10 Reasons Why Conservatives Should Be Against Unfair Trade With China And 10 Reasons Why Liberals Should Be Against Unfair Trade With China
by ilene - September 4th, 2010 1:39 pm
Michael Snyder makes arguments appealing to both right and left against our free trade relationship with China. Some of these arguments are better than others, but as a whole, he makes good points on each side. - Ilene
10 Reasons Why Conservatives Should Be Against Unfair Trade With China And 10 Reasons Why Liberals Should Be Against Unfair Trade With China
Courtesy of Michael Snyder
There are very few things that the top politicians in both political parties agree on these days, but one of the things that that they do agree on is that free trade with China is a good thing. George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, John McCain, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have all fully supported our trade relationship with China. In this day and age, virtually anyone who even dares to question how fair our "free trade" is with China is immediately labeled as a "protectionist" and is dismissed as a loon. But when you sit down and really analyze it, there are a whole lot of very good reasons why both conservatives and liberals should be fundamentally against our unfair trade relationship with China. But you won’t hear these reasons being talked about on CNN, MSNBC or Fox News. You won’t hear many members of Congress get up and give speeches about how trade with China is bleeding our economy dry. Both major political parties have completely and totally bought into "the benefits" of globalism and free trade and there isn’t even much of a national debate about our trade policies anymore.
But there should be a national debate. Unfortunately, most conservatives are just going to accept whatever their leaders tell them to believe. Conservatives have been convinced that to be against unfair trade is to be "anti-business" and no conservative ever wants to be anti-business.
Similarly, most liberals blindly follow whatever Obama, Pelosi and Reid tell them to believe. Millions of hard working Democrat voters have lost their jobs due to our nightmarish trade relationship with China, but they are still convinced that Obama is their savior and that they must not ever say anything that he does is wrong.…
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McCain’s Redemption?
by ilene - December 17th, 2009 11:19 am
McCain’s Redemption?
Courtesy of Karl Denninger at The Market Ticker
John McCain may be searching for redemption here….
Dec. 16 (Bloomberg) — U.S. Senators John McCain and Maria Cantwell proposed reinstating the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act that split commercial and investment banking to rein in Wall Street firms in response to the financial crisis.
“Under our proposal, too-big-to-fail banks would be forced to return to the business of conventional banking, leaving the task of risk taking or management to others,” McCain, an Arizona Republican, said at a Washington news conference. A former bank regulator said splitting up companies is “crazy.”
I will reiterate what I said back in the summer and fall of 2008: I am absolutely convinced that McCain’s endorsement of the TARP bailout bill, and his refusal to stand up and take a strong position in favor of the common man, is why he lost the election.
Reinstating Glass-Steagall would be a near-total reversal of his previous position. It would be recognition of the facts: Banks that are allowed to gamble in the financial markets inherently are gambling with the sovereign credit of The United States, and inevitably transfer their losses to the taxpayer while keeping ALL of the profits for their overpriced staff and executives.
This is often said to be of "benefit" to the public because these banks are public companies. This is a flat lie: Goldman typically bonuses out roughly half of their gross profits, with only a minuscule piece being paid in dividends to shareholders. Other banks have similar compensation policies.
There is no "free market" way to prevent such distribution. You can only prevent it by prohibiting lending and/or depository institutions from speculating in any form or fashion in the markets.
For those firms that wish to speculate they should be free to – with their own funds (that of their shareholders or bondholders) but they must be accountable to the last penny for each dollar at risk, and unable to transfer that risk to the taxpayer.
Wall Street will, of course, fight any such law tooth and nail, because speculating with other people’s money and being able to force the taxpayer to eat all risks of loss is the time-honored fashion by which these institutions steal hundreds of billions of dollars from…
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‘You Lie!’ Rep. Wilson’s Outburst
by ilene - September 10th, 2009 2:29 pm
‘You Lie!’ Rep. Wilson’s Outburst
By Michael Scherer / Washington, courtesy of TIME
"You lie!"
Those words cut in politics. When directed at the President of the United States, during a prime time address to the nation no less, they cut deep.
So when Rep. Joe Wilson, a little known Republican and Army reserve veteran from South Carolina shouted them at the nation’s commander-in-chief on the night of Sept. 9, heads snapped. The House Chamber took a collective gasp. Nancy Pelosi, sitting behind Obama, tensed and scowled as if she had just witnessed a crime, her disgust unhidden.
Even Obama, who had just dismissed conservative claims that illegal immigrants would be able to take advantage of health-care reform, was taken aback. He looked to his left, adjusted his arm, part nervous twitch, part macho posturing, and shot back at Wilson, "That’s not true." And there, for a moment, the nation watched two men, elected to lead, call each other the worst thing in politics — dishonorable deceivers.
At the moment Wilson exploded, the outburst seemed like an assault on the President. Soon afterwards, it was clear that it had been a gift. Wilson had, in an emotional expression, proven Obama’s point: the summer of town halls had been less a discussion than a circus, a forum where misinformation was vindicated by passion, where disrespect was elevated as a virtue. Now the circus had come inside Congress.
The President’s seemingly simple statement, that "the reforms I am proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally," is not hard to check. In the Senate Finance Committee working framework for a health plan, which Obama’s speech seemed most to mimic, there is the line: "No illegal immigrants will benefit from the health care tax credits." Similarly, the major health care reform bill to pass out of committee in the House, H.R. 3200, contains a Section 246, which is called, "NO FEDERAL PAYMENT FOR UNDOCUMENTED ALIENS." Some Republicans have claimed that these protections are too weak, since they do not require stringent eligibility checks that would prevent illegal immigrants from gaming the system.
It did not take long for the condemnations to rain down on Wilson. Republican Sen. John McCain went on CNN to…
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW. She manages the site