Kina og USAs udenlandsgæld

“Owe your banker £1,000 and you are at his mercy; owe him £1 million and the position is reversed.” – John Maynard Keynes

Glimrende og oplysende artikel på Forbes.com om USAs store udenlandsgæld, der hovedsageligt skyldes til Kina. Gældens astronomiske størrelse gør paradoksalt nok, at den i høj grad er beskyttet fra manipulation og spekulation – så længe gælden optages i amerikanske dollars. Men dermed betyder det ikke, at Kinas store indkøb af amerikanske gældsposter er gode for nogle af de to lande. Som artiklens forfatter, forfatteren og økonomen Bruce Bartlett, pointerer:

While I don’t worry too much about the Chinese using their Treasury holdings to bludgeon us into taking actions that are against our national interest, neither do I think the current trend is entirely healthy for both countries. The best solution would be for the Chinese to allow their currency to appreciate, which would go a long way toward redressing our trade imbalance, while we reduced our budget deficit enough to finance it domestically. Alternatively, we will have to be willing to accept broader Chinese ownership of private American assets–real estate, businesses and so on–which will certainly raise political tensions. It’s something both countries should seek to avoid.

Artiklen kommer rundt om væsentlige emner som Kinas statskontrollerede valutakurser, USA’s manipulerede handelsbalance med Kina, statsgældens indvirken på den sikkerhedspolitiske situation og The Founding Fathers uvilje mod statsunderskud. Den er bestemt værd at læse i sin helhed.

Timothy Geithner og Obama’s tabte år

To strålende artikler i The New Yorker om den amerikanske (og dermed globale) økonomiske situation:

Først John Cassidy’s portræt af den amerikanske finansminister Timothy Geithners økonomiske politik, the bail out, de politiske implikationer og den generelle utilfredshed i befolkningen med en økonomisk politik, der ellers har virket.

Money quote:

And yet—whisper it softly—there is good news about the financial system and the roundly loathed bank bailout, the seven-hundred-billion-dollar relief package that Congress approved in October, 2008. During the past ten months, U.S. banks have raised more than a hundred and forty billion dollars from investors and increased the reserves they hold to cover unforeseen losses. While many small banks are still in peril, their larger brethren, such as Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Goldman Sachs, are more strongly capitalized than many of their international competitors, and they have repaid virtually all the money they received from taxpayers. Looking ahead, the Treasury Department estimates the ultimate cost of the financial-rescue package at just a hundred and seventeen billion dollars—and much of that related to propping up General Motors and Chrysler. Barring something unexpected, the bailout will end up costing taxpayers less than the savings-and-loan implosion of the early nineteen-nineties. The government could conceivably end up making money.

Og dernæst George Packer’s artikel om Obama’s tabte år om hvorfor de fleste amerikanere ikke mener at regeringens store økonomiske hjælpepakke  har hjulpet dem personligt. Artiklen kan ikke læses online, men Packer’s blogpost beskæftiger sig med nogle af artiklens hovedpointer, ikke mindst kritikken af The Recovery Act:

The stalled effort to pass health-care reform has dominated analysis of the Administration’s difficulty in securing its agenda. But the key to Obama’s first year is the Recovery Act. It set the pattern for everything that followed: intelligent but cautious policymaking; legislative compromises that watered down the bill’s impact without enlisting more than a tiny number of Republicans; an immediate campaign by opposition politicians and media to declare the program a failure; a weak, uncoördinated Administration effort to explain and champion the stimulus package; gradual public disillusionment. A year later, Obama has few options left in the battle with stubborn joblessness.

Værd at læse det hele.

Samme tal, forskellig statistik = politisk retorik

Går det fremad eller tilbage for USA’s økonomi? To statistikker ud fra de samme tal giver to vidt forskellige indtryk.

Mistede jobs pr måned:

Mistede jobs i alt:

Begge statistikker viser en opbremsning i jobtab. Men hvor fornemmelsen af tydelig fremgang og ‘gode tider’ er markant i første graf, viser anden graf snarere en ramt økonomi på sit absolutte lavpunkt.

