Sunday 30 January 2011
Congressmen play games as US economy is hurting
You know we’ve got problems when Barbra Streisand and Herbie Hancock understand the global economy better than John Boehner and Harry Reid. Singer Streisand and jazz great Hancock were on hand for the Chinese president’s White House dinner last week, while House Speaker Boehner, Majority Leader Reid and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell wimped out and stayed away.
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Congressmen play games as US economy is hurting
By WILLIAM PESEK JR
25 January 2011
You know we’ve got problems when Barbra Streisand and Herbie Hancock understand the global economy better than John Boehner and Harry Reid. Singer Streisand and jazz great Hancock were on hand for the Chinese president’s White House dinner last week, while House Speaker Boehner, Majority Leader Reid and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell wimped out and stayed away.
Lawmakers are right to object to China’s human rights record, undervalued currency, disregard for intellectual property laws and coddling of North Korea and Sudan. But blowing off a state dinner to placate the Tea Party crowd? That’s a little too high school for comfort and very short-sighted. President Barack Obama’s time with Hu Jintao had its successes, and Congress had other chances to chat with China’s leader. While small gestures can mean a lot, here’s the bottom line: economic imbalances are sure to grow even more dangerous.
Both leaders softened the rhetoric and pledged cooperation toward peace and prosperity. Mr. Obama gave Mr. Hu plenty of face with which to return home; Mr. Hu delighted Mr. Obama with an admission that China’s human rights need improvement. Capitol Hill is another story, and any glow from the Obama-Hu summit will end there.
Like it or not, China is booming. It grew 10.3 per cent in 2010, while US unemployment spent the year uncomfortably close to 10 per cent. China’s currency reserves rocketed to US$2.8 trillion, which is greater than France’s annual gross domestic product.
Yet China isn’t becoming less dependent on exports. Its reserves buildup shows the yuan remains undervalued, fanning inflation risks. Americans are still flooding the world with dollars and consuming more than they produce. Markets wonder how debt-laden European nations can cope with a currency beyond their control.
Rather than fix these festering imbalances, leaders are playing a game of global musical chairs. They are tiptoeing around a shrinking number of seats, hoping to find one when the music stops. There won’t be enough to go around. Will the US bond market be left standing and in turmoil? Or bonds in Japan, which has the largest debt among industrialised nations? What about Europe, where hedge funds are placing bets on which economy will crash next?
Almost all solutions to what ails the world run through Washington and Beijing. The financial tug of war between the US and China is a key reason why the euro and yen are stronger than officials would like. The US and China are critical to progress on everything from climate change to Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Chances for progress are minimal when Congress is more interested in scoring points in the short run at the expense of long-term prosperity. Blaming China is good domestic politics, but bad economics. It won’t create US jobs. Only bold efforts to make the US more vibrant will do that.
It’s hard to miss how US lawmakers are choosing wilful ignorance of a rapid shift in the world economic order. Mr. Obama’s economic stimulus, along with predecessor George Bush’s bank bailout, saved capitalism. Now, China is taking things a big step further by becoming the global economy’s sugar daddy. The future is one in which cash-rich authoritarian governments - be they in China or Gulf states - have huge leverage over free-market democracies. Increasingly, the size of their bond holdings will work their way into geopolitics.
China’s reserves will hit US$3 trillion before long and are on the way to US$4 trillion. China’s economy may well crash in the years ahead, as many emerging ones do. Yet if money is power, that’s a whole lot of influence. It scarcely matters whether Pimco, which runs the world’s biggest bond fund, is a buyer of sovereign debt issued by Greece, Ireland or Portugal. Not when China’s deep pockets are on the case. China’s plans, for example, to buy billions of dollars of Spanish debt calmed nerves in the eurozone.
China wants to buy some time for Europe, a vital export market. Yet further Chinese debt purchases have consequences. What if China saw its massive sway over bond yields as a way to blunt America’s support for Taiwan? What if China saw debt as a means of prodding the European Union to end arms sales embargoes?
If this sounds like a reach, consider Hillary Clinton’s maiden trip to Beijing as secretary of state in February 2009. She shelved human rights issues in favour of talking up debt. The longer we avoid addressing these imbalances, the bigger they will get.
Lawmakers can skip dinner with China’s leader, yet they can’t shirk their responsibility to put the world on a more sustainable path. That means dealing with Asia’s fast-emerging superpower. If entertainers can see that, why can’t Congress? - Bloomberg
The writer is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are his own
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