Obama Forum - All Forums

end of atheism

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 12:11:13 -0600

eh... remember forever, F*CKERS...

nostraamerica.atspace.com/

bye atheists!

youtube.com/watch?v=ojR-XRt4rrA

How Obama could improve.

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:26:44 -0600

This stupid african american could improve by stepping down and letting a white man lead America properly, the way it should be run. WHITE POWER!!

LIGHTBULB joke

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 00:00:01 -0600

How many academic librarians does it take to change a light bulb?
Just five. One changes the light bulb while the other four form a committee and write a letter of protest to the Dean, because after all, changing light bulbs IS NOT professional work!

How many catalogers does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Just one, but they have to wait to see how LC does it first.

How many cataloguers does it take to change a lightbulb?
Only one provided it is in AACR2.

How many reference librarians does it take to change a light-bulb?
(with a perky smile) "Well, I don't know right off-hand, but I know where we can look it up!"

How many reference librarians does it take to change a lightbulb?
None if it has a LCSH heading.

How many library system managers does it take to change a lightbulb?
All of them as the manual was lost in the last move (or flood).

How many library managers does it take to change a lightbulb?
At least one committee and a light bulb strategy focus meeting and plan.

How many library technicians does it take to change a lightbulb?

The President's Proposal for Health Reform

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 23:54:51 -0600

Over the past year the House and the Senate have been working on an effort to provide health insurance reform that lowers costs, guarantees choices, and enhances quality health care for all Americans. On September 9, 2009 the President laid out his principles in an address to a Joint Session of Congress. Building on that year-long effort, the President has now put forth a proposal that incorporates the work the House and the Senate have done and adds additional ideas from Republican members of Congress. The President has long said he is open to any good ideas for reforming our health care system, and he looks forward to discussing ideas for further improvements from Republicans and Democrats at an open bipartisan meeting.

The Administration believes that comprehensive health reform should:
* Reduce long-term growth of health care costs for businesses and government
* Protect families from bankruptcy or debt because of health care costs
* Guarantee choice of doctors and health plans
* Invest in prevention and wellness
* Improve patient safety and quality of care
* Assure affordable, quality health coverage for all Americans
* Maintain coverage when you change or lose your job
* End barriers to coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions

Yes, we can!

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 23:51:25 -0600

Yes, we can!

I stand here today as hopeful as ever that the United States of America will endure, that it will prevail, that the dream of our founders will live on in our time.

To ensure prosperity here at home and peace abroad, we all share the belief we have to maintain the strongest military on the planet.

I intend to close Guantanamo, and I will follow through on that. I have said repeatedly that America doesn't torture. And I'm gonna make sure that we don't torture. Those are part and parcel of an effort to regain America's moral stature in the world.

We have an obligation and a responsibility to be investing in our students and our schools. We must make sure that people who have the grades, the desire and the will, but not the money, can still get the best education possible.

My job is not to represent Washington to you, but to represent you to Washington.

Obama Speeches Words Relationship

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 08:53:37 -0600

Hello,

I made an analysis of Obama speeches words relationship. I think the results are interesting.

Take a look here:
http://juanosborne.com/2010/02/25/obama-...ationship/

Hope you like it.

Obama talking healthcare

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 17:16:45 -0600

I thought Obama put healthcare on the back burner and is focusing on jobs?
Again Obama lied. Again Obama is deceiving we american tax payers. Again Obama is putting his dangerous and unpopular agenda in front of us, the american tax payer.

Obamacare? Now?

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 17:10:56 -0600

I thought Obama was working on jobs, and healthcare was on the back burner? Another lie. Another Obama smokescreen.

Biden and Cheney go toe-to-toe on terrorism, as battle of the veeps heats up

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 13:04:23 -0600

Waterboarding should have been an option with the Detroit undies bomber, Dick Cheney said Sunday in a knock on President Obama that launched a day-long battle of the veeps with his successor.

