Posted on 03/04/2009 8:41:42 PM PST by bruinbirdman
The trade agenda of US President Barack Obama, released on March 2, appears to include more obstacles to free trade than incentives. His team brands the troubled Doha Round of talks “imbalanced”, while new trade agreements must satisfy tough standards on workers’ rights and environment. Obama’s agenda praises the benefits of free trade, but in practice his policies could prove protectionist.
For one thing, the administration appears to regard free trade as unpleasant medicine to be taken only when necessary. Obama's attitude to Doha, objecting to the US “giving” obvious benefits away while its “opportunities” are unclear, is a case in point. The main concession from the US in Doha is the reduction of farm subsidies, a major economic distortion and a waste of taxpayer money. The idea that free trade deals can result in huge economic benefits to everybody whether or not “gifts” are entirely balanced has been lost.
And while Obama reiterates the US commitment to the World Trade Organisation, his agenda promises to “aggressively defend our rights and benefits under the rule-based trading system”. Again, that seems to label trading partners as antagonists.
Free traders will also worry about the fate of past and future free trade agreements. Only the tiny Panama FTA will be allowed through quickly, while Colombia and South Korea, both substantial FTAs with important US allies, are now subject to a process of “establishing benchmarks for progress” – a delaying mechanism for agreements signed two years ago. Renegotiation of the North American FTA is on the cards too, albeit only through “working together” with Canada and Mexico.
The US unions’ desire to impose American labour practices on emerging markets appears sacrosanct, despite the failure to recognise drastic differences in economic conditions. Obama's environmental agenda too risks becoming an obstacle to free trade deals.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Obama apparently loves the 1930's; might as well throw a little protectionism in there for good measure.
At the risk of being pummeled on FR, in principle I agree with BO. The US needs to review our free trade agreements to see if they have been beneficial to the US. I can show you up state NY, Ohio valley, western PA, eastern KY, NC and etc where whole factories have moved out and nothing comparable has moved in to replace the badly needed jobs in the area. These regions have remained at best hobbled economic areas since the Clinton administration and made worst onward by the recession. The world accuses the US of possible protectionism, yet Western EU, Japan, China, India and Korea have been practicing protectionism for years using regulations as the means to carry out their policies. Common sense also dictates that when China and India obtain technical proficiency at par with the US, how will our workers compete against their competitive costs when these nations have no EPA regs, OSHA regs, human rights for workers, no lawsuits, etc, etc, that democracy demand from our employers. If US office workers and tech workers have their jobs offshored, tell me what do we do with them when we add them to the underemployed manufacturing workers who lost their jobs decades ago as we “transitioned to service and high tech”??? Sounds like a recipe for endless Dem victories.
yitbos
btt
So what happened to it after Sep 2008???? Let me recount and compare. Bin Laden crashes four planes and we spent 100 billion over 12 months to clean up ground zero. Wall Street bankers in Sep 2008 destroyed 2 trillion in one week. That was just the start of the costs. If we went back in time and saw Bin Laden and a Wall Street banker walking down the street. You have a pistol with one bullet in it, which one would you shoot first???
Do you have a perspective on little ol Netherlands with virtually no manufacturing yet owns more of the world per capita than anyone else? They have a pretty good socialist system, too.
yitbos
“If US office workers and tech workers have their jobs offshored, tell me what do we do with them when we add them to the underemployed manufacturing workers”
we help train them. Or they can train themselves. Not treat them like stupid babies that depend on the government for protection.
“So what exactly has made the United States of America a $14 trillion economic bastion of freedom and liberty that is the envy of the world?”
It for sure wasn’t what’s commonly referred to as “free trade”.
There are only a handful of ways to generate real wealth; manufacturing, mining, farming etc. The paper wealth you generate with free trade is just that: paper. What’s going on with the stock market shows what that is worth.
Wake up.
Suppose I lend some money to a guy who wants to build a factory and just ask him to give me some of those profits?
yitbos
“Suppose I lend some money to a guy who wants to build a factory and just ask him to give me some of those profits?”
Then you and he are manufacturing something; A factory...
In 2001 our Financial System was attacked by terrorists with planes flown into the Twin Towers in an attempt to destroy it.
Today the liberals/leftist/socialists/marxist are attacking our Financial System from within.
White Collar Terrorism.
Both designed to destroy America.
Your comment Wall Street bankers in Sep 2008 destroyed 2 trillion in one week.is a good example of that ignorance.
Barney Frank and his cronies were the architects and enforcers of what happened in September, yet you blame the people they forced (essentially at the point of a gun) to make this happen.
What an ignorant fool you showed yourself to be.
