CQ: Obama accummulated impressive string of legislative accomplishments

According to an interesting empirical study commissioned by Capitol Hill’s weekly newspaper and the leading publisher of the nation’s legislative record, Congressional Quarterly (CQ), President Obama has accummulated an impressive string of legislative accomplishments unrivaled by any previous POTUS.  Among other things, the study calls his accomplishments to-date an “unprecedented success rate” and outlines a number of reason’s for the president’s legilsative success rate such as (1) his propensity to negotiate and compromise on issues important to his legislative agenda, (2) the fact that his party owns a working majority in both houses of Congress, and (3) the sheer magnitude of an unusually pressing legislative calendar as the nation struggles through two wars, Healthcare reform, the Great Recession, a global economic  crisis, financial regulatory reform, an Energy crisis, an obstructionist opposition party, al-Qaida Terrorism, global warming, restructuring the Auto industry, carbon trading, and an erratic band of fringe lunatics and gratuitously hostile partisans.  I found it to be an interesting read, if not (at last!) a rare credible source willing to objectively acknowledge an impressive body of work only a year into the Obama administration.  Interestingly, a substantial portion of that body of legislative accomplishments is composed of global trade, foreign policy and economic legislation.  I am working on a piece now to be posted in the not-too-distant future outlining and summarizing the presidents global trade, markets and economic-related accomplishments. But for now, read more here.

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In his first year in office, President Obama did better even than legendary arm-twister Lyndon Johnson in winning congressional votes on issues where he took a position, a Congressional Quarterly study finds. The new CQ study gives Obama a higher mark than any other president since it began scoring presidential success rates in Congress more than five decades ago. And that was in a year where Obama tackled how to deal with Afghanistan, Iraq, an expanding terrorist threat, the economic crisis and battles over health care.

Unprecedented Success Rate

Obama has been no different from his predecessors in that he’s always ready to send a firm message to the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue as he “urges members of Congress” to come together and act. All presidents demand specific action by Congress — or at least they ask for it. But when you look at the votes of 2009 in which Obama made his preference clear, his success rate was unprecedented, according to John Cranford of Congressional Quarterly. “His success was 96.7 percent on all the votes where we said he had a clear position in both the House and the Senate. That’s an extraordinary number,” Cranford says.

The previous high scores were held by Lyndon Johnson in 1965, with 93 percent, and Dwight Eisenhower, who scored 89 percent in 1953. Cranford notes that George W. Bush’s score hit the high 80s in 2001, the year of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. But Obama surpassed them all, Cranford says.

He Picked His Battles

A major reason for Obama’s record high score this year: Democrats took away a significant number of seats from Republicans in the 2006 and 2008 elections, resulting in big majorities in the House and Senate for the president’s party.

But Sarah Binder, a congressional analyst at the Brookings Institution, says there’s another key reason he scored so well. She says he only took an official position on issues that were really important to him — those that he knew he had a very good chance of winning. He picked his battles carefully.

His success was 96.7 percent on all the votes where we said he had a clear position in both the House and the Senate. That’s an extraordinary number.

“He can do that because he’s been in the Senate, his staff has been in the House and he understands the process here. They are consummate congressional insiders in understanding how this works,” Binder says. Binder says the intense partisanship in Congress these days, a condition underlined in a separate CQ vote study, meant that Democrats were more likely to rally around the president each and every time he asked them to — if only to deny the Republicans a victory.

The Downside Of Compromise

But another contributing factor here may prove more controversial for the president and his party. That’s his willingness to negotiate and to compromise. For example, as much as the president said he wanted a public option as part of a health care bill, the final legislation won’t have one. But that’s not counted as a loss for the president under the scoring of this survey. Such compromises have brought strong criticism from the liberal wing of the president’s own party. But White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, a veteran of Congress, says compromise has a long, long history — one that makes it a great part of the democratic process.