"President Obama has taken them off the table," Cheney said of the "enhanced interrogation techniques" he thinks should have been considered for Umar Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian whom the feds say tried to blow up a jetliner on Christmas Day. Instead, Cheney said, the terrorist was read his Miranda rights.

Vice President Biden, 67, shot back that his Republican predecessor "either is misinformed or is misinforming" on the facts of the Detroit case - and on a range of other issues from Iran and Iraq to terror trials and the economy.

The outburst from Cheney, 68, on ABC, sandwiched between rebuttals from Democrat Biden on CBS and NBC, came on the eve of the Presidents' Day holiday - and were the latest signs of the paralyzing partisan divide.

Cheney said waterboarding should have been "on the table" when Abdulmutallab was taken into custody by the FBI. He noted that Obama "announced when he came in last year that they would never use anything other than the U.S. Army manual, which doesn't include those techniques. I think that's a mistake."

Cheney also ripped the move to give terror kingpin Khalid Shaikh Mohammed a federal trial in lower Manhattan and said the Guantanamo Bay terror prison should be kept open indefinitely.

Biden said he was baffled by Cheney's criticism of the handling of the underpants bomber.

"I don't know what Dick's been doing lately," said Biden, who pointed to the high-profile terrorism trials in civilian courts under the Bush administration.

"The irony here is that's exactly what was done with [Zacarias] Moussaoui, the 21st hijacker," Biden said. "That was exactly what was done with Richard Reid," the shoe bomber now serving a life sentence. "That was exactly what was done under the Cheney administration, that he defended," Biden said.

It was Cheney's turn to profess bafflement when Biden claimed that Iraq was a success for the Obama administration.

"If they're going to take credit for it, fair enough, for what they've done while they're there," Cheney said. "But it ought to go with a healthy dose of 'Thank you, George Bush' upfront and a recognition that some of their early recommendations, with respect to prosecuting that war, were just dead wrong."

Cheney reserved some of his barbs for his fellow Republicans - namely former veep candidate Sarah Palin. He took a dim view of the former Alaska governor's suggestion that Obama might get tough with Iran to boost his political rating.

"I don't think a President can make a judgment like that on the basis of politics," Cheney said. "The consequences are too significant to be treating those as simple political calculations."

Cheney also hinted that Palin might not be ready for national office: "I think all the prospective candidates out there have got a lot of work to do."

In other matters, the former veep gave his qualified support yesterday for scrapping "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" - and letting gays serve openly in the armed forces.

Cheney said the Joint Chiefs of Staff were opposed to gays in the military in 1993, but he cited the recent congressional testimony of Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, in which he said that letting gays serve was "the right thing to do."

"When the chiefs come forward and say we think we can do it, then it strikes me that it's time to reconsider the policy," said Cheney, whose daughter, Mary, is a lesbian.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics...z0fupjs8qn

Wisconsin company erects billboard calling for President Obama's impeachment

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 13:03:04 -0600

An unnamed company in Wisconsin has rented a billboard calling for President Obama's impeachment -- which is in no way meant to suggest that Obama has committed an impeachable offense, according to a representative for the group.

The billboard along Highway 41 in Oshkosh reads, "Impeach Obama." The tagline says: "America's small businesses are failing; help us spread the message."

An attorney for the company, Tom Wroblewski, told The Associated Press the sentiment is that Washington politics are bad for small businesses.

The sign went up Thursday, according to WLUK-TV.

It will remain up for at least six months, at a cost of $1,000 per month.

Wroblewski says despite the billboard's language, he's not suggesting Obama committed an offense worthy of impeachment.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national...z0fupWaNTg

White House sends Cabinet across nation to calm public, defend stimulus on its annive

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 13:02:11 -0600

President Barack Obama, defending his economic stimulus plan on its first anniversary, is dispatching his Cabinet across the country to try to calm an anxious public as Democrats head into potentially devastating midterm elections.

A weeklong push to highlight the stimulus program's first year was starting with a Tuesday trip by Vice President Joe Biden to hard-hit Saginaw, Mich., to tour a small business, a jobs training program and a solar factory that all received Recovery Act dollars.

