Hacker News Reader

Comment by pbhjpbhj | Hacker News Reader

"plunges" 3% ... me sobs in Brexit.

We've lost just under 20% off GBP vs USD since the vote went to Leave from the anticipated Remain.

China's an export economy, no? So, devaluing helps to buoy production for export, keeping people in work. Seems to be how China does things: I'm thinking of all those ghost cities they build.

View on HN

China is not an export economy. They have a very balanced current account, < 1% of GDP.

https://www.themoneyillusion.com/things-that-smart-people-do...

The justification that the Trump administration gives is that if you look at the subset current account that is trade, then further subset down to goods only (not services) and then futher subset down to bilateral goods trade with the USA then indeed China has a big surplus.

I'm not an expert but your article shows the current account, not trade. And about the trade most of the sources say between 400-500b US$ of trade surplus per year. Which means the exports are about 22% larger than the imports.

For example here: https://wits.worldbank.org/CountryProfile/en/CHN

Thanks for the correction/clarification. Looks like that surplus equates to ~1.7% of GDP.

Dow crashed because China is more competitive with cheaper yuan, and they are unafraid to use one of their most potent trade weapons: currency manipulation.

I suspect it’s because people take this as a sign that there is no hope of a trade deal.

And the longer the trade wars continue the worse off everyone is.

Exactly. Trump claimed that he was some kind of expert negotiator who would walk in and teach the Chinese government a lesson and improve trade policy on behalf of American firms.

But instead he's made a fool of himself and of the US, and shown the world that China is more formidable than anyone realized.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com