Reinstate tariffs instead raising taxes.

[Luke_Wilbur]

Don't know if cleansing is the right term.

 

But, I see more and more retail establishments wanting American made goods for their shelves.

 

Consumers will save the American Dream.

 

They just need to push owners to buy products made in the USA.

[Doug White]

I found this cool site called American Made: Products and Services Made in USA www.madeinusa.org

 

Buy American

Edited October 13, 2010 by Doug_White

[Guest Luke]

The Currency War has begun.

 

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,727801,00.html

 

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble.

 

In an interview with SPIEGEL, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, 68, criticizes US calls for Germany to reduce exports, outlines his plans for an insolvency framework for indebted European nations and the emphasizes the significance of the German-French axis for Europe.

 

SPIEGEL: Minister Schäuble, how well do you get along with your American counterpart, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner?

 

Schäuble: Mr. Geithner is an excellent minister. We have a good personal relationship.

 

SPIEGEL: Nevertheless, he constantly criticizes government officials in countries that are achieving high export surpluses and not doing enough to stimulate their domestic economies. He's referring to you, isn't he?

 

Schäuble: It would appear that way. That's why I tell him again and again that I think his point of view is incorrect in this regard.

 

SPIEGEL: All the same, the value of goods Germany sold to the United States exceeded imports from that country by almost €14 billion ($19.8 billion) last year. Can't you understand that the American treasury secretary is concerned about this?

 

Schäuble: No, because since we introduced the euro in Europe, the determining factor is no longer US trade with Germany, but US trade with the totality of countries in the euro zone. And in that respect the balance of trade tends to be even. So what's the problem? After all, we don't complain about the export successes of individual American states.

 

SPIEGEL: But the German economy benefits from the fact that German industry has focused primarily on foreign markets and wages have hardly gone up in years. The Americans see this as unfair.

 

Schäuble: The German export successes are not the result of some sort of currency manipulation, but of the increased competitiveness of companies. The American growth model, on the other hand, is in a deep crisis. The United States lived on borrowed money for too long, inflating its financial sector unnecessarily and neglecting its small and mid-sized industrial companies. There are many reasons for America's problems, but they don't include German export surpluses.

 

SPIEGEL: The US government sees it differently. It wants to see German exports to the United States curtailed in the future once they reach a certain threshold. Will you give in to the pressure?

 

Schäuble: The proposal is not acceptable for Germany under any circumstances. If we were to introduce such measures, we would be restricting international competition. But for years we, together with the Americans, have believed that world trade needs to be opened up further. We should stick to that approach and, for example, press ahead with the Doha round to promote world trade. This would stimulate global growth far more effectively than a bilateral agreement on quotas.

 

SPIEGEL: Last week, the US Federal Reserve Bank decided to flood the economy with $600 billion in new money. Will this stimulate the economy as hoped?

 

Schäuble: I seriously doubt that it makes sense to pump unlimited amounts of money into the markets. There is no lack of liquidity in the US economy, which is why I don't recognize the economic argument behind this measure.

 

SPIEGEL: The US wants to depress the value of the dollar in this way, so that it can sell its products abroad more easily. In light of the ailing US economy, isn't that a completely reasonable strategy?

 

Schäuble: No. The Fed's decisions bring more uncertainty to the global economy. They make it more difficult to achieve a reasonable balance between industrialized and emerging economies, and they undermine the US's credibility when it comes to fiscal policy. It's inconsistent for the Americans to accuse the Chinese of manipulating exchange rates and then to artificially depress the dollar exchange rate by printing money.