My Home About Me

A very plugged-in Washington friend, who will only let me identify him as "Mick Danger," has a prediction about the new anti-China bill introduced in the Senate yesterday:

I am going out on a limb (based on gut instinct and 30 years of experience.)

If Paulson recommends a veto, Bush will veto. McConnell will sustain. All this bravado is just that.

I tend to agree. The bill itself is a dog's breakfast of bureaucratic procedures, most of which are entirely discretionary with the Treasury Department. Hard to believe that the Senate would go to the wall with a veto override on something so without substance. That said, I have to wonder whether Bush would even feel he needed to veto it?

Update... Mick replies,

It?s a diplomatic dance with potentially serious consequences, correct? The conventional wisdom is that ?nothing? will happen.

I think Paulson can get some added influence with the Chinese if he acts to defend our trading system from our protectionists.

Conversely, Schumer can only lose at his game if someone raises the ante on him. The game for aggressive Democrats such as Schumer is to put on different dramas for different audiences ? playing in the Union Hall, the Dems get confrontational with the Chinese because they are ?unfairly manipulating their currency and undermining the average Americans? wages.? Around the corner at the Palace with a Wall Street clientele, they sing ?Don?t Worry, Be Happy?.

The big trouble with all this China-bashing is that disrupting the status quo is more dangerous to us than living with it. ?Solving it? is not possible ? I?m told that the Chinese lack the systems to manage their economy with a market-set currency so they prefer to set it. Naturally, they pick a range which benefits them. (Do you agree?)

A Bush veto pulls both sets of curtains back. Both audiences get pissed.

S&P 500 chart pattern   Technical chart patterns   support/resistance levels   ETFs (exchange traded funds)   Deron Wagner   euro   selling options   currencies   Forex   charts   profit   Solar energy ETF (TAN)   International ETF   Trading success   Developing mental edge   Trading focus   Fixed-income (bond) ETFs   Strongest ETFs   option   income