in Kildare are so similar to those in neighbouring counties. Same costs of labour and living etc. This is not the case when comparing Europe to China. Of course your whole post might have been sarcasm in which caseignore this!

Capt'n Midnight

Generic brand consumer goods have never been cheaper.

Leaving us Dub's with more money to spend on mortgagues and so line the pockets of a hand full of developers. Ok maybe you would need some fingers from the other hand to count the number of individuals who are making more out of our wages than all the consumer goods we buy from HongKong/China.

In general apart from Oil most EU goods and services can be sourced locally, IIRC we are less dependent on external supplies than say the US.

EamonnKeane

This whole rather argument seems to be based on the dubious assumption that a European is more deserving of his/her wage than a Chinese person. Surely this is inherently racist?

murphaph

EamonnKeane wrote:

This whole rather argument seems to be based on the dubious assumption that a European is more deserving of his/her wage than a Chinese person. Surely this is inherently racist?

If large companies didn't abuse cheap chinese labour (including kids) then they'd be paying 'em the same as us in Europe and there'd be no thread about cheap chinese imports! I wish they would pay the poor feckers a decent salary but there's no need cos there are a billion of 'em all ready for work for fcuk all. I'm surprised this thread got this far before it was accused of being racist!

I've no problems with chinese people. I work with a few and like them very much. I am worried about the long term health of our european economy, and worried that my kids will have a future here.

Sand

Your analogy although humourous (which I like ) doesn't work because the market forces in Kildare are so similar to those in neighbouring counties. Same costs of labour and living etc. This is not the case when comparing Europe to China. Of course your whole post might have been sarcasm in which caseignore this!

I dont know if it is. Kildare is just as arbitrary a construction as a nation, and Kildare is richer than Dublin on a per capita basis Id be willing to bet, because most people in Kildare work in Dublin whilst vast stretches of Dublin are rather economically deprived.

Say we get protectionist in the case of Kildare, now I cant work in Dublin. I cant get the same sort of paypacket in Kildare than I can get in Dublin. Dublin shops lose out on my trade, so theyre poorer. And Dublin suddenly has to replace all the workers whove cant commute any more which is kinda hard, so theyre poorer too. Trade and free movement between Kildare and Dublin makes us all richer. The same can be said for Ireland as a whole, even though there are wide disparities in wealth between areas within Ireland. Protectionism internal to Ireland, voluntary or otherwise would be seen rightly as economic suicide, but its a good idea when we start crossing international boundaries?

At the end of the day the Chinese have a real cost advantage when it comes to manufacturing low tech goods. Good for them. Good for us too. We get products at the cheapest possible price, and better yet our economy - which is *dependant* on imports - Ireland has no natural resources to speak of, so if we want to make anything we need to import the materials - to fuel it gets inputs cheaper so we can compete more effectively with protectionist states that try to source everything inside their own nation, no matter the cost.

In fact the only people who lose out at the innefficient, over priced manufacturers here who lobby for subsidies and tarriffs to allow them to continue to screw us over?!?!

As for us, we have one thing the Chinese dont have - an english speaking educated workforce that can staff high tech industries. Thats what we should concentrate on, not trying to stop trade to suit a small minority of industry lobby groups.

If large companies didn't abuse cheap chinese labour (including kids) then they'd be paying 'em the same as us in Europe and there'd be no thread about cheap chinese imports! I wish they would pay the poor feckers a decent salary but there's no need cos there are a billion of 'em all ready for work for fcuk all. I'm surprised this thread got this far before it was accused of being racist!

Theyre paying them a fantastic wage by Chinese standards. Chinese are migrating from the rural areas to do these crappy jobs at this crappy wage because its better than the wage thats available to them otherwise. If you were paying them the Irish wage theyd be millionaires. The Chinese cost of living is as low as their wages are, much as the prices in Ireland are as high as the wages are. Undermining trade and removing the jobs is not going to help them.

murphaph

Sand wrote:

I dont know if it is. Kildare is just as arbitrary a construction as a nation, and Kildare is richer than Dublin on a per capita basis Id be willing to bet, because most people in Kildare work in Dublin whilst vast stretches of Dublin are rather economically deprived.

