Mike Elk

  • Published China to US: We're Just "Emotionally Unavailable" (Blog entry)
    March 19, 2010 - 3:05pm

    Man China has had a really rough week. A bipartisan group of economists ranging from Paul Krugman to the conservative Fred Bergsten of the Peterson Institute have called for tariffs on China to fix the currency manipulation problem.

  • Shared U.S. wind power growing fast but still lags (News Headline)
    March 19, 2010 - 12:04pm

    Wind-generated electricity is growing rapidly in the United States but the pace still lags far behind that in China, the organizer of an industry conference in North Carolina said.

    "With the right policies in place, we can see explosive growth ... It's a global footrace," said Jeff Anthony, business development director of the American Wind Energy Association.

  • Shared U.S. Treasury Says China Should Let Yuan Resume Appreciating (News Headline)
    March 17, 2010 - 4:57pm

    March 16 (Bloomberg) -- The Obama administration has serious concerns about China’s exchange-rate policy and wants the yuan to be allowed to rise, a U.S. Treasury Department official said.

  • Shared U.S. and Foreign Wind Energy Companies Creating Local American Jobs (News Headline)
    March 17, 2010 - 4:32pm

    Recently there have been some questions in the media (see Green Inc. and Washington Post articles) and in the U.S. Senate about stimulus grants for wind energy projects going to foreign countries. On March 3rd, a group of Senators called for the suspension of the renewables grant program until “Buy American” rules had been passed that made sure projects used American components and labor.

  • Published The Bipartisan Solution that Creates 2 Million Jobs and Costs Nothing (Blog entry)
    March 16, 2010 - 3:00pm

    Today a bipartisan group of 130 members of Congress, ranging from Dennis Kucinich on the left to Joe Wilson on the right, wrote to President Obama asking him to stop Chinese currency manipulation. The crisis with China is accelerating quickly, and is so severe that economist from all over the political spectrum are calling for the U.S. to take drastic action against China currency manipulation.

  • Published Activist Win Against Goldman-Sachs' Local Government Ripoff (Blog entry)
    March 11, 2010 - 12:32pm

    A few weeks ago, I wrote about how big banks refused to renegotiate deceptive, Greek-style interest rate swaps with local governments throughout the US.

  • Published Obama Solution to Stop Outsourcing: Stop Counting Jobs Outsourced (No, Seriously!) (Blog entry)
    March 3, 2010 - 3:17pm

    The numbers are outrageous, sickening even. How can anyone stand to look at them?

  • Shared Should We Fear China? (Progressive Opinion)
    February 25, 2010 - 1:38pm

    China is the largest holder of official foreign currency reserves in the world, currently estimated to be worth around $2.4 trillion -- an increase of nearly $500 billion in the course of 2009 (on the back of a current account surplus of just under $300 billion, i.e., 5.8 percent of China's GDP, and a capital account surplus of around $100 billion). These reserves are accumulated through arguably the largest ever sustained intervention in a foreign exchange market -- i.e., through The People's Bank of China buying dollars and selling renminbi, and thus keeping the renminbi-dollar exchange rate more depreciated than it would be otherwise.

    China is also currently the second largest holder of US Treasury Securities -- at the end of December 2009, it held $755.4 billion -- just behind Japan (which had $768.8 billion).

    The US Treasury data almost certainly understate Chinese holdings of our government debt because they do not reveal the ultimate country of ownership when instruments are held through an intermediary in another jurisdiction.

  • Shared Should We Fear China? (Progressive Opinion)
    February 25, 2010 - 1:27pm

    China is the largest holder of official foreign currency reserves in the world, currently estimated to be worth around $2.4 trillion -- an increase of nearly $500 billion in the course of 2009 (on the back of a current account surplus of just under $300 billion, i.e., 5.8 percent of China's GDP, and a capital account surplus of around $100 billion). These reserves are accumulated through arguably the largest ever sustained intervention in a foreign exchange market -- i.e., through The People's Bank of China buying dollars and selling renminbi, and thus keeping the renminbi-dollar exchange rate more depreciated than it would be otherwise.

    China is also currently the second largest holder of US Treasury Securities -- at the end of December 2009, it held $755.4 billion -- just behind Japan (which had $768.8 billion).

    The US Treasury data almost certainly understate Chinese holdings of our government debt because they do not reveal the ultimate country of ownership when instruments are held through an intermediary in another jurisdiction.

  • Published How Big Banks' Interest-Rate Schemes Bankrupt States (Blog entry)
    February 25, 2010 - 12:04pm

    Just when you thought Wall Street couldn’t get any more clever in their attempts at predatory lending, they have.

    Big Banks have created an exotic financial  instrument that is the equivalent of a payday loan for cash-strapped state and local governments. innocently labeled an "interest rate swap."