Well well well, did anyone see how quickly the House of Representatives moved to throw more money into the "Cash for Clunkers" program? As stated before in my previous entry, the government incentive program which allows folks to trade in gas guzzling, CO2 emitting hoopties for newer eco friendly models, has proven to be too successful. The National Dealers Association revealed that the pace of the car sales would far exceed the original $1billion that was allocated to the program.
I wonder if the Senate will approve this additional $2billion. Democratic Senator Clair McCaskill from Missouri is not too fond of using this money for the program. She believes that subsidizing auto purchases for a long period of time is not necessarily a good thing. I understand her point, but I also remember that us taxpayers had to subsidize AIG and the rest of that ilk because the companies were so greedy and lazy as to let crappy toxic assets clog their portfolios.
Shouldn't the average American get a little jolt too? Besides, the more cars purchased maybe the more ordered from plants. The more ordered from plants, the more part suppliers utilized, which in theory could lead to job creation. Maybe I am getting ahead of myself, but who knows.
Bring on the Clunkers!
IDEA- Israel has many desalination plants and loads of salt. We need salt for our roads in the winter. Do they sell it to us, or would they be interested in trading the salt for something that they require from North America? Any ideas to add what they could use?
Twitter Me http://www.twitter.com/theideagirl and let me know if you post a comment! Thanks :)
With incentives for commercial buildings and warehouses to implement this renewable energy technology, which also reduces green house gas, creates jobs, creates growth, reduces the trade deficit (oil), and strengthens the US dollar; this green energy technology will also give the US economy a boost.
The increase in demand will also result in more competition, research, innovations, and improvements. With the installations being concentrated in cities (commercial buildings) any maintenance required should also be competitive.
The posting I’m authoring is more-or-less a follow on to a previous post listed here, regarding our international trade and American business interests on foreign soils.
A keyword flooding around, and which has resurfaced in these past few economic stricken times is “Protectionism”, where I have read this word a few times in our American based online news articles, but have seen it almost daily in foreign based web publications. In essence these foreign based governments via their media services have directed warnings to America not to establish policies locking out their countries goods and services in America.
Fair enough, these countries are worried, such as we ours, about their country’s unemployment and perhaps trade imbalances; and need assurances from the US that we won’t adopt trade barriers or policies, which could further hamper their economic recovery efforts.
It’s when these countries enact policies against us, which is beginning to presently happen, is when I become disturbed and disgruntled. Today, an article appeared within TIME, entitled: “China Says ‘Keep Out’ to Coca-Cola”, which I feel is an outstanding example of a country who has developed a huge imbalance of trade with us, a country to whom we owe one trillion dollars to (as pointed out in my previous aforementioned posting above) and according to some Washington folks (legislative branch) have understood it to mean a threat in some ways.
Consider taking a read of the TIME article and see what your feelings are over the frustration of letting the Chinese shop in America, picking up our small and middles sized businesses at a bargain, and not allowing us to invest within their country.
Again another video, but perhaps a neutral view on China’s business dealings with America, as presented by Bloomberg’s.
US Trade Deficit Narrows: US Trade Deficit With China; China’s Role In The World Economy
Analysis by Fred Bergsten of Peterson Institute for International Economics; Analysis by Carl Weinberg of High Frequency Economics
In an article authored by Hari Sud for UPI Asia, I found out what has happened to my country of America the past thirty years and especially the last ten years.
I have reprinted the article in its entirety, since I strongly belief it should be read and considered by all; the article is entitled: “What’s next for globalization?” I have taken the liberty of high-lighting sections and phrases, which I deem most important to our current financial burden.
What’s next for globalization?
By Hari Sud Column: Abroad View Published: February 20, 2009
Toronto, ON, Canada, — As the U.S. financial meltdown continues in 2009, attention is now directed toward the wider and long-range impact of globalization. In theory, globalization is increasing the mobility of goods, services and capital throughout the world by removing the barriers to free trade and increasing closer integration and the inter-connectedness of national economies.
For the West, that has translated into relocating labor-intensive and smokestack industries to countries where costs are lower. Europe and the United States have envisioned themselves as the world’s bankers, financial masters and influence peddlers – which was great in theory, if only the crooks in the U.S. financial sector had been kept away from the proceeds of globalization.
Since 2001, the United States has been awash with cash. It came from oil-producing Arabs and from the export proceeds of China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and India. That cash found a home in the subprime mortgages that have started the financial meltdown that is pulling the world down.
Europe and the United States were winning the globalization race until 2008, as master bankers handling the export earnings of other states. On the sidelines, China, Asia’s Tiger economies, Brazil and India began generating some cash and technology and building their own economies, leading to rapid increases in their gross national products. However, the benefits did not extend to the rest of Asia, Africa and other less-developed countries.
As a retired vocational art educator from the V.I. Dept. of Education, St. Croix, I am still trying to have an impact on the vocational curriculum.
The message, I would like to leave is most of the petty and the felony crimes that are committed in our society can be prevented. Today’s educational system is out dated and under funded. We graduate thousands every year and the thousands of dropouts, are sent out into our communities with a certificate / diploma. Some barely able to fill out an application for a job . It leaves and puts a lot of them in a survival mode. Malchom X said, by any means necessary. The youth refer to the crimes committed in the community as, “Street Tax”. All are not college material. To send our children out into society without a viable trade or a marketable skill, we are breeding generations of beggars, criminals, thieves and welfare recipients. No child should leave school without a trade. Those college students with a trade could easily supplement their education without going into deep student loan debt.
The Arts can be the educational catalyst to Change!
Ivan Butcher II
Everyone has developed there own sure-fired economic stimulus package, even the ordinary man on the street, all with some degree of merit, with only a few good enough to be considered of ever beginning to work. We have some countrymen say, “No stimulus package at all” basically let the banks, home owners, auto workers (plus the auto companies) along with the state and city governments – “go broke”; meaning America starts over with a new economic system.
Others support the GOP package of reduced taxes and/or federal check in the mail, while the Administration and DNC support a “job stimulus package” with “checks” in the mail; from there every politician and hopeful presidential candidate for 1212 has their conceived answer to our economic burden.
I’ve heard a lot from my own friends and family, again, some sound good, and others come from people who would have a difficult time balancing a “check book.” Of course, I’m no exception; I have my own, which of course I feel has merit!
Here’s the Stimulus Package we should consider!
My package would require about the same amount of money (900 billion) as President Obama’s, since I feel a job creation package is needed for our highways, schools, linking of the health care via the Internet and energy independence. The aforementioned job creation would also benefit our returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Proponents feel there is no way of knowing if this aforementioned package is going to work or not, which I agree – who dose know? But, every package I‘ve heard of only encompasses our immediate economic concern along by updating past problems that should have been addressed years ago; what about today’s additional concerns that require attention, such as:
Basically stating my stimulus package is simple English, it would be almost identical to President Obama’s with the exception of “Raising the Minimum Wage to $8.00 an Hour.”
Revise Immigration Laws
America’s become fat and Lazy! We allow illegal immigrates across our borders to take jobs we don’t want because the pay is to low and the work to hard; also we provide employment visas to foreign educated individuals in the eastern hemisphere to come and take jobs away from our own recently graduated college graduates. Our Fortune 500 companies must stop this practice of hiring lower priced labor (in both outlined example) to replace the American laborer.
