(it's currently between ¼ and ⅕ of the global economy)
That will probably happen once corruption in China becomes manageable, the Chinese stop moving their assets offshore and the US has no industrial technological advantage any more (i.e. once China can make equivalently good airplanes and microprocessors).
That isn't likely to happen soon even though other governments want them to float freely rather than in a price band.
China doesn't hold enough USD to hurt the US economy without hurting themselves even more seeing as the bonds are non-callable by the buyer.
Right. Exactly like the US does right now.
>China doesn't hold enough USD to hurt the US economy
It isn't about who holds the little green bits of paper. It's about who can turn off the wealth spigot.
The US would experience a huge bout of inflation right now if China decided to just float, it's just that China would probably suffer too. Once the US has nothing China wants (soon) they will have no reason to keep giving us a bargain on their imports.
Now they're not far off parity - maybe 5-7 years before they can manufacture anything the US can.
Trends that continue for a long time do not continue forever. That goes double for things that look like a free lunch.
For the last two years, their problem was the opposite. They went quite draconian on people selling RMB to keep currency strong.
The main motivation is to allow CCP keep throwing money around the globe, buying allies
China has great same day logistics using poorly paid guys on electric bikes (so food and soft good delivery is very reasonable), but everything else is equivalent or a bit worse than the states.
Sorry your amazon experience has been so horrible. We live in Bellevue and it has worked out well for us. Sometimes we have to use the amazon delivery lockers at the 7-11 across the street, though.
Still...it's definitely not a non-starter. And with the exception of shipping updates which were non-existent once Thai post got their hands on the package, everything worked surprisingly well. All told, it took 7 days to arrive, shipping was ~$50 and customs was ~$65 on a ~$300 order that would have cost over $500 locally where the selection would've meant getting something that wasn't exactly what I wanted.
Not Amazon, but a recent experience I had. I wanted to order a kit from Vex Robotics. Cost of the kit was $80. Shipping from the US was $150. Supposedly it's available from a Vex reseller in Thailand so I contacted them and they quoted $190 for the $80 kit with a one month delivery time. So they are just ordering it from the US and having it shipped at a somewhat lower cost. I am not desperate for the kit so its a nonstarter for me. I can almost certainly find a serviceable substitute from a Chinese supplier who will ship to Thailand at a fraction of the cost.
It would be the same as everyone in the US spending $100 on the same day or $32B in a single day (which is almost half of US online spending for a year).
http://www.businessinsider.com/13-trillion-us-consumer-getti...
China's GDP is $11.x trillion for 2017.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...
Comparing apples to apples would mean comparing the amount spent online in the U.S. with a single company. Even comparing apples to pears would mean comparing all online sales in the U.S. to Alibaba 11.11 sales.
Comparing all "consumer spending" in the U.S. with Alibaba 11.11 sales is, well, it's misleading.
This might be a good litmus test for whether you actually need what you're buying :-)
I love that! It's like getting a present from myself.
(Depending on how important the item was, of course...)
An easy solution is to look for the ones with ePacket shipping. It is tracked and you'd normally expect it in two weeks. Some give it for free, some charge about a dollar for it.
HC-06: Dealextreme $5.50, Banggood $5.99, Gearbest $6.57, Aliexpress $2.58
Arduino Nano v3.0: Dealextreme $3.46, Banggood $2.77, Gearbest $4.27, Aliexpress $1.66
Ebay has a pretty good return/refund policy. And then you can fall-back on Paypal too.
Anecdotal evidence, but I have had far more success with AliExpress' dispute/buyer protection system than eBay's.
eBay is laughably bad at disputes. I have received several items from eBay which were DOA, and my options were to take a very reduced refund, or ship the item back to the seller at my expense.
Same issue with AliExpress, upload evidence (pictures/video) of the DOA item, full refund no further questions.
PayPal is another nightmare in of itself.
The thing is, on Aliexpress there are many, many sellers of each of those items and there is often a significant price difference among them. If that is due to quality or delivery times I have not figured it out yet. So I usually buy from the cheapest who has a fair number of sales and few if any complaints in the reviews.
KY-008 laser transmitter module $0.32
5V stepper motor with driver board $1.82
LCD1602 I2C board $1.68
4X3 membrane switch keypad $0.52
STM32F103C8T6 dev board $1.58
K975 Micro 130 Vibration Motor (2 pcs) $1.48
Tilt sensor module $0.37
KY-013 temp sensor module $0.29
GY-521 gyro/accel module $0.99
WS2812 RGB LED 12 bit ring $1.40
RF receiver & transmitter module pair $0.82
IR obstacle avoidance sensor module $0.69
HC-SR502 PIR motion sensor module $0.72
If anyone in the US wants to partake in the frenzy, I believe aliexpress is doing a Singles Day thing (using US timezone, so it hasn't started yet as of this writing), but be careful with the shipping timelines on the products. I've had situations where items didn't arrive until weeks later and I had already forgotten that I'd bought anything.