Number of U.S. House Districts: 436
Number of House Districts in which U.S.-China trade has created net new jobs since China’s 2001 WTO entry: 1
Number of U.S. Senators: 100
Number of U.S. Senators whose states have seen net new jobs from U.S.-China trade since China’s 2001 WTO entry: 0
(Source: “U.S.-China Trade Deficits Cost Millions of Jobs, with Losses in Every State and in All but One Congressional District,” by Robert E. Scott, Trade and Globalization, Economic Snapshot, Economic Policy Institute, December 18, 2014, http://www.epi.org/publication/u-s-china-trade-deficits-cost-millions-of-jobs-with-losses-in-every-state-and-in-all-but-one-congressional-district/0)
Of course China should never have been allowed WTO membership until it had a convertible currency. Even more of course however is that it was the guarantee of a stable at a low exchange rate which made its entry so delicious for corporations. There were other strikes against its entry as well such as the total lack of openness of its capital markets but the currency thing was the big dog.
We have to hand it to the very smart people who surely understood the result would be the dollar recycling mechanism by which China cycled the dollars back to the US in the form of Treasury purchases and since China did not sterilize much that how it was a tremendous engine of monetary expansion. All of which Greenspan and Bernanke called China’s “excess savings”.
For someone who IDs as”halfkidding,” you make totally serious and on-target points. Thanks for sharing them with our community!