Our Immigration laws need to be revised, of course, but again here’s an issue congress has avoided. In essence let’s make it more difficult for illegal immigrates to work in our country, but let’s make it worthwhile for American wide bottoms to stop living on welfare if that’s how they’re surviving, and get back to work or in many cases start working for the first time in their dismal lives.
The revising of laws pertaining to foreign student work visas would also aid our college students by allowing them the opportunity to pay back their tuition loans, hence a side benefit of aiding the banking community by decreasing the number of student delinquent loans.
Halt Outsourcing American jobs
Again, I have to call upon our Fortune 500 companies to use prudence and suffer somewhat higher taxes for shipping our jobs overseas where, as I see it, the American citizens and government receives very little as far as a reduced price of goods exported back into the US. These corporations, I believe, who subscribe to the notion of shipping our jobs abroad receive a very profitable bottom line in their profit and lose balance sheets while we receive increased taxes to pay for State Unemployment Compensation for those whose livelihood is overseas.
One aspect of the outsourcing issue, which remains unclear and introduced during the Clinton Administration is the “North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).” What remains unclear is most of the top ten Fortune 500 companies have smaller sized facilities in both Mexico and Canada than they do in Asia – why? For me, I feel NAFTA was a smoke screen so the GM’s, Fords, Motorolas and the like could obtain certain loopholes in our government’s taxing structure knowing all along they were going to Asia.
Enough, I’ve made my point, bring our jobs home!
Limit exporting our technology
In many ways this goes hand-in-hand with outsourcing with the difference being, by selling foreign countries or allowing foreign countries to develop and manufacture products sold back into the United States, which in mostly all cases generates a sizable profit for the in the US company while giving the foreign country the ability to use the sold technology for other purposes that usually turn out to hurt our economy (trade imbalance).
In a self authored posting earlier, entitled: “We’re Going to be Trading Microchips for Toasters”, describing how our American steel industry, TV manufacturing and Intergraded microchip foundries have been exported and how we have came to suffer from our exporting these specialized technologies, please consider giving this rendered posting a read.
In other words let’s get back to “Made in America by Americans.”
Increasing the dollar acceleration into the economy
As you can certainly ascertain by now I’m not an economist, but I try to follow what stimulus packages are being presented and attempt to play the devil’s advocate on each of them. They all have one item in common, which is; “get the American public spending again”, which I agree with, but disagree with how this should be accomplished.
President Obama wants to place $1,000 into the hands of the lower middle class, as I understand it, which is, to my way of thinking is to short sighted. I feel most Americans will take the one thousand and use it to pay off credit cards or back mortgage payments. This means the money goes directly back to the banks that created the economic problem in the first place.
If the minimum wage was increased to $8.00 an hour, more people would benefit from the increased salary and it would go directly to the people who probably need it most. This would also be an incentive for people start back to work and remove themselves from the welfare list(s).
The big benefit, the low wage earners would spend their increased salary quicker while spreading it out over a number places, instead of giving it all back to our failed banking system.
Decreasing our foreign trade imbalance
We as a nation have to get back to exporting more than we import, since I feel this has caused us, both as a country and has citizens to spend more than we make, thus generating and adding to the massive trade imbalance we have.
With all the economic problems we have accumulated this could be the most serious and most difficult to solve, since we have to completely retool the way we think and manufacture goods and perform services. We can’t be beaten when it comes to innovation, but bad when it comes to implementing it; meaning making our products affordable, reproducible and our biggest problem with a higher degree of quality.
What ever country, America’s products are exported to, we end up paying an extremely high tariff tax, while we allow foreign products to enter the US with a modest tariff tax – Why? Furthermore, our products are usually copied and bootlegged without hardly any repercussions from us regarding our trading partners. This is true for clothing, software, DVD movies and of course music.
The trade imbalance must be shifted into our favor and then tightly controlled if we are ever to become the nation we once were back in the 50’s to 80’s.
Affordable Health Care
Even if President Obama’s Economic Stimulus package is passed by the Senate; how many Americans would be able to afford it?
Increasing the minimum wage would be the answer for many; this couple with the recent passage of the “Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act” would assure must Americans would be covered with medical insurance protection.
Summary
Should congress pass President Obama’s Stimulus package and the minimum wage be increased to a minimum of $8.00 per hour, the price of doing business in America would increase dramatically, along with the costs of consumer goods and services, but it would put more Americans back to work and off welfare.
This would also increase the standard of living for many, which we have seen America’s middle and lower classes living standard decay over the past twenty years. This can be witnessed by the number of homeless individuals filling our inner cities and our increased prison population (one out a hundred Americans currently serving time in prison).
Just increasing of the minimum wage is not enough and will not work by itself; we must revise and author new laws pertaining to immigration, outsourcing and flow of technology from our shores. Again, I echo we must return to the proverbial “Made in America by Americans.”
It is my very strong feeling; increasing the minimum wage will hurt many in business while helping our most needed citizenry segment within our society of troubled Americans, kick start the economy back on track as a strong economically sound nation.
We as a developed nation must recognize, along with adhere to the absolute enforcement of international treaties and agreements and above all only engage in business practices with countries subscribing to UN recognized policies regarding the issue of Human Rights in all countries.
China is one of our strongest “trading” partners and will become stronger in the coming years, but it is my feeling during these unforeseen and unfortunate economic times this is a good time for us as Americans to recalibrate our relationship of trade with China and demand a stronger adherence to the human rights issues, which we dismiss so easily.
China, as noted in my blog here, doesn’t seem to mind letting its intentions known as far as becoming a stronger more active player in the world’s economic scheme of conferences and policies. Also, they don’t seem to concerned amount manipulating its currency, again as noted in a blog posted here.
Furthermore, we as a country have to careful being extremely astute in these economic times since we depend on China as one of our biggest creditor’s as authored here.
We have clearly seen the outcomes of nations and regions that have not recognized the basic needs of human rights; in the continent Africa, the countries of Burma, Sri Lanka, East Timor and more. These aforementioned have suffered the pains of civil wars, unstable governments, oppression and genocide.
A video produced by The Center for American Progress and available on YouTube presents a panel discussion of leading notables and academics discussing the Human Rights issues in China and how America implement new guidelines for trade involvement with the most populous nation in the world.
The US & China: The Human Rights Issue
The relationship between the United States and China may well be the most important bilateral relationship in the world. In recognition of that fact, the Center for American Progress is releasing a new report entitled, “Strategic Persistence: How the United States Can Help Improve Human Rights in China.” The report provides both fundamental principles that should guide U.S. policymakers in their efforts to effect positive change in China’s human rights practices and concrete recommendations to advance those efforts. China remains responsible for profound violations of its people’s civil and political rights. In its foreign policy, China has often backed repressive regimes around the world and watered down international sanctions against these regimes. None of this is in the United States’ best interests. Given the high degree of economic interdependence between the United States and China, as well as China’s growing military reach, American interests are best served by a stable China with a robust commitment to the rule of law—conditions that are undermined by a failure to respect human rights. U.S. approaches to human rights in China have ranged from confrontation to passivity and have rarely reflected a coordinated strategy across government entities. The key to U.S. efforts to promote human rights in China is to take a coherent, pragmatic, non-ideological approach that goes beyond easy rhetoric, takes advantage of strategic openings, and recognizes the value of persistence. Ultimately, China must be persuaded that greater democracy and human rights are in its own best interests and are integral to its becoming the highly respected global leader it aspires to be. Distinguished Speakers: Harry Harding, Professor, Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington UniversityLouisa Coan Greve, Program Director for East Asia at the National Endowment for Democracy
The relationship between the United States and China may well be the most important bilateral relationship in the world. In recognition of that fact, the Center for American Progress is releasing a new report entitled, “Strategic Persistence: How the United States Can Help Improve Human Rights in China.” The report provides both fundamental principles that should guide U.S. policymakers in their efforts to effect positive change in China’s human rights practices and concrete recommendations to advance those efforts.