“The question is: Are you compromising a set of principles, or are you making adjustment in strategies, roads, that can still achieve the same objectives? And not every compromise is the same in weight,” Emanuel says. On health care, for example, the White House insists that compromise was the only way to get the necessary 60 votes in the U.S. Senate. Emanuel also cautions that having the president score so high on votes where he took a stand is not at all the same thing as having the White House get everything it wanted.

It will get tougher for the president in Congress this year, as more and more members of Congress look to their own re-election. Many are running in districts that voted for Republican John McCain in the 2008 presidential election. And even other districts are far from safe for the Democratic Party.

Source: Congressional Quarterly          Image: www.thewire.sheknows.com

A 'Must See!' film from the ruefully brilliant mind of Michael Moore

Typically, Michael Moore’s brand of cynicism and his Liberal take on the great issues of American politics is not my cup of tea because I am by bearing and temperament far more a pragmatist in nature. (Now, here comes the ‘but.’)

But after being invited to a pre-screening of his most recent film, ‘Capitalism: A Love Story,’ due to be released 2nd October  2009, I think, like Jon Stewart, the guy is a virtuosity. I highly recommend plopping down your $20 bucks per person — or whatever it costs these days — for a ticket and a bag of stale popcorn to see it.  You can start by viewing the movie trailer below. 

Watching the film, I felt like Michael had climbed inside my head, made a list of all the things that have been obsessing me for the last 12 months, and brought them horrifyingly to life. It’s one thing to know these things are happening; it’s another to see them happening in front of your eyes.

Right from the beginning — after a funny set-up juxtaposing End of Empire Rome and Modern America — Michael goes directly to the beating heart of the economic crisis, showing a hard-working, middle class family being evicted from their home. The knot in your stomach starts to tighten — and the outrage starts to build.  Read more here.

Moore’s own take on his latest film..??  “I made this movie as if it was going to be the last movie I was allowed to make.” And, on the film itself, “It’s got it all - lust, passion, romance and 14,000 jobs being eliminated every day.”

Read more here.  

Sources: Huffington Post;  www.capitalismalovestory.com

Recession fading..??

According to the most recent economic data released this week, there are more indication’s the President Obama’s economic recovery stimulus plan is working.  The U.S. trade deficit in July hit the highest level in six months as a record rise in imports outpaced a third straight month’s increase in foreign demand for American products, according to government data released Thursday. Both gains provided more evidence that the worst recession since the 1930s was losing its grip on the global economy.

A rebound in the American labor market has yet to take hold, but first-time claims for jobless benefits did fall more than expected last week.

Companies are laying off fewer workers as the U.S. economy shows consistent signs that the recession is over - or at least receding.  The Federal Reserve said Wednesday that 11 of its 12 regional banks reported the economy is stabilizing, an improvement from previous reports.  The Commerce Department also said Thursday that the trade deficit rose 16.3 percent to $32 billion in July, much larger than the $27.4 billion imbalance that economists had expected. It was the largest imbalance since January and the percentage increase was the biggest in more than a decade.

Imports rose 4.7 percent to a total of $159.6 billion, the largest monthly advance on records that date to 1992 and the second consecutive gain after 10 straight declines. The rebound reflected a 21.5 percent spike in imports of autos and auto parts, partly due to increased production at U.S. auto plants owned by General Motors and Chrysler that had been slowed when the companies were struggling to emerge from bankruptcy protection.

Exports edged up 2.2 percent to $127.6 billion. It marked the third straight monthly increase, but left exports well below their record level of $164.4 billion set in July 2008.  The export gains reflected big increases in shipments of civilian aircraft, computers, industrial machinery and medical equipment.

Read more here.

Debit card fees a $27Bn profit boondoggle for banks.

