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> "Total foreign imports are only about 11% of American consumption, and Chinese imports are 3%." What sort of evidence does he cite for those numbers? The de

by clcaev 5y ago

> "Total foreign imports are only about 11% of American consumption, and Chinese imports are 3%." What sort of evidence does he cite for those numbers? The denominator in a percentage matters. Once you take out housing, food, fuel, insurance, education, etc. -- how much of our remaining expenditures are goods (mostly) made in China? While less than 3% of my household expenditures are electronic goods, the vast majority of those goods are made in China -- this despite a concerted effort to buy domestic products.

whoisjuan 5y ago
From the article: “Total foreign imports are only about 11% of American consumption, and Chinese imports are 3%. Most of any national economy, including ours, is domestic; you can't import a haircut, a house, or a hospital visit. So global trade is probably overblown as an issue generally. Which isn't good news; it's just to say that, as usual, most of our problems are our own.” You seem to have forgotten the core expenditures of a household: Shelter, Food, Personal Care and Entertainment. Very little in there is coming from China. Certainly not food and most likely basic goods like stationery, toys, electronics, furniture and clothes. Seems reasonable to think that chinese goods fit the 3% figure based on the expenditure in those categories.
- TomMckenny 5y ago
  This means that raising housing costs, interest rates and debt, taxes, and medical costs reduce his figure for foreign imports as a percentage of spending. That increasing the amount spent on those things is “good news” regarding trade deficits. Unless he is using these numbers to suggest we need to prioritize driving down land prices and rentier practices etc more than worrying about trade imbalance. But this certainly does not seem like his intent. At any rate, the numbers 11% and 3% are as fictional as the Taylor Lorenz quote but the amount of skepticism differs greatly. This hints more of ideology based beliefs than fact based.

by clcaev 5y ago

whoisjuan 5y ago

From the article: “Total foreign imports are only about 11% of American consumption, and Chinese imports are 3%. Most of any national economy, including ours, is domestic; you can't import a haircut, a house, or a hospital visit. So global trade is probably overblown as an issue generally. Which isn't good news; it's just to say that, as usual, most of our problems are our own.” You seem to have forgotten the core expenditures of a household: Shelter, Food, Personal Care and Entertainment. Very little in there is coming from China. Certainly not food and most likely basic goods like stationery, toys, electronics, furniture and clothes. Seems reasonable to think that chinese goods fit the 3% figure based on the expenditure in those categories.

TomMckenny 5y ago
This means that raising housing costs, interest rates and debt, taxes, and medical costs reduce his figure for foreign imports as a percentage of spending. That increasing the amount spent on those things is “good news” regarding trade deficits. Unless he is using these numbers to suggest we need to prioritize driving down land prices and rentier practices etc more than worrying about trade imbalance. But this certainly does not seem like his intent. At any rate, the numbers 11% and 3% are as fictional as the Taylor Lorenz quote but the amount of skepticism differs greatly. This hints more of ideology based beliefs than fact based.