China remains responsible for profound violations of its people’s civil and political rights. In its foreign policy, China has often backed repressive regimes around the world and watered down international sanctions against these regimes. None of this is in the United States’ best interests. Given the high degree of economic interdependence between the United States and China, as well as China’s growing military reach, American interests are best served by a stable China with a robust commitment to the rule of law—conditions that are undermined by a failure to respect human rights.
U.S. approaches to human rights in China have ranged from confrontation to passivity and have rarely reflected a coordinated strategy across government entities. The key to U.S. efforts to promote human rights in China is to take a coherent, pragmatic, non-ideological approach that goes beyond easy rhetoric, takes advantage of strategic openings, and recognizes the value of persistence. Ultimately, China must be persuaded that greater democracy and human rights are in its own best interests and are integral to its becoming the highly respected global leader it aspires to be.
Distinguished Speakers:
An interesting article and equally interesting problem for our President is a dilemma over protectionist provisions in a massive economic stimulus bill: Backing the measures could set off a trade war, while opposing them could trigger a backlash from his supporters.
An article, which appeared on AP Online Newswire Service entitled “Obama facing dilemma over protectionism in bill”, by Desmond Bulter on the 31st of January describes the situation like this: “The choice involves “buy American” provisions attached to White House-backed stimulus legislation moving through Congress. They would require major public works projects to favor U.S. steel, iron and manufacturing over imports.”
The but problem is “Some Democratic lawmakers and interest groups allied to the president support the measures, but international allies and trading partners are warning that favoring U.S. companies would breach U.S. trade commitments and could set off tit-for-tat countermeasures around the world.”
Two of our largest U.S. trading partners already have spoken out against the measures. On Thursday, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper expressed concern and the European Union warned that it would not “stand idly by” if such measures were passed. On Friday, Brazil’s president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva also criticized the measures.
I’m a firm believer that protectionism is not the answer, at this time in the world’s economy situation; however it is also my strictest of belief’s America as given away far too much of its technology to other countries, which in some cases as used it against us.We have seen what Japan and Korea as done with our cars, TV’s Microchips (RAM chips especially) and steel. No, in honesty both countries were developing these industries within their own country, but we provided them some of the needed know-how to get them off the ground.Today we wonder where all of our jobs have gone (out sourcing), consider re-reading the aforementioned paragraph and contemplate what the answer could possibly be?Now China has decided it needs to shift gears from being an exporter of inexpensive, commercial products to more a higher level of manufactured goods requiring advanced technology.
Over a Trillion Dollars will be added to our national debt to make it happen. A trillion dollars is a lot of money; but, we are not to worry. We are back to "real" economics of Keynes and past the "trickle-down" voodoo of Milton Friedman. According to new experts, as long as we goose consumers into spending more money the debt won't matter. After all, this is how we pulled out of the Great Depression of seventy years ago.
Well, no.... Not exactly.
What Keynes told us over a century ago was that if we put buying power into the hands of the vast populace their demand would inspire capitalist to move their assets into production. To work properly capitalism requires that capital be risked and used productively. The system stagnates if capital is allowed pool into only a few hands where it can languish. The theory was that in downturns there was a tendency for people who had wealth to hoard it. However, if you give the vast army of consumers a few bucks to spend their demand would inspire productivity. It was like stirring the embers of a fire. The rich would not be able to resist taking risks with their assets when there was so much profit to be made.
The surprising thing is that this model seems to work. Give demand a boost and productivity spikes. Of course, this all presupposes a closed system where the consumers and producers are united. Will it work, or even can it work, when the producers are in another country? Can we increase investment in American production by increasing demand by American consumers? All early evidence is that we can not.
The situation today is vastly different. For nearly forty years we have slowly been dismantling our own productive capacity in favor of importing goods from other nations. We have run a trade deficit every year but one since 1971. This year alone the difference between what we consume and what we produce will be three quarters of a trillion dollars. That is more than the total amount consumers spent on cars, furniture and household appliances combined.
These statistics from 2008 are hardly dispositive. However, the implications are ominous. At the very least, the failure of the last stimulus package should inspire serious discussions about how our trade deficit may derail recovery plans. Unfortunately, trade seems to be the 800lbs. gorilla that everyone is desperately trying to ignore.
President-elect Barack Obama announced he has asked Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico to join his administration as Secretary of Commerce.
"With his breadth and depth of experience in public life, Governor Richardson is uniquely suited for this role as a leading economic diplomat for America," President-elect Obama said at the Chicago press conference announcing the appointment. He added later, "In the end, Bill Richardson is a leader who shares my values...I know that [he] will be an unyielding advocate for American business and American jobs, at home and around the world."
Read President-elect Obama's full remarks and see pictures and video from the press conference below.
Remarks of President-Elect Barack Obama--as prepared for delivery Announcement of Commerce Secretary Chicago, Illinois December 3, 2008
Last week, Vice President-Elect Biden and I began the process of announcing our economic team. Today, we are pleased to name another key member of this team: our nominee for Secretary of Commerce, my friend, Governor Bill Richardson.
With each passing day, the work our team has begun, developing plans to revive our economy, becomes more urgent. Earlier this week, we learned that the U.S. economy has been in recession since December of 2007 and that our manufacturing output is at a 26 year low -- two stark reminders of the magnitude of the challenges we face.
But while I know rebuilding our economy won’t be easy -- and it won’t happen overnight -- I also know this: right now, somewhere in America, a small business is at work on the next big idea. A scientist is on the cusp of the next breakthrough discovery. An entrepreneur is sketching plans for the startup that will revolutionize an industry. Right now, across America, the finest products in the world are rolling off our assembly lines. And the proudest, most determined, most productive workers in the world are on the job -- some, already on their second shift of the day; many, putting in longer hours than ever before.
After nearly two years traveling across this country, meeting with workers, visiting businesses large and small, I am more confident than ever before that we have everything we need to renew our economy -- we have the ingenuity and technology, the skill and commitment -- we just need to put it to work. It’s time to not just address our immediate economic threats, but to start laying the groundwork for long-term economic prosperity -- to help American businesses grow and thrive at home, and expand our efforts to promote American enterprise around the world.
This work is the core mission of the Secretary of Commerce. And with his breadth and depth of experience in public life, Governor Richardson is uniquely suited for this role as a leading economic diplomat for America.
During his time in state government and Congress, and in two tours of duty in the cabinet, Bill has seen from just about every angle what makes our economy work and what keeps it from working better.
As Governor of New Mexico, Bill showed how government can act as a partner to support our businesses, helping create 80,000 new jobs. And under his leadership, New Mexico saw the lowest unemployment rate in decades.