Obama's fellow Democrats planned to tout programs putting people back to work under the $787 billion spending bill. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was touring a medical center in Atlanta on Tuesday; Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was promoting stimulus projects in Virginia and Texas the same day.

In all, senior administration officials are scheduled to visit 35 communities before Friday to counter Republican claims the massive deficit-spending program has failed. Obama plans to surround himself at the White House on Wednesday with people who have jobs because of the stimulus plan, then travel to Colorado and Nevada.

Obama's political team believes the bricks-and-mortar projects across the country could help Democrats stave off emboldened Republicans and their attempts to reclaim majorities in Congress. Although voters have soured on the stimulus spending, individual components have fans across party lines.

The tax cuts Democrats included in their bill have the backing of 70 percent of the public, according to a CNN poll last month. Another 80 percent support the infrastructure investments, such as the water projects Environmental Protection Agency chief Lisa Jackson plans to tout in Columbus, Ohio, on Thursday.

Even so, 56 percent of the public opposes the broad plan, according to the CNN poll.

Biden is expected to give Obama a report Wednesday assessing the stimulus' effects.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2010/02...z0fupI2F42

Obama nuclear alternative? Small, modular reactors emerge

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 12:44:57 -0600

As President Obama pushes forward to revive the nuclear power industry, amid mounting concerns by environmentalists, a new type of small reactor is entering the market.

These new reactors, "smaller than a rail car and one-tenth the cost of a big plant," can be built quickly, installed at dozens of nuclear sites or can replace coal-fired plants, reports The Wall Street Journal today.

"We see significant benefits from the new, modular technology," Donald Moul, vice president of nuclear support for First Energy, an Ohio-based utility company, says in the story.

The small Babcock & Wilcox reactor, which generate 125 to 140 megawatts of power -- about a tenth as much as a big one, has not yet been approved for U.S. commercial use by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC.)

On Wednesday, three major utilities -- Tennessee Valley Authority, First Energy Corp. and Oglethorpe Power Corp. -- signed an agreement with Babcock & Wilcox, committing to get NRC's approval, according to the story.

This development comes as Obama announced Monday $8.3 billion in federal loan guarantees for two new large reactors in Burke, Ga. -- the first new nuclear power construction in the United States in three decades.

Obama's call for a "new generation" of nuclear power plants and his proposal to triple loan guarantees to help build them are generating opposition from environmentalists who once welcomed him.

"We were hopeful last year; he was saying all the right things," Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth, whose political arm endorsed Obama's candidacy for president, says in a New York Times story today. "But now he has become a full-blown nuclear power proponent, a startling change over the last few months."

Obama knows his policies are alienating some environmentalists. Still, he says nuclear power has to be part of the U.S. energy future, because it does not emit greenhouse gases. In announcing the loan guarantees, he said:

Now, there will be those that welcome this announcement, those who think it's been long overdue. But there are also going to be those who strongly disagree with this announcement. The same has been true in other areas of our energy debate, from offshore drilling to putting a price on carbon pollution. But what I want to emphasize is this: Even when we have differences, we cannot allow those differences to prevent us from making progress.

As both a senator and a presidential candidate, Obama has long supported nuclear power. The New York Times, citing data from the Center for Responsive Politics, reports that employees of the Exelon Corp., the Chicago-based utility that is the largest operator of nuclear plants in the United States, have been among his biggest campaign donors, giving more than $330,000 over his career.

Obama has repeatedly promoted energy efficiency and renewable energy such as solar and wind. His Recovery Act includes $90 billion for clean energy projects.

Readers: Is Obama losing his eco-credentials? Are small nuclear reactors the answer to his nuclear call?

source: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/...-emerges/1

Obama Stimulates More Lies, Unemployment And Reckless Spending

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 12:41:40 -0600

The Obama administration is going all out this week to tout the failed economic stimulus program on its first anniversary. Obama went so far as to claim that it saved the economy from the brink of disaster and that it is the model of transparency.

