Obama's Moves on Trade--November Trip to India and Korea?
I saw something a couple of days ago that shows how really lax Obama is and how much he hates to do battle for his Democratic base and American workers.
He announced on Wednesday that he would NOT go after the Chinese on the trade issue. What is really remarkable is that this is the very issue that caused the loss of so many Democrats running for election in states where millions of jobs have been lost (or sent overseas by GW Bush and the GOP). I went to Ohio recently into the former industrial heart of America. It is sad. Around Youngstown over 500,000 jobs have moved offshore and lost. Obama is not to blame--blame goes to the policies of GW Bush and Bill Clinton.
But Obama has decided to "play nice" on the trade issue. This is an almost predictable side of his character. The same day he made this announcement, the new numbers came out for our trade deficit with China--it was a record and hundreds of billions of dollars. One would think that Obama get tough on the one way trade of the Chinese and put our workers back to work. But this move on the currency imbalance signals that the White House has decided not to confront the Chinese for artificially keeping their currency undervalued. There are thousands of products that we make that the Chinese refuse to allow us to sell there--this would be a okay if peoples livelihoods, jobs, and homes didn't matter. With this final move Obama has signaled that he will not be pushing for more US jobs in the coming months. This is a tragic message to send to voters and to Democrats in general.
Word on the blogs is that Obama is still secure in his White House cocoon and thinks that as Republicans take control of Congress they will compromise with him for the good of the country. He is NAIVE. His mastery of politics is just a bad as that of GW Bush. Except that Democrats beginning in 2006 did play nice with Bush and ignored calls from many for his impeachment. I do not think that Obama appreciates what the Republicans have planned for the balance of his term. These are not the live/let live Democrats who were gracious to Bush and overlooked his illegal invasion of Iraq and his lying to Congress. The Republicans basically are racist and they say this is a chance to put Obama in his place. I am convinced that they plan a January surprise for Obama. I also think that he is ignoring signs that the GOP leaders are going to impeach him. If the GOP has the House they will immediately setup a team to start impeach Obama just as they did to Clinton in the 1990's. For Obama as it was for Clinton, this is going to be a terrible distraction. It will cost him any political momentum he can build, he will be deserted / isolated in the White House by the Democrats because he basically failed to give them any substantial help during the election. The most help he has given any Democrat running is a few lame stump speeches in scattered places. Obama's complacency about the Republicans has already cost him greatly. Unlike Clinton, Obama has a habit of backing off before things even get testy. Clinton got into the same mess with a hostile GOP Congress lead by Newt Gingrich and Ken Starr but he is a combative person. Obama will find that he be looking at up to $20 to $25 million in lawyers fees to defend himself. No matter how big his ego is and how much he thinks he can talk his way out of the situation, I believe he is in for a very rough ride for the next two years or until he is impeached.
With impeachment a real possibility not that the House is under control of the GOP and very likely to stay that way with their very wide margin of victories, one can only speculate as to why Obama is making the November trip to discuss trade.
One major item on the legislative agenda in the coming months is the very controversial South Korean Free Trade Agreement. This agreement has caused heated debate and is opposed by a broad coalition of business and labor groups who see it as another one-way trade agreement which opens our markets up to a broard range of Korean products but allows them to continue to exclude us from their markets. Obama has played lip service to the business / labor coalition but he is surrounded by many Clinton retreads who pushed through the same type of legislation back in 1994 ( NAFTA). Don't be very surprised if Obama suddenly changes his mind and comes out solidly behind this abomination of "free-trade". The paradox of this is that the new Republican leadership is solidly behind the Korean trade agreement. They are just doing what they were told to do by their Wall Street bosses who see these sham "free trade" agreements as just another way to ship jobs overseas, break labor unions, and drive down wages of good American workers.
Larry Summers Class AAA Clinton Retread and Enemy of the Working/Middle Class in America.
ReplyDeleteLarry Summers has again revealed why he is reviled by many of us in the progressive/liberal and middle class. He just released a so-called study whose conclusion is an absolutely incredulous statement of fantasy. The study concludes that there is no reason to extend unemployment benefits to unemployed workers because these benefits actually encourage workers NOT to seek jobs. Can anything be more of a Republican policy target than this which unbelievably comes from a "reformed" Democrat.
Consider just the amount of money involved. The average payment to an unemployed worker is a Princely weekly $285.00 sum. Wow, who would not rather stay home for $285 than go out and work in a job that pays 3 or 4 times that amount. Only an idiot from an elitist Ivy League University would believe that people do not want to work. That proposition has been debunked over and over by numerous studies since mid-1800's. People want to work. Organized work is almost a basic human instinct as having children and families.
So where did Larry Summers come up with this nonsense. I do not know but can only surmise that his sponsorship at Harvard is part of the world cabal which is determined to subjugate us and destroy the middleclass in the USA.
A recent study from the Federal Reserve certainly casts doubt on Mr. Summers conclusions. Its finding shows that there are almost 20 million unemployed in the USA while there were in the last fiscal quarter only 4 million jobs open. That is a 5 to 1 ratio. Mr. Summers must be seriously impaired to believe that if we cut off people from unemployment benefits that they will apply for jobs and go to work.
THE BIG QUESTION IS WHERE WILL THE 20 MILLION UNEMPLOYED GO TO WORK IF THERE ARE NO JOB OPENINGS.
Only a Clinton retread like many who worked in that administration would believe that if "I want a job--then someone will create a job". Remember Larry Summers in 1996 working for Clinton, "reformed" the Federal welfare system....."How did that welfare reform work out for ya Larry?"
Larry Summers--another Clinton retread working for Obama.
ReplyDeleteToday Larry Summers released his study which concludes that unemployment benefits "increase unemployment".
Only a guy like Larry Summers who comes from an Ivory Tower Ivy League University would come to that conclusion.
Since Federal studies show that there are 5 unemployed for each available job, is Loony Larry saying that if you go and apply for job that the "nice" employers will hire you....DUH...
Remember Larry Summers was behind the celebrated Federal welfare reform under Clinton...Question: "Hey, Larry how did that work for ya!!"
Good thing Obama has rid himself of some of the Clinton retreads lately. These people served Clinton well but they are certainly out of step in todays economy....
Obama Announces Passage of the Korea Free Trade Ageement
ReplyDeleteOn November 5, I wrote a blog piece which laid out my belief that the Obama had concluded a deal with Korea but that due to opposition from labor and many businesses (i.e. Ford Auto company), he would hide the deal for a short period of time after returning to the USA. We only had to wait for two weeks for him to announce that a deal had been struck. I really resent this insult to my intelligence by Mr. Obama and his team. It can take years to get a working trade agreement into law. Sometimes it takes over ten years. So here we are with a Korean deal only two weeks from the day that Obama said he had failed to get an agreement. The problem we have with the Koreans on trade is due to the complex rules that the Koreans put in place to prevent our businesses from selling to them. The Koreans do not want us to set any rules up which impede them from selling in the US market. The challenge for the Obama team was to get a trade deal enacted which gives the appearance that we would have fair access to Korean customers but really did not have any real way to get around the rules that the Koreans place on our exporters. The Obama trade team did a masterful job of skewing the trade agreement to appear to be fair to our exporters but in actuality allows the Koreans to restrict the sales of our products with new rules and non-tariff trade barriers. Economists who have viewed the agreement that Obama just announced will cost the USA more than a million jobs over the next five years. As president, one would think that Obama would want to keep Americans working. However, as we have seen on most things when it comes to hard edged negotiations, Obama will always walk away from the US worker.