BUSH'S FOLLY

An important part of "Looking Ahead" is that instead of wallowing in nostalgia, you stay current and critical. In my youth I used to be told that as I got older I would become less radical. There is a Churchill quote about that. I won't bore you.

Readfing more about Obama's Treasury appointments, I find more comment about how protectionism won't work. I find it interesting that Obama, more in vote-gathering mode than reality mode, suggested that the Free Trade agreements would have to be re-examined. Was he hinting at trade barriers to protect American workers? Such action would replicate precisely what countries did when the crash of 1929 happened. It stifled trade. It choked off what faint hope remained for economic recovery.

I do believe, and this was part of John Kerry's (remember him?) presidential campaign, that companies should not be given tax deductions for salaries paid to workers outside the country. If companies want to be bottom feeders and go for the lowest possible labour costs, let them do it, but don;t have the government be complicit by allowing those salaries to be expensed out.

You are wondering why I titled this posting Bush's Folly when his entire eight years have been "folly." In one of his recent speeches he warned America about protectionism. He was right. He was also being his usual duplicitous self. Maybe he is not in touch with the protectionist moves that have characterized his administration. Maybe he doesn't remember the soft wood lumber embargo. Maybe he forgets that America "protected" farmers against the inroads of Canadian pork products.
Maybe he forgot how he promoted the wasteful use of fertile farmland to grow food crops, not for food, but for ethanol. Maybe he forgeot how he protected them against foreign competition by putting a heavy tax (if I remember correctly it was something like 58 cents a gallon) on ethanol made from abundant sugar in Brazil. By the way, ethanol from sugar costs a fraction of the price to extract compared to the cost of extraction from corn. And cars in Brazil operate on ehanol, not gasoline.

So far-sighted President Obama - will you usher in a new age of independence from petroleum by using the most inexpensive ethanol you can buy? How about a trade move to enrich your poorest neighbours in the Caribbean by putting their abundance of sugar to better use? Will you begin moving toward the removal of the embargos against Cuba, where so much sugar comes from.

World trade, true world trade, not domination by the great industrtial and agricultural powers, will bring economic stability. And with more billions to Citibank, we need imagination.