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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: NickSE who wrote (6554)	9/2/2003 12:22:36 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793659

I hope Snow is tough on this issue with China, but I doubt if he will be tough enough. [The New York Times] September 2, 2003 U.S. Official Adds Pressure Against Low Yen and Yuan By JAMES BROOKE TOKYO, Sept. 1 - Making his first stop on a trip to Japan and China, Treasury Secretary John W. Snow took veiled aim today at the artificially weakened yen and yuan, praising "flexibility" six times in one five-minute speech. "A well-functioning international financial system is one that's based on flexible exchange rates determined in competitive markets," Mr. Snow said in a news conference here, without mentioning Japan and China by name. These two nations are responsible for 35 percent of the United States trade deficit of $244 billion for the first half of this year. Before Mr. Snow's visit here, a group of American manufacturers and farm organizations released a report accusing China of increasing exports by keeping the exchange rate for its currency fixed at an artificially low level and Japan of devaluing its currency through huge yen sales. "Japan and China were the currency manipulation leaders in July," the Coalition for a Sound Dollar said in a report issued on Friday. "On the eve of the U.S. Treasury Secretary Snow's visit to China, Asian governments are intervening more than ever before to artificially underprice U.S. manufacturers and farmers." Although Japan spent a record nine trillion yen, or $77 billion, to help weaken the yen in currency markets from January to July, Japanese politicians today tried to make common cause with Mr. Snow as he prepared to fly to Beijing on Tuesday for a two-day visit. "The Chinese yuan should be allowed to fluctuate 20 to 40 percent vis-à-vis the Japanese yen," Taro Aso, policy chief of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, told Mr. Snow this morning. In response, Mr. Snow said that Washington wanted to ensure "that we are heard on the subject of maintaining flexibility in exchange rate regimes as well so that American manufacturers and American firms are not disadvantaged." Japanese leaders are alarmed that China, with its cheap currency, displaced Japan last year as America's third-largest trading partner, after Canada and Mexico. This year, China is expected to displace Japan as the world's third-largest exporter. As China emerges as Asia's trading powerhouse, it is expected this year to displace the United States to become the top trading partner for Japan and South Korea. Japanese officials often complain of a trade deficit with China. But if Japan's trade with Hong Kong is added to the China statistics, Japan had a $24 billion surplus last year. And in trade with the mainland China alone, Japan's exports surged 49 percent in the first half of this year, while Japan's imports from the mainland increased only 24 percent. The half-year trade deficit dropped 38 percent, to $9 billion. Accruing more profits to Japan, about 60 percent of the bilateral trade is conducted within Japanese companies. China, with its "undervalued" currency now absorbs 16 percent of Japan's imports, more than double the portion of a decade ago. "It is strange thing for Japan to be pressing China to devalue," said a longtime American currency strategist here. "This is the proverbial pot calling the kettle black. China may be the No. 1 intervener in the foreign exchange market, but Japan is No. 2." This evening, an official with Japanese ministry of finance sought to broach the revaluation idea as gently as possible with China. "We agreed that China should think what is best for themselves," the official told reporters after Mr. Snow had dinner with Japan's finance minister, Masajuro Shiokawa. "We will tell the Chinese what we think, but we will not force it upon China." Mr. Snow is visiting Tokyo and Beijing ahead of a meeting of finance ministers from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum at the Thai resort of Phuket, to be held later in the week. Today, his visit to Japan took a political turn as he virtually gave the Bush administration's endorsement to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi who is running for re-election at the ruling party congress here Sept. 20. By winning re-election to the post of president of the Liberal Democratic Party, Mr. Koizumi would be almost certainly guaranteed two more years as Japan's prime minister. "I had the opportunity to commend the prime minister on his policies, his efforts," Mr. Snow, a former railroad executive, said before a bank of Japanese television cameras at an American embassy news conference. "We commended him on his vision, his leadership in making economic reforms of financial institutions, deregulation, privatization, the postal service reform." nytimes.com

To: NickSE who wrote (6554)	9/2/2003 12:16:46 PM
From: NickSE	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793659

