The Biggest--and Worst---Trade Deal Ever You Need to Know About

The biggest trade deal ever, in the history of the nation, is being considered right now and most people know very little or nothing at all of it.

It is the Trans-Pacific Partnership or the TPP and here, in only 2 minutes and 26 seconds, are some very important facts about it.



As ever, please take a moment to write your Congressional representatives in the House of Representatives and the Senate and heck, for the matter, the President himself and tell him your thoughts on this:

Contact the U.S. Congress and the White House

Thank you, in advance.

And enjoy your Sunday and keep safe and warm out there, if you got snow and GO PATRIOTS!

First NAFTA and now the TPP

Are you following this Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations that are going on?

Learn more here:

Trans-Pacific Partnership: The biggest trade deal

One more reason the world can no longer afford the luxury that is war

"In this increasingly interdependent world, we have few pure “enemies” anymore: Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Al Qaeda, the Taliban. But we have many “frenemies,” or half friends/half foes. While the Pentagon worries about a war with China, the Commerce Department is trying to get China to buy more Boeing planes and every American university worth its salt is opening a campus in Beijing; meanwhile, the Chinese are investing in American companies left and right. President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela is the biggest thorn in America’s side in Latin America and a vital source of our imported oil. The U.S. and Russia are on opposing sides in Syria, but the U.S. supported Russia joining the World Trade Organization and American businesses are lobbying Congress to lift cold war trade restrictions on Russia so they can take advantage of its more open market."

--Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/05/opinion/its-mitts-world.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120905

Two telling articles on China today

Check out these two today from Yahoo! News, the AP and AFP. First this: GM's China sales hit record for August. And then this: European group: China imposing new market barriers. Not good. Not good at all. In the midst of worldwide recessions and worse, this is the kind of thing that starts world wars. Fortunately, China and the US need each other far too much. Let's hope that always holds. Links: http://news.yahoo.com/gms-china-sales-hit-record-august-075116832.html; http://news.yahoo.com/european-group-china-imposing-market-barriers-042147073.html

China on the US dollar

Talk about a "back-handed compliment."

Chinese President Hu Jintao said, basically, two things over the weekend as he's about to visit us and meet with President Obama this week.

First, he said there needs to be "cooperation" between our two countries.

Well, yeah, since they make stuff (cheap) and we buy so much of it.  That and the fact that they are so heavily invested in us and have been for some time ($2.85 trillion at the end of 2010), I'd say cooperation is pretty much an important "given" for the foreseeable future.

Second, he called the present U.S. dollar-dominated currency system a "product of the past" and highlighted moves to turn the yuan into a global currency.


Ow.  That one hurt.


Talk about kicking a guy when he's down.  And the "guy", being us, is his "friend" and close trading partner.


What's kind of amusing about this, too, is that the US wants China to appreciate its currency, the juan, so it isn't so cheap and therefore, its products so cheap, while China criticizes us for efforts by the U.S. Federal Reserve to stimulate growth through huge bond purchases to keep down long-term interest rates, a strategy that China has loudly complained about in the past as fueling inflation in emerging economies, including its own. He said that U.S. monetary policy "has a major impact on global liquidity and capital flows and therefore, the liquidity of the U.S. dollar should be kept at a reasonable and stable level."


So, basically, we each want to tell the other one how, exactly, to run their economies, their currency and so, their country.  That's good.


Unfortunately for us--but great for China--is that they were relatively unscathed by the global financial crisis (we started).  


Here's the scary part, though:  Mr. Hu's comments add to the sense that China intends to challenge the post-World War II financial order largely created by the U.S. and dominated by the dollar.


It's fascinating to see this relationship develop.  For  now, it's "yes, we want to and will cooperate" but it seems they also want to be sure we know they're coming up on us, economically and competitively.  


Fortunately, for now and the foreseeable future, we both need each other.   And badly.


"Can't we all just get along?"


Link to original post:  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703551604576085803801776090.html

Thank goodness. This is way overdue

It's reported today on the front page of The New York Times, among other places, that our government is analyzing curbs on the speculation of energy on the energy markets.

Thank goodness!

This is, as I said, above, long, long overdue.

Back in 2000, as I wrote here earlier, the "geniuses" at Enron got our government to do away with any government regulation of the energy markets.

What a mistake.

Sure, people and corporations could make great gobs of money but, in the meantime, companies like Enron could take energy out of, oh, say, a state like California with one sale, and then send it back in a new resale, to that same state.

Sound familiar?

It's why California had rolling blackouts all those years ago.

It nearly broke the state of California and its residents.

Sure, people were making those boodles of money, but the State of California--and, indeed, the whole country--was weakened, severely, both the state and the United States. It was an insane time for energy, energy trading and the people of California, who were at these trader's and corporation's mercy--or, rather, their lack of mercy.

This was also why the world oil markets took the price of a barrel of crude up to $147.00 per barrel a year or so ago, giving us $4.00/gallon gas at the pump.

It crippled households, their budgets, states and their budgets and the whole country.

An extremely small group of wealthy people 'round the world were getting richer while the middle class, the poor and businesses were crippled and at the mercy of the price of a barrel of oil.

The reason it's so important that we pass these curbs and bring back some regulation of oil and energy markets is because we are in such a deep and worldwide economic recession (at least) right now and we need stability in these energy markets. If we don't know where our costs are going to be in the future, how do we know what we can invest in? It makes our economic crystal ball impossible to read, as if it's not tough enough already.

And all we're taking away is the action of people "betting", in essence, on the energy markets, so they can make money and that's insane. That betting (purchasing oil and energy stocks, in hopes they'll go ever higher) can have the effect of breaking nations, households and businesses banks and pocketbooks, a dangerous possibility.


Link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/08/business/08cftc.html?th&emc=th