New York Senator Chuck Schumer is calling for legislation that calls China on the carpet over its currency manipulation practices. According to Schumer, \u201cwe are fed up with your government\u2019s intransigence on currency manipulation. If you refuse to play by the same rules, we will force you to do so.\u201d It is true that China\u2019s manipulation of the RMB (yuan) exchange rate unfairly penalizes American firms. Frankly, it is nice to see a Democrat point out Obama and Geithner\u2019s inability to address this issue during the past two years. But aside from the political grandstanding, there are several things Schumer is not telling you.<\/p>\n
First and foremost, while the Chinese currency situation contributes to U.S. economic problems, it is hardly the sole cause of the current predicament. The housing crisis is the real boogieman, and it resulted from years of U.S. government interference in the housing market. During the past two years, Obama\u2019s incessant attack on business, wealth, and success in general has stymied the recovery altogether.\u00a0 I believe the President\u2019s constant manipulation of U.S. business activity has done more harm than China\u2019s currency exploitation. We can\u2019t blame poor economic policy on Hu Jintao.<\/p>\n
Second, China is not the only nation guilty of self-promoting financial intervention. In fact, the Chinese and others have complained about the uptick in U.S. interference in global markets. The Federal Reserve\u2019s ongoing plan to purchase $600 billion in bonds will weaken the dollar relative to other world currencies. Brazil\u2019s Finance Minister Guido Mantega<\/a> referred to this action as throwing money from a helicopter. He was right.<\/p>\n Finally, the U.S. debt to China is exceeds $1 trillion and continues to grow. Our increased debt finances China\u2019s exports to the U.S., but this is not Beijing\u2019s fault. We\u2019ve created this mess on our own. Recent \u201cstimulus\u201d packages and big spending programs only fuel the fire.<\/p>\n The point here is that Obama, Schumer, and the Democrats\u2014and even some Republicans\u2014have taken action over the past two years that has stifled the U.S. economy. They\u2019d like for you to focus on the RMB exchange manipulation\u2014as if China is solely responsible for the current state of the economy\u2014but this is only one part of the overall problem.\u00a0 Schumer might be right in this instance, but it\u2019s high time for some intellectual honesty. If we are going to demand that China respect a relatively free and open global market, then we must do the same.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" New York Senator Chuck Schumer is calling for legislation that calls China on the carpet over its currency manipulation practices. According to Schumer, \u201cwe are fed up with your government\u2019s intransigence on currency manipulation. If you refuse to play by the same rules, we will force you to do so.\u201d It is true that China\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}