Posted on 04/29/2021 5:30:26 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Wall Street’s divided loyalty is one more complication as Team Biden resets the U.S.-China Relationship.
If we are ever to get serious about containing China as a geo-economic and strategic challenge, we might begin with our own fifth column—U.S. