I also suggested that if the Republican petty bourgeoisie were affected, it also would be negatively - as consumers paying higher import prices rather than as producers selling their goods and services abroad. Wall Street stock and bond traders have done well from QE, but not since the Fed announced this latest weak round of bond purchases. In the broader scheme of things, it seems to me Wall Street is climbing a dual wall of worry: about US deflation on the one hand, and its fear of a destabilizing currency and trade war with China and the rest of the world, and it's not yet clear whether the US can adequately address the former without provoking the latter.
On 2010-11-20, at 11:49 AM, Jeffrey Fisher wrote:
> I'm afraid I've gotten turned around here. Are we saying that the GOP in
> opposing QE2 is taking the side of big multinationals over NAM and Wall
> Street?
>
> On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 4:38 PM, Marv Gandall <marvgand at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> On 2010-11-19, at 10:44 AM, Doug Henwood wrote:
>>
>>>> MG: So it's an easy issue for the Republicans. They've historically
>> represented creditors rather than debtors as the strong dollar party.
>>>
>>> Hmm. The petty bourgeoisie, many of whom are debtors, are reliably
>> Republican. The National Association of Manufacturers, also mostly
>> Republican, is a leader of the weak dollar lobby. How many times did Robert
>> Rubin say that a strong dollar was in the interests of the U.S.? Most of
>> Wall Street - aside from the right-wing hard money nuts in the Jim Grant
>> circle - supports QE2.
>>
>> Sure, these distinctions can be overdrawn, and the big bourgeoisie and
>> small propertyholders are represented in both parties.
>>
>> But, as John Gulick has already noted, Wall Street supports QE2 mainly
>> because it's hoping falling bond yields will give a fillip to the stock and
>> bond markets, and my impression is that the self-employed professionals and
>> small businessmen/women who form the backbone of the Republican base are
>> mostly providing services to local markets and are not producing
>> manufactured goods for export. They would see QE as another example of
>> federal profligacy and, if anything, worry about the higher costs for fuel
>> and other imports resulting a falling dollar.
>>
>> Industrialists in steel and other manufacturing sectors who are feeling the
>> pressure from China and elsewhere are also reliably Republican, but in
>> lobbying for tariff protection and a weaker dollar on Capitol Hill, they -
>> together with their unions - get a more sympathetic hearing from Democrats.
>> It seems to me NAM speaks for these struggling exporters. But it doesn't
>> speak for Walmart, Apple, Caterpillar, Exxon, Dupont, Boeing, Coca Cola, GE,
>> Ford and other leading American multinationals with highly profitable
>> overseas operations who have benefited from a stronger dollar and have
>> opposed Congressional legislation by Schumer and other Democrats to engage
>> in a currency war with China.
>>
>>
>>
>>
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