As a former Secretary of Energy, Bill understands the steps we must take to build a new, clean-energy industry and create the green jobs of the twenty-first century. Jobs that pay well and won’t be shipped overseas -- jobs that will help us end our dependence on foreign oil.
And as a former Ambassador to the United Nations, Bill brings both international stature and a deep understanding of today’s global economy. He understands that the success of today’s business in Detroit or Columbus often depends on whether it can sell products in places like Santiago or Shanghai. And he knows that America’s reputation in the world is critical not just to our security, but to our prosperity -- that when the citizens of the world respect America’s leadership, they are more likely to buy America’s products.
To this crucial work of restoring America’s international standing, Bill will bring a leadership style all his own. Bill has never been content to learn just from briefing books -- never satisfied with only the official version of the story. During his time in Congress, he held more than 2,500 town-hall meetings, so he could hear directly from constituents. He was a regular in the U.N. cafeteria, mixing it up with U.N. employees over lunch. And during his 2002 campaign for Governor, he actually broke a world record by shaking nearly 14,000 hands in just eight hours.
All of this reflects a determination to reach out and understand where people are coming from, what they hope for, and what he can do to help. This approach, I believe, has been the key to Bill’s success as a negotiator and will be key to his work on the critical functions of the Commerce Department -- from administering our census and monitoring our climate to protecting our intellectual property and restoring our economic diplomacy.
In the end, Bill Richardson is a leader who shares my values -- and he measures progress the same way I do. Are we creating good jobs, instead of losing them? Are incomes growing, instead of shrinking? I know that Bill will be an unyielding advocate for American business and American jobs, at home and around the world. And I look forward to working with him in the years ahead.
There probably has never been a more imporant election in the last 100 years. If the Republicans can use deceit and lies to win over and over again, the political and social face of this country is going to be damaged beyond repair. It makes no sense we whine about this. This is who they are. The real question is, who are the American people? Is this what America is about? Because if this is the way this election is going to be won, then America will get exactly what it deserves. I am confident that Obama will be the next president, but it worries me that there could be such an impact made by employing lies and deceit. It worries me a lot because I want to trust the good judgment of the American people. And if I can't, then man its over for all of us, because idiots do not progress.
Obama is losing the air wars. He need to get back the attention on the issues. The only way to do that is not to give McGain amunition for his stupidity that seems to have been working. Start linking the issues to values, values that are common across America.
Take for instance the issue of trade and job creation. McGain says he wants to open markets. Obama wants to close them. Ok, great. The experience has been that opening some markets has in fact decimated the middle class. Opening markets sounds nice but while it wil benefit capital, labor and the middle class suffers.
Plus, open markets where? There is a huge market here in America that needs to be opened - the middle class. Opening markets overseas where people do not share our values, where human righs are ignored, where they suppress the rights of people so they can also suppress wages? Those are not the values of the American people. Why should we as a country allow other countries to benefit from inhumane activities that we would not tolerate here and at the same time gain an advantage over our own workers here. Opening markets can be also selling out America and its values. And that is what McGain and Bush wants to do. Obama needs to frame his arguments, ALLWAYS, around American values. Right now he is not doing that. People really do not vote their pocket books, people vote their concerns. And the ever present concerns of Americans are the things they value as Americans. Obama need to make people see how their values are being tramped on and eroded. Period.
The following comments from Barack's economic advisor Austin Goolsbee are a brilliant example of the Obama approach to the economy--one that understands the reality of the market, the nature of the global economy and how to make it work for people.
Obama Economic Advisor Goes on Offense Against McCain by Michael R. Crittenden http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2008/09/05/obama-economic-advisor-goes-on-offense-against-mccain/
A top economic advisor to Sen. Barack Obama cited stark differences between the Democratic presidential candidate’s plan for the economy and that of Republican rival Sen. John McCain on Friday, expressing confidence that voters will side with Obama on what is likely the top issue in the November elections.
“As we go forward in the next two months, all we’ve got to do is lay out what’s actually in their programs and I think if people start looking at the content I don’t think it’s even close,” Obama advisor Austan Goolsbee said in an interview taped Friday to be aired this weekend on C-SPAN.
Goolsbee, who also teaches economics at the University of Chicago, sought to put in sharp relief the differences between the two candidates on issues such as tax policy, healthcare, trade and efforts to kickstart the ailing economy. At the same time, he sought to tie McCain’s economic proposals to those of President George W. Bush.
“The contrast couldn’t be greater with the approach of McCain, which is the same as the Bush approach that ‘hey, we’re in trouble so let’s cut taxes for the highest income people and the biggest corporations and hope it trickles down’,” Goolsbee said.
The message is one the Obama campaign, and Democrats more broadly, are expected to hammer Republicans on ahead of November’s elections. Polls repeatedly show the economy continues to be the number one concern for voters, an anxiety reinforced by data released Friday showing the nation’s jobless rate at a five-year high and home foreclosures at record levels.
Goolsbee’s comments came after a week in which Republicans used their national convention in Minnesota to criticize Obama’s economic proposals, particularly his plan to cut taxes for families making less than $250,000 a year.
“I will keep taxes low and cut them where I can. My opponent will raise them. I will open new markets to our goods and services. My opponent will close them. I will cut government spending. He will increase it,” McCain said Thursday evening during his acceptance speech.
Goolsbee said McCain’s comments were untrue, and independent analyses of the two candidates’ proposal suggest there are stark differences between their tax proposals. Obama’s tax plan would generally aim to cut taxes for lower- and middle-income groups, particularly those families making less than $250,000 a year.
“For the vast majority of people, those making less than $150,000 a year, there would be substantial relief,” Goolsbee said.
Critics say McCain’s plan, on the other hand, would do more to help the wealthy and businesses. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center found that McCain proposals would cut taxes for the wealthiest 1% in 2012 by an average of $126,902 when compared to current law. He favors reducing the corporate tax rate to 25% from 35%, as well as exempting assets under $5 million from the estate tax.
“It’s a totally different philosophy,” he said. “The Obama philosophy is Bush tried what McCain is doing and it didn’t work. Let’s try something different, let’s try to give the relief and job creation to ordinary Americans and McCain is on the other side.
Goolsbee said both candidates will have to deal with growing budget deficits when they take office, as well as the ongoing turmoil in the credit and financial markets. He acknowledged that Obama’s proposals are unlikely to balance the federal budget over the next four years — a promise McCain has made but which Goolsbee derided as bereft of specific details — but said they would slow and then start to reduce the federal deficit during an Obama presidency.
“Let us not get on the McCain-Bush approach which is let’s have multi-trillion dollars in additional tax cuts for very high income people and corporations and let’s promise to balance the budget sometime in the future with spending cuts that we never specify,” Goolsbee said.
Finally, Goolsbee also defended Obama’s position on trade agreements, which have come under fire from Republicans as being protectionist. The senator from Illinois has said he opposes aspects of pending agreements with Colombia and South Korea, and has suggested he wants to renegotiate portions of the landmark North American Free Trade Agreement. Goolsbee, defending those positions, said Obama favors free trade agreements in principle, but only if they are adequately enforced and include labor and environmental protections for U.S. companies and workers.
“Not supporting flawed agreements, and not supporting the passage of new flawed agreements, is completely different and it’s completely inaccurate to describe that as being in favor of erecting tariff barriers and for building a moat around the country,” Goolsbee said. “That is the accusation John McCain is leveling and it’s just completely false.”