I ususally don’t do much about consumer or retail finance, but given the magnitude of this problem and it’s usefulness in showing just how consumers are being exploited by banks and other financial institutions, I thought it was worth coverage.  The New York Times, and several other web resources I’ve linked below, have published information about how banks employ certain tactics — often referred to as “accepted business practices” or simply “best practices” — to unfairly bilk consumers out of $27 billion in annual debit card fees, often with no recourse whatever. 

Something needs to be done. Be informed. Get involved.  Start here.

September 9, 2009

The Card Game

Overspending on Debit Cards Is a Boon for Banks

By RON LIEBER and ANDREW MARTIN – The New York Times

When Peter Means returned to graduate school after a career as a civil servant, he turned to a debit card to help him spend his money more carefully. So he was stunned when his bank charged him seven $34 fees to cover seven purchases when there was not enough cash in his account, notifying him only afterward. He paid $4.14 for a coffee at Starbucks — and a $34 fee. He got the $6.50 student discount at the movie theater — but no discount on the $34 fee. He paid $6.76 at Lowe’s for screws — and yet another $34 fee. All told, he owed $238 in extra charges for just a day’s worth of activity.

Mr. Means, who is 59 and lives in Colorado, figured employees at his bank, Wells Fargo, would show some mercy since each purchase was less than $12. In addition, a deposit from a few days earlier would have covered everything had it not taken days to clear. But they would not budge. Banks and credit unions have long pitched debit cards as a convenient and prudent way to buy. But a growing number are now allowing consumers to exceed their balances — for a price.

Banks market it as overdraft protection, and the fees it generates have become an important source of income for the banking industry at a time of big losses in other operations. This year alone, banks are expected to bring in $27 billion by covering overdrafts on checking accounts, typically on debit card purchases or checks that exceed a customer’s balance.

In fact, banks now make more covering overdrafts than they do on penalty fees from credit cards. But because consumers use debit cards far more often than credit cards, a cascade of fees can be set off quickly, often for people who are least able to afford it. Some banks further increase their revenue by manipulating the order of a customer’s transactions in a way that causes more of them to incur overdraft fees.

“Banks will let you overspend on your debit card in a way that is much, much more expensive than almost any credit card,” said Eric Halperin, director of the Washington office of the Center for Responsible Lending. Debit has essentially changed into a stealth form of credit, according to critics like him, and three quarters of the nation’s largest banks, except for a few like Citigroup and INGDirect, automatically cover debit and A.T.M. overdrafts.

Although regulators have warned of abuses since at least 2001, they have done little to curb the explosive growth of overdraft fees. But as a consumer outcry grows, the practice is under attack, and regulators plan to introduce new protections before year’s end. The proposals do not seek to ban overdraft fees altogether. Rather, regulators and lawmakers say they hope to curb abuses and make the fees more fair. The Federal Reserve is considering requiring banks to get permission from consumers before enrolling them in overdraft programs, so that consumers like Mr. Means are not caught unaware at the cash register.

Representative Carolyn Maloney, Democrat of New York, would go even further by requiring warnings when a debit card purchase will overdraw an account and by barring banks from running the most expensive purchases through accounts first. The proposals carry considerable momentum given the popularity of credit card legislation signed into law in May. They also have a certain inevitable logic, since the credit card legislation requires a similar “opt in” decision from consumers who want to spend more than their credit limits and pay the corresponding over-the-limit fees. Overdrafts are simply the reverse, where the limit is zero, and the bank charges a fee for going under it.

But with so much at stake, the banking industry is intent on holding its ground. They are aggressively deploying their industry lobby on Capitol Hill, often at the expense of consumer protections, basic fairness and decency.

Bankers say they are merely charging a fee for a convenience that protects consumers from embarrassment, like having a debit card rejected on a dinner date. Ultimately, they add, consumers have responsibility for their own finances. Read more here.

One Stop Regulatory Shop..??