If you are involve in the mortgage business you would know that is half the truth. Yes subprime mortgage crisis is caused by Barney Franks and the Dems. However in dollar amounts the majority of the damage in the mortgage business involves conventional loans. Banks want to increase their holdings via originating as many mortgages as possible and then sell them to remortgaging companies within 6 months. Large dollar amounts of mortgage loans also signaled to Wall Street that the lender banks has become a major player in the banking field (stock price goes up, CEO bonus goes up and everyone down the chain gets hefty bonuses for meeting the production goals for loans. Mortgage dept heads stressed quantity of loans over quality of loans. No one cared to verify for accuracy and anyone who did was rebuked by supervisors for preventing their departments from meeting the production quotas (i.e bonus) Lender and BORROWER wanted the largest mortgage possible to buy the largest home possible. Lenders with borrower cooperation agreed to enter false income and asset info, and the banks did not verify the info. Unfortunately these notes were bundled and classified as low risk, thus the remortgage investor brought it using leveraged funds and the investment was insured against default by insurance companies. Where Wall Street screwed up was they thought they had the leveraged debt market in control because the software modellers they hired at great expense felt confident that their computer assisted management system can manage the complicated matrix and network of debt created after 20 years of increasing the usage of leverage funding and borrowing to invest in anything the market can conceive. There is nothing wrong with leveraging as long as the investor has an accurate picture of the risks and sufficient cash reserves to back the losses. On Sept 2008 the mortgage scamming by the mortgage bankers blew up the system as the housing bubble burst, and the over usage of leveraging and lack of cash reserves to back the losses wiped out the entire banking and insurance companies in the US. Subprime policies killed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, losses our system could absorb and manage, but the collapse of conventional mortgages due to fraudulent entries destroyed the investment banks and insurance companies to the tune of 5 trillion plus, and we have not dealt with the leveraged debt markets yet (estimated to be 55 trillion to 1 quadrillion). These loses simply overwelmed the system. Ironicly in 2005 subprime loans, derivatives and complexity/enormity of the debt market was brought up by the Bush admin to Congress. Lobbyist from the banks, mortgage companies, real estate and Wall Street put pressure on Congress not to interfere, Congress complied for ideological reasons (ala Franks and Dems) and campaign financial reasons (both parties). GWB admin failed by not pursuing the issue after being called racists by black Congressmen on the banking and housing committees. No sir, I submit to you that I am not ignorant, because I have family members and friends who are in the business, and I myself was in the business 15 years ago. Arrogance, and greed is what brought down Wall Street, and Congress helped it by listening to the lobbyist, take the campaign checks, and looking the other way until it was too late.
I'll address just one point of a dozen of what I have to now presume are willfully ignorant points.
GWB admin failed by not pursuing the issue after being called racists by black Congressmen on the banking and housing committees.
Anyone with even a smidgen of knowledge knows that he did make more than a half dozen attempt. He wasn't able to overcome the Barney Franks of Congress.
Willful ignorance on your part.
OK name caller. If you are an expert in mortgage business mechanics, tell me how subprime mortgages representing only 13 percent of the total mortgages (commerical and residential combined), where half of them were in default created 10 plus trillion dollars in damage alone (making top 20 US banks insolvent). Let me put it in high school level math language, do you know of anyone who lost 6.5 percent of their net worth and became bankrupt????? Please note the decimal point it is 6 and a half percent not 65 percent.
Additional evidence for my post http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2200541/posts
That is the subprime part of the crisis involving Fannie and Freddie. If you study the mortgage crisis further you will find a majority of it involves conventional loans due to false application data by the borrower with the originator collaborating and the bank processing department (that is where your loan application goes to to verify applicants income and assets before loan is approved) not verifying the data before the loan was approved. These loans represent the majority of the loans undergoing default. Google WaMu civil law suit. Stockholders are suing WaMu, and the star witnesses are the orginators who took in the applications and the bank staffs who were suppose to verify the info on the loans. What WaMu did had nothing to do with the CRA or subprime. It was motivated by production goals related to qualifying for yearly bonuses. These loans represent a majority of the foreclosures and toxic assets in the remortgaging market. It was common knowledge amongst realtors, builders and developers that borrower and lender were fudging the applications so the borrower can buy that dream house he desired but could not afford. They did not protest because it was making the deal happen and as far as they are concern, it was between the bank and the borrower. Yet the government regulators were no wheres to be found until it exploded. Today nobody is talking about prosecuting the lender and borrower, because a full blown investigation would show how incompetent the state and fed regulators were.
Over the past six months there have been hundreds, maybe even thousands of threads regarding the mortgage crisis. Even the most casual reader would have learned more truth than the nonsense you are spouting.
Your posting techniques and your (apparent) willful ignorance are more consistent with an argumentative Liberal, or a disruptor, than that of a conservative.
Be gone.
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