The only stimulus that is working is Obama’s fertile imagination. He has created a new measure of success – what he calls “jobs saved” as a result of the stimulus spending. If a school system or fire department received any stimulus money, for example, someone who received a pay raise was counted as a “saved job” under Obamaeconomics. A postponed lay-off is a “saved job.” Even by its own measures – which most economists and the Congressional Budget Office have rejected as meaningless indicators of the real unemployment picture – the administration has been caught claiming that jobs were saved in congressional districts that did not exist and that more jobs were saved than the total number of jobs that existed in some places.

The official unemployment rate rose to over 10% during the last year and is now at 9.7% – nearly 30% more than it was a year ago. About three million jobs were lost over the past year – real jobs.

Underemployment – which includes those unemployed people who have stopped looking for work but looked for work sometime in the recent past and people who are working part-time but want full-time jobs – is nearly 17%.

The Obama administration can’t even tell us the truth about how much the stimulus program has cost. They still use the original price tag of $787 billion. The Congressional Budget Office, however, has said the the actual cost is $862 billion.

In this administration, a discrepancy of $75 billion is a speck of dust compared to the trillions of dollars of spending they are racking up.

This reckless spending has ballooned the deficit to $1.6 trillion. The federal debt is now at an astounding 94.27% of our nation’s Gross Domestic Product – the highest since 1949! As Bill O’Reilly pointed out during his “Talking Points” segment last night on “The Factor,” Washington under Obama is heading the way of California – bankruptcy.

Government spending on pork projects does not create real jobs. It may fatten the recipients up for awhile at the expense of the taxpayers but it is only lard.

Real jobs are created in the private sector. And Obama’s economic policies – runaway government spending, onerous regulations and higher taxes – are at direct odds with what is necessary to create more jobs in the private sector.

source: http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/02/18/o...-spending/

Obama team raises pressure on health insurers

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 12:39:17 -0600

* Without reform, big premium hikes will continue-report

* Top execs at big healthcare firms earned $24 mln apiece

* Sebelius to release report on Thursday (Adds industry response)

WASHINGTON, Feb 18 (Reuters) - The Obama administration ratcheted up pressure on health insurers Thursday, saying some companies planned double-digit rate increases while earning billions in profits and paying their bosses multimillion-dollar salaries.

In a report issued by the Department of Health and Human Services, the administration said: "These massive increases are disturbing examples of the problems that make reforming our health insurance system more important than ever."

The report came as President Barack Obama tries to revive his stalled healthcare reform plans and two weeks after Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius sent a letter to Anthem Blue Shield of California demanding information about its plan to boost premiums by up to 39 percent.

A spokesman for the health insurance industry's trade group said "the soaring cost of medical care" was driving the increase in premiums, while the percentage of premiums going toward administrative costs and profits had declined.

"There has been an effort throughout this debate to shift the focus to the insurance industry," said America's Health Insurance Plans spokesman Robert Zirkelbach, "but the data show that it's underlying medical costs, not health plan administrative costs, that are fueling the rise in the cost of healthcare coverage."

Healthcare spending in the United States is about $2.3 trillion annually, or about 16 percent of the U.S. economy. Despite the high spending levels, some 30 million U.S. citizens are uninsured and do not have access to routine healthcare.

Employers complain that the cost of providing health insurance for their workers is affecting their ability to compete against companies from other countries.

Work on healthcare reform, Obama's top domestic priority, ground to a halt in the Democratic-controlled Congress last month.

The House of Representatives and the Senate had passed different versions of healthcare reform and were attempting to reconcile the bills when Democrats lost control of the Massachusetts Senate seat previously held by Edward Kennedy, who died last year. That has given rival Republicans the ability to use procedural hurdles to block legislation.

The Los Angeles Times reported in early February that Anthem Blue Cross, a WellPoint Inc (WLP.N) unit, planned to increase individual market premiums for its health insurance by up to 39 percent in the coming month. After Sebelius challenged the decision, the company delayed the move for two months.