I have written before that Sheila Bair, Elizabeth Warren and Eliot Spitzer are among the smartest and most out-spoken policymakers on how we need to restructure the regulatory frame work of the nation’s financial system and banking industry.  In fact I think either one would be a tremendous improvement as Secretary of the Treasury as a replacement for Tim Geithner, who, in my humble opinion, is an industry tool.   

FDIC Chair Bair

In a terrific New York Times Op-Ed piece, Sheila Bair, the Chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) outlines a compelling litany of reasons why the Obama administration’s proposed changes, while good in many respects, does not sufficiently address the issues that caused the current – or will prevent future – financial sector crises.  In her editorial, Bair said she supports “key pillars” of the plan, like the national bank regulator and consumer agency, but thinks lawmakers who advocate just one, central regulator are taking it too far, and too cozy with the Wall Street and Bank industry lobby. She blamed the financial crisis on banks taking advantage of regulatory loopholes and using exotic financial products that also fell between the regulatory cracks. I think she has a strong points and legitimate concerns. 

I also admire her, integrity, independence and willingness to stand her ground and to maintain the need to enforce market discipline on ‘too big to fail’ companies. See videoInterestingly Sheila Bair, a Republican originally appointed by Bush 43, but re-appointed by President Obama as FDIC Chair is from, of all places, Independence, KS and was also one of only few regulators who openly opposed the deregulation fervor of fellow Republicans such as former Texas Senator, Phil Gramm, during the 106^th Congress (2000-2001).

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By SHEILA C. BAIR

NYT, August 31, 2009 – The Obama administration has proposed sweeping changes to our financial regulatory system. I am an active supporter of the key pillars of reform, including the creation of a consumer financial protection agency and the administration’s plan to consolidate the supervision of federally chartered financial institutions in a new national bank supervisor. This consolidation would improve the efficiency of federally chartered institutions while not undercutting our dual system of state and federally chartered banks.

But some are advocating even more drastic changes, like the creation of a single regulator for all banks (and bank holding companies). We clearly need to streamline the system, but a single regulator is not the solution. Calls for consolidation beyond the administration’s plan fail to identify the real roots of last year’s financial meltdown. The truth is, no regulatory structure — be it a single regulator as in Britain or the multi-regulator system we have in the United States — performed well in the crisis.

The principal enablers of our current difficulties were institutions that took on enormous risk by exploiting regulatory gaps between banks and the non-bank shadow financial system, and by using unregulated over-the-counter derivative contracts to develop volatile and potentially dangerous products. Consumers continue to face huge gaps in personal financial protections. We also lack a credible method for closing large financial institutions without inflicting severe collateral damage on the economy.

The creation of a single regulator for all federal- and state-chartered banks would not address these problems. Rather, it would endanger a thriving, 150-year-old banking system that has separate charters for federal and state banks. Within this system, state-chartered institutions tend to be community-oriented and very close to the small businesses and consumers they serve. They provide loans that support economic growth and job creation, especially in rural areas. Main Street banks also are sensitive to market discipline because they know that they’re not too big to fail and that they’ll be closed if they become insolvent.

Concentrating power in a single regulator would inevitably benefit the largest banks and punish community ones. A single regulator’s resources and attention would be focused on the largest banks. This would generate more consolidation in the banking industry at a time when we need to reduce our reliance on large financial institutions and put an end to. . .

Read more here.

Web Resources:

Sheila Bair is on your side

Sheila Bair for Treasury Secretary

Sheila Bair & the CFTC

The Obama administration’s regulatory overhaul plan would incorporate the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision – both of whom have a reputation of regulatory incompetence after its handling of IndyMac — into one national bank supervisor. The FDIC would then handle state-chartered banks and the Federal Reserve would act as a broader referee of sorts, overseeing the largest institutions and monitoring systemic risk. This last point leaves wide open legitimate concerns that the Federal Reserve would remain victim to regulatory arbitrage and influence peddling by Wall Street and the Banking industry lobby. A separate consumer-protection agency would also be created under the President’s plan. Bair insists that Wall Street and big banks in the U.S. be held accountable in their role in causing the financial crisis; and, she argues, that market discipline should be enforced to prevent future reckless risk-taking, and that financial institutions that are too big to fail, are simply too big and pose an inherent risk to our financial system. I think she’s right.