Obama Economic Adviser Says Reform Trade Policy, Diversify Energy Choices Interviewee: Austan Goolsbee, Economic Adviser, Obama Campaign by Joanna Klonsky, Campaign 2008 Staff, CFR.org http://www.cfr.org/publication/17103/obama_economic_adviser_says_reform_trade_policy_diversify_energy_choices.html?breadcrumb=%2Fpublication%2Fpublication_list%3Ftype%3Dinterview September 5, 2008
Austan Goolsbee, a top economic advisor to Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), says the Democratic presidential nominee is wrongly portrayed by Republicans as favoring protectionism. Goolsbee, an economics professor at the University of Chicago, says Obama is a trade supporter, but wants to improve U.S. trade policy to address the "great many people who have been left out of the bounty of opening of markets." Goolsbee also warned against a reliance on new domestic drilling, backed loudly at the GOP convention, as inadequate to addressing the country's energy needs. "The United States is not Saudi Arabia, and we can't solve the problem that way," he said in an interview with CFR.org on the sidelines of the Republican convention.
Some in the Republican Party would argue that free trade is holding off a U.S. recession, and criticize Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) for his opposition to free trade agreements (FTAs) with South Korea and Colombia. What do you say to those who view trade as a lifeline for the U.S. economy?
It's true that exports have been a relatively bright spot in an otherwise pretty bleak picture over the last twelve months. But I would point out that the bright spot is not bright enough to erase the problems facing manufacturing. The United States is obviously, given how large it is, much less dependent on international trade than any of the other major economies. And so the most important thing facing manufacturing industries in the United States is how the U.S. economy is doing. Now on trade, the Bush administration—now followed by the McCain campaign—has been pushing a false choice in which they say either you're going to back everything that they call a free trade agreement, no matter how many loopholes are in it, no matter whether it addresses the basic concerns of people who have been left out in the opening of markets and globalization, or else you're a Smoot-Hawley protectionist [the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 raised U.S. tariffs to record levels]. It's completely inaccurate.
Obama's position has been extremely consistent over the many years that I've known him. If you go back and look at his book, or if you look at what he's saying now, it's the same, and that is, trade is not bad. Trade is good. And the opening up of markets and access to the fast-growing markets of the world is one of the key ways that many of our industries have grown.
At the same time, if we are not mindful of the great many people who have been left out of the bounty of opening of markets, all the political will and favor of globalization is going to dry up. You're not helping globalization if you subscribe to the Bush view that we ought to try to jam through trade agreements by a 50-49 margin by pulling out the stops and giving pork to whoever needs it in order to get them to vote for it. That strategy is dried up.
So Obama's approach has been, we ought to put labor and environmental standards—enforceable, the basic standards from the ILO [International Labor Organization] and regarding the environment, into the core of our agreements, and that we should work as much as possible to remove the loopholes and special interests, because if you look at these free trade agreements, they're a thousand pages long and 980 pages of that are giveaways to individual companies and monopolies, and very little of it looks like the economist's case for free trade.
And more broadly, to promote globalization we have to build a new consensus, and that consensus has to be built around making sure that America is ready to compete, that we can't build a moat around the country, and so we shouldn't try to. But we should invest in the capabilities of our own industries and we should be mindful of the concerns of the people who have been left out—that we can look after the health of workers, and still be pro-market. It's in the interest of developing countries too. I don't think there's any contradiction in that.
Republicans have been calling for increased domestic drilling as part of the solution to U.S. energy and economic problems. What is your response to the focus on domestic drilling and to the larger question of energy independence?
Look, you don't need a PhD in petroleum engineering to figure out that the United States consumes 25 percent of the world's oil and has 3 percent of the world's reserves. You can't drill your way out of this problem. I mean, it's like you're getting bills that you can't pay, and you're saying, "Oh, well, I'm going to scrounge through the cushions and see what coins I can find down in my couch to try to pay them." The United States is not Saudi Arabia, and we can't solve the problem that way.
Further, drilling, by all expert accounts, is going to take many years before any additional oil would come on the market. That's why the two things that we need to do are, work on energy efficiency and reducing our consumption, which is what we've done in the last month. People have been changing their habits. And that's what reduced the price of energy. And two, we need to finally start making a real energy policy for the long run which weans us from our addiction on oil. That means investing—in the Obama plan it's $150 billion over ten years—in the research and development and deployment of alternative and renewable energies, alternative fuels, and things of that nature. While doing that, we can generate up to five million green jobs.
You mentioned nuclear energy. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has said he's going to build forty-five new nuclear plants by 2030. Where does Obama come down on nuclear energy?
Obama recognizes we've got to have a portfolio of all kinds of energy, especially in the short run—that consumers need relief. He's for nuclear [conditioned on sorting out] how we dispose of, safely, the toxic nuclear waste. Building forty-five nuclear plants and shipping all of the toxic nuclear waste to within an hour of greater Las Vegas [to the proposed waste facility at Yucca Mountain, Nevada], in his view, that's not going to work. So it's clear we've got to put the research in to figure out a safe way to do the disposal.
Obama was right last night. It's about us. And, it is our responsibility, once we elect officials, to keep them on their toes if they falter from their path. It is up to us to lead this country from the ground up.
Before hearing the acceptance speech last night, I was talking to a friend who considers himself a far leftie. He said he hopes that Obama can do what he is saying, but many like him are very concerned about Obama being elected and then letting the lefties down. I told him that it's his responsibility as a citizen to stay engaged beyond the electoral process. That, we as "the People," need to keep up our responsibilities as citizens and continuously engage our elected officials.
So, Obama and Biden are not alone. They want change, but we want it more. And we have to keep them accountable once they get into office. Voting is only the beginning of the process. Calling and writing your elected officials from the town level (even the HOA level) on up to the Oval Office about how you feel they are performing, what they can improve, and what you're hoping to see from them in the future is what being a responsible citizen is about!
What I am I going to do? Talk to as many people as I can about Obama and Biden. Find out more about them and their opponents. Become an educated voter. And start in my community. Bringing about the changes I wish to see for a brighter future for my future children. Because once our adoption from Ethiopia is completed, I want to bring them home to a changed US, with a president of whom I can be proud.
As I write this, there is a quote from Obama on the header of the screen, "I'm asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington...I'm asking you to believe in yours." This quote is pretty true of my life and in what I believe. I promote Fair Trade every day as a way to help others in the world improve their situation. I support non-profits and causes which emphasize education and the environment. And, I truly believe in the power of one person to create change. I'm doing it every day. I am affecting many lives. Just as one person, a part of a whole, a part of hope, a part of change.
Go out today and be part of the change you would like to see in the world. Gandhi was right. And Obama is right. It starts with us...he takes our lead, not the other way around.
While you read this, remember that when you go in and punch that time clock and fight those nasty office politicians that part of that hunk o' tax they take out of your check is going back into your company's CEO and board members pockets by way of corporate welfare....all so they could pit you in competition with communists overseas.
Still gonna vote Republican??
From our good friends over at conceptual guerilla....
Greetings good citizen,
Are you sick and tired of hearing what a 'great deal' free trade is (especially when your own experiences with 'global labor arbitrage' have come back to haunt you recently). Your paycheck couldn't feed a fly and you have zero leverage to demand a raise.
