Is NAFTA Unraveling?

Despite the perceived strong relationship between the United States and Mexico, NAFTA is increasingly becoming threatened.  The latest round of trouble began with certain unions in the US lobbying to block the free truck transportation instituted by the terms of NAFTA.  President Bush instituted a truck pilot program but was delayed/stopped by Congress in 2007.

Now, on March 18th, Mexico instituted a 45% tariff on 90 agricultural products from the United States.  Let us hope that President Obama does not pander to his labor/union constituencies by condoning protectionism and allowing this dispute to continue.  Now, more than ever since the recession began, the United States needs free trade.

Full article here

George W. Bush in Calgary

The former President shows the same class as he has done before.

Alberta – Former President George W. Bush, making his first public speech since leaving office in January, says he wants Barack Obama to succeed and that it’s “essential” to support the new leader.

Bush declined to critique the Obama administration in Tuesday’s speech, saying the new president has enough critics and that he “deserves my silence.”

Former Vice President Dick Cheney has said that Obama’s decisions threatened America’s safety. Conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh has said he hoped Obama would fail.

“I love my country a lot more than I love politics,” Bush said. “I think it is essential that he be helped in office.”
(Source)

During his time in the White House he didn’t lash out at his opponents, no talks about lists of political enemies, no attacking liberal/democratic profiles like the Obama administration have done with the conservative profile Rush Limbaugh. And now after his presidency he takes the same classy stance towards the democrats. I would lie if I said that I didn’t miss him in the White House, and the young Obama administration have a lot to learn.

And as if the horrible treatment Bush received while in office wasn’t enough the left continues to show it’s lack of class even after his presidency:

Four people were arrested in downtown Calgary on Tuesday during a protest outside the building where former U.S. president George W. Bush was making his first official speech since leaving office.

Two men were charged with obstructing a peace officer and resisting arrest. Another man was charged with breaching the peace, while the fourth was issued a ticket for violating a public behaviour bylaw, said Duty Insp. Rob Williams of Calgary police.
(Source)

The Fed Still Has Ideas

After exhausting its conventional methods of combatting recession, the Federal Reserve is still doing all that it can.  Bernanke has really come into his own as Chairman, and it seems that stock markets, especially in the United States, are responding quite favorably to him.  He is providing the economic leadership that the Obama administration obviously is not.

Full article here.

Bonuses, Bonuses, Bonuses

Jonah Goldberg says this so much better than I do. I agree with most of his column and might add my own thoughts tomorrow when I’m not as tired.

Hats off to Larry Summers. The president’s chief economic advisor told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos on Sunday that there’s nothing to be done about the fact that American International Group is contractually obliged to pay millions of dollars in bonuses to thousands of employees, some of whom helped ruin their company — and, to some extent, the national economy. “We are a country of law; there are contracts. The government cannot just abrogate contracts.”

From what I can tell, the bonuses do stink — although some are as small as $1,000 and presumably go to people who had no significant part in the credit-default-swap-derivative mania of recent years. But let’s assume that they’re all gratuitous. Summers was still right.

On Obama’s presidency

Simon Heffer writes about Obama’s first fifty days here:

With the aid of the conservative media, the public is being alerted to the pork – or to what are now being called the “tea parties” being funded by the $787 billion, but which will do no real good to any but a small minority of Democratic client-groups. There is a rising consciousness here that money is being wasted, that Mr Obama is simply spraying it around, and that America is at risk of bankruptcy.

[...]

Mr Obama has shown little evidence that he has connected with the tens of millions in his country for whom hardship is not theoretical. Six hundred thousand people a month in America are going on the dole. Much of the $275 billion – perhaps as much as $200 billion – earmarked for the mortgage industry will go to shore up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac rather than provide direct support to those whose homes are being repossessed. The pawn shops, the half-finished and overgrown housing developments on the edges of towns, the roads to nowhere and the new proliferation of beggars and down-and-outs on the streets of New York (I have not seen so many here since the 1980s) are a growing testament to the President’s challenge. He has yet to prove he is equal to it.