Why Africa matters to American mational interests

Every so often the Rev. Jesse Jackson makes a few notable and insightful comments. His most recent HuffPo article about ‘Why Africa Matters’ is one of those moments. I have postulated in the past that as the demographics of America evolves, so too will our foreign policy and international relations voice, values, interests, priorities and objectives. We’ve seen that most recently in how President Obama chooses to engage the world.  Some call it “smart power” or “public diplomacy” as a paradigm shift in our foreign policy approach. Others  have most recently framed these changes in terms of ‘The End of Macho‘ or a decline in the underlying paradigms of the Anglo-American or Eurocentric male dominance ethos in framing foreign policy issues and international relations.  The sharp contrast, for instance, between former president George Bush – a semi-literate, go-it-alone, blue-blood, poker playing, red-meat eating, “macho” Texan; and Barack Obama – a bi-racial, up from the bottom, community organizing, consensus building, wine-sipping, intellectually nuanced, constitutional law teaching, internationalist from the South side of Chicago by way of Hawaii are excellent example of how demographic changes “shift” foreign policy values and priorities in a nation. Although the prevailing majority will resist change and defend the status-quo — as some of President Obama’s most vocal and gratuitous critics have shown recently – demographic shifts will inevitably be reflected in changing foreign policy values and priorities.

Further, our U.N. Ambassador Susan E. Rice and State Department Secretary, Hillary Clinton’s recent roll-out of the Obama Administration’s view of U.S foreign policy called for a ‘New Era of Engagement‘ with the world based on common values, shared interests and mutual respect.  Similarly, the development of official government websites such as America.gov that conveys the American values we aspire to as a nation.

Despite the impact of the global economic crisis, GDP growth in Africa has declined from a robust 6.0% in 2007 to 5.1%  in 2008, and is expected to be 2.6%  in 2009 and then a rebound in 2010 based on World Bank estimates. And according to 2008 figures from the World Bank and the African Development Bank, global trade with Africa is approximately $500Bn, while the trade and economic potential of the continent is twice that amount at $1 Trillion.  The U.S. – largely driven by AGOA – accounts for only $66Bn of that amount, while Europe and increasingly China, South Asia and Brazil driving 80% of the remaining trade and commerce with the African continent. In addition, unbeknownst to most, Africa has joined the ‘space race’ led by the continent’s two economic powers; and several nations are developing close military ties with China and India which will help to fuel the emergence of future markets for military and technological commerce – directly competing with U.S. leadership in that market.

Further, non-traditional, but still every bit quintessentially American interests representing hundreds of billions in business, technology, entertainment, faith-based, professional sports, agricultural, food distribution and charitable interests increasingly owned or controlled by Native and African Americans, Latinos, East and South Asian Americans, and women need to have a voice in the development and execution of U.S. foreign policy as a bridge to expanding our national interest into new and interesting places that may pave the way for better relations with the rest of the world – not to mention increasing our global competitiveness and expanding national GDP.  Is anyone listening..??

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From HuffPo, Rev. Jesse L. Jackson –

We ignore Africa at our peril.

Africa Matters

In vital resources — oil, copper, diamonds, gold, timber and more — the continent is rich beyond imagination. Indeed, Africa is more breadbasket than basket case. The United States is projected to import some 25 percent of its oil from Western Africa in the coming years.  While the U.S. media pays Africa little attention, the Chinese leads by far in the mad dash for a share of the continent’s natural treasures. Using some of the money it makes in trade with the U.S., China is investing heavily across Africa, building highways, hotels, bridges and dams, seeking to lock up long term access to resources and the good will of African leaders. The United States is way behind.

