During Tuesday night’s debate in New Hampshire, moderator Karen Tumulty challenged Mitt Romney on his recent tough talk on China. Romney says China is a “currency manipulator” and argues that, by setting unfair prices and allowing the theft of American intellectual property, the Chinese government is cheating world markets and must be held accountable

Tumulty pointed out that candidates from George W. Bush to Barack Obama have campaigned as tough talkers to China but upon election take a “much more cautious approach.” Why, she asked, should voters expect anything different from a President Romney?

“I’m afraid that people who’ve looked at this in the past have been played like a fiddle by the Chinese,” Romney said. “And the Chinese are smiling all the way to the bank, taking our currency and taking our jobs and taking a lot of our future.  And I’m not willing to let that happen.” Romney went on to reiterate that he would sign an executive order on his first day in office “identifying China as a currency manipulator” and that he would take that case to the World Trade Organization.

On her radio show Wednesday morning, Laura Ingraham asked Romney whether the U.S. is already in a trade war with China.

“I don’t know that I’d use the term ‘trade war,’ but it’s a trade battle of some kind,” Romney said. “It’s a trade surrender, let me call it that….It’s just crazy for us to be fearful that somehow if we crack down on cheaters that that’s going to be a problem.”

——————

Reuters

Romney would squeeze China on currency manipulation-adviser

(Reuters) – Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is looking at ways to increase pressure on China over what he sees as currency manipulation and unfair subsidy practices, a Romney campaign adviser said on Tuesday.

“I think he wants to maximize the pressure,” Grant Aldonas, a former undersecretary of commerce for international trade, said at a symposium on the future of U.S. manufacturing. Aldonas served at the Commerce Department under Republican President George W. Bush.

Romney, the front-runner in the Republican race to challenge President Barack Obama for the White House in November, has promised if elected he would quickly label China a currency manipulator, something the Obama administration has six times declined to do.

That would set the stage, under Romney’s plan, for the United States to impose countervailing duties on Chinese goods to offset the advantage of what many consider to be China’s undervalued currency.

Last year, the Democratic-controlled Senate passed legislation to do essentially the same thing.

However, the measure has stalled in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, where leaders say they fear it could start a trade war, and the Obama administration has not pushed for a House vote on the currency bill.

The U.S. Treasury Department on April 15 faces a semi-annual deadline to declare whether any country is manipulating its currency for an unfair trade advantage. The department, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, has not cited any country since 1994, when China was last named.

Asked if Romney was serious about declaring China a currency manipulator, Aldonas answered: “He is.”

Aldonas said he would convey a questioner’s suggestion back to the campaign that Romney prove his seriousness by urging House Ways and Mean Committee Chairman Dave Camp, a Michigan Republican, to take up the currency bill.

However, Aldonas said any currency legislation should also address broader subsidy practices that encourage Chinese companies to build excess production capacity that “spills into our market.”

“So, I’d love to see Dave Camp add something to that bill, which is not just currency but actually goes after the subsidies that bring the excess capacity on the market and actually affects our producers,” he said.

LOSS OF JOBS

White House economic adviser Gene Sperling, in a speech to the same group, did not directly address concerns about China’s currency practices but said there was “no question” that a surge in imports from China had contributed to the loss of millions of U.S. manufacturing jobs in the past decade.

Sperling said the Obama administration had brought cases against China at the World Trade Organization at twice the pace of George W. Bush’s administration and also used a trade provision, known as Section 421, for the first time to stop a surge of tire imports from China.

Immediately after the speech, Sperling declined to comment on whether the administration would take action to curb imports of auto parts from China, as 188 lawmakers urged Obama to do in a letter earlier this month.

But later he indicated the matter was under consideration.

“We take a congressional letter on a trade issue like this very seriously and we are carefully reviewing it,” Sperling said in a statement to Reuters.

The 188 lawmakers, mostly Democrats, accused China of using “predatory” pricing practices to grab an increasing share of the U.S. auto parts market.

“We cannot wait until further damage is done,” the group said in their letter. “Seventy-five percent of the jobs in the automotive sector are in auto parts, and these jobs are at risk in every state in the nation.”