Well, how about if I were to tell you that it's even worse than that?
You know how I'm always saying 'whosoever controls your money, controls you'?
Well, the 'evidence' that some elite group has indeed seized control the global economy by creating a 'monopoly' on how goods are priced (as well as having 'a near' monopoly on being able to create that currency as well) puts 'free trade' in a somewhat different light.
From today's Asia Times we have this piece from Dr. Henry C.K. Liu:
CHINA'S DOLLAR MILLSTONE, Part 1 Breaking free from dollar hegemony [The following is from page one] Page 1 of 4 CHINA'S DOLLAR MILLSTONE, Part 1 Breaking free from dollar hegemony By Henry C K Liu The vast expansion of US-led globalized trade since the Cold War ended in 1991 had been fueled by unsustainable serial debt bubbles built on dollar hegemony, which came into existence on a global scale with the emergence of deregulated global financial markets that made cross-border flow of funds routine since the 1990s. Dollar hegemony is a geopolitically constructed peculiarity through which critical commodities, the most notable being oil, are denominated in fiat dollars, not backed by gold or other species since then president Richard Nixon took the US dollar off gold in 1971. The recycling of petro-dollars into other dollar assets is the price the US has extracted from oil-producing countries for US tolerance of the oil-exporting cartel since 1973. After that, everyone accepts dollars because dollars can buy oil, and every economy needs oil. Dollar hegemony separates the trade value of every currency from direct connection to the productivity of the issuing economy to link it directly to the size of dollar reserves held by the issuing central bank. Dollar hegemony enables the US to own indirectly but essentially the entire global economy by requiring its wealth to be denominated in fiat dollars that the US can print at will with little in the way of monetary penalties.
CHINA'S DOLLAR MILLSTONE, Part 1 Breaking free from dollar hegemony [The following is from page one]
Page 1 of 4 CHINA'S DOLLAR MILLSTONE, Part 1 Breaking free from dollar hegemony By Henry C K Liu
The vast expansion of US-led globalized trade since the Cold War ended in 1991 had been fueled by unsustainable serial debt bubbles built on dollar hegemony, which came into existence on a global scale with the emergence of deregulated global financial markets that made cross-border flow of funds routine since the 1990s.
Dollar hegemony is a geopolitically constructed peculiarity through which critical commodities, the most notable being oil, are denominated in fiat dollars, not backed by gold or other species since then president Richard Nixon took the US dollar off gold in 1971. The recycling of petro-dollars into other dollar assets is the price the US has extracted from oil-producing countries for US tolerance of the oil-exporting cartel since 1973. After that, everyone accepts dollars because dollars can buy oil, and every economy needs oil. Dollar hegemony separates the trade value of every currency from direct connection to the productivity of the issuing economy to link it directly to the size of dollar reserves held by the issuing central bank. Dollar hegemony enables the US to own indirectly but essentially the entire global economy by requiring its wealth to be denominated in fiat dollars that the US can print at will with little in the way of monetary penalties.
So, the US has a 'lock' on the world's economy. What Dr. Liu is pointing out here is that the world has been turned into some greedy fuck's piggy bank because they control the 'asset' used to price all of those goods.
The arrow points to Ben Bernanke, but I will remind readers that our 'central bank' the Federal Reserve is not a part of the Federal Government and that its full name is the Federal Reserve CORPORATION! A company that is 'privately held' and reputed to be 'owned' by several foreign banks/banking 'families'.
Well good citizen, somewhere within this snake pit is a 'cartel' or a single individual that quite literally 'owns the world'! (And he or she used the US nuclear card to get it.)
Since whoever it is has been actively working to destroy the US economy, I don't think this individual is a US citizen…not that it particularly matters. Let us continue:
World trade is now a game in which the US produces fiat dollars of uncertain exchange value and zero intrinsic value, and the rest of the world produces goods and services that fiat dollars can buy at "market prices" quoted in dollars. Such market prices are no longer based on mark-ups over production costs set by socio-economic conditions in the producing countries. They are kept artificially low to compensate for the effect of overcapacity in the global economy created by a combination of overinvestment and weak demand due to low wages in every economy. Such low market prices in turn push further down already low wages to further cut cost in an unending race to the bottom. The higher the production volume above market demand, the lower the unit market price of a product must go in order to increase sales volume to keep revenue from falling. Lower market prices require lower production costs which in turn push wages lower. Lower wages in turn further reduce demand. [You see, an 'unending death spiral'…] To prevent loss of revenue from falling prices, producers must produce at still higher volume, thus further lowering market prices and wages in a downward spiral. Export economies are forced to compete for market share in the global market by lowering both domestic wages and the exchange rate of their currencies. Lower exchange rates push up the market price of commodities which must be compensated for by even lower wages. The adverse effects of dollar hegemony on wages apply not only to the emerging export economies but also to the importing US economy. Workers all over the world are oppressed victims of dollar hegemony, which turns the labor theory of value up-side-down. In a global market operating under dollar hegemony, the world's interlinked economies no longer trade to capture Ricardian comparative advantage. The theory of comparative advantage as espoused by British economist David Ricardo (1772-1823) asserts that trade can benefit all participating nations, even those that command no absolute advantage, because such nations can still benefit from specializing in producing products with the lowest opportunity cost, which is measured by how much production of another good needs to be reduced to increase production by one additional unit of that good. This theory reflected British national opinion at the 19th century when free trade benefited Britain more than its trade partners. However, in today's globalized trade when factors of production such as capital, credit, technology, management, information, branding, distribution and sales are mobile across national borders and can generate profit much greater than manufacturing, the theory of comparative advantage has a hard time holding up against measurable data. Under dollar hegemony, exporting nations compete in the global market to capture needed dollars to service dollar-denominated foreign capital and debt, to pay for imported energy, raw material and capital goods, to pay intellectual property fees and information technology fees. Moreover, their central banks must accumulate dollar reserves to ward off speculative attacks on the value of their currencies in world currency markets. The higher the market pressure to devalue a particular currency, the more dollar reserves its central bank must hold. Only the Federal Reserve, the US central bank, is exempt from this pressure to accumulate dollars because it can issue theoretically unlimited additional dollars at will with monetary immunity. The dollar is merely a Federal Reserve note, no more, no less. Dollar hegemony has created a built-in support for a strong dollar that in turn forces the world's other central banks to acquire and hold more dollar reserves, making the dollar stronger, fueling a massive global debt bubble denominated in dollars as the US becomes the world's largest debtor nation. Yet a strong dollar, while viewed by US authorities as in the US national interest, in reality drives the defacement of all fiat currencies that operate as derivative currencies of the dollar, in turn driving the current commodity-led inflation. When the dollar falls against the euro, it does not mean the euro is rising in purchasing power. It only means the dollar is losing purchasing power faster than the euro. A strong dollar does not always mean high dollar exchange rates. It means only that the dollars will stay firmly anchored as the prime reserve currency for international trade even as it falls in exchange value against other trading currencies. In recent decades, central banks of all governments, led by the US Federal Reserve during Alan Greenspan's watch, had bought economic growth with loose money to feed debt bubbles and to contain inflation with "structural unemployment", which has been defined as up to 6% of the workforce, to keep the labor market from being inflationary. Central banking has mutated from being an institution to safeguard the value of money so as to ensure wages from full employment do not lose purchasing power into one with a perverted mandate to promote and preserve dollar hegemony by releasing debt bubbles denominated in fiat dollars. (See Critique of Central Banking, Asia Times Online, November 6, 2002.) Despite all the talk about globalization as an irresistible trend of progress, the priority for the United States in the final analysis has been to advance its superpower economic objectives, not its obligations as the center of the global monetary system. This superpower economic objective includes the global expansion of US economic dominance through dollar hegemony, reducing all domestic economies, including that of the US, to be merely local units of a global empire. Thus when the US asserts that a healthy and strong economy in Europe, Japan and even Russia and China, all former enemies, is part of the Pax Americana, it is essentially declaring a neocolonial claim on these economies. The concept of "stakeholder" in the global geopolitical-economic order advanced by Robert B Zoellick, former US deputy secretary of state and now president of the World Bank, is a solicitation from the US to emerging economic powerhouses to support this Pax Americana. The device for accomplishing this neo-imperialism is a coordinated monetary policy managed by a global system of central banking, first adopted in the US in 1913 to allow a financial elite to gain monetary control of the US national economy, and after the Cold War, to allow the US as the sole remaining superpower controlled by a financial oligarchy to gain monetary control of the entire global economy.
