Politicians and economists love to use generic words that have infinite meanings dependent upon the perspective of the speaker. One in particular is the concept of 'free trade', whereby its meaning over the past 20 years is for companies to manufacture items anywhere that offers the cheapest labor, then sell the produced items back to the very people who used to produce them to begin with before the advent of 'free trade'.
And here in the tail end of 2016, and with Christmas just having been completed for most families, an interesting metric is being disseminated from the data. And that is that 60% of all ornaments, lighting, and paraphernalia purchased by Americans for Christmas was manufactured and shipped over to the U.S. for sale from China.
Forget the North Pole, the jolly fat man's new workshop is out of Beijing.
As the world's biggest transfer center for small items, the city of Yiwu in Zhejiang provicne provides 60 percent of global Christmas commodities, with over 1,000 containers full of Christmas items being delivered abroad from Yiwu just ahead of this year's Christmas Day.
Santa Claus-themed items and LED reindeer are sold in Yiwu through the year, making it seem that people here celebrate Christmas every day.
Workers in Yiwu set out to make Christmas products early in the summer.
There is a "Yiwu Christmas Village" where production is in full swing for months each year in order to provide commodities for overseas markets.
It's reported by BBC that there is no items that one cannot find in Yiwu. A brochure of a local logistics company reads that Yiwu attracts businesses from all over the world like a magnet.
As many as 8,000 foreign purchasers come to Yiwu for commodities, reports Der Spiegel. - China Daily
Through October of this year, the trade deficit between the U.S. and China stood at $280 billion, which is just under 2015's record of $367 billion. And the drop in exports appears on the surface to be tied to the global slowdown in consumer spending as debt levels are once again reaching a crisis point that was similar to just before the 2008 financial crisis.
President-Elect Donald Trump campaigned upon self-sufficiency, lowering the trade deficit, and bringing back manufacturing jobs to America's shores. And if there is one place he can start the ball rolling on this, it is in the period of Christmas, where getting people to buy their holiday cheer from local companies will go a long way towards ending Santa's offshoring his own jobs to China as well.
Kenneth Schortgen Jr is a writer for The Daily Economist, Secretsofthefed.com, Roguemoney.net, and Viral Liberty, and hosts the popular youtube podcast on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Ken can also be heard Wednesday afternoons giving an weekly economic report on the Angel Clark radio show.