House Republican Agenda: Make Big Banks More Profitable
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When the Republicans take over the U.S. House in January, one of the first things on their agenda is payback to those who helped get them in office: Wall Street.
And they’ve already announced one way they plan to do that.
The financial reform legislation that President Obama signed into law in July gave regulators a significant tool to rein in gambling by big Wall Street banks. The “Volcker Rule,” named after former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker who proposed it, is aimed at preventing Big Banks from speculating on securities or other complex financial products (a.k.a. “proprietary trading”) and putting strict limits on their ability to bet on hedge funds and private equity funds.
U.S. Trade Reps in China Need to Ask: What Will Make America Strong?
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When U.S. trade reps meet with their counterparts in China next week for the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, they should keep in mind this frightening fact: Last year, the biggest single U.S. export to China was $7.6 billion of paper and scrap metal, while China’s number one export to the United States was $46 billion of computer equipment.
In short, says Economic Strategy Institute founder Clyde Prestowitz, the entire wealth-producing basis of the U.S. economy has been eroding over the past 30 years, and unless this nation develops an industrial policy soon, the days of family-supporting U.S. jobs are gone.
Prestowitz, who served as principal trade negotiator for the Reagan administration, gave a timely presentation here at the AFL-CIO this week on his new book, “The Betrayal of American Prosperity: Free Market Delusions, America’s Decline and How We Must Combat in the Post-Dollar Era.”
He pointed to China’s currency manipulation as a big factor in the trade imbalance between the two countries ($227 billion in 2009), with China suppressing the value of the yuan in relation to the dollar, a practice that decreases the price of China’s exports and increases the cost of American goods imported into China. (The Alliance for American Manufacturing makes it easy to send a message to President Obama and Congress and urge them to stop China’s currency manipulation. Click here.)
It’s April 15: Time to Tax Wall Street. We Need Good Jobs Now
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Allison Fletcher Acosta, Communications & Technology coordinator at Jobs with Justice, is joining activists who are calling on Congress today to tax Wall Street and make it pay for jobs for the rest of us.
Today, Jobs with Justice activists and allies are protesting at banks and post offices in 40 cities across the country to highlight the need for good jobs—and a way to pay for them. Activists will hold rallies calling on Congress to create millions of good new jobs, tax the Wall Street speculators who broke our economy, reign in the Big Banks and protect consumers. We are demonstrating support for legislation like the Local Jobs for America Act (H.R. 4812), which will create 1 million jobs, and for the Let Wall Street Pay for the Restoration of Main Street Act (H.R. 4191).
A tax on the speculators of the Wall Street casino could put 3 million people to work fixing our infrastructure, teaching our children, making our factories more sustainable and improving our public services.
Memo to Leaders Meeting with China: Time for U.S. Policy that Aids Our Economy
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Here in Washington, D.C., President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner are taking part in a big-time summit with China. Let’s hope they have substantive discussions on economic policies that aid U.S. workers. Over the past few days, several great pieces on trade and manufacturing have been published that should feed into the discussions of U.S. participants in what is officially called the “sixth Strategic and Economic Dialogue with China.” Here’s a summary.
**U.S. “protectionism” is a myth. There’s an “untold story of protectionism,” say United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard and Scott Paul, executive director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing. That is, the set of barriers other governments erect to block American goods and the mercantilist measures they utilize to gain market share in the United States.
These practices range from China’s currency misalignment and massive industrial subsidies to non-tariff barriers in Korea and Japan. All these impediments have been well documented by U.S. trade officials, but the mere act of identifying these practices is now viewed as protectionism, even though taking action to eliminate them would expand world trade, reduce global imbalances and preserve the free market.
