The Yuan is Undervalued

President Obama gave some good rhetoric after the G-20 meeting.

“It is undervalued,” Obama said of the yuan, speaking to reporters in Seoul after the meeting concluded. “And China spends enormous amounts of money intervening in the market to keep it undervalued.”

In case you missed it, China had a record surplus on trade.

China said Wednesday its trade surplus expanded sharply to 27.15 billion U.S. dollars in October from September's 16.88 billion U.S. dollars, making the October figure the second highest this year after July's 28.73 billion U.S. dollars.

China's exports rose 22.9 percent in October from a year earlier to 135.98 billion U.S. dollars, while imports increased 25.3 percent to 108.83 billion U.S. dollars, the General Administration of Customs (GAC) said in a statement on its website.

Dylan Ratigan did quite a segment on China, spattered with facts and Economist Peter Morici's never ending China tirade rants (justly warranted!).

 

 

For the first 10 months, China's trade with the EU, the country's largest trade partner, grew 32.9 percent year on year to 388.42 billion U.S. dollars.

Trade with the United States climbed 29.8 percent to 310.71 billion U.S. dollars during the January-October period. China-Japan trade totaled 239.28 billion U.S. dollars, up 31.3 percent year on year.

Most amusing China has created it's own credit rating agency and downgraded the United States due to QE2.

China is slated to be the world's largest economy by 2012. That's our manufacturing base, helping China, not the United States, become the world's dominant economy. Meanwhile the G-20 is beating up on the U.S. claiming the Fed is trying to devalue the dollar. Bottom line these countries want our jobs and are quite upset the minute the United States tries to do anything to get balanced trade.

Next week the U.S. China Economic and Security Commission will release their annual report. Should be a doozie and this commission goes in depth, so watch for it. (We'll be writing an overview on the reports findings).

Will the United States finally grow a pair and confront this never ending economic war against the United States through currency manipulation and stealing our jobs? Bear in mind, the U.S. is not only up against the world, but also up against our powerful multinational corporations, many which have more financial power than entire countries.

Meta: 

Comments

That's it

"the U.S. is not only up against the world, but also up against our powerful multinational corporations, many which have more financial power than entire countries." Guess who this administration will represent in that fight.

Here's the latest.  It's from the Christain Science Monitor.  It seems that, by far, the biggest gripe that the other oligarchs have with the US is the Quantitative Easing.  We've invaded militarily and financially, done some real damage, and now it's pay back time. 

Why world leaders smacked down Obama at G20 summit

 

 

I don't think this had anything to do with Obama or Politics

It's the first time the President of the U.S. has ever said anything about trade and how it's hurting our economy. Bush was busying destroying the U.S. economy and so did Clinton by passing these bad trade deals in the first place.

My surprise was more Obama even mentioned anything. Since Clinton, these countries got our manufacturing base and captured our economic power through trade manipulation so no surprise to me any suggestion they should give that up would be met with rebuking.

This is one of the first things they should have done in office is more the story.

more good Obama rhetoric

Going forward, no nation should assume that their path to prosperity is simply paved with exports to America

Reuters report.

This is good stuff, the problem is Obama has given many a time good rhetoric. Will they back it up with some action?

I'll like to find an analysis (from a group objective, which is hard to find) on what exactly would happen if the U.S. slapped tariffs against China, across the board. I think they should just plain do it, act unilaterally and get serious. That said, so much is manufactured in China, I'm not sure what that would do short term to the U.S. economy. If they do that, they should repeal the offshore outsourcing tax credits and probably offer some huge incentive package to build/manufacture in the United States, even if that is creating new companies to compete directly with "U.S." multinationals who moved to China.

I think they really should do a scaled, targeted group of tariffs, i.e. hit the business that a. we have alternatives in the U.S. for those goods and b. it's clearly a currency manipulation as the reason

Of course that would generate a flurry of WTO complaints but I think the U.S. needs to act in their own interests, go solo and give a big FU to these other nations on jobs and trade.

I think these other nations know the U.S. won't do a damn thing in reality...that's why they walk all over the U.S.

It's not because Obama lost in the midterms, they would do it no matter who was in office and how popular they were.

Kabuki theatre of China trade bashing

It is amusing indeed to see how the present situation is being laid at the feet of one party.

The facts:

Clinton and the Democrats passed NAFTA.

The same parties tried for years to get China admitted into the WTO - even unto Clinton's farewell speech at the WEF in January 2000:

http://money.cnn.com/2000/01/29/economy/davos_clinton/

Sure, Bush was the one sitting in the White House at the actual event, but both parties are equally responsible for allowing China into the WTO without actually having to follow all the WTO requirements.

Obama's actions to date - such as his India speech - show a continuation of the same policies.

Yuan

Economic war against the United States seems like a right on quote. We owe China so much money and they literally have us right where they want us. What would happen if they called in their loan?

we'd stop buying their products

The stat is somewhere on this site but their trade surplus is a huge percentage U.S. The U.S. refuses to buy their stuff, plus defaults, they would crash and burn along with the U.S. That's why it all needs to be graduated, but China is frankly smarter than the U.S. on a host of economic issues. They can just act, move, while the U.S., can't get a damn thing through Congress and even on executive action, where they could move faster, not much happens.