The most absurd thing is happening. Claiming to push exports, President Obama is planning on pushing a host of policies that are well documented to offshore outsource jobs and displace U.S. workers. On Obama's export council is Verizon, a notorious labor arbitrager. Ford, Disney, Pfizer (another notorious offshore outsourcer of advanced R&D), and Dow Chemical are also appointed.
He’ll have to push new trade agreements, higher quotas for skilled foreign workers, and tougher enforcement of intellectual-property rights.
On what planet, besides a made up one, does someone believe displacing a U.S. worker with a foreign guest worker helps U.S. workers get jobs? Of course firing Americans and replacing them with cheaper labor does not create U.S. jobs for American workers. Evidence of U.S. workforce displacement through global labor arbitrage is overwhelming. The top users of foreign guest worker visas are offshore outsourcers and even the GAO has documented the displacement and wage repression of U.S. workers.
On The Economic Populist you might have noticed the right column. We try to list other sites and blogs who have exceptional insight and writing on what is happening in the U.S. economy.
Sometimes though, one cannot say it better but miss those who did.
Must Read Post #1
Calculated Risk has a series of sovereign debt and default. In three parts:
The rich are walking away from their mortgages much more than the middle class and poor. I guess a sense of duty, ethics and personal responsibility in today's world just doesn't pay.
The New York Times is warning on a second round of financial crises. In Crisis Awaits World’s Banks as Trillions Come Due it is revealed globally banks owe $5 trillion dollars in short terms loans that either must be repaid or rolled over.
Banks worldwide owe nearly $5 trillion to bondholders and other creditors that will come due through 2012, according to estimates by the Bank for International Settlements. About $2.6 trillion of the liabilities are in Europe.
U.S. banks must refinance about $1.3 trillion through 2012. While that sum is nothing to scoff at, analysts seem most concerned about Europe because the banking system there is already weighed down by the sovereign debt crisis.
How banks will come up with the money is an open question. With investors worried about government over-indebtedness in Greece, Spain, Ireland and other parts of Europe, many banks have been reluctant or unable to sell bonds, which they typically use to raise money that they lend on to businesses and households.
The article implies the Financial Armageddon can was simply kicked down the road.
The practice of short-term borrowing and long-term lending contributed to the near-collapse of the world financial system in late 2008 when short-term financing dried up. Banks suddenly found themselves starved for cash, and some would have collapsed without central bank support.
Are the banks going to investigate if you chewed gum and if so, deny you a loan for it next?
Recently, Mr. Berg arranged a refinancing for a borrower with a very high credit score and lots of home equity and debt payments totaling just 19% of pretax income. But Mr. Berg said the lender was worried about a credit report showing a $14 missed payment to a credit-card company in 2001. The lender insisted on proof the money had been paid, which Mr. Berg said was impossible to get.
"Who cares?" he said. "It's nine years ago, and it's $14." He appeased the lender by having the borrower write a $14 check, though no one knew where to send it.
Pete Ogilvie, a mortgage broker in Santa Cruz, Calif., hasn't found a bank that will refinance a $250,000 loan on a $1 million property for a borrower with more than $200,000 a year in income and a high credit score. Banks balked because the borrower, a technology executive, was out of work for nearly a year starting in 2008.
Now the news, China's trade gap increased 140% from one year ago.
The trade gap rose 140 percent, to $20.02 billion, compared with a year earlier, the customs bureau said on its Web site on Saturday. That compares with the $15.6 billion median estimate of 24 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. Exports surged 43.9 percent compared with a year earlier and import growth moderated for the third month, rising by 34.1 percent.
Notice how exports soared while imports, uh, not so much.
The value of outbound shipments rose to a record $137.4 billion last month, the customs bureau said. The previous high was $136.68 billion in July 2008, before the global financial crisis deepened. The 43.9 percent expansion compared with the median 38 percent forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of 24 economists.
Before you have a finished product you have a commodity, and before that commodity becomes a finished product it has to be shipped to market. That's why the Baltic Dry Index is a leading indicator.
The index of freight rates on international trade routes fell 38 points, or 2 percent, to 1,902 points today, according to the London-based Baltic Exchange. Today’s drop was the 31st straight decline. That’s the longest since the 34 sessions to Aug. 15, 2001, according to Baltic Exchange prices. Charter rates for all types of ships tracked by the exchange fell.
“We don’t see anything in the next two to three weeks that’s going to turn the market around,” Guy Campbell, head of dry bulk at Clarkson Plc, the world’s largest shipbroker, said by phone.
While the Baltic Dry Index hasn't fallen nearly as far as it did in 2008, it is falling faster than it did in 2008. It has collapsed by over 50% since May.
On Obama's 
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!
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