Obama's ideas rejected by world leaders

SEOUL — President Obama’s hopes of emerging from his Asia trip with the twin victories of a free trade agreement with South Korea and a unified approach to spurring global economic growth ran into resistance on all fronts yesterday, putting Obama at odds with his key allies and largest trading partners.

The most concrete trophy expected to emerge from the trip eluded his grasp: a long-delayed free trade agreement with South Korea, first negotiated by the Bush administration and then reopened by Obama, to have greater protections for US workers.

And as officials frenetically tried to paper over differences among the Group of 20 members with a vaguely worded communiqué to be issued today, there was no way to avoid discussion of the fundamental differences of economic strategy. After five largely harmonious meetings in the past two years to deal with the most severe downturn since the Depression, major disputes broke out between Washington and China, Britain, Germany, and Brazil.

Each rejected core elements of Obama’s strategy of stimulating growth before focusing on deficit reduction. Several major nations continued to accuse the Federal Reserve of deliberately devaluing the dollar last week in an effort to put the costs of America’s competitive troubles on trading partners, rather than taking politically tough measures to rein in spending at home.

The result was that Obama repeatedly found himself on the defensive. He and the South Korean president, Lee Myung Bak, had vowed to complete the trade pact by the time they met here; while Obama insisted that it would be resolved “in a matter of weeks,’’ without the pressure of a summit meeting it was unclear how the hurdles on nontariff barriers to US cars and beef would be resolved.

Obama’s meeting with China’s president, Hu Jintao, appeared to do little to break down Chinese resistance to accepting even nonbinding numerical targets for limiting China’s trade surplus. While Lael Brainard, the undersecretary of the Treasury for international affairs, said that the United States and China “have gotten to a good place’’ on rebalancing their trade, Chinese officials later archly reminded the Americans that as the issuers of the dollar, the main global reserve currency, they should consider the interests of the “global economy’’ and their own “national circumstances.’’

The disputes were not limited to America’s foreign partners. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner got into a trans-Pacific argument with one of his former mentors, Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, after Greenspan wrote that the United States was “pursuing a policy of currency weakening.’’ Geithner shot back on CNBC that while he had “enormous respect’’ for Greenspan, “that’s not an accurate description of either the Fed’s policies or our policies.’’

Much of the rest of the world seemed to share Greenspan’s assessment. Moreover, Obama seemed to be losing the broader debate over austerity. The president has insisted that at a moment of weak private demand, the best way to spur economic growth is to have the government prime the pump with cheap credit and government stimulus programs. He quickly found himself in an argument with Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany.

“You do hear the argument made sometimes: If you have a deficit, put off the action to deal with it because taking money out of the economy will reduce your growth rate,’’ Cameron said at the meeting. “I simply don’t accept that.’’

Merkel, in a more traditional German view reflective of her country’s history of hyperinflation before World War II, was equally adamant.

“I am not one, and Germany is not one, who says growth and fiscal consolidation are contradictory,’’ she said during a lunchtime address in Seoul. “They can go together, and it is essential to return to a sustainable growth path.’’ She also suggested that it was the job of deficit countries — like the United States and Britain, although she diplomatically avoided citing them — to increase their competitiveness rather than put limits on countries that had figured out how to get the world to buy their goods.

SOURCE ARTICLE

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With all that said, if foreign leaders don't approve of the economic policies of Obama, much less the ideas to stimulate growth from the Obama administration, how can we as the people continue backing "mute" points of interests. Not to mention Greenspan's " calling out " of Federal Reserve ignorance?

Obama's ideas rejected by world leaders

Go figure.

Second line.

Shocking isn't it? Never would have seen that one coming?

It probably went something like this.

Say what...Obama actually managed to have an Idea???

Le's give the guy a break, and so should "world leaders", after all it's his first attempt at this idea thing...

...I'm sure we were are all a bit clumsy on our first time...

reply to post by Whereweheaded
Well, the voters in the US repudiated his ideas and now it is time for the leaders of the rest of the world to do the same.

I doubt that he picks up any message out of these things. He will finally get it if an unruly throng with pitchforks and torches burn down his living quarters, and probably not a minute sooner.

What is not surprising, is that though he has failed in just about every facet, there are those whom are blind and will argue till the bitter end, that he is this great " messiah " and can do no wrong?

