Monday, November 16, 2009

BARACK OBAMA

Obama: Don't Count on Americans To Buy Asia's Exports

Most people will interpret this as the American President wisely assessing our current trade imbalance:

President Barack Obama told Chinese and other Asian leaders they can't expect U.S. consumers, struggling with debt, to keep driving Asian economies.

Obama made the comment in Singapore Sunday at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, before leaving for Shanghai to begin a four-day state visit to China, The Wall Street Journal reported.

"The recession we're just now recovering from has clearly taught us the limits of depending on the American consumer to drive economic growth," Obama said.

That's one interpretation. The other is that considering how his administration has tackled unemployment, and the tax hikes coming down the pike, the American consumer is going to have a lot less money to spend on stuff made in Asia.

I guess the point of the stimulus was to liberate us all from frustrating jobs and soulless materialism.

11/16 09:15 AMShare