(Reporting By Doug Palmer; editing by Todd Eastham and Eric Beech)

As our world has grown smaller and interconnection greater, we will be affected by the ‘getting worse by the day’ situation in Europe.

Put simply, many of the European governments have spent too much money and cannot bring down their debts. No matter what austerity measures they take their economies and their work forces are uncompetitive.

These countries include Greece, Italy, and Spain. Even France is having its share of problems.

Not unlike the USA, the political situation in these countries is divisive and the people do not want to deal with the hardships of austerity and politicians in those countries deceive the voters pretending they have a painless solution.

Also plaguing these countries is that tax avoidance, tax bribery, and off the books transactions have hindered adequate tax collections to pay down their debts.

Two reasons why should we care about this:

• Imports and exports.  We export goods to Europe and if they are in a recession/depression then they cannot buy our goods.  Further as their economies decline their currency, called the euro, will go down in value making European imports cheaper and costing American jobs.

• We do not know how interconnected our banks are with European banks.  There are transactions going on all the time such as ‘derivatives’, which are defined as; contracts, whose value is derived from that of other quantities.  Derivatives are written by financial institutions such as banks and investment bankers and are hidden from public view.

They were a substantial part of the problem when our economy collapsed in 2008. We do not know how much American banks are tied into European banks through loans and derivatives.

Due to the stand off in D.C.  we have done little to make visible if our financial institutions have either made loans to European banks and businesses or to make visible if they have been involved in derivatives.

America needs to turn inward and buy our own products.  We cannot go backwards into the ‘good old glory days’ as the world has substantially changed and so has our country.  We need to take care of our own country and at the same time maintain our freedom through diplomacy and a strong military.

By Mark Bloome, Founder of TAP America

China, the rising super power of the world, poses the greatest threat to the economic independence and political freedom of the United States – far more than Islamic terrorism. As China continues to expand its economic, political, and military strengths, it exerts expanding influence over other nations. Just recently Europe went to China begging it to bailout Europe.

This executive summary will highlight the threats posed by the Chinese Communist government in hopes of invoking change at the citizen-level to re-ignite the torch of liberty for America and the world. While examining this threat, we must remember that it is not the Chinese people who pose a threat to America, but the Chinese Government ruled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

I. Economy

The Rise of China

The Chinese Communist Party possesses the military, economic, population and political power to undermine the foundation of our beloved country. China’s population exceeds that of the United States by 3 to 1. This represents labor, military and intellectual capital for China. China is already ahead of the United States in many technologies such as solar panels, advanced manufacturing techniques and a modern infrastructure. For example, China has 6000 miles of high-speed rail while the USA has none!

America’s Dependence on China

China has been able to turn America’s capitalistic system against us. Top-down state capitalism is proving to be a more efficient system than the push and pull of our democracy. From a strategic POV we are short-term planners with an eye to next quarter.  Because of the cheap prices made possible through devaluing their currency, lack of worker’s rights, and very few environmental regulations, our American corporations fire Americans and hire Chinese workers to drive higher profits. Companies with squeaky-clean images like Apple, REI and Target are taking jobs away from American workers by manufacturing their products overseas in China.

Because quarterly and yearly profits drive both stock prices and executive bonuses, executive decisions are made to abandon America and support China.

The movement by American companies to both manufacture and import from China is the main reason the USA economy has not recovered. Manufacturing is one of the foundations of our economy our foundations have been razed.

China needs to create more than 25 million jobs each year to keep pace with their increasing work force and internal political peace. It is the policy of the CCP to use multiple strategies, some legitimate, most not, to take jobs away from Americans and give them to Chinese workers. The best chance America has to stop the Chinese juggernaught is to buy American goods and services.

The reduction in American jobs has caused both our small business profits and workers wages to decline significantly, thus increasing our deficits and less tax revenues.  We need tax revenues to pay for schools, roads, senior health care, prisons, police, and a strong military.

II. Military

China’s Military Expansion

While publicly pretending to want peace, in fact China is building a strong military to confront the USA and protect its interests. 

According to October 24, 2011 issue of The New York Times, “In the past year, China has tested its first radar-evading fighter jet, the J-20, and is developing an anti-ship ballistic missile that is designed to hit American aircraft carriers. China is also in sea trials with its first aircraft carrier. And the People’s Liberation Army — with some 1.25 million ground troops, the largest in the world — is on track to achieve its goal of building a modern, regionally focused force by 2020.” This highlights that China is preparing to confront the United States in the near future.