Ignorance is bliss~

reply to post by CerBeRus666


Ok, that was just comedy right there!

reply to post by CerBeRus666


I'm not sure expensive brain farts constitute an actual idea.
But who knows.

reply to post by snowen20


Cant breathe..........laughing.......to ....much!

I cannot see how you believe these things are no more than talking shops.

Still cannot see any real solutions are solved by these big meetings and just pandering.

reply to post by Alxandro


I'm curious. Does he think the American people will support Cap and Tax (sorry, trade) as well as we did the health care bomb (bill)? Cause you remember how much we wanted that. I mean, come on, we were thirsty for a bill that would put our grandchildren into poverty before they were even born! Our no's (and pies!) really were yeses!

Ways we showed our support:
Pies to the face (I still don't get how you can call this assault... or how a jury looking at this could keep a straight face.
The ringing eardrums of congressmen as they returned from town hall meetings
The Tea Party
The most dramatic exchange of power in both local and national elections in at least a century
The national hatred for a certain soon to be FORMER speaker of the house.

Seriously, is this administration just stupid? I've been trying to figure out for two years if Obama was just that dumb or if he was truly an evil man. I'm beginning to think he could make a mentally retarded two year old look like Einstein! How do we keep voting in these fools in the primaries?!

Clearly, he was rejected because he is black.

So where is reverend Al & Jessy when you need them?

Several major nations continued to accuse the Federal Reserve of deliberately devaluing the dollar last week in an effort to put the costs of America’s competitive troubles on trading partners, rather than taking politically tough measures to rein in spending at home.

Well duh. Anyone with a brain and not working in the US ministry of truth and their affiliates (MSNBC/CNN/Fox/Daily Show/CNBC/Newspapers) knows what the FED is doing. They gonna lie about it probably even after it collapses.

Obama’s meeting with China’s president, Hu Jintao, appeared to do little to break down Chinese resistance to accepting even nonbinding numerical targets for limiting China’s trade surplus.

Well then, MAN UP and put tariff on Chinese imports.

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner got into a trans-Pacific argument with one of his former mentors, Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, after Greenspan wrote that the United States was “pursuing a policy of currency weakening.’’ Geithner shot back on CNBC that while he had “enormous respect’’ for Greenspan, “that’s not an accurate description of either the Fed’s policies or our policies.’’

Ah Greenspan, great history REVISIONIST. Greenspan, you might fool the ignorant, but you won't fool everybody, we know you're a part of this whole thing and you were instrumental in this whole thing.

The president has insisted that at a moment of weak private demand, the best way to spur economic growth is to have the government prime the pump with cheap credit and government stimulus programs.

Except Keynesian economics is UTTER BS.

Want to fix the economy? KILL FANNIE AND FREDDIE, LET THE BIG 5 DIE, CALL THEIR FRAUD.

But of course you won't do that since you're a banker shill.

Thanks to the OP for summarizing the meeting on the differences.

The most interesting is Germany's Merkal qoute on 'competitiveness'. What does she means? Lower the slaries of workers to compete with the slaves in China?

If that is so, than it is only slavery she is proposing, and certainly deserves the riots she is witnessing in Europe.

Under Capitalism, competitiveness is what drives the free market to progress. We, this generation, had witnessed its miracles of amazing tech and services to mankind.

BUT unfortunately, a few greedy evil men ( and women) decided that competitiveness lies not in the tech approach, but in the labour front. Get cheap labour and produce cheap no quality products, while not necessarily be cheaper to the consumer, will mean more profits to the corporations, so said their bootlickers.

And today, we witnessed the pitfalls of such economic management, or mismanagement, with swarthes of humanity paying the price by poverty and foreclosure.

Competitiveness? My foot!! What competitiveness is there when a mp3 costs only $5 but within a month, it breaks down, and if one needs another mp3 on the move, and is poor, will have to buy from the same vendor - China, maker of such products? What happened to quality? ( the masses cannot afford). This example is but only one product, there are more ranging from such simple ones to important ones such as aircraft engines....

Minimum wage (MW) is the only answer to the world's economic solution. Not one on a national scale, but ONE ON AN INTERNATIONAL SCALE. With an international MW, no corporations can legally create slaves. Humanity will be protected.

