Obama's China Junket By MIKE WHITNEY

[Crewleader]

November 18, 2009

A Recipe for More Lost Jobs at Home

Obama's China Junket

By MIKE WHITNEY

Barack Obama took Hu Jintao to task on Tuesday, scolding the dejected-looking Chinese leader at a press conference held in Beijing. Obama delivered one ferocious jab after another, claiming that China's dollar-peg has cost the US millions of high-paying manufacturing jobs while creating gigantic trade imbalances which have destabilized the global economy and thrust the world into a severe recession. Obama demanded that the Chinese government convert to market-oriented exchange rates immediately to preserve jobs in America and to end the de facto tariff that China applies to US goods through currency manipulation. Obama's sharply-worded statement left Hu gasping for air while the assembled members of the western press snapped to their feet in raucous applause.

Okay, so it didn't really go down like that. The aforementioned "Obama-Jintao smackdown" never really took place; it's a fairy tale. The actual press conference was predictably bland and uneventful; another tedious exercise in international diplomacy. There were no fireworks or gaffes, nor was there any headway on any of the main issues; climate change, human rights, Iran or currency manipulation. Obama made a few perfunctory remarks about bilateral cooperation and the US's "strong commitment to a one-China policy", after which he was quickly transported to the Great Wall for a photo-op with the fawning media. The trip was a complete bust, in other words, it went exactly according to plan.

American workers and union bosses were hoping that Obama would plead their case and demand an end to China's currency policy which pegs the renminbi to the dollar. The policy gives China a leg-up on US exports which ends up costing America jobs. But, apart from a mild rebuke about "market-oriented exchange rates"--which was approved by his Chinese hosts--Obama avoided the topic like the plague. The rock-star president showed no interest in sparring with his new friends to defend the interests of US workers, a growing number of who spend their days perusing the want-ads or standing in unemployment lines.

http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney11182009.html

[yankee2]

1. It's Third-world-ization

It's curious that Mr. Obama is, relatively speaking, standing up for freedom of speech and information (and coincidentally a huge multinational corporation) in China, after clearly acquiescing to decades of serious human rights infringements there, also of course in the service of big business and trade interests.

Has anyone noticed that almost every single thing government does seems to miraculously serve rich and corporate interests far better than those of the American "Middle Class?" Our $Trillions were supposed to rescue the economy - presumably for US. Has it done that? It apparently HAS for rich corporate interests.

Is this the "Third-world-ization of America" we've heard about? Was that too radical an idea to take seriously? Look around. The Working Classes (including the Middle Class) just got sharply downgraded. There's little reason to think things will get better. Corporate interests will drag their feet and make excuses for failing to reemploy Americans, for decades, until we accept the new paradigm.

At that point, Huge Multinational Corporate (Owning Class) interests will have won! They will have increased their holdings and power dramatically, while those and that of the Working Classes will have declined, permanently.

The (multinational, NOT necessarily American) Owning Class has gotten it's way, and benefited most, in The Bailout, the destruction of health care reform, in the continuation of the two bloody wars, and in (perhaps) opening a Bigger, Better New Market, China.

What has been done for American PEOPLE?

I can't think of anything, can you?

[barb162]

2. In the stimulus package

there should be a restriction that all goods are made in the US, not offshore. Don't send a windmill for windfarms to the US that has been made in Asia.

It isn't all about currency.