World trade is now a game in which the US produces fiat dollars of uncertain exchange value and zero intrinsic value, and the rest of the world produces goods and services that fiat dollars can buy at "market prices" quoted in dollars. Such market prices are no longer based on mark-ups over production costs set by socio-economic conditions in the producing countries. They are kept artificially low to compensate for the effect of overcapacity in the global economy created by a combination of overinvestment and weak demand due to low wages in every economy.
Such low market prices in turn push further down already low wages to further cut cost in an unending race to the bottom. The higher the production volume above market demand, the lower the unit market price of a product must go in order to increase sales volume to keep revenue from falling. Lower market prices require lower production costs which in turn push wages lower. Lower wages in turn further reduce demand. [You see, an 'unending death spiral'…]
To prevent loss of revenue from falling prices, producers must produce at still higher volume, thus further lowering market prices and wages in a downward spiral. Export economies are forced to compete for market share in the global market by lowering both domestic wages and the exchange rate of their currencies. Lower exchange rates push up the market price of commodities which must be compensated for by even lower wages. The adverse effects of dollar hegemony on wages apply not only to the emerging export economies but also to the importing US economy. Workers all over the world are oppressed victims of dollar hegemony, which turns the labor theory of value up-side-down.
In a global market operating under dollar hegemony, the world's interlinked economies no longer trade to capture Ricardian comparative advantage. The theory of comparative advantage as espoused by British economist David Ricardo (1772-1823) asserts that trade can benefit all participating nations, even those that command no absolute advantage, because such nations can still benefit from specializing in producing products with the lowest opportunity cost, which is measured by how much production of another good needs to be reduced to increase production by one additional unit of that good.
This theory reflected British national opinion at the 19th century when free trade benefited Britain more than its trade partners. However, in today's globalized trade when factors of production such as capital, credit, technology, management, information, branding, distribution and sales are mobile across national borders and can generate profit much greater than manufacturing, the theory of comparative advantage has a hard time holding up against measurable data.
Under dollar hegemony, exporting nations compete in the global market to capture needed dollars to service dollar-denominated foreign capital and debt, to pay for imported energy, raw material and capital goods, to pay intellectual property fees and information technology fees. Moreover, their central banks must accumulate dollar reserves to ward off speculative attacks on the value of their currencies in world currency markets. The higher the market pressure to devalue a particular currency, the more dollar reserves its central bank must hold. Only the Federal Reserve, the US central bank, is exempt from this pressure to accumulate dollars because it can issue theoretically unlimited additional dollars at will with monetary immunity. The dollar is merely a Federal Reserve note, no more, no less.
Dollar hegemony has created a built-in support for a strong dollar that in turn forces the world's other central banks to acquire and hold more dollar reserves, making the dollar stronger, fueling a massive global debt bubble denominated in dollars as the US becomes the world's largest debtor nation. Yet a strong dollar, while viewed by US authorities as in the US national interest, in reality drives the defacement of all fiat currencies that operate as derivative currencies of the dollar, in turn driving the current commodity-led inflation. When the dollar falls against the euro, it does not mean the euro is rising in purchasing power. It only means the dollar is losing purchasing power faster than the euro. A strong dollar does not always mean high dollar exchange rates. It means only that the dollars will stay firmly anchored as the prime reserve currency for international trade even as it falls in exchange value against other trading currencies.
In recent decades, central banks of all governments, led by the US Federal Reserve during Alan Greenspan's watch, had bought economic growth with loose money to feed debt bubbles and to contain inflation with "structural unemployment", which has been defined as up to 6% of the workforce, to keep the labor market from being inflationary. Central banking has mutated from being an institution to safeguard the value of money so as to ensure wages from full employment do not lose purchasing power into one with a perverted mandate to promote and preserve dollar hegemony by releasing debt bubbles denominated in fiat dollars. (See Critique of Central Banking, Asia Times Online, November 6, 2002.)
Despite all the talk about globalization as an irresistible trend of progress, the priority for the United States in the final analysis has been to advance its superpower economic objectives, not its obligations as the center of the global monetary system. This superpower economic objective includes the global expansion of US economic dominance through dollar hegemony, reducing all domestic economies, including that of the US, to be merely local units of a global empire. Thus when the US asserts that a healthy and strong economy in Europe, Japan and even Russia and China, all former enemies, is part of the Pax Americana, it is essentially declaring a neocolonial claim on these economies.
The concept of "stakeholder" in the global geopolitical-economic order advanced by Robert B Zoellick, former US deputy secretary of state and now president of the World Bank, is a solicitation from the US to emerging economic powerhouses to support this Pax Americana. The device for accomplishing this neo-imperialism is a coordinated monetary policy managed by a global system of central banking, first adopted in the US in 1913 to allow a financial elite to gain monetary control of the US national economy, and after the Cold War, to allow the US as the sole remaining superpower controlled by a financial oligarchy to gain monetary control of the entire global economy.
Move over Napoleon, Hitler, Caesar, Buddha, Jesus and Mohammed, someone's about to show you the 'right' way to conquer the planet. Where both military might and God have failed, money (and anonymity) may well succeed.
With the help of supranational institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the Bank of International Settlements, the US aims to negate national economic sovereignty with globalization of unregulated trade conducted under dollar hegemony. Unregulated trade globalization in the 21st century aims to neutralize national economic sovereignty to preempt national development financed by sovereign credit. Trade through export has become the sole operative path for national economic growth in a political world order of sovereign nation states that has existed since the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648. No national domestic economy can henceforth prosper without first adding to the prosperity of US-controlled global economy denominated in dollars.
Before you start 'jumping for joy' I'd like to point out that the US is merely the vehicle chosen to 'execute' this plan…it has not nor will it 'benefit' the US or its citizens. No good citizen, whoever is behind this diabolical scheme has deliberately placed us/this nation in the crosshairs of every freedom loving nation in the world.