BIG INCREASE NOT UNIQUE

"This shocking increase isn't unique," said the report, which Sebelius will release at a news conference on Thursday. "Across the country, families have seen their premiums skyrocket in recent years, and experts predict these increases will continue."

The report cited several companies as having planned big premium hikes in recent years. Anthem sought them in several different Northeastern states, the report said, while Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Michigan wanted a 56 percent increase for plans sold on the individual market.

UnitedHealth, Tufts and Blue Cross asked for 13-to-16-percent increases in Rhode Island, and some plans in the individual market in Washington increased premiums by 40 percent until the state imposed stiffer regulations, the report said.

"Leading experts have predicted that without reform, these increases will continue," the report said, "and the federal government and most states don't have the legal authority to block or reduce health insurance rate increases."

Profits for the 10 largest insurance companies rose 250 percent from 2000 to 2009, 10 times faster than inflation, the report said.

The top five -- WellPoint, UnitedHealth Group Inc (UNH.N), Cigna Corp (CI.N), Aetna Inc (AET.N) and Humana Inc (HUM.N) -- took combined profits of $12.2 billion, up 56 percent from 2008, it said.

The chief executives of the top five received $24 million on average in 2008, the report said.

Administrative costs at insurance companies grew faster than the amount spent on prescription drugs over the past decade, the report said, a trend expected to continue. Three of the top five insurers cut the proportion of premiums they spent on customers' medical care last year, committing more to salaries, administrative expenses and profits, it said.

America's Health Insurance Plans' Zirkelbach said the industry's profit margins have historically been around 3 percent or 4 percent -- "much less than other industries, even within the healthcare sector."

Recent data released by the federal government show increased spending on hospital care, physician services and prescription drugs are leading to higher health spending, Zirkelbach said.

The report said a lack of competition among insurers was partly to blame for the rapidly escalating costs. Nearly all U.S. insurance markets are highly concentrated, and "without competition, insurers have no reason to drive down costs."

source: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1818362620100218

Obama's 2010 nightmare: razor-thin Democratic win

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 12:37:54 -0600

Tom Davis knows a thing or two about politics. The former Virginia Republican once headed up the National Republican Congressional Committee, which recruits, trains and supports GOP candidates for Congress.

Now retired from the House, Davis is teaching at George Mason University and leading the moderate Republican Main Street Partnership. He sat down Wednesday with Top of the Ticket and a small group of other reporters to handicap the 2010 elections.

His take: barring a major shift in the winds that now favor the GOP, "there will be Republican tsunamis" in the outer suburbs and among blue-collar whites who, he noted, proved critical to Republican Scott Brown's upset Senate victory in Massachusetts.

The good news for Democrats: "At least they're not Toyota." In fact Davis praised Maryland's Chris Van Hollen, who heads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, for recruiting "self-funders," candidates who allow the Democratic Party to use its resources elsewhere while forcing Republican opponents to spend big bucks.

Speaking of money, Davis thinks it's the key to everything. Asked about the political potency of the Tea Party, he said Republicans would be wise to keep activists within the party's tent, to corral their electoral energy. "The Tea Party started a parade and now all of these politicians are trying to get in front of it," he said. But he doubted the movement could become a viable third party without attracting big dollars. "We're talking about tea, not latte," he said.

Obviously the congressman does not realize that the Starbucks Nation has moved on from Lipton. Still, he did bring first-hand experience to the stakes for President Obama in the 2010 election.

Citing the 1994 mid-term elections, Davis said the historic capture of the House by Republicans allowed President Clinton to pick and choose issues -- like welfare reform -- that could corral votes on both sides of the issue. "The worse thing for Obama would be razor-thin Democratic margins," he said, noting that in that scenario, neither camp would have political motive to work with him.

