What Should America Do About China?

In recent years the United States and China haven’t exactly been on the best of terms. The two powerhouse countries have had their many issues involving the economy. President Obama and many economic analysts believe that China is under-valuing the country’s currency. This makes the China’s products unfairly cheap and consequently puts countries into deficits with China. Something should be done about this problem. America and other countries involved in trade with China should get together and figure out a way to force China to start appreciating the value of the country’s currency.

Since 2008 America has been in a recession that has changed the lives of many Americans. People have lost jobs, years of hard work, and monumental amounts of money. As recently as February the trade deficit was reported at over 40 billion. Some of the main problems with this economy is its dependency on outside sources and how much America owes to other countries. Our main problem is China. Not only is China our largest importer, we are in a deficit deeper with them than we are with any other country.

China is making a tremendous mess with the undervaluing of the country’s currency. America, along with other counties, feels that it is time for change to start appreciating the value of their currency. Many believe that China’s manipulation of currency has helped the country get to how powerful it is economically. China, on the other hand, is upset that the leaders are being viewed as currency manipulators because they actually believe the currency is valued at a fair price. America believes that if China reevaluates the country’s currency that the US trade deficit would decrease tremendously because the US owes China more that the country owes any other country. The question then becomes “How do you get China to revalue the country’s currency?”

You can only force someone’s hand so much. The United States cannot be so quick to set up public arguments with Chinese officials or meetings with foes of China that may bring a since of violence instead. What America, and other countries that have business with China, need to do is fight China with brains. What needs to happen is that China needs to be sanctioned and tariffs need to be placed on Chinese goods in order to force the country to comply with countries it is in business with. Blogger Michael Pettis discusses how the US raising wages on China would be a good thing and that it is a necessary risk that must be taken. There are also some negative aspects of this strategy. China has found ways to retaliate against countries, including the United States, by imposing tariffs on those countries. Also, China could be rash and drop partnerships all together. For example, because Obama began to push China too hard they began to consider dropping some U.S. companies.

The US economy is at a rough point now but is reportedly getting better. If we want to have this problem solved with China we need to make more moves, with the help of other countries, to make sure that China follows suit and reevaluates the country’s currency. Once that currency is properly valued then not only will the US lose a chunk of its deficit, but many other countries would benefit by having a decreased surplus. This can happen if China is willing to work with the rest of the world.

The Importance of Spreadsheets.

Spreadsheets are very important in the world that we live in today. Companies use it to gain data on competition and organize things in their own office. Spreadsheets are good for informational purposes and at a journalistic stand point one would find Spreadsheets vital to the story that one is working on.

I did research on the violent crime rate in Detroit from 1985 to 1997. From the data ascertained there were many numbers that really jump out at you. In 1991 and 1992 one out of every 37 people experienced a violent crime. The average rate for people who experienced a violent crime from 85 to 97 was one out of every 43 people. The total crime, which includes murder or manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault, averaged out to 23,671 violent crimes per year. The two most frequently reported crimes were robbery averaging in at 10,244 per year and Aggravated assault coming in first averaging 11,941 per year. One thing I found very interesting was depleting population rate of the city. In 1985 the population of Detroit was at a healthy 1,090,581; and once reaching its high of 1,096,947 in ’86. But in the year 2007 the population was 860,971, a population decrease of approximately 21 percent. Staggering numbers to say the least.

This information is vital from a journalistic stand point because one has so many different numbers to use which can help provide or point about the story. It is also important in the case of the security of the people of the city of Detroit and people that plan to move there. With this type of information at your disposal you can possibly save your self from being a victim on crimes or because of the population decreasing rate you probably would second guess moving there in the first place.