Examples of China’s growing military competence:

• In 2007, a Chinese submarine, capable of torpedo or missile attack, popped up next to the Kittyhawk, a US Carrier with 4500 personnel on board. The sub went undetected and left the US Navy dumbfounded as to how it went undetected so long.  The US’s falsely-held beliefs of naval superiority were put into question.  As its technologies progress, the US can expect the Chinese military to continue to test the capabilities and weaknesses of the US navy.

• The U.S. government along with MacAfee has recently implied that China is involved in one of the largest hacking efforts in history, breaching into computers and databases within US government offices and departments. The U.S. government just released a report about China’s cyber attacks on our government, military and industrial organizations.  Further MacAfee released a statement saying, “It had alerted the 72 targets it identified and also informed law enforcement agencies, which it said were investigating. The 14-page report calls the attacks highly sophisticated and says they appear to have been operated by a government body, which it declined to name.”

• The sophistication of such attacks illustrates the Chinese’s competence to cyber attack the US’s our military, economic, electrical power and industrial capacities with the goal of shutting us down. .  Evidence points out extended Chinese cyber attacks on the Pentagon, CIA, and FBI.

• There is evidence that China has supported Islamic terrorism throught Iran. Iran is a major supporter of Islamic terrorism and according to the U.S. government, is building nuclear bombs. To afford to do these things Iran receives significant economic support from China by “trading” for Iranian oil. It is in China’s interest to use Iran to fund Islamic terrorists as this both keeps us devoting resources in the Middle East and stopping domestic terrorism. China’s potential support of a terrorist nation weakens us, increases our deficits, and keeps our military pre-occupied.

III. Human Rights

Human Capital and Human Rights

The Communist government restricts freedom of all sorts in the name of “national harmony”.  It has even created a roadblock to upward mobility for its citizens. This roadblock comes in the form of identity cards issued at birth to Chinese citizens based upon their social and geographical status. Chinese citizens born in rural farming areas are limited to rural jobs and opportunities. Legally, they cannot take up jobs or even residence within larger Chinese cities to earn a livable wage. Because of this illegal status the rural workers who need city jobs, work more like illegal immigrants at low paying jobs.

China’s conquest and subjugation of Tibet, its murder of over 3000 people at Tiananmen square and censorship to prevent knowledge of this event by its citizens are all examples of how the Chinese Communist Party exhibits its control over its people and how it would control other nations.

Conclusion

Throughout history, empires have risen and fallen. For over a thousand years the Chinese Empire had been the most sophisticated and dominant empire in the world.  Historically when China ruled Asia and dealt with the West, its policy was and is likely to become that all nations must kowtow (Kneel and touch the ground with the forehead in worship or submission as part of Chinese custom and respect) to China.

As China’s political power and influence grows and as other countries decline, it is possible that more and more countries will adopt, or be forced into, the Communist system of central control, suppression of freedom, and state ownership of most businesses.  This is because the winning system becomes the one which others are forced to adopt. For the last hundred years it has been American democracy and capitalism.  Before that it was English and European dominance and colonialism.

Right now the bankrupt European nations are coming, hat in hand, to beg China to help them out.  China wants access to advanced armaments from European manufactures to be used offensively and aimed at defeating the United States.

China’s centralized government has shown an ability to accelerate change so that we can expect an even more rapid pace for them to be prepared to take against America and other nations. Their astute economic tactics promoted and promulgated by the CCP has allowed China to rise at a rate of industrialization unheard of in modern history.  One of the reasons that have allowed China to grow so rapidly is its repression of human rights in the context of harmony.  There is no overt political opposition in China, which is in keeping with how China views its internal policies.  As Tibet has shown China will use military suppression on all countries that it either conquers or dominants.

China and the USA are at a crossroads about whose values win– the freedom of America or the iron fist of the Chinese Communist Party.  We can win simply by buying American goods and services.  Chinese exports to the West are dropping and European exports which count for 22% of China’s GNP, will drop as Europe goes into a tailspin.  We have a window of opportunity to create internal dissent in China if we add to China’s economic weakening by boycotting Chinese goods.