Say we get protectionist in the case of Kildare, now I cant work in Dublin. I cant get the same sort of paypacket in Kildare than I can get in Dublin. Dublin shops lose out on my trade, so theyre poorer. And Dublin suddenly has to replace all the workers whove cant commute any more which is kinda hard, so theyre poorer too. Trade and free movement between Kildare and Dublin makes us all richer. The same can be said for Ireland as a whole, even though there are wide disparities in wealth between areas within Ireland. Protectionism internal to Ireland, voluntary or otherwise would be seen rightly as economic suicide, but its a good idea when we start crossing international boundaries?

But we can't easily commute between Europe and China so it doesn't hold. If you applied your analogy to Europe and China all the Chinese would commute here to work because of higher wages and a lower cost of living in China.

Sand wrote:

At the end of the day the Chinese have a real cost advantage when it comes to manufacturing low tech goods. Good for them. Good for us too. We get products at the cheapest possible price, and better yet our economy - which is *dependant* on imports - Ireland has no natural resources to speak of, so if we want to make anything we need to import the materials - to fuel it gets inputs cheaper so we can compete more effectively with protectionist states that try to source everything inside their own nation, no matter the cost.

Whilst what you're saying makes a degree of sense, I'm trying not to limit this to a small country like ours, but keep it European, which is fairly self sufficient in raw materials in comparison to us.

Sand wrote:

In fact the only people who lose out at the innefficient, over priced manufacturers here who lobby for subsidies and tarriffs to allow them to continue to screw us over?!?!

I honestly think that the sh!t rolls downhill and more and more job losses are in order. I don't believe they will all be replaced by higher food chain jobs as already Intel/IBM etc. are conducting these higher level R&D jobs in low paying countries like India (google Bangalore for electronics).

Sand wrote:

As for us, we have one thing the Chinese dont have - an english speaking educated workforce that can staff high tech industries. Thats what we should concentrate on, not trying to stop trade to suit a small minority of industry lobby groups.

More people speak fluent English in China than in the UK & Ireland. Yet millions more are learning it. They are clever people in Asia. They can do the high end jobs just as easily as you or I but will do it for a lot less. When a student leave Uni in India he'll usually work for free for a year to gain experience. That's what we're up against.

Sand wrote:

Theyre paying them a fantastic wage by Chinese standards. Chinese are migrating from the rural areas to do these crappy jobs at this crappy wage because its better than the wage thats available to them otherwise. If you were paying them the Irish wage theyd be millionaires. The Chinese cost of living is as low as their wages are, much as the prices in Ireland are as high as the wages are. Undermining trade and removing the jobs is not going to help them.

I was really pondering how we can best help ourselves in Europe.

SkepticOne

As I see it, the argument is not really about wages in China vs. wages here. A European country could just as easily lose out to, say, Japan with its use of robotics and automation, and indeed has happened in the car industry.

Europe simply can't compete and the only solution is to stop buying foreign products.

Let us not pretend that this is about working conditions in China. If we cared about the Chinese we would not be discussing withdrawing trade from them and forcing them back to the rice paddies.

Let us assume for the sake of argument that everyone in Europe agrees to stop buying products from everywhere that is more efficient than us. Let us also assume that China and these other countries don't retaliate and boycott our goods.

What happens then is that the EU manufacturers, freed from the discipline of competition, become complacent. Since they are the only ones in the running, they will raise prices. Workers will naturally want more money.

Far from solving the problem of lack of competitiveness, these proposals actually make the problem worse.

After a time people will want to know why they can't buy the now vastly cheaper foreign goods. This voluntary protectionism will then break down. Similar problems occur with enforced protectionism where people learn to smuggle goods past borders for large profits.

Of course, in reality, the assumptions we're making for the sake of argument are not realistic. a) only a small number of people will buy European. b) If the boycott happened on a large scale china would reciprocate with its own protectionism (probably not voluntary).

Now it could be argued that because the boycott would not happen on a large scale, we would not get the complacency on the part of manufacturers to any great extent but, by the same token, there would be little purported benefit either. The small scale boycott has the same problems as the large scale boycott (outlined above), just that these problems are on a smaller scale as well.

The problem is that if Europe is not producing what the world wants at prices the world wants then we are going to suffer. Protectionism (including voluntary small-scale protectionism) only puts the problem off and we suffer a greater amount at a later date. It is harsh but it is reality.

Instead of burying our heads in the sand, we need to figure out how to take advantage of the situation. What can we do with cheap computers manufactured in China? What do individuals in these countries want? If we can't figure out these things we're doomed. China is a huge potential market as well as a competitive threat.