Target India & China: Obama tells corporate America

[ChromeFoundry]

Source: The Economic Times of India

9 Feb, 2011, 06.53AM IST,PTI

US President Barack Obama on Tuesday asked American business leaders to aggressively pursue the huge middle class in India and China to increase their export , thus create hundreds and thousands of jobs in the country.

“The truth is, as countries like China and India grow and develop larger middle classes, it's profitable for global companies to aggressively pursue these markets and, at times, to set up facilities in these countries,” Obama said in his address to the US Chamber of Commerce . Obama said with the march of technology over the last few decades, the competition for jobs and businesses has grown fierce.

“The globalisation of our economy means that businesses can now open up shop, employ workers and produce their goods wherever there is internet connection ,” he said.

The United States needs an economy that's based not on what it consume and borrow from other nations, but what Americans make and sell around the world. “We need to make America the best place on earth to do business,” he noted. “As a government, we will help lay the foundation for you to grow and innovate . We will upgrade our transportation and communications networks so you can move goods and information more quickly and cheaply.

Read more: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/foreign-trade/target-india-china-obama-tells-corporate-america/articleshow/7457616.cms

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Brickbat]

2. Makes sense; the middle class in this country has been totally wrecked.

Gotta find them elsewhere, I guess.

[ProSense]

3. "But combined with a brutal and devastating recession, these forces

<...>

These forces are as unstoppable as they are powerful. But combined with a brutal and devastating recession, these forces have also shaken the faith of the American people -- in the institutions of business and government. They see a widening chasm of wealth and opportunity in this country, and they wonder if the American Dream is slipping away.

link

Really good speech. Read the rest.

[Bragi]

18. "they wonder if the American Dream is slipping away"

The dream slips away? Well, I guess this can happen when your job gets sent overseas, thieves steal your pension, scoff-law traders loot your personal savings, and a bailed-out bank forecloses on your home.

[Wilms]

4. Since we can't "compete" with them on our own turf, how can we compete with them on theirs?

:shrug:

[pampango]

19. The same way the Germans and the Swedes, among others, do. n/t

[WinkyDink]

21. And that would be how?

[pampango]

23. Germany: "an economic model with more bottom-up worker control than that of any other country in the

world."

http://www.huntingtonnews.net/columns/100807-kinchen-columnsbookreview.html

Germans, with their powerful unions, rarely go on strikes because they have a real voice in their employment.

In Germany, Geoghegan finds the true "other"—an economic model with more bottom-up worker control than that of any other country in the world — and argues that, while we have to take Germany’s problems seriously, we also have to look seriously at how much it has achieved. Social democracy may let us live nicer lives; it also may be the only way to be globally competitive. His anecdotal book helps us understand why the European model, contrary to popular neoliberal wisdom, may thrive well into the twenty-first century without compromising its citizens' ease of living — and be the best example for the United States to follow.

OK, some facts about Germany, the largest economy by far in the European Union and the fourth largest in the world, measured by gross domestic product per person (GDP), with a thriving export-oriented manufacturing sector -- like the kind we used to have when we manufactured goods that were desired around the world.

Germany, with 83 million people and few natural resources, is the world's second largest exporter, with $1.170 trillion exported in 2009. You know who is the largest exporter and it ain't us. Hint: It begins with C and ends in A. and has more than 1.3 billion residents. Germany's service sector contributes about 70 percent of the total GDP of Germany, with industry another 29.1 percent and agriculture less than 1 percent. Most of the country's exports are in engineering, automobiles, machinery, metals and chemicals. Germany is the world's leading producer of wind turbines and solar power technology.

Geoghegan tells us that the average number of paid vacation days in the U.S. is 13, compared with Germany’s 35. New mothers in the U.S. get three months of unpaid job-protected leave and only if they work for a company of 50 or more employees, while Germany mandates four months’ paid leave and will pay parents 67% of their salary to stay home for up to 14 months to care for a newborn. U.S. life expectancy is 50th in the world, compared to Germany’s 32nd.
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In Sweden 80% of the workforce is unionized and their proportion of taxes paid compared to the size of their economy is among the highest in the world.

The combination of progressive taxes, strong unions and trade-oriented economies (coupled with strong safety nets/health care systems and effective market regulation) has produced successful economies and progressive societies.

[Wilms]

24. I'm not complaing about the economic model of the social democracies.

But a little googling will show that China and India are only so high on the list of nations Germany exports to.

[pampango]

26. China seems to be #6 on the list of destinations for Germany's exports after the US and

several other European countries.

China ranked 10th as a destination for German exports in 2006, so it is rising in its importance.

You're right I didn't see India on the list of top importers from or exporters to Germany.

