July 29, 2014
The NYT had an article reporting on the possibility that China will use anti-monopoly laws and other regulations to limit Microsoft’s operations in the country. This raises an interesting issue. Presumably the Obama administration will step in to try to protect Microsoft’s interests. Since the United States cannot just dictate policy to China, if it wins concessions on the treatment of Microsoft then it presumably will make less progress in other areas like getting China to raise the value of its currency against the dollar.
If negotiating over Microsoft leads to the dollar having a higher value than would otherwise be the case, it would mean that we have a larger trade deficit. This raises the question of how many steel workers and auto workers will lose their jobs to protect Bill Gates’ profits?
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