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Gene Ellis

Europe Eyes Trade Pact With Obama - NYTimes.com - 0 views

rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/...ope-eyes-trade-pact-with-obama

europe eyes trade pact obama

shared by Gene Ellis on 08 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • “A car tested for safety in the United States could be sold in Europe without further tests, while a drug deemed safe by Brussels would not have to be approved as well by the U.S. government,” according to a Reuters report that cited examples of the benefits of a free-trade agreement.
Gene Ellis

American trade policy: How to make the world $600 billion poorer | The Economist - 0 views

www.economist.com/...pensive-mistake-how-make-world

american trade policy

shared by Gene Ellis on 25 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • American trade policy How to make the world $600 billion poorer
  • Reasonable estimates say that the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) could boost the world’s annual output by $600 billion—equivalent to adding another Saudi Arabia. Some $200 billion of that would accrue to America.
  • And the actual gains could be even larger. The agreements would clear the way for freer trade in services, which account for most of rich countries’ GDP but only a small share of trade. Opening up trade in services could help reduce the cost of everything from shipping to banking, education and health care. Exposing professional occupations to the same global competition that factory workers have faced for decades could even strike a blow against the income inequality that Mr Obama so often decries
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  • Why should Japanese politicians risk infuriating their farmers when any agreement can be torn up on Capitol Hill?
  • Europe’s leaders will now doubt America’s commitment, given how feebly Mr Obama has fought for fast-track. Trade sceptics, such as French farmers, are drooling. Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, who is already furious about American spying, may decide that a trade deal is not worth battling for.
  • He seldom mentions, for example, that cheap imports help the poor by cutting their shopping bills, and so reduce inequality of consumption.
Gene Ellis

Kerry promotes U.S.-European trade deal - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...2-814b-063623d80a60_story.html

shared by Gene Ellis on 27 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • France wants to slow down consideration of the proposed transatlantic free-trade zone encompassing about 40 percent of the world’s trade. Germany and Britain are in favor of the plan and want to move fast.
  • The Obama administration says a comprehensive deal would further open European markets and expand exports to the euro zone of U.S. goods and services, currently worth $459 billion a year. Backers say the deal would add more than 13 million jobs in the United States and Europe.
  • But supporters also fear that trade talks will bog down or collapse over parochial concerns, and must be streamlined to succeed.
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  • one of the objections that France is expected to raise over what it calls cultural exceptions to free trade on products with a specific geographic or national significance, such as Champagne wine.
Gene Ellis

The Politics of Trade: The Top U.S. Negotiator Answers 10 Questions - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...t-obamas-trade-negotiator.html

shared by Gene Ellis on 07 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • The Politics of Trade: The Top U.S. Negotiator Answers 10 Questions
Gene Ellis

The Great Wage Slowdown of the 21st Century - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...wdown-of-the-21st-century.html

shared by Gene Ellis on 08 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • You can think of Mr. Obama’s argument as falling into two categories (even if he didn’t say so): the reasons that overall economic growth may accelerate, and the reasons that middle- and low-income workers may benefit more from that growth than they have lately.
  • On the growth side of the ledger, both energy and education have been problems.
  • And the number of high-school and college graduates is rising. The financial crisis deserves some perverse credit, because it sent people fleeing back to school, much as the Great Depression did
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  • Yet educational attainment has slowed so much that the United States has lost its once-enormous global lead.
  • the biggest reason to think economic growth may translate more directly into wage gains is the turnabout in health costs. After years of rapid increases, they have slowed sharply in the last three years. Mr. Obama likes to give more credit to the 2010 health care law than most observers do, but he’s not wrong about the trend’s significance.
  • It’s also possible that the forces behind the great wage slowdown – from globalization to our often-sclerotic government to (at least for many workers) technological change – are still more powerful than the positive forces.
Gene Ellis

Nouriel Roubini maps out the Kremlin's plan for a re-divided world. - Project Syndicate - 0 views

www.project-syndicate.org/...-s-plan-for-a-re-divided-world

shared by Gene Ellis on 05 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • Russia’s goal is not to create another North American Free Trade Agreement; it is to create another EU, with the Kremlin holding all of the real levers of power.
  • And, once members give up their sovereignty over fiscal, banking, and economic affairs, they may eventually need a partial political union to ensure democratic legitimacy.
  • But the first step is a customs union, and, in the case of the Eurasian Union, it had to include Ukraine, Russia’s largest neighbor to the west.
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  • There is even talk of Russia and China creating an alternative international payment system to replace the SWIFT system, which the US and Europe can use to impose financial sanctions against Russia.
  • But Putin is ambitious, and – like other autocrats in Central Asian nations – he may remain in power for decades to come. And, like it or not, even a Russia that lacks the dynamism needed to succeed in manufacturing and the industries of the future will remain a commodity-producing
  • superpower.
  • US President Barack Obama says that this is not the beginning of a new Cold War; current trends may soon suggest otherwise.
Gene Ellis

Ukraine crisis: Russian retaliation could hit Western mulitinationals - 0 views

www.cnbc.com/101614522

shared by Gene Ellis on 05 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • "There no doubt would be Russian retaliation," said Justin Logan, director of foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute. "Companies with money tied up in Russia would have a tough time getting it back out."
  • The White House said Friday that President Barack Obama and the leaders of Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Italy agreed after a conference call that they're ready to inflict targeted sanctions against Russia if Moscow es
  • The lion's share of foreign money in Russia is from major energy sector players like Shell, Exxon, and BP, said Fadel Gheit, senior energy analyst at Oppenheimer
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  • Shell is working with Gazprom on natural gas extraction in Russia; Exxon has a multibillion dollar exploration partnership with Rosneft, a major oil producer controlled by the Russian government, and BP owns nearly 20 percent of Rosneft.
  • "Shell and Exxon have physical assets in Russia," said Gheit. "But pound-for-pound, BP has the biggest exposure in Russia." Although BP may have the most to lose from an economic tug-of-war between Moscow and the West, tough lessons that BP learned in Russia—through a defunct partnership with Rosneft called TNK-BP—also make BP best equipped for any future fallout, said Nicholas Spiro, managing director of Spiro Sovereign Strategy.
  • Spiro said that several German firms have also steeled themselves for possible fallout from friction between the Russia and the West. "German companies are huge here," said Spiro, naming BASF, energy firm RWE, and Siemens as companies with operations in Russia. BASF is working to finalize a deal with Gazprom that would give it a stake in Siberian oil fields; RWE has reached a preliminary deal to sell its natural gas subsidiary to Russian billionaires Mikhail Fridman and German Khan, and Siemens has a partnership with state-run railroad monopoly Russian Railways. Late last month, Siemens CEO Joe Kaeser made a trip to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin at his residence and voice support for a "trusting relationship" with Russian companies.
  • We know that if the West's resolve starts to crumble, it will almost certainly start in Germany,
  • "That's the canary in the coal mine."
  • "It starts with Germany and works its way down," said Hogan. "They have the most trade back-and-forth, and Germany gets the highest percentage of its energy from Russia."
  • Alcoa owns aluminum fabrication facilities in Russia, and Boeing has a design center in Moscow, as well as a joint venture with VSMPO-Avisma, the world's largest titanium producer.
  • Members of the Russian parliament have also proposed charging international payments companies like Visa and Mastercard with pre-emptive "security fees," with the stated aim of preparing for future financial disruptions.
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