The often proffered excuse of dismissing MW is that many struggling firms will close down if it is the rule and millions will become unemployed. IT IS GOOD NEWS!!! These small firms had no economic reason entering the market in the first place! They offered nothing technologically advance but only to create more slaves, to earn that buck from well paying foolish consumers. Let them die, and strong companies that takes care of their employers long term will survive and others evolve with tech competitiveness or quality to win in the free market!

Inflation will always be with us, one way or another, but better with sustainable wages than slave wages, or deflation nitemare will occur.

I am only an insignificant nobody, and I doubt if anyone will ever listen to me....sigh...to watch mistakes occuring over and over again...when we could have rise above it all......why??? Why doom humanity? No one will survive, not even the elites.....Our 'leaders' had failed us all,....yet again......WE are screwed

The rest of the world knows this country is hosed up,now.

Voters elected this incompetent idiot to be the leader of the most powerful country in the world.

The Indians were very gracious to him.

Once he left they probably fell down laughing.

He is not even a "empty shirt".

He is worse than that.

Whats really sad, is many don't know that the outsourcing of American Jobs actually started during the Carter administration. I'm sure maybe even before that, but more notably during Carter. The constant outsourcing of our jobs, only to be used as a basis of argument for the Liberal agenda sickens me!
So many hard working Americans out of work, losing their homes etc., all for what? VOTES!
We constantly here the argument of capitalism this, and conservative that....and yet the liberals can claim they represent the little guy, the minorities, and middle class, yet they assert their policies on a number of issues, and claim they are superior to the Republican prescriptions, but then once their positions are analyzed and compared with their policies and actions, it becomes clear there's an enormous disconnect between the two.

The HealthCare Bill has a very limited number of days left in it. It will more than likely be the first thing to get repealed, while Obama is still in office, and with it goes all the cumbersome new tax laws that were attached to it. If it is not repealed very quickly and some of these new requirements become known to the common person, then there is going to be a LOT of trouble!!

So, with that repealed, Cap and Trade effectively dead, the Fed under Ron Paul's oversight, and a bunch of new Governor's taking offices in States that already had movements on the books to ignore Federal meddling, I think we have taken some giant big boy steps in the right direction!!

Poor Obama! He served as a Presidential Martyr to Unite the Country into a Fiscally conservative mindset, re-instill Patriotism by apologizing all over the world for our actions and repeatedly giving our flag the "crotch" salute, and now he has succeeded in uniting the rest of the world AGAINST our fiscally irresponsible economic policies! Although his methods were odd, and sometimes it appeared that he really meant all of the things he was saying, the end result has been fantastic! It is clear now that he was giving it the "Columbo" approach. He is either the WORST or the BEST president ever!

^ ^ ^ Sarcasm of course. I certainly do not believe his enormous failures were intentional, but he sure did succeed at getting the opposite of his intentions, and for the the good of the country, I am happy he did!

reply to post by getreadyalready


I have to agree, his actions only solidified what the people truly want....talk about reverse psychology! I wonder if the thought went through is pitiful little brain, that this was the biggest back fire of all back fires!

Originally posted by SeekerofTruth101
The most interesting is Germany's Merkal qoute on 'competitiveness'. What does she means? Lower the slaries of workers to compete with the slaves in China?

If that is so, than it is only slavery she is proposing, and certainly deserves the riots she is witnessing in Europe.

I agree that I find it interesting.

However, your premise is way off.

Germany is the second largest exporter in the world. They have GDP on par with most western nations. And a living standard that could be argued as better or worse than the US's (it is that close).

Germany did this by changing how they market themselves and their products. Through use of innovative ideas and innovative manufacturing (robotics).

They essential created a market for highend machines and products, then tailored their manufacturing around that market.

The US could emulate this very easily. There used to be a standard when buying, based on the manufacturing stamp. When stamped "Made in USA" you were generally assured a well built, well backed, product. Not so much anymore, as there is lingering doubts about some of the US corporations less than moral practices. Ie: "Made in USA" can (and often) now mean "assembled in USA" by parts "made in China".

That being said, the reputation of US products is far from lost. If they pull a, I dare say, "Ford" turn around with product quality control and innovation, the United States would very quickly be back on top in terms of manufacturing and exportation.