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Even The Chamber of Commerce is Critical of Chinese Currency Manipulation by Mike Elk, OurFuture.org | March 22, 2010
Last week, I wrote about the growing bipartisan consensus to confront China on its illegal currency manipulation. read more »China's Coming Surprise Announcement And My Bridge On eBay by Dave Johnson, OurFuture.org | March 22, 2010
On April 15 the Obama administration is required to officially declare whether China is manipulating its currency. SInce China is manipulating its currency there is a great deal of pressure on the administration to say so. read more »Stifling the Economy, One Argument at a Time by ROBERT E. LIGHTHIZER, The New York Times | March 22, 2010
FRUSTRATED with years of delay and stonewalling, 130 members of Congress last week urged the Obama administration to punish China for manipulating the value of its currency to the detriment of American exports. But this issue does not stand alone; it is part of the larger, murkier world of international trade policy, centered on the Doha round of World Trade Organization negotiations. These talks, which began in 2001, long ago became a quagmire. read more »China's "Human Face" on Opposition to a Higher Yuan by Dean Baker, prospect.org | March 22, 2010
According to USA Today, China's government tried to put a "human face" on its opposition to raising the value of the yuan by presenting the case of a small business owner who is worried that he will lose his workers to better paying employers if the yuan rises in value. Of course, this is not exactly how the situation was described. read more »Last Flatware Factory In U.S. To Close by Natasha Chart, OurFuture.org | March 22, 2010
There's only one flatware factory left in the US, a former Oneida plant bought by Sherrill Manufacturing. In spite of the fact that there's a brisk market in flatware in the US, and that the facility is highly productive and state-of-the-art, the plant will be closed and 80 workers laid off. read more »The Senate Energy Bill's Other Shoe by Natasha Chart, OurFuture.org | March 19, 2010
So yesterday I looked on the bright side of the Senate's clean energy bill and proclaimed my delight that there is such a thing. Though naturally, this is not the whole story. read more »NUMMI Closing - Resignation by Dave Johnson, OurFuture.org | March 19, 2010
The other day I wrote about the huge impact from California's Toyota NUMMI plant closing, Toyota takes off with a ton of cash, we pay the costs, it's the way the system is set up -- by us. read more »China to US: We're Just "Emotionally Unavailable" by Mike Elk, OurFuture.org | March 19, 2010
Man China has had a really rough week. A bipartisan group of economists ranging from Paul Krugman to the conservative Fred Bergsten of the Peterson Institute have called for tariffs on China to fix the currency manipulation problem. read more »Financial Reform: It’s the Derivatives, Stupid. by Leo Gerard, OurFuture.org | March 19, 2010
Tricky auto loans didn't cause the financial meltdown on Wall Street. Unscrupulous payday lenders didn't cost taxpayers a $700 billion "troubled asset" bailout. So fussing about whether U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd's financial reform legislation contains an independent Consumer Financial Protection Agency is like worrying about whether you'll lose your tool shed as a conflagration consumes your home. read more »China: World's Biggest Bubble? by Andy Kroll, Mother Jones | March 18, 2010
Is China, soon to surpass Japan as the world's second-largest economy, a massive, dangerous bubble? According to one man who's witnessed financial calamity at close range, the answer is an unabashed Yes. "As I see it, it is the greatest bubble in history with the most massive misallocation of wealth," said James Rickards at a recent conference in China, according to Bloomberg News. Rickards is the former counsel for the infamous hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management, an all-star, Nobel Prize-powered fund that proceeded to melt down in 1998 and almost drag the global economy down with it. (For more on LTCM, read Kevin Drum's "Capital City" cover story.) Whether his role helping save LTCM burnishes or blemishes his record is for you to decide, but his time there clearly colors his view of China today. Bloomberg reported that Rickards argued that "Chinese central bank’s balance sheet resembles that of a hedge fund buying dollars and short-selling the yuan." Echoing Rickards, a recent World Bank report warned of inflation and a property bubble in China. (Here's a PDF of the report's overview.) The World Bank suggested that China tighten up its overall monetary policy by raising interest rates to contain a housing bubble—something, you'll remember, former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan and current chair Ben Bernanke failed to do.) To be sure, there are some startling parallels between China's housing boom and the US' bubble circa 2003-2007. There's the economics—$560 billion of real estate was sold in China last year, the Times reported recently, an 80 percent increase from 2008—and the blinding details, too, like the home with crocodile skin bedposts and doors inlaid with Swarovski diamonds. Or the anonymous investor in Shanghai who bought 54 apartments in a single day. Or the $3 billion "floating city" in the north of China. The key question here is whether China's in a boom or inflating a bubble—and without a Chinese version of, say, the Case-Shiller housing index, it's hard to decipher what exactly is going on in the Middle Kingdom. read more »
The Latest
Democrats Increase Pressure on Obama Over Yuan’s Peg , bloomberg.com | March 16, 2010
March 16 (Bloomberg) -- Democratic lawmakers, prodding President Barack Obama to take a tougher line on China’s currency, are drawing up legislation and convening hearings on the yuan’s effects on U.S. companies. read more »
The trouble with China's economic bubble, The Washington Post | March 15, 2010
The bubbly enthusiasm that many analysts express about the Chinese economy reminds me of the old-time variety show host Lawrence Welk, who banished worries each week with soothing sounds from his Champagne Music Makers. read more »
Recovery emerging from U.S. factories, The Washington Post | March 15, 2010
Improbable as it seems, the brightest spot so far in the nation's spotty economic recovery is a sector long considered all but dead -- good-old-fashioned manufacturing.
Factories are churning. Exports are up. Even though jobs are the bleakest aspect of the overall economy these days, factory payrolls have turned positive. read more »
U.S. Industrial Production Rises but Manufacturing Lags, The New York Times | March 15, 2010
Industrial production picked up slightly in February, though a bout of snowy weather hampered growth in manufacturing.
Production rose 0.1 percent over all in February, the Federal Reserve said Monday, with mining gaining 2 percent and utilities increasing 0.5 percent over the previous month. read more »
China Uses Rules on Global Trade to Its Advantage, The New York Times | March 15, 2010
With China’s exports soaring, even as other major economies struggle to recover from the recession, evidence is mounting that Beijing is skillfully using inconsistencies in international trade rules to spur its own economy at the expense of others, including the United States. read more »
Obama's ambitious export plan may rekindle free-trade battle, The Washington Post | March 12, 2010
U.S. Nears a Crossroads on Trade, The New York Times | March 11, 2010
But the question is whether the United States is prepared to lead the way or whether protectionist pressures will make it all but impossible for the Obama administration to engage fully with the country’s trading partners. read more »
Obama pushing new U.S. export initiative, USA Today | March 11, 2010
President Barack Obama is pushing a new initiative to boost U.S. exports by enforcing trade deals and promoting American-made products overseas. read more »
Northrop halts pursuit of tanker contract, The Washington Post | March 10, 2010
Defense giant Northrop Grumman said Monday that it is pulling out of the $40 billion competition to build aerial refueling tankers for the Air Force, a move that defense analysts and procurement specialists say leaves its rival Boeing as the likely winner. read more »
China’s Exports Rise 46%, The New York Times | March 10, 2010
China announced Wednesday that its exports climbed 46 percent in February from a year earlier. Economists said the data signaled a rebound in consumer demand from the United States and other Western markets after the financial crisis last year. read more »
