We know bad trade deals have cost millions of American jobs. We have a jobs crisis with no growth in site. So, why in God's name would Congress pass more of the same? The South Korean trade deal has been analyzed to lose 159,000 jobs. The Panama trade agreement creates corporate tax havens that will be completely out of reach by the United States. Add in the Columbia trade deal and we've lost 214,000 jobs.
The U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee held a hearing, aptly titled, Manufacturing in the USA: How U.S. Trade Policy Offshores Jobs. The title says it all, eh? Unfortunately the actual hearing didn't have the right economists who would show amply with statistics and facts, the overall hearing title is oh so true.
Contained within is the obligatory other side of multinational corporations, and the real agenda of this hearing is some token retraining for U.S. workers who will lose their jobs as a result of these bad trade deals.
China is like a bunch of yelping dogs. So says Senator Sherrod Brown. When it comes to doing anything about our massive trade deficit with China, out come the pundits, corporate plants, threats and misinformation, all in an effort to stop our government from taking any action. Will the Senate actually listen to the statistics and the cries of the U.S. worker, ignore the snapping dogs, barring their teeth, nipping at their heels, and vote to do something?
Update: Yes the Senate did man up and voted for cloture, allowing the the vote for passage to occur. Here are the votes and it was 62 to 38. The bill still has to pass and Boehner is blocking the bill in the House.
Bloomberg has one whooper story. It seems the Koch Brothers made sales to Iran:
A Bloomberg Markets investigation has found that Koch Industries -- in addition to being involved in improper payments to win business in Africa, India and the Middle East -- has sold millions of dollars of petrochemical equipment to Iran, a country the U.S. identifies as a sponsor of global terrorism.
In case you've been dead, the Koch Brothers are the uber-rich guys out to destroy your social security, health care and, oh yeah, government as we know it.
No wonder they hate regulations and government. Doesn't help when you're doing something probably illegal, like making sales to a government under sanctions for being a terrorist state.
Beyond getting into the international bribes business, a crime the Koch Brothers are assuredly not alone in (see this Frontline documentary on how common international business bribes are), we have them losing one of the biggest civil wrongful death suits:
In 1999, a Texas jury imposed a $296 million verdict on a Koch pipeline unit -- the largest compensatory damages judgment in a wrongful death case against a corporation in U.S. history. The jury found that the company’s negligence had led to a butane pipeline rupture that fueled an explosion that killed two teenagers.
For the most part it seems the Senate likes to blow smoke when there is little fire to take action. Will this time be different?
Today the Senate voted 79 to 19 to allow Bill S. 1619: Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act of 2011, to proceed for amendments and a floor vote. The bill is a long overdue measure to provide for identification of misaligned currency. The bill provides a mechanism to require corrective action by the offending currency manipulator nation to correct the currency peg misalignment or face anti-dumping type tariffs. Reuters has a plain English summary of what the bill does. Beyond this cloture vote, the question becomes, will the Senate really do something and pass something to take on China and their flagrant undervaluing of their currency?
By now all of America has heard about BoA's $5 dollar a month fee to use a debit card, or $60 dollars a year just to use a standard feature of any checking account in the digital age.
The question becomes, why would anyone keep their money with Bank of America? Switch! It's easy! There are all sorts of online banks, credit unions which offer free checking, assuredly free debit card use, free ATMs and even offer interest on low balance checking.
America, vote with your consumer power and leave BoA, Wells Fargo or any other financial institution nickel and diming you to death. All these banks care about is keeping their executive bonuses rolling in.
Today we've heard from the 2008 TARP bank bail out inspector general, SIGTARP, that banks left TARP early, not because they wanted to pay back the taxpayer, or because they were financially stable....they left the bank bail out early in order to increase executive pay. The terms of TARP limited executive pay so banks were hell bent on getting out of it, despite their flimsy financial footing.
Guess who was at the top of that list? Bank of America.
Remember those time bombs called derivatives which threatened to economically blow up the world in 2008? Not only were they never really regulated, they are back with a vengeance. A new report, by the Comptroller of the Currency, on Bank Trading and Derivatives Activities, Q2 2011, shows derivatives have increased 11.6% from one year ago to a U.S. holdings of $249 trillion dollars.
Five large commercial banks represent 96% of the total banking industry notional amounts and 86% of industry net current credit exposure.
According to DealBook, those banks are, pretty much the same banks who were given massive bail outs via TARP. BoA especially is already in trouble due to their Countrywide holdings. 99% of all derivatives are held by just 25 banks.
The nation’s four biggest banks — JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs — are the biggest players, holding roughly 95 percent of the industry’s total exposure to derivatives. JPMorgan, which holds the most among commercial banks, carries some $78 trillion worth of derivatives on its books, according to the report. Citi is next on the list, with $56 trillion, up from $54 trillion in the first quarter.
It's Friday Night! Party Time! Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!
China is like a bunch of yelping dogs. 
Bloomberg has one whooper story. It seems the Koch Brothers made 
For the most part it seems the Senate likes to blow smoke when there is little fire to take action. Will this time be different? 
Recent comments