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The U.S. trade deficit is closing in on $800 billion per year, or about $3 billion per business day

By Stephen Roach

Newsweek International

March 20, 2006 issue – America is turning protectionist at just the time when its need for foreign capital has never been greater. China-bashing is on the rise again, and a political firestorm forced a Dubai company to give up its acquisition of U.S. shipping facilities last week. This backlash reflects a highly combustible mixture of bad economics and populist politics.

Notwithstanding heartfelt concerns over matters of national security in a post-9/11 world, there is a very basic point that has been overlooked in this debate: the United States no longer has the internal wherewithal to fund the rapid growth of its economy.

America’s net national saving rate—the combined saving of individuals, businesses and the government after adjusting for depreciation—fell into negative territory at minus 1.2 percent of national income in late 2005. That means the United States doesn’t save enough even to cover the replacement of worn-out plants and equipment. This is a first for America in the post-World War II era—and a first for any hegemonic power over a much longer span of world history.

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Friday, September 01 2006 @ 12:30 PM PDT
Contributed by: Joey Picador
Supporting Our Troops With A Knife In The Back
By BobcatJH

Hand-in-hand with the Republican Party’s post-September 11 fear campaign has been its goal of tying “supporting the troops” with “supporting the administration”. Meaning, if you – you terrorist-loving, Hitler appeasing, hybrid-driving, latte-drinking fringe leftist – disagree with anything Dear Leader does (waging a costly, unjust war, for instance), not only do you suffer from intellectual and/or moral confusion, but you also don’t support the troops. So our brave young men and women, sadly, find themselves playing the pawns for this White House, both at home and abroad. Dying to prove a point there. Serving to prop up a failing administration here.

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TBILISI, Georgia – The Georgian Interior Ministry said a helicopter accompanying a delegation of U.S. senators, including New Hampshire’s John Sununu, was fired on last week with a surface-to-air missile from the separatist territory of South Ossetia.

SUNUNU

A ministry statement said the shooting took place Aug. 28 and that the helicopter was not damaged.

Contacted last night in Washington, Sununu confirmed the trip, but said he was not aware of any problem with security.

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Audio for this story will be available at approx. 7:30 p.m. ET on September 5, 2006

All Things Considered, September 5, 2006 · In the jargon of the Supreme Court, we talk about “landmark cases.” Some, of course, are more landmark than others. But by any yardstick, the June 2006 ruling in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld was one for the history books.

Hamdan was the case in which the high court invalidated the system set up by President Bush to try accused war criminals at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The court’s 5-3 decision is widely seen as the most important ruling on executive power in decades, or perhaps ever.

But cases like this do not materialize out of thin air, and the Hamdan case, like Brown v. Board of Education, was carefully nurtured, with the defense lawyers facing a constant stream of difficult issues. A wrong decision at any point could have ended up aborting the case.

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The yuan rose to its highest level against the dollar since July 2005, climbing to 7.9522 on the exchange-traded market before slipping back to 7.9540 on Friday.

Traders said the strong gains reflected a trend ahead of a gathering of finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of Seven (G7) that is likely to renew calls for greater flexibility in China’s forex regime.

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FFATA, co-sponsored Sen. Barak Obama (D-Ill.), “would require the Office of Management and Budget to create a user-friendly Web site listing details on every grant and contract handed out by the federal government. Information would have to be posted within 30 days of Congress’ authorization of the spending.” (Via this editorial, which is popping up in a variety of papers)

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Published: Sunday, September 3, 2006 – 6:00 am

By Dan Hoover
STAFF WRITER

Sixty-five days from now, South Carolina voters will choose their next governor between two men from strikingly dissimilar backgrounds and equally divergent visions for the South Carolina of their dreams.

One, of course, is already there — Mark Sanford, 46, a controversial figure even among fellow Republicans, a self-styled reformer distrustful of government who’s more known for battling the Legislature than signing landmark bills into law.

Democrat Tommy Moore, 56, who won his state Senate seat in 1980 when Sanford was a college underclassman, is the quintessential team player, a believer in government who is as comfortable in the off-the-floor legislative give-and-take as Sanford is uncomfortable with it.

The Legislature will be a focal point of the campaign, predicted John Simpkins, a Charleston School of Law professor and associate director of Furman University’s Richard W. Riley Institute.

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