The column by Heffer is a good one and gives an excellent description of Obama’s challenges that lay before him. It can be seen in polls, like the one in my previous post, that the democrats keep losing confidence and after the inauguration there’s been a big increase in people not satisfied with the presidents work. The promises of bipartisanship and that Obama would bring change to the political scene seems to have gone out the window.

Rasmussen: Republicans leads poll

Here is something that will make the Republicans happy:

Support for the Democratic Congressional candidates fell to a new low over the past week, allowing the GOP to move slightly head for the first time in recent years in the Generic Congressional Ballot.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 41% said they would vote for their district’s Republican candidate while 39% would choose the Democrat.

One of the few resilient border towns

Since the 1990′s, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has drastically changed the character of towns and cities along the US-Mexican border.  Taking advantage of cheap labor, many factories called maquiladoras sprang up on the Mexican side to produce goods for export to  the US.  With surging trade and a massive real estate bubble, many areas, my hometown of San Diego included, experienced a strong economic boom.  When the bubble began to pop in 2006, it threatened to turn many areas from boom to bust.  And now by 2009 the construction and housing industries have collapsed, and unemployment is skyrocketing.  Sounds, horrible, right?

Well it turns out there is at least one place that will not be hit as hard as the others.  That town is called McAdden, Texas.  From its economic lows in the 1980′s, according to The Economist McAdden now has the highest per capita retail spending in Texas.  Also, while thinks have begun to slow down, the area has one of the lowest rates of foreclosure in the entire United States.

McAdden is truly an interesting town to follow, given the current economic situation.

Full article can be found here at The Economist.

Russia invest in their military

From Novosti.

A comprehensive rearmament of Russia’s Armed Forces will begin in 2011, President Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday.

“Last year we equipped a number of military units with new weaponry, and we will start large-scale rearmament of the Armed Forces in 2011,” Medvedev said at a meeting with Defense Ministry officials.

He said that the current military-political situation in the world calls for a thorough modernization of the Russian Armed Forces, primarily its strategic nuclear forces.

While Gates cuts down:

Two defense officials who were not authorized to speak publicly said Gates will announce up to a half-dozen major weapons cancellations later this month. Candidates include a new Navy destroyer, the Air Force’s F-22 fighter jet, and Army ground-combat vehicles, the offi cials said.

More cuts are planned for later this year after a review that could lead to reductions in programs such as aircraft carriers and nuclear arms, the officials said.

Brown the dreamer

Mr Brown indicated that Britain stands ready to reduce the number of its own warheads as part of a broader negotiation involving the US and Russia.

Multi-lateral reductions in nuclear arsenals should be part of a new “grand global bargain” which will see all states – including Iran – given the possibility to develop civilian atomic power programmes under strict conditions, said Mr Brown.

Dreaming of a world free of nuclear weapons is a nice hing to do, it feels good and you sound like you’re thinking about what’s best for the world when you say it. I also know of people who claim that getting rid off the nuclear weapons is the single most important challenge humanity faces. This is a nice dream, and maybe even a vision worth working for, but that’s also all it should be; A dream.

As long as we have a world where we got one part of it that’s free, with democracy and everything that comes with it, and engaged in a war against organisations supported by totalitarian states the disarming of the west’s nuclear arsenal shouldn’t be anything worth striving for. Imagine a scenario where the west, and Russia, all abolish their nuclear arsenal and a state like North Korea or Iran builds one up instead. That’s not a pretty scenario.

Instead of dreaming about disarming or nuclear weapons we should work towards turning Iran, North Korea and other totalitarian states into democracies. When we’ve done that, then we can talk about disarming.

Cheney in State of the Union

Dick Cheney made his first TV interview on sunday after leaving the White House to Barack Obama, Joe Biden and the Democrats.  I’ve never really paid that much attention to Cheney while he was in office but have gone back to read and listen to statements made by him after the Bush Administration left the White House. I must say that he comes off as a very reasonable person, very well aware of the threats facing the US and the west. Where does the Left get the idea that he’s an evil genius that controlled the puppet George W. Bush from?

Update:  The story on CNN

Update 2: Short story on Townhall

But Cheney says he doesn’t think the Bush administration can be blamed for creating the economic woes. Cheney says it’s a global financial problem. He says the idea that fault can assigned to the previous administration is “interesting rhetoric” but he doesn’t think people care about that.