Manden bag sammenligningen, Pollster’s Charles Framklin, skriver:

One can think of these two charts as data displays that reveal different aspects of data, but also as graphical political rhetoric. The different aspects of data are the sharp reduction in the rate of job loss shown so well in the OfA chart and the terrible cumulative loss to employment in the country that has not yet started to rebound that is shown in my chart. Both of those are “true facts” about the jobs data. They use exactly the same data, so differences are entirely matters of perspective and perception rather than “apples to oranges” comparisons. But while both are true stories, their substantive interpretations are quite different– one is a story of an administration’s success is stemming the tide of recession, the other is the high water mark of that tide, which has yet to begin receding.

Og den opbyggende morale:

Same data, two charts, two different impressions, both fundamentally true yet also fundamentally misleading in opposite ways.  When data and politics mix beware the power of graphs to imply their own conclusions, even with the same data. And appreciate the rhetorical success of a graph that does it’s creator’s bidding.

Hat tip her.

Sarah Palin Watch

Jeg kender ingen der så årvågent holder øje med Sarah Palin og den ekstreme højredrejning af amerikansk politik som Andrew Sullivan fra The Daily Dish (og The Times). Har du ham ikke allerede bookmarket, bør du gøre det nu.

I sin lørdagsklumme undersøger Sullivan Sarah Palins mulige præsidentkandidatur enten for republikanerne eller som uafhængig ‘Tea bagger’ i 2012. Vil hun stille op eller ej? Og har hun overhovedet nogen chance for at vinde over Obama?

Sulliavan konkluderer:

There are two unknowns, it seems to me. The first is: who else have the Republicans got? No one out there equals her grip on the base or her charisma. In the primaries she has a solid phalanx of devoted supporters who are exactly the kind of voters who show up come rain or shine. If the Republican establishment tries to counter her with a blander candidate, she could easily run as a Tea party candidate — a George Wallace-style option and one that might well guarantee Obama a landslide.

The second unknown is the economy and the war. Both could get worse. A slide back into recession or a terror attack could give the sub-rational forces that Palin channels so well a real chance to break through. This is a country of deep and dark populist moments and she is seeking hers.

I have to say I fear her. Or, rather, I fear a country that has allowed such a person to come so close to power and to dominate its discourse quite so powerfully. It is a sign that all is not well. And the world needs an America which is more stable and more calm than the one Palin represents.

Hele artiklen her

Israels undergang bliver USA’s undergang

I am convinced in my heart and in my mind that if the United States fails to stand with Israel, that is the end of the United States . . . [W]e have to show that we are inextricably entwined, that as a nation we have been blessed because of our relationship with Israel, and if we reject Israel, then there is a curse that comes into play. And my husband and I are both Christians, and we believe very strongly the verse from Genesis [Genesis 12:3], we believe very strongly that nations also receive blessings as they bless Israel. It is a strong and beautiful principle.

Michele Bachmann, republikansk medlem af kongressen for Minnesota i hendes tale om den ‘guddommelige forbindelse‘ mellem Israel og USA, holdt til et arrangement i The Republican Jewish Coalition i Los Angeles sidste uge.

Som liberal, sekulær europæer er der noget nærmest middelalderagtigt over den slags udtalelser. Tror de virkelig på, at nationer opnår en eller anden slags guddommelig velsignelse, såfremt de støtter Israel? Eller at de samme nationer vil blive ramt af guds vrede, såfremt de begynder at stille kritiske spørgsmål til fx Israels forsatte udvidelse af bosættelser på besat område?

Ja, det gør de. Og det er derfor det nogle gange kan være så svært at forstå den politiske og samfundsmæssige dagsorden i USA. Simpelthen fordi den bygger på religiøse antagelser, vi i Europa overhovedet ikke er vant til, griber ind i politiske diskussioner.

Hvilke rationelle argumenter kan man komme med mod en person som Michelle Bachmann? Hvilke historiske og politiske facts kan man rulle ud imod hende for at få hende til blot at modificere sin utvetydige støtte til alt hvad Israel gør? Det står jo i Biblen!

Det er altså ikke kun islamistiske mørkemænd vi skal være bange for. De kristne kan også gode være med. Religion er herligt.

(By the way: Bibelcitatet Bachmann hentyder til er dette, vistnok guds tale til Israel: “And I will bless those who bless you / And the one who curses you I will curse / And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed“. Fra New American Standard Bible.)