If China turns against itself, and Americans take individual responsibility through buying American, then we can remain the strongest nation and keep the light of liberty alive for all people.

For most citizens what has been going on in Washington D.C. over the raising of the debt ceiling and its effects on our economy has been difficult to understand.  This article attempts to examine the evidence and provide an easy to understand explanation.

WHY WE ARE IN DEBT

For decades members of both political parties have voted to spend more dollars than the income the government receives. In general, the Democrats spent on programs to help the middle-class workers and the Republicans spent on programs that support corporate and upper-income earners.

The unspoken rule of elected officials was, and remains to spend in order to get the most money into their states or districts so they had a better change of getting re-elected.  Elected officials are less inclined to worry about the future because there was little incentive to do so. Under both Democratic and Republican leadership, the deficit has grown exponentially.  Recently the deficit has gone way up.  There are several reasons for this:

·       The Chinese Communist Government has enacted several tactics and policies in attempt to gut-out the American economy. By devaluing their currency, they are enticing the U.S. (and other countries) to send manufacturing jobs to China. As a result, America no longer has the same manufacturing base as a decade ago.  Manufacturing is the foundation of our economy and our foundation has been razed.  Now, the house of the American economy is unstable and not able to recover from the hollowing out of American manufacturing businesses.

o   The reduction in manufacturing and jobs has caused our taxable business profits and taxable incomes from American workers to decline significantly.  Less money coming in from taxes + more money going out through wars and bail-outs = higher deficits.

·       The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which some put the cost at over one Trillion two hundred billion $1,200,000,000,000.  Through the purchase of Iranian oil, China has been able to keep money coming into Iran thereby allowing them to finance turmoil in the middle-east and overseas.

·       The bailouts of the large businesses and big banks due to these institutions’ reckless practices of taking very high risks. According to Bloomberg News, over twelve trillion dollars—yep that is TRILLION — were used either to prop up or lend to banks and other businesses such as AIG.  This was not China’s doing but our own. (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/economy/the-true-cost-of-the-bank-bailout/3309/)

WHY WE CANNOT RECOVER

It will be a tough road for the United States over the next couple years because China has done many things to make the USA weak, such as currency devaluation (see “My Dog Song Buys a Bone” at TAPamerica.org). Also, the Communist Government of China has been giving free or very low-cost land and very low interest rate loans to Chinese business to spur production and boost their economy. Free land and low interest rates make it cheaper to produce Chinese goods.  In addition, Chinese workers work long hours for low pay and have little to no benefits.

Further through cyber-spying and theft of intellectual property sanctioned by the Chinese government, have made the costs for Chinese goods cheap.  Thus through most of the above the Chinese have been able to sell lots of cheap goods to Americans.  These practices on behalf of the Chinese economy have caused lots of our businesses to reduce their size, go broke, and/or have their goods made in China.  Our American workers have lost their jobs.  This is why it will be difficult to recover from the recession we are currently facing.  No jobs, no profits, no taxes to run the government.

TRADE DEFICIT MADE EASY

Because China sells us more goods than we sell them, they have what is called a “trade surplus.”  As a simple example: say we spend a hundred dollars on Chinese goods and they only spend $25 on USA made goods.  So they have an extra $75 in dollars.  They take these extra $75 dollars and buy USA Treasuries.  Currently they own over 1.2 trillion dollars in USA treasuries.  Needless to say they want to protect their investment and want to make sure that the U.S. government follows safe and conservative practices.

China wants the USA to cut military spending in order to make the USA militarily weak.  In the meantime China is building offensive weapons, such as nuclear submarines, special missiles designed to attack our aircraft carriers, and their own stealth fighters in order to flex their military muscles to intimidate the USA.

TREASURY BILLS AND TREASURY NOTES

When the USA wants to borrow money to pay for its overspending, it issues treasury notes and bills.  These are IOU’s from the USA government to who borrows the money and because they are considered one of the safest investments (which is what the ratings are all about) they pay low interest rates.

U.S. CREDIT RATINGS

The USA S&P ratings, Moody ratings etc are just like your credit ratings.  How much you earn, how much you owe and how likely you are to pay your debts.  So when the USA credit ratings go down, we have to pay higher interest rates to borrow money.  Our taxes pay for these higher rates.