The African continent will only become more important in the future. The whole world has a stake in what happens there. For decades, Africa was little more than a pawn in the Cold War, before that the playing field of competing imperialist nations. Now it is a key geographic territory in the fight against terror after al-Qaida blew up embassies in Somalia and Kenya. The continent’s mineral resources reinforce its strategic importance. 

 That is why I recently spent five days in Cote d’Ivoire, meeting with its current President and opposition leaders and addressing youth groups and religious figures, as the West African nation prepares for a crucial Presidential election on Nov. 29 — a day that will go a long way in determining the future of democracy in the region.  For most of its 49-year history as an independent nation, Cote d’Ivoire has been a shining light of a dimly viewed West Africa. Politically stable, culturally tolerant and economically vigorous, Cote d’Ivoire was and is a regional powerhouse. As one U.S. Embassy official described the nation of 18 million people to me, Cote d’Ivoire was to its neighbors what the United States is to Mexico and Central America. “This is where people went to find work,” the official said. “If this economy gets shut down you will see a dramatic impact on the entire region.”  Cote d’Ivoire produces 40 percent of the world’s coco and is a major exporter of bananas, coffee, cotton, palm oil, pineapples, rubber, timber and tuna. In recent years, according to U.S. Embassy figures, petroleum exports have risen significantly, and petroleum is now the country’s largest foreign exchange earner.  As I toured its sprawling port — the second largest in Africa — I saw five cargo ships loaded with fruit and vegetables headed to Europe. Abidjan, its biggest city once known as “Little Paris,” was a popular destination for tourists from the United States and Europe for years.

That was my message as I met separately with President Laurent Gbagbo and leaders of the two opposition parties who are vying for the Presidential Palace. I had a long and fruitful discussion by phone with Henri Konan Bedie, a former president running for his old job, and I sat down with representatives of Alassane Ouattara, who was out of the country, seeking medical treatment in Paris.

As I made clear whenever and to whomever I spoke, I was there not to support a candidate but to support the process of democracy. In addressing a pan-African youth conference and a meeting of Muslim and Christian religious leader I asked the people and the candidates to agree to three basic principles.

Number one: Campaign diligently and fairly.

Number two: Use the language of reconciliation and not destruction.

Number three: Publicly pledge to support the winner.

I reminded him and everyone else I met that we in the United States had once been divided between North and South, locked in our own bloody civil war.  After that war we suffered through generations of American apartheid. It took a century before the right to vote of every American citizen was protected by law.  Through the depth of that pain, Americans are learning to live together across lines of class, gender and race.

America rose from the ashes of pain and division. [Africa] can rise as well.

Sen. Edward M. "Ted" Kennedy (1932 - 2009)

‘For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die.’

Christina D. Romer, Chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers

I came across this rather compelling post by Robert Creamer on HuffPo today. Creamer is a political organizer and strategist, and has been for almost four decades. He and his firm, the Strategic Consulting Group, work with many of the country’s most significant issue campaigns. He was one of the major architects and organizers of the successful campaign to defeat the privatization of Social Security. He is a consultant to the campaigns to end the war in Iraq, pass universal health care, change America’s budget priorities and enact comprehensive immigration reform. He has also worked on hundreds of electoral campaigns at the local, state and national level.

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‘Even as Republicans blather on about the evils of a so-called “government takeover of health care,” economic news has provided two new key illustrations that the intellectual foundation of right-wing economic orthodoxy has collapsed. Despite the pseudo-religious psycho-babble of Right-wing economists such as CNBC’s Larry Kudlow, it has failed utterly. Supply-side and monetarist economic theories lead to income disparity and cowboy capitalism that leads to economic crises like the one we find ourselves in now.

First, the most recent economic numbers on changes in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employment made it increasingly clear that — as The New York Times reported last Saturday — the Obama economic stimulus and the massive government intervention in the financial markets were the critical medicine needed to prevent complete economic collapse.