[Odin2005]

5. Epic Obama FAIL.

[marasinghe]

8. sadly, agreed.

make sure your own citizens & neighbors are working, & eating, before you cast your jobs around the globe.
WTF is so difficult in that simple & commonsensical proposition, that these elitists just don't get it.

to paraphrase Dylan .... how many times can a man look around and not see the writing on the wall?

[ixion]

16. Indeed. He just admitted that the US middle class has been thrown under the bus

way to go, Mr. Obama.

[OhioChick]

29. Agreed n/t

[Suji to Seoul]

6. Chinese middle class make between 5000 - 8000 RMB a month

in USD, that's between 750 - 1200 USD a month. It is princely here, but that's it.

So, how can we do that if we are to support our businesses on Chinese income? I live here, Barack. Even the middle class shops wholesale and haggles. Hell, I bought my HP and my Founder Computers, as well as my plasma screen Samsung and my iPod Touch at wholesale markets.

You do not know economics here.

[Frisbee]

7. I am beginning to doubt he knows economics in Chicago...

much less in China or India. He knows only what he is told by his corporate puppet masters.

[Suji to Seoul]

11. in 2008, I voted FOR someone for the first time in my life

This time, I will go back to voting AGAINST the Republicans.

I'm tired of politics being a choice of the lesser of two evils and a race to the bottom to see who can pander to the lowest common denominator in our country while the educated are left out in the cold.

[Newest Reality]

9. This is far too sad while being hilarious in a surreal way.

Why bother to make any kind of meaningful comment?

[JDPriestly]

10. Obama is just a corporate slave. He is not our friend.

He is not a liberal, not at all.

[shanti]

12. nope, not at all

jfk was our last liberal president (such a long time ago), and look what happened to him. Obama seems to be as much of a puppet as *ush was. :(

[exboyfil]

17. What makes JFK more liberal than say

Johnson or Carter? JFK lowered the top marginal rate from 90% to 70% (he actually wanted it lower). Until he was dragged to Civil Rights reform, he wanted to put it on the back burner. He was as big a hawk as Johnson, but probably a bit smarter. He was too the right of Nixon on missiles in the 1960 election (missile gap). Anybody remember Bay of Pigs? How about JFK's intervention in Vietnam? Maybe he planned to get us out or not - Chomsky argues no. Stevenson was a liberal, and the Kennedy's had no respect for him. Johnson had The Great Society which makes him more liberal than JFK.

As far as the vast right wing conspiracy killing JFK. Oswald first shot at Walker - far from a liberal icon. Oswald was a nut plain and simple.

Carter carries the mantle of the last liberal president much better than JFK.

[WinkyDink]

22. I'll agree about Carter. But JFK was, recall, only 15 yrs post-WWII. Context is everything.

And there are some who assert that JFK's refusal to give Air-cover to the BoP Invasion (which was an Eisenhower-Nixon plan) and his subsequent threat to "scatter the CIA to the winds" was a key factor leading to his assassination.

But hey---if you believe all the govt-approved stories about LHO.........

[Ghost Dog]

25. Yes. But there was also Operation Mongoose:

... The disaster at the Bay of Pigs had a lasting impact on the Kennedy administration. Determined to make up for the failed invasion, the administration initiated Operation Mongoose—a plan to sabotage and destabilize the Cuban government and economy. The plan included the possibility of assassinating Castro. Almost 50 years later, relations between Castro's Cuba and the United States remain strained and tenuous.

/... http://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/JFK-in-History/The-Bay-of-Pigs.aspx

[Roci]

13. We

have a President who worries more about the "Middle class" in China and India than the "Middle Class" in his own County!!! Are we not the lucky ones?? Oy Vey, where is this Man's head at?

[Skittles]

14. his head is clearly up Corporate Ass

:thumbsdown:

[Rex]

15. Oh fucking please, the working sector has been gutted like never before

and we haven't had a real standard of living raise in 30 years! More failure bullshit that will lead to more bailouts when the time is right for the Stock Market to crash again. :eyes:

[WinkyDink]

20. Yes, little Main Street businesses should "target India and China." As if the Indians and Chinese

themselves HAVEN'T THOUGHT OF THIS. AS IF THEY WILL JUST ALLOW THE U.S. TO COME IN WITH OUR UNBRIDLED EXPORTS.

"to set up facilities in these countries...."

IS THIS MAN FOR REAL??????

[Ghost Dog]

27. So, would everyone here prefer protectionism?

The banning or the imposition of high tariffs on imports from any economy more competitive or less socially- and environmentally-regulated than yours?

With the obvious tit-for-tat consequences?

I don't necessarily say no to that, and I guess it would be a matter of degree. I just wonder how that would work out?

[closeupready]

28. So where are the tit-for-tat consequences of the failure to float the remnibi?

You guys always talk about trade wars when it comes to protecting the American economy but when China unfairly preys flaws in our system, 'that's just the way it goes'.

Well,no, it isn't just the way it goes. It has to stop.