Finally getting needed items / Song & Dance Sunday, August 31, 2003 chiefwiggles.blog-city.com Howdy, from the desk of Chief Wiggles. We have had some great things happen lately, seemingly small things to most of you but huge in our eyes. Just great things 1. We got wheels. We finally got a car, a Nissan Pathfinder, not new but it is transportation. We have been begging and borrowing cars anywhere we could get them. We have had to get in really good, doing special favors, with all the Ministries so that we could use their drivers/cars whenever we needed to run a source to and from the gate. We are forever running back and forth from all the gates into the green zone, the conference center, and a variety of other locations and facilities, especially to all the teams that we are working with now. I just went tooling around the green zone in our semi-new SUV ok like 1998, and it is a stick shift too. Yea baby. 2. There is a nightclub in the Rasheed Hotel and it's in the green zone too, so I have been able to go dancing. It isn't much but there is a DJ and he is spinning some tunes, you know me and music. I have been over there twice now dancing up a storm. I am dancing by myself but I don't care, it is all about the music baby. They even play different music on different nights of the week, country, disco, etc, and they are open until 2am. Now at least we have an outlet for letting our hair down, working up a sweat while we groove to some fast music, you know; disco, hip-hop, even some Middle Eastern music too. 3. I finally got approval to get a cell phone, which I should get any day now. We won't be able to call anywhere but another phone on the system here, but at least Chief Authentico and I will be able to stay in touch, coordinating our days. It will really make this job easier to manage. 4. Also, we are going to be getting more teams of our boys working here out of the green zone. We are so excited about getting these guys, hopefully enabling us to really get after some business. Right now we aren't even scratching the surface with just the two of us. This is a virtual gold mine of intelligence just waiting for us to strike it rich. The additional teams are really going to be a great asset to us. Major G is the main man that is making this happen along with our General who I am assuming came up with this brainchild after we continually requested additional support. Things are really coming together as if this was meant to be. Way to go General and Major G, you guy's rock, not really, at least I have never seen Major G really shake a rug, but he is going to have to now. If he is out there beware you are going dancing man, just you and me. 5. We now have 4 linguists, wow. We are really being blessed. This is a great team we are assembling. We are really going to kick some Iraqi butt now (sorry for the wording). One of them, the young 26-year-old Iraqi national, even has a car and he loves music, knows all the great stuff I love to listen to. This kid really rocks. He is a cartoonist too now sketching each of us; it is going to be like Mad Magazine when he is done. 6. We got a copier in our office too, can you believe it. Now all we need is printers for our laptops. Little by little things are all coming together, shaping up, providing us with what will be needed to accomplish this mission. Miraculous things are taking shape and the pieces of this huge puzzle are coming together one piece at a time. All you have to do is pitch in and help make it happen. The ball of progress has begun to roll, stand back and watch it roll-forth bringing freedom to the people of this country. You can either be part of the solution or get out of our way. Yes, there will be stumbling blocks, hurdles and many more difficulties but goodness will prevail. I am sure the media is having a free-for-all with all the reports of the bombings, the shootings, the crimes and so on and so forth. I am sure there are plenty of people accusing us of not doing our job to make things safe and not being able to solve the problems of this country. We are making a gallant effort but you don't really understand unless you are here in the middle of it. You don't really understand all the numerous complicated aspects of this environment. After 35 years of being totally controlled, fearing every move they make, the people here are protesting because they can. For the first time in 35 years they can say whatever they want with out any recourse, now using their freedom of speech for the first time. This is a land that has been at war on and off for the past 20 years. They fought against the Iranians for 8 years and lost a million people combined on both sides. Saddam has encouraged them to have weapons and to use them. He has created a wild-west atmosphere using the gun to enforce his laws and to settle differences. This is the guy that used to fire his weapon into the air whenever he had something to celebrate, even inside a hotel room. These people also feel that if they are not complaining about the progress of things then people will have a tendency to stop working on their issues. They are very impatient with progress and very emotional about their issues. Also with their economy in shambles people are creating an economy based on commerce around anything that will sell. So now even ordinary citizens are getting into the weapons business because there is supply and demand. Saddam made sure there were plenty of weapons by unloading dump trucks full of weapons in every neighborhood. Everyone here is getting into the business. We just need to develop other industries that will give the people jobs and another source of income. Today was Sunday normally a day of rest, but it was like the floodgates were opened dropping on us a continual flow of sources all day long. It was unbelievable, person after person, dropping in on us, people we hadn't seen in a long time. We accomplished many good things today. Goodnight