“EU slaps trade charges on Chinese candles

1 day ago

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) — Chinese candle exporters will be hit with extra charges when selling in Europe to punish some producers for selling below cost, the European Union said Saturday.

The EU imposed antidumping charges for six months from Saturday after European candlemakers complained that they were losing business to cheaper Chinese products.

The EU said Chinese candles sell for around 9 percent less and make up about one third of the European market.

Retailers, already hit by the economic downturn, say it will increase the price they pay for candles in the busy shopping season up until Christmas.

Retailers such as Ikea and the British Retail Consortium — which represents supermarket chains Tesco and Marks & Spencer — said the EU was wrong to claim that stores could easily absorb the price hikes. It said retailers would probably have to slice profit from other items to compensate.

The EU claims large chain stores make a profit of up to 70 percent on candles but the BRC said they can make as little as a 6-percent profit.

“This is particularly shocking as this new tax is imposed before Christmas, at a time when consumers have never been so short for disposable incomes,” said Alasdair Gray of the BRC.

The EU fixed different fees for several Chinese exporters after deciding that some pay most of their business costs. The fees imposed by the EU vary from zero for one exporter to 66 percent of the value of the candle for those who did not respond to an EU investigation.

The EU says that many Chinese producers do not operate in a market economy because the state often subsidizes costs such as rent and electricity.

The EU antidumping charges will last for six months while the trade investigation continues. Next year, officials will recommend whether the charges should stay in place for up to five years.”

“Capitalism requires constant profit on investments, and the only way such profit can be maintained is through constant growth in production and in consumption.”
Not true. Steady profit can be maintained by steady p&c. Growing p&c will cause growing profit.

Nor does growing p&c require increased use of resources. It requires more productive use of resources - the definition of wealth creation.

“Is there something fundamental about the human psyche, or human society, which makes us incapable of planning ahead”
No. As long as there are property rights, people will plan ahead just fine for their property, and protect it against others. The problem is that it’s at least very difficult, if not impossible, to extend property rights to “the environment”, e.g. clean air.

Right. Now, wind power is not very profitable, because it’s rubbish. That’s why it won’t replace coal power.

In the short term, we need to replace coal power by nuclear power before all the lights go out. We would have done this ten years ago if it weren’t for the idiot greens.

In the long term, there’s nothing to worry about. Solar cell tech has made massive improvements in the last few years. It’s now just profitable to put solar cells on your house in California, where it’s quite sunny. Give it ten years and we’ll all have them in the UK.

“the dominant struggle over the 51 years since its creation has been for trade liberalisation”

Hence the CAP, the CFP and the Common External Tariff. And famous embargoes on imported bras, for example, which favour special interests at the expense of consumers. And they want tax “harmonisation”, i.e. the abolition of competition, which is why they have opposed Ireland’s successful reduction of business tax. They want to abolish competition in banking, hence the Euro instead of free banking, and thereby abolish competitive interest rates.

The EU is protectionist. We have free trade within it, but at the expense of free trade elsewhere. This is because they don’t understand the idea behind free trade - it doesn’t need government involvement. Trade is between individuals, and it shouldn’t matter that they are separated by a border. But because of its collectivist mindset, the EU thinks trade is between nations or blocs, so it has created a bloc.

If we really want free trade, declare it unilaterally and we’ll be better off. If other nations also declare it unilaterally, then they’ll be better off too and we’ll be even better off. It doesn’t require the EU.

“redistributes a small proportion of this to poorer countries to help with building infrastructure… encourage free trade”
Rubbish. That has nothing to do with free trade.

You play down “micro-level directives”, but this is the vast bulk of everything the EU does. Go watch the European Parliament - it’s pretty much all they do.

The EU is undemocratic, as anyone who reads Dan Hannan’s blog knows. Its structure is designed to give power to the Commission, not the Parliament, which is why we’ll never get rid of the CAP etc, except by leaving.