HuffPo - Obama and China: Vandalism or Vision

[pampango]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-l-borosage/obama-and-china-vandalism_b_303428.html

"Like health care, climate change, and financial reform, the challenge is inescapable. America can't go back to borrowing $2 billion a day from abroad to act as the world's consumer. Americans can't go back to spending more than they make, maxing out credit cards, treating their homes as an ATM machine. Those days are over.

That means, as the president has said, the US must spend less and invest more. We must produce more at home, and export more. If that is the case, then inevitably the surplus countries, the mercantilist nations that have used export-led growth to drive their economies -- China, Germany, Japan and others -- also have to change course. They have to save less and spend more, import more and export less. If they don't generate increased demand while the US cuts back, then the recession will return with a vengeance. This entails wrenching changes in public policy and private attitudes. But what's clear is that the old imbalances were and are a constant peril, supplying the kerosene for the contagion that laid waste to the global economy.

At Pittsburgh, President Obama insisted that the leaders of the world's major economies make this a centerpiece of their agenda. He exacted an agreement -- despite the stated skepticism of Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel and China's leaders -- on a framework for "strong, sustainable and balanced growth." The G-20 countries agreed to set priorities, report annually on their own domestic policies, and monitor one another, with the IMF serving as an independent goad."

"One thing is clear. As in health care, energy, and financial reform, Obama has once more addressed an inescapable challenge that his predecessors ignored. He has once more aroused the ire of one of the most powerful lobbies -- in this case, the global corporations and the free trade zealots that have dug this country into a deep hole. Once more, he has done so cautiously, in small steps, ready to compromise, hoping not to offend. Once more, he's invited Americans -- and the world -- into an adult conversation about what is to be done. And once more, he's likely to be greeted by hysteria and insult, graphically illustrated by the Economist's disreputable cover.