It is now clear that, left to their own devices, there can be no doubt that private financial markets would have pulled the entire economy into another Great Depression. Though job losses continued, last month they continued to shrink from their massive January highs. At the same time, the contraction of the GDP dropped to its lowest level since Lehman Brothers collapsed last September.

Even as the Right continues to rail against President Obama’s stimulus package, there is now clear empirical evidence, and near-universal consensus that the $700-billion-plus stimulus bill is largely responsible for beefing up the GDP in the last quarter. Studies by the private research firms IHS Global Insight and MoodysEconomy.com concluded that it is already responsible for saving 500,000 jobs.

Everyday there is fresh evidence that government spending to stimulate demand was critically necessary to pull the country out of the economic tail spin caused by the reckless risk-taking of essentially unregulated private financial markets. Contrary to right wing theory, private consumer demand and new business investment are not leading the way out of the Great Recession — in reality, government demand was an absolute necessity. In short, Keynesian economic principles saved the day.

Next, the second piece of economic news tells even more about the bankruptcy of right wing economic thought.’ Read more here. . .

Americans in China

The New York Times featured an interesting article in today’s paper spotting a trend that more college graduates and corporate professionals are flocking to China in search of greener pasteurs for their careers. It’s thought-provoking and something even I might consider. . .

BEIJING — Shanghai and Beijing are becoming new lands of opportunity for recent American college graduates who face unemployment nearing double digits at home.

Even those with limited or no knowledge of Chinese are heeding the call. They are lured by China’s surging economy, the lower cost of living and a chance to bypass some of the dues-paying that is common to first jobs in the United States.  “I’ve seen a surge of young people coming to work in China over the last few years,” said Jack Perkowski, founder of Asimco Technologies, one of the largest automotive parts companies in China.

“I didn’t know anything about China,” said Mr. Stephens, who worked on market research and program development. “People thought I was nuts to go not speaking the language, but I wanted to do something off the beaten track.”

Two years later, after stints in the nonprofit sector and at a large public relations firm in Beijing, he is highly proficient in Mandarin and works as a manager for XPD Media, a social media company based in Beijing that makes online games.

Jonathan Woetzel, a partner with McKinsey & Company in Shanghai who has lived in China since the mid-1980s, says that compared with just a few years ago, he was seeing more young Americans arriving in China to be part of an entrepreneurial boom. “There’s a lot of experimentation going on in China right now, particularly in the energy sphere, and when people are young they are willing to come and try something new,” he said

And the Chinese economy is more hospitable for both entrepreneurs and job seekers, with a gross domestic product that rose 7.9 percent in the most recent quarter compared with the period a year earlier. Unemployment in urban areas is 4.3 percent, according to government data. 

Read more here…

The End of Male Dominance in the 'Men's Club' of Global Finance.

For years, the world has been witnessing a quiet but monumental shift of power from men to women. Today, the Great Recession has turned what was an evolutionary shift into a revolutionary one. The consequence will be not only a mortal blow to the ultimate macho Men’s Club called ‘global finance’ and ‘free-market capitalism’ that defined the post-Victorian world order, and ultimately got the world into the current economic catastrophe; it will be a collective crisis for millions and millions of working men around the globe.  How will this shift to the post-macho world unfold?  And what will be its legacy in the world of 21st century capitalism and the global economy..??  Foreign Policy magazine’s  July/Auguest summer issue has an interesting and insightful analysis of this phenomena that students of global affairs will find compelling — at the least, intriguing. 