Our government is frozen in inadequate actions.  The solutions presented in D.C. will not help and in fact, the cut backs in USA spending are likely to cause more unemployment and lower tax revenues.  The USA cannot increase federal spending at this time. Thus we continue the downward spiral of our great country as we are forced to reduce spending on what is needed to sustain ourselves as number one.

TAP America believes that we as citizens need to take a stand. If you want to help yourself and your fellow citizens, take our motto to heart:

“BUY AMERICAN, THE COUNTRY AND JOBS WE SAVE WILL BE OUR OWN.”

Only then will we bring manufacturing jobs back to America and revitalize our great country.

Why should I (a middle-aged, middle income, mother of 3 who owns a small business) care about buying American made products and services? Why should any of us care about buying local? Well, for me, the answer is simple: I want myself, my children, my community, and my country to have health, security and prosperity.

I own a local business in a small town. When a huge multi-department grocery, retail, drug, housewares, garden, fabric, and hardware national corporate store moved into our town, one-by-one several small locally-owned businesses went out of business. The historic downtown corner hardware store was the hardest to see go. Additionally, most of these big corporate businesses sell products made from cheap overseas labor and then ship them half way around the world unnecessarily polluting the environment and compromising the world’s environmental health.

Do we have a choice here? The answer is: YES. If we purchase locally made, grown, or sold products, we support the true American spirit of opportunity for people, not corporations. We can provide more local jobs, and, therefore more money, right where we live. This also cuts down on long shipping distances necessary to bring vast quantities of cheaply made overseas products to a convenient local location. More money stays in the local economy, providing better funding for schools, libraries and other local services.

So, what about arguments against buying locally? Some may say we are denying these poorer overseas populations the resources American companies could bring them.

Dependency theorists (Vaughn, 1978; Walterstein, 1979; Delcroix & Ragin, 1981; Bergesen, 1983) found that “Multinational investments …actually creates few jobs, inhibits the growth of local industries, and pushes developing countries to produce goods for export rather than food and other products for local consumption.” These issues combined with poor working conditions, bring dependency and further poverty to these countries, not to mention the resulting inevitable poverty that will come to our communities and country.

Some believe that buying overseas products and food from big box stores helps them save money. This might seem like a really good financial idea, but it is only a short-term benefit with drastic long-term consequences. Can buying products made overseas from big corporations really affect your overall and long-term financial prosperity? Really, the only people who will not be affected by this continually escalating practice are the extremely wealthy that make up a very small percent of Americans who own most of American wealth and currently control our government through their high-paid lobbyists. The mega wealthy are cleverly ensuring their place in power through strategic methods. The only real power we have to change this greedy and selfish practice is with our consumer dollar. We are heading toward two very distinct classes in this country: the mega wealthy and the poor…which we will all eventually become, if this continues.

There is hope…take just a moment in your busy day to pay attention to the real choices you have. When you go to “vote with your dollar”, what are you voting for? What are you supporting? Make it a habit to ask yourself the following questions:

1. Can you buy that product, service or food item locally grown or made?
   Remember, this supports the local economy and the environment by reducing shipping distance.
2. If not, can you buy that product made in, or food item grown in, America?
   The prosperity, freedom, opportunity, and the country you save, will be your own.
3. If not, can you buy that service, product or food item from a locally owned business? Mega corporations sell cheap products at the expense of our community, our country and our environment.

Sometimes we don’t have a reasonable choice and we end up having to buy something from overseas. At this time, it can be difficult to find local and American-made groceries and products. Shop local businesses and farmer’s markets first. If we all just paid a little more attention, it would make a very big difference. Each dollar going back into our economy sends a message to Wall Street and to Washington that we are taking back our country citizen by citizen and dollar by dollar.

For many years I ran a successful business and then went into the field of Investment.  What we knew is that the key to our success was sales and top-line growth.  If we did not have revenue coming in, no mater how hard we worked at cutting costs, we still could not turn a profit.

