Every Day Is Groundhog Day Under the Bush Administration

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2007/05/25/every-day-is-groundhog-day-under-the-bush-administration/

Every Day Is Groundhog Day Under the Bush Administration

by Tula Connell, May 25, 2007



This is a cross post from the Firedoglake blog.

The recent trade agreement in Congress has generated a lot of excellent discussion, and Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake has done a great job covering it here and here.

Another set of trade concerns came to the fore this week as a delegation of government officials from China—nearly half the Chinese cabinet, in fact—met here in Washington, D.C., for trade talks.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson once again tried to shore up the disastrous state of U.S. trade, and once again failed in staunching the nation’s trade deficit, while refusing to address workers’ rights in any agreements along the way. After all, Paulson, the former Goldman Sachs honcho, and other Bushites must focus on issues of most concern to Big Business, such as reducing intellectual property rights infringement. Some perspective.

Overall, the U.S. trade deficit in goods and services rocketed upward by more than $50 billion in 2006 to $765 billion—or nearly $2 billion a day, according to the U.S. Census Bureau and the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis. For the trade deficit to stay flat, exports need to grow 53 percent faster than imports. Last year, exports grew 2.5 percent faster than imports.



Meanwhile, the 2006 U.S. trade deficit with China, concentrated in manufacturing, grew by 15 percent to $233 billion and accounts for 28 percent of the total deficit. This year’s first-quarter $46.4 billion deficit with China is twice as large as in the same period last year. Our deficit with China is the largest bilateral deficit in world history.

For those corporate-speak economists who pooh-pooh an emphasis on U.S.-China trade as sour grapes and an inordinate emphasis on our trade relations with one country, they should consider this: 1.8 million U.S. jobs have been lost due to trade with China.

FULL story at link.

[pansypoo53219]

1. no way

everyday is bad in a new fucking way each day.