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The death throes of macho are easy to find if you know where to look. Consider, to start, the almost unbelievably disproportionate impact that the current crisis is having on men—so much so that the recession is now known to some economists and the more plugged-in corners of the blogosphere as the “he-cession.” More than 80 percent of job losses in the United States since November have fallen on men, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. And the numbers are broadly similar in Europe, adding up to about 7 million more out-of-work men than before the recession just in the United States and Europe as economic sectors traditionally dominated by men (construction and heavy manufacturing) decline further and faster than those traditionally dominated by women (public-sector employment, healthcare, and education). All told, by the end of 2009, the global recession is expected to put as many as 28 million men out of work worldwide.  

Of course, macho is a state of mind, not just a question of employment status. And as men get hit harder in the he-cession, they’re even less well-equipped to deal with the profound and long-term psychic costs of job loss. According to the American Journal of Public Health, “the financial strain of unemployment” has significantly more consequences on the mental health of men than on that of women. In other words, be prepared for a lot of unhappy guys out there—with all the negative consequences that implies.

Good Riddance
Why macho had to go.
By Valerie Hudson

The Rise of Women

Things will only get worse for men as the recession adds to the pain globalization was already causing. Between 28 and 42 million more jobs in the United States are at risk for outsourcing, Princeton economist Alan Blinder estimates. Worse still, men are falling even further behind in acquiring the educational credentials necessary for success in the knowledge-based economies that will rule the post-recession world. Soon, there will be three female college graduates for every two males in the United States, and a similarly uneven outlook in the rest of the developed world.

As the crisis unfolds, it will increasingly play out in the realm of power politics. Consider the electoral responses to this global catastrophe that are starting to take shape. When Iceland’s economy imploded, the country’s voters did what no country has done before: Not only did they throw out the all-male elite who oversaw the making of the crisis, they named the world’s first openly lesbian leader as their prime minister. It was, said Halla Tomasdottir, the female head of one of Iceland’s few remaining solvent banks, a perfectly reasonable response to the “penis competition” of male-dominated investment banking. “Ninety-nine percent went to the same school, they drive the same cars, they wear the same suits and they have the same attitudes. They got us into this situation—and they had a lot of fun doing it,” Tomasdottir complained to Der Spiegel. Soon after, tiny, debt-ridden Lithuania took a similar course, electing its first woman president: an experienced economist with a black belt in karate named Dalia Grybauskaite. On the day she won, Vilnius’s leading newspaper bannered this headline: “Lithuania has decided: The country is to be saved by a woman.”

Although not all countries will respond by throwing the male bums out, the backlash is real—and it is global. The great shift of power from males to females is likely to be dramatically accelerated by the economic crisis, as more people realize that the aggressive, risk-seeking behavior that has enabled men to entrench their power—the cult of macho—has now proven destructive and unsustainable in a globalized world.

Indeed, it’s now fair to say that the most enduring legacy of the Great Recession will not be the death of Wall Street. It will not be the death of finance. And it will not be the death of capitalism. These ideas and institutions will live on. What will not survive is macho. And the choice men will have to make, whether to accept or fight this new fact of history, will have seismic effects for all of humanity—women as well as men.  What this all means is that the problem of macho run amok and excessively compensated is now giving way to macho unemployed and undirected—a different but possibly just as destructive phenomenon. Long periods of unemployment are a strong predictor of heavy drinking, especially for men ages 27 to 35, a study in Social Science & Medicine found last year. And the macho losers of globalization can forget about marrying: “Among the workers who disproportionately see their jobs moving overseas or disappearing into computer chips,” says sociologist Andrew Cherlin, “we’ll see fewer young adults who think they can marry.” So the disciplining effects of marriage for young men will continue to fade.

Surly, lonely, and hard-drinking men, who feel as though they have been rendered historically obsolete, and who long for lost identities of macho, are already common in ravaged post-industrial landscapes across the world, from America’s Rust Belt to the post-Soviet wreckage of Vladimir Putin’s Russia to the megalopolises of the Middle East. If this recession has any staying power, and most believe it does, the massive psychic trauma will spread like an inkblot.

How will this shift to the post-macho world unfold? That depends on the choices men make, and they only have two.  Read more here.