American jobs are the national equivalent to ‘sales’ as jobs are what make our economy strong; They are the gasoline in our engine.  The rich, middle classes, and the poor, the government and private sector all depend on jobs and job creation for survival.  Without jobs there are no profits for the rich, no taxes to pay for welfare for the poor, and obviously no income for the workers.  Without jobs there are insufficient tax revenues for government to maintain our military, our roads, police and fire protection and the many services government provides with our taxes.

Government cannot provide jobs at this time because the political realities of the United States are that we cannot increase our deficits, this is true both politically and from an international economic point of view.  From the international point of view, increased deficits would mean the end of the American dollar being the international reserve currency also known as the anchor currency.  A reserve currency, or anchor currency, is a currency that is held in significant quantities by many governments and institutions as part of their foreign exchange reserves. It also the international pricing currency for products  such as oil, gold, etc.   The end of the USA dollar as the world reserve currency would mean that our interest rates would go up, making it harder and more expensive to buy a home or a car, which are mainstays of our American economy.

When we buy goods made overseas, our money goes to other nations to provide jobs and fund their governments.  One country that has been under increased scrutiny is China, since they have been devaluing their currency in order to gain economic advantage in the American market and weaken our country  both economically and militarily. (see my article, “What Is Currency Manipulation”)

China recently launched its first aircraft carrier and have invested tens of millions of dollars into developing a special missile to sink aircraft carriers from extremely long distances.  When we purchase goods made from other countries, we must consider the possibility that  we are paying for weapons that are designed  to attack and could  be used against the United States.

When we buy American, we are helping our country, our neighbors, and ourselves.

“Buy American, the job and country we save will be our own.”

Our country is one of the most culturally diverse in the world, with our population representing every other nation around the globe. When immigrants come to America, they not only seek a better life for themselves but for their families and future generations, not only economically, but politically and spiritually.

Many people come to our country for the opportunity to create something out of nothing, to work hard with grease on their jeans in the hopes of saving money and buying a car or a home. To these individuals, blood, sweat and tears are the only things standing in the way of accomplishing their dreams. These entrepreneurs are the backbone of our society and propel our nation’s economy forward. With entrepreneurship comes innovation and these new ideas spark investment, success and continued opportunity.

My family immigrated to America from China and Taiwan and as a first-generation, born in U.S.A., American-Chinese man, I have witnessed the many hardships that my family has encountered in order to build a better life for my brother, sister and me. As a child, my father was a refugee in mainland China and escaped to Taiwan with nothing. In the refugee camps, he befriended a handful of others just like him, who fled the communist regime in China.

From nothing, my father worked his way up, put himself through law school and served as a judge in Taiwan. When he moved to America, he started his life all over again.

In Seattle, my father’s first job was working as a washer at the iconic Elephant Carwash on the corner of Battery and 6^th near Denny Way. Since he spoke very little English, this was the only job that he could do in order to make a wage. For several years, he saved up his money, learned English and began taking classes to become a chef at a local school.

Growing up, I never knew this story. All I knew was that I had to wake up early every Saturday, pull myself out of bed and drag myself down to my parent’s hole-in-the-wall restaurant to wait tables at the crack of dawn. As I greeted the town regulars, and scribbled down breakfast orders on my pad, I never realized that my parent’s small business started from nothing, nor the amount of work and love it took to provide for our family.

Looking back at my childhood, I realize that the entrepreneurial gene always existed in me too. Both my parents owned several businesses, from restaurants to clothing stores, to retail gift shops. I have always desired the creative freedom to build something with my own two hands and watch it either flourish or wilt. It didn’t matter, as long as I worked hard and believed in what I was doing.

According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, small businesses represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms and employ just over half of all private sector employees. Small business have generated 64 percent of net new jobs over the last 15 years and pay 44 percent of total U.S. private payroll.

There are so many stories like this, stories of people coming to America and starting their own businesses in the hopes of living the American dream. As a nation, we must support this. Recent reports indicate that if each American spent an extra $6.41 on U.S. made goods each week, that this alone would create almost 1 Million new jobs. This works out to just under a buck a day.

When you go our shopping for your daily groceries, clothing or home improvement tools, start locally, buy American and keep our jobs here. Even if it means shelling out a couple extra dollars, supporting small businesses is the only way we can get our nation up and running again.

My family, and millions of others around the country, will thank you.