[lbo-talk] Baker rounds bend

[Miles Jackson]

Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> On Nov 17, 2009, at 8:45 PM, SA wrote:
>
>> Why is it imperialist for the US to set a dollar price for Chinese 
>> currency, but it's not imperialist when China sets a yuan price for 
>> U.S. currency?
>
> Because it's unilateral grandstanding of a very risky sort. When Bush 
> did this sort of thing with guns, liberals got very upset. But 
> apparently it's ok to do it with currencies, even if it does threaten 
> to upset a fundamental relationship in the world economy that could 
> blow everything up if it happened traumatically. And it's a very odd 
> way for a wobbly dominant power to treat a rising power that's also 
> its creditor to the tune of $1 trillion or more. Obviously the whole 
> China-US relationship isn't sustainable in its present form, but 
> altering it in this macho way - as if we didn't have plenty of our own 
> problems to deal with - is insane.
>
> Doug

And just on a practical level: what are we going to do if they don't 
comply with U. S. demands--invade?  Mine their ports?  We'd have to get 
them to buy more Treasury bonds so we could buy the military equipment!  
As the trillion dollar creditor, China is in the position to be making 
demands, isn't it?

Miles