Robert, Lets stick to the facts.
China loaned money to the US through buying bonds. Some could argue of ownership? but they would have a hard fight for Canadian and Japan has large stock in estates here as well. :huh:
Wage? I don't know what wages are there but here we have a minimum wage of $7.25 an hr. If you get a job at some fast food place that's what you make.
Unemployment? 10% but keep in mind the population difference between the US and Australia?
It is not that the US "Buys" more from China but manufactures there and imports it as well as other low labor cost countries. I'll be doing this myself as what I want to have manufactured? There are none that do it here. There is no choice. Oh sure I could start something up but the cost of multimillions? I don't have that kind of money and investors wouldn't bother when there is more of a turnover having it made in China.
Vince....despite who else holds US Treasury Bonds, and despite who else has Real Estate holdings in USA, it is an absolute fact the in simple economic terms, USA is in debt to China for more money than your annual GDP.
If China
never decides to call in this loan (ie sell off its Treasury Bonds ) then there is no real problem. But if China decided to switch its major currency risk into other areas and called the loan to pay for it...OR China decided to make its major currency risk be the gold standard (as India has done recently because it wished to divest itself of the USA Treasury risk money)...then USA would fold as a viable economic entity.
I must disadgree with your evaluation of the competitive rates of employment in USA vs Aussie. Population size has no bearing whatsoever on this issue...we have10% of your population therefore 90% less infrastructure, industry etc to support it.
Our unemployment rate is so low because we have chosen to be a quarry rather than a Factory. So much of our economic earnings is derived from resource production..iron ore, gold, oil, nickel , coal etc etc. These Industries are not hungry for people, it is hugely mechanised.
We dont need to support thousands of second and third level manufacturing Industries that ARE people hungry. When the downturn hit, we still send mountains of raw materials out of Aus each month, so our small, highly mechanised workforce is hardly affected.
In fact, here in the West of Australia...which is where most of the resources are mined, we have a chronic labour shortage and our real unemployment rate is around 3%.....our Government is still recruiting from overseas and our migration intake gets bigger and bigger in an attempt to get more labour.
In answer to the other question from Mustfocus....yes, it is very expensive to live here...but expenses expand to fill income available !!! We are probably very frivolous with our money, because a person working in our North West on a resource project can easily earn $250,000 per annum. Do this for 3 years and you can buy your house outright...many do !!
An average house here costs over $1 million, gas is $1.40 per litre and a cup of coffe in a restaraunt will cost you $8.00. The average family car will be about $45,000. A luxury 4X4 will cost over $100,000 and cars such as BMW or Porsche can cost you anything up to $250,000 !
Much of this price regime has been brought about because of our economic boom, that does not seem to be decreasing, even now.
David