Davis, who passed up a Senate campaign in 2008 before retiring from the House, said he was enjoying life after Congress. Recently he bumped into former Virginia Republican George Allen, who was coasting to reelection in 2006 before being caught on camera issuing a racial epithet against one of his opponent's staffers. Allen asked Davis asked if he planned to take on Democrat Jim Webb in 2012.

“He kept saying, ‘I hear you’re running for the Senate.’ I told him, ‘Why would I do that?’… I told him, ‘George, it’s a disease. It’s Potomac fever.’ "

source: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washingt...c-win.html

Obama sets up deficit panel without help from Hill

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 12:35:53 -0600

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama signed an order Thursday unilaterally creating a bipartisan commission to rein in unruly deficits after Congress rejected a similar body with considerably more enforcement power.

In making the announcement, Obama said that unless lawmakers put aside partisan differences, the continuing red-ink trend could "hobble our economy."

The federal deficit hit a record $1.4 trillion last year and could grow larger this year as the struggling economy puts a big dent in tax collections.

"It will cloud our future and it will saddle every child in America with an intolerable burden," he said before signing an executive order establishing the commission.

Obama signed the executive order a few hours before flying to Colorado and Nevada to help incumbent Democrats save their seats in the Senate. He'll appear in Nevada for Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid. Like Obama and other Democrats, Reid has been feeling the sting of the stunning electoral upset by Republican Scott Brown in the Massachusetts election to choose a successor for the late Sen. Edward Kennedy.

At the White House event, Obama was flanked by Vice President Joe Biden along with former White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles and former Republican Senate Whip Alan Simpson. He chose Bowles and Simpson to lead the panel, which will be charged with reporting back by the end of this year on what steps Congress and the administration should take to get the deficit down to 3 percent of the gross domestic product, a level that economists believe is manageable.

Last year's deficit equaled 9.9 percent of GDP, the highest point since World War II, and is projected to climb to 10.6 percent of GDP this year.

Obama said "everything is on the table" as the 18-member panel gets to work. In addition to Bowles and Simpson, Obama will appoint four members to the panel. Republican and Democratic leaders will each appoint six additional members. Obama said the panel's recommendations will require approval by 14 of the 18 members, assuring that the recommendations will have bipartisan support.

But the executive commission is a weak substitute for what the president really wanted: a panel created by Congress that could force lawmakers to consider unpopular remedies to reduce the debt, including curbing politically sensitive entitlements like Social Security and Medicare.

That bipartisan panel would have delivered lawmakers a deficit reduction blueprint after the November elections that would have been subject to votes before a new Congress convenes next year. But the idea faltered in the Senate, defeated by equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans, including some of whom initially supported the idea.

Though Obama's commission will lack any requirement for Congress to act on its advice, it could provide the president some political cover with an electorate that is increasingly concerned about the massive deficit. And that has some Republicans looking to paint the executive commission as little more than a political calculation.

"Since the president has unfairly given Democrats and liberals an over-representation on the commission, the odds are high that its recommendations will be heavy on tax increases and light on spending reductions," Georgia Rep. Tom Price said in a statement.

Still, the panel has some big-name bipartisan backing.

Bowles, the president of the University of North Carolina, served as Democratic President Bill Clinton's chief of staff from 1996 to 1998. Simpson, a senator from Wyoming from 1979 to 1997, was the No. 2 Republican and the top GOP member of the Social Security subcommittee.

The nation's huge deficits are being caused by the impact of a severe recession, which has trimmed the government's tax receipts and raised spending on such programs as unemployment insurance and food stamps. The deficits also reflect the billions of dollars being spent from the $862 billion stimulus program passed in February 2009 and the $700 billion financial bailout program Congress passed in October 2008 to stabilize the banking system.

source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/arti...gD9DUN1Q80

Obama-Dalai Lama Talks Show U.S., China Stay Rivals

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 11:39:46 -0600

President Barack Obama greeted the Dalai Lama in a private White House meeting today on notice that the talks will anger China’s leadership and add tension to an already strained relationship.

That isn’t likely to fray economic ties secured by $366 billion of mutual trade and $755 billion in Chinese-held U.S. Treasury bills, according to analysts.

And the path to a more constructive overall relationship may lie in both sides dropping any pretense at friendship and acknowledging they are competitors as much as partners, said Yan Xuetong, director of the Institute of International Studies at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

“If China and the U.S. identified each other as rivals I don’t think they would be disappointed with each other,” Yan said. “Both sides pretend to be friends. Actually, they are not.”

Relations have suffered recently as the U.S. announced a planned $6.4 billion arms sale to Taiwan, Google Inc. threatened to exit China on the grounds that user e-mail accounts were being hacked and China taxed American chicken imports after the U.S. imposed tariffs on Chinese tires. The two countries also have differed on steps to halt global warming and nuclear programs in North Korea and Iran.

China’s Foreign Ministry on Feb. 4 rejected Obama’s call to strengthen the Chinese currency, saying that “accusations and pressure will not help solve the issue.”

Cruising Altitude

All this since U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman told reporters during Obama’s November visit that the relationship was at “a cruising altitude that is higher than any other time in recent memory.”

The White House planned to release only an official photograph of Obama’s meeting with the Dalai Lama, which is being held in the executive mansion’s ground floor Map Room.

There is little chance that current differences will fundamentally damage the network of economic and political ties that China expert Orville Schell calls the “most important bilateral relationship” in the world today. He is director of the Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations in New York.

In a positive sign, the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier and four other U.S. warships yesterday anchored in Hong Kong, where more than 5,000 sailors will get shore leave.

In 2007, China prevented the USS Kitty Hawk from visiting the city, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao saying China was angered that President George W. Bush met the Dalai Lama and presented him with the Congressional Gold Medal. Although China belatedly approved the port-call, the fleet had already turned back.

Ratchet Down

“I don’t see anything that could destabilize the relationship right now,” said Elizabeth Economy, director of Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. “Leaders on both sides will ratchet this back down at an appropriate time, but not right now, because a little chest- thumping serves domestic purposes.”

Neither nation can afford to sabotage the economic relationship, said Carl Lantz, an interest-rate strategist at Credit Suisse Group AG in New York.

“We are kind of joined at the hip economically,” Lantz said. “People refer to it as Chimerica, and in general it’s worked out relatively well, where they finance our borrowing and consumption and we buy their exports to finance their social stability.”

China’s holdings of U.S. Treasuries have increased more than 10-fold in the past decade, from $71.7 billion in 2000 to $755.4 billion in December.

Largest Creditor

China surpassed Japan as the largest creditor abroad to the U.S. in September 2008, although it fell back to second place in December when its Treasury holdings declined for the second consecutive month, the Treasury Department said on Feb. 16. China allowed its short-term Treasury bills to mature and replaced them with a smaller amount of longer-term notes and bonds, the Treasury data showed.

The December reduction in China’s holdings didn’t prompt a sell-off in U.S. bonds as investors focused instead on an overall increase in foreign holdings of U.S. Treasuries, which rose by a net $69.9 billion. The yield on the benchmark 10-year note fell three basis points, or 0.03 percentage point, to 3.66 percent on Feb. 16, according to BGCantor Market data.

The Obama administration is also convinced that the recent tensions won’t fundamentally change the countries’ relationship, said an administration official who asked not to be identified out of concern for Chinese sensitivities.

Cancellation Request

That hasn’t stopped both sides from trading rhetorical blows.

China demanded last week that Obama cancel the meeting with the Dalai Lama, even though Obama informed Chinese President Hu Jintao during his Beijing visit that he planned to receive the Tibetan leader, according to the administration official.

The U.S. also told China in advance of the Taiwan arms sale, the official said.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she expected China to conduct a “thorough investigation” of charges from Mountain View, California-based Google that hackers had entered e-mail accounts it hosted belonging to Chinese dissidents. Free access to information and protecting what she called the “basic rights” of Internet users is essential, Clinton said.

Such exchanges may paradoxically allow both countries to pursue their own agendas and work together on larger issues without fear of domestic backlash, said Robert Barnett, director of Modern Tibetan Studies at Columbia University in New York.

More Confident?

“We’re seeing a slightly more confident America, which is trying to communicate that distinction between interests and values,” Barnett said.

Visits by the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader are a perpetual irritant to China. It has opposed any outside pressure on how the country runs Tibet, which was brought under its rule after a military invasion in 1950.

The Dalai Lama has met with every U.S. president since George H.W. Bush in 1991. While China has exacted diplomatic punishment on leaders who met him -- it canceled a China- European Union summit after French President Nicolas Sarkozy met the Dalai Lama in 2008 -- trade relations have been little affected, said Schell.

China received the Dalai Lama’s envoys at the first talks on Tibet in 15 months, which ended Feb. 1. China’s top negotiator rejected calls for greater autonomy for the region, the Tibetan exile administration said.

Douglas Paal, vice-president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, said the discussions probably were partly to prepare for the effect the Obama meeting could have on Chinese public opinion.

“More is imputed to these meetings than actually occurs,” said Paal, who was at the White House National Security Council from 1989 to 1993. “Presidents have to check the political box of seeing the Dalai Lama.”

source: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-02...ate2-.html

China in Record US DEBT Sell-off

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 09:06:15 -0600

UPDATED ON:www.aljazeera.net
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
17:09 Mecca time, 14:09 GMT
Business
China in record US debt sell-off
The Chinese sell-off means Japan is now the top holder of US Treasury bonds [EPA]

China sold a record amount of its US Treasury holdings in December, ceding its place as the world's biggest foreign holder of US debt to Japan.

According to Treasury figures released on Tuesday, Beijing sold off more than $34bn of its holdings in the final month of 2009, cutting its holding of US debt by just over 4 per cent to $755.4bn.

Japan now holds almost $11bn more US debt than China, with a total of nearly $769bn.

Japan had been the largest holder of US Treasury bonds until September 2008, when it was overtaken by China.

'Subtle message'

The Chinese sell-off of US bonds follows increasingly vocal concern from Beijing over the ballooning US deficit, and comes amid a deterioration in relations between the US and China on a range of fronts.

Eswar Prasad, a trade policy professor at Cornell University in New York state, said the Chinese sales of US Treasuries could contain "a subtle economic and political message" aimed at Washington.

"Chinese leaders are deploying their reserves to try and pressure the US to stop haranguing China about its currency and trade policies and to back off from interference in its domestic political and human rights issues," he told the AFP news agency.

In the latest spat between Beijing and Washington the White House has rejected a Chinese demand that Barack Obama, the US president, cancel his meeting this week with the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader.

Complicating issues still further the rows over Tibet, a US arms sales to Taiwan, China's dispute with Google and a raft of others trade and currency disagreements, come at a time when Obama is seeking China's help to toughen sanctions on Iran.

Chinese dependence

However, US think-tank Stratfor in a note to clients on Tuesday said that while the debt sell-off may have political undertones, China remains fully aware of its own dependence on the US.

"While China may reduce its holdings of US debt in order to send a signal to Washington - though this is not necessarily the only reason it would do so - it has no intention of selling debt to the point that it wrecks the US economic recovery, since doing so would destroy China's own economic and socio-political stability," it said.

Analysts have speculated about political motives behind China's move [GALLO/GETTY]
China invests the bulk of its $2.2trn in foreign exchange reserves in US Treasury bonds which has virtually financed the snowballing US budget and current account deficits.

At the same time, despite recent increases in China's domestic consumption, its economy and millions of Chinese factory jobs remain highly dependent on US export markets.

Nonetheless, in recent months Chinese officials have repeatedly voiced concern about the mushrooming US debt, fearing it could erode the value of the dollar and its Treasury holding.

Last June Timothy Geithner, the US Treasury Secretary, travelled to Beijing to reassure Chinese leaders, saying their money is "very safe" and pledging to cut the deficit.

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