China subsidizing solar exports to U.S.

So China is smart and we're dumb, or rather, we naively stick to the rules of the "free market" while China plays by the rules of real business.

China's goal is to drive U.S. solar panel makers out of business and dominate U.S. market share by dumping panels that are about 10 percent cheaper on the U.S. Once their work is done, the Chinese government will stop providing $30 billion in subsidies to Chinese producers, and the price for panels will go up.

It's too bad that "industrial policy" is a dirty word in the U.S. that smacks of socialism, because China is eating our lunch while we're acting like choir-boy neo-liberal business professors.

And yeah, it's great that American workers are installing those solar panels, no matter where they're made, but does anybody believe that America's economic future will be secure if we don't MAKE stuff anymore, only provide each other with services?

Cheap Chinese Panels Spark Solar Power Trade War

By Christopher Joyce

January 19, 2012 | NPR

URL: http://n.pr/x1lG9b