Currency Manipulation Should Top U.S.-China Talks
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China’s currency manipulation should be the main focus of talks this week between high level U.S. and Chinese government officials, says Scott Paul, executive director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM).
The meetings in Washington, D.C. May 9 –10 provide an important opportunity for the American delegation—led by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner—to back up the Obama administration’s tough talk on the Chinese government’s undervalued currency with strong action, he says.
If the administration will not get tough and demand that China play by the rules, Congress will have no option but to once again pass tough legislation to counter the artificial advantage China enjoys on trade.
End the Denial. Label China a Currency Manipulator
America and China are publicly in denial about currency manipulation. Both officially state that China is not devaluing its currency.
In mid-March, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao flatly denied that China deliberately suppresses the value of its currency against the dollar, a practice that decreases the price of its exports and increases the cost of American goods imported into China. Similarly, the U.S. Treasury Department, which is required by the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988 to name foreign currency manipulators in biannual reports, has not in the past decade and a half called out China—including in the past two reports submitted during the Obama administration.
China and America decline to acknowledge what everyone else knows: China suppresses the value of its currency to gain a trade advantage over America. The New York Times reported on the practice in a story published March 14, describing how currency manipulation has worked wonders for Chinese industry while killing American manufacturing. (Click here to tell the Treasury Department to stop denying that China is manipulating its currency.)
Health Care Reform, Revived Economy Best Rx for Social Security, Medicare
Brace yourselves. With today’s release of the Social Security and Medicare trustees’ annual reports showing the nation’s sinking economy has had an impact on the Social Security Trust Fund, doomsayers will be crying for drastic medicine that’s not needed.
The trustees 2009 report on Medicare paints a compelling case for comprehensive health care reform to rein in the skyrocketing health care costs that are driving Medicare closer to the financial brink and weighing down the entire economy.
A closer look at the Social Security 2009 report shows the program continues to run large surpluses and remains capable of paying scheduled benefits in full for the next three decades. The trustees reaffirm that the Social Security system is sound and faces no immediate danger, says AFL-CIO President John Sweeney.
Educating Timothy Geithner: The Congressional Review Panel on Capitol Hill
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The American people worry about how their $590 billion in taxpayer money is being spent in the big bank bailout—and, on Capitol Hill today, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was told why. In his first appearance before the Congressional Oversight Panel (COP), which has spent nearly six months reviewing the expenditures of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), COP chairwoman Elizabeth Warren told Geithner:
People are angry that even if they have paid their bills on time consistently and never missed a payment, their TARP-assisted banks are unilaterally raising their interest rates or slashing their credit lines….People are angry when they read headlines of record foreclosures because even if they aren’t personally facing trouble with their mortgages, they see their own property worth less and their communities declining as a result of the foreclosures all around them.
I appreciate your repeatedly stated commitment to transparency and accountability…but more remains to be done. People need to understand why you are making the choices you are making.
Functioning Banks, Fair Deal for Taxpayer Dollars Should Be Treasury Goal
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Yesterday, as the U.S. Senate was debating the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act—the Obama administration’s first major initiative to aid the economy—Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was outlining the White House’s battle plan to put the nation’s banks and financial institutions back on course.
While many of the details remain to be worked out, the financial rescue package aims at several major goals:
- Help banks cleanse their holdings of “toxic” assets to get private lending up and running again.
- Prop up banks’ capital position to generate a higher level of lending.
- Boost consumer and business lending to get credit flowing again.
- Stop preventable foreclosures and make housing more affordable by lowering interest rates.
- Monitor and make public financial institutions’ use of government-provided public funds and ensure that taxpayer money isn’t wasted.