Holy Dollar Empire Echoing the Holy Roman Empire, the global economy has been operating as a global Holy Dollar Empire with [someone inside] the Federal Reserve as the Holy Dollar Emperor. Similar to the Holy Roman Empire, which disintegrated from the rise of Lutheran nationalism, this Holy Dollar Empire will eventually disintegrate from progressive centrifugal forces of a new populist economic nationalism. This new nationalism is not to be confused with regressive trade protectionism. The formation of the new Group of Five (G5 - China, Brazil, India, Mexico and South Africa) in the 2008 Group of Eight Summit in Tokyo (G8 - the US, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Russia and the European Union) is a sign of this new trend of progressive economic nationalism. The 2008 US presidential election may herald in a new populism in US history to reform the structure of US debt capitalism. [The latest attempt to resuscitate the Doha round of trade talks ended in failure today…] In his speech to the G5 leaders, China's President Hu Jintao said: "It is necessary to take into full account the issue of food security in tackling the challenges in energy, climate change and other fields." Apart from calling for the setting up of an UN-led international co-operation mechanism and a global food-security safeguard system, Hu said all countries should strengthen cooperation in grain reserves, a process of proven success in China but not recommended by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, which views such scheme as a distortion of trade. Liberation from this Holy Dollar Empire of dollar hegemony can only come from sovereign nations withdrawing from the global central banking regime to return to a national banking regime within a world order of sovereign nation states to put monetary policy back in its proper role of supporting national development goals, rather than sacrificing national development to support global dollar hegemony through wage-suppressing export-led growth.
Holy Dollar Empire
Echoing the Holy Roman Empire, the global economy has been operating as a global Holy Dollar Empire with [someone inside] the Federal Reserve as the Holy Dollar Emperor. Similar to the Holy Roman Empire, which disintegrated from the rise of Lutheran nationalism, this Holy Dollar Empire will eventually disintegrate from progressive centrifugal forces of a new populist economic nationalism. This new nationalism is not to be confused with regressive trade protectionism. The formation of the new Group of Five (G5 - China, Brazil, India, Mexico and South Africa) in the 2008 Group of Eight Summit in Tokyo (G8 - the US, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Russia and the European Union) is a sign of this new trend of progressive economic nationalism. The 2008 US presidential election may herald in a new populism in US history to reform the structure of US debt capitalism. [The latest attempt to resuscitate the Doha round of trade talks ended in failure today…]
In his speech to the G5 leaders, China's President Hu Jintao said: "It is necessary to take into full account the issue of food security in tackling the challenges in energy, climate change and other fields." Apart from calling for the setting up of an UN-led international co-operation mechanism and a global food-security safeguard system, Hu said all countries should strengthen cooperation in grain reserves, a process of proven success in China but not recommended by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, which views such scheme as a distortion of trade.
Liberation from this Holy Dollar Empire of dollar hegemony can only come from sovereign nations withdrawing from the global central banking regime to return to a national banking regime within a world order of sovereign nation states to put monetary policy back in its proper role of supporting national development goals, rather than sacrificing national development to support global dollar hegemony through wage-suppressing export-led growth.
While Dr. Liu is absolutely right, he faces the same problem we confront when it comes to the 'political will' to make the necessary changes.
Perhaps more importantly is what will happen if the US fails to drive this demon from its bosom. Think about it good citizen, would our creditors even hesitate to pull the plug on the dollar?
They needn't 'invade' or risk the nuclear wrath of the world's only remaining superpower…all they need to do is stop accepting our 'scrip'…and it's 'game over'.
The question to ask yourself good citizen is do you want to die defending the right of this reckless, greedy S.O.B. to exploit the world?
I didn't think so,
Thanks for letting me inside your head,
http://www.aflcio.org/issues/jobseconomy/globaleconomy/ns03162004.cfm Sadly this was first printed in 2004.....Who the hell is "anti-American? Republicans are the ones who fight the hardest to keep this sort of thing going, well against the will of most of the American people, at least the ones who have "dirtied" their brains against the Limbaughs and Hannitys. If you're a non union worker making a good living in this country and think that the Republicans have yours or America's best intrests at heart, keep reading, you'll be a believer too one day...........I'm afraid.
June 8, 2006—China's frequent violations of workers' rights give that nation an unfair trade advantage that has cost more than 1 million U.S. jobs, according to a petition filed with the U.S. Trade Representative by the AFL-CIO and the Industrial Union Council (IUC), made up of nine industrial unions. The petition calls on the Bush administration to take immediate action to impose trade remedies against China and negotiate a binding agreement to reduce the trade remedies if China enforces workers' rights. Chinese Workers' Low Wages Reduce Cost of Chinese Exports The 179-page petition extensively documents that China prevents workers from joining unions and bargaining collectively, denies its citizens safe working conditions, provides no minimum wage and uses forced labor. As a result, Chinese workers' wages are between 47 percent and 85 percent lower than they should be, which in turn reduces the price of Chinese manufactured goods. If China did not violate workers' rights, the price of Chinese manufactured goods would increase by 12 percent to 77 percent, according to the petition. Jing-Hua Lu, a former factory worker in China and a forceful advocate for international workers' rights, told reporters that it's imperative the U.S. government take action against China now. "The U.S. administration should take this petition seriously," Lu said. "Chinese workers need to be able to exercise their right of freedom of association. It is a basic right, and a basic answer to the dilemma of Chinese workers and the flight of jobs to China to exploit low wages." The U.S. trade deficit with China is the largest in U.S. history with one country—$201 billion. The trade deficit affects the nation's jobs: cheaper foreign imports of products formerly made in the United States mean America's workers lose jobs as companies move overseas. In fact, the Economic Policy Institute estimates the trade deficit cost the United States 410,000 manufacturing jobs between 2001 and 2005. "I look around my town and think about the people who stood next to me on the plant floor," says Teresa Luna, a member of USW International Union Local 1191, who lost her job when the Magnequench missile technology plant in Valparaiso, Ind., closed and relocated to China. "I hear how every time there is any type of job opening, hundreds of applicants show up to fill one spot. The jobs are just gone." Trade Law Previously Used Only to Aid Corporations Mark Barenberg, a Columbia University law professor, prepared the petition, which was filed under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. The petition was filed under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. The act allows the government to take action against countries that engage in unfair trade practices against the United States. Although the regulation has been used extensively to protect corporate interests, the first time Section 301 was invoked to protest a nation's labor practices was when the AFL-CIO filed its first petition on China's workers' rights violations, in 2004. That petition was rejected by the Bush administration. The Bush administration's refusal to comply with the Trade Act allowed workers' rights violations in China to get worse and contributed to the loss of hundreds of thousands of additional American jobs. Under the law, the Bush administration has 45 days to decide whether to accept the petition. If it accepts the petition, it has 60 days to hold a hearing and one year to decide what actions to take. The AFL-CIO is seeking immediate action by the Bush administration to impose trade remedies against China, such as sanctions or tariffs, and to negotiate an agreement that connects China's progress in enforcing workers' rights with trade sanction relief. If the White House rejects the petition, Barenberg says, it must find that China either does not repress workers' rights or that the repression does not adversely affect the U.S. economy. "Exploitation of human beings through repression of fundamental rights for economic gain is both morally repugnant and economically dangerous," AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka says. "The fact is that China is violating international trade law, and our nation is doing nothing about it." "I wonder: Do these corporations realize that they are trading away our lives?" Luna asks. "We must stop these corporations from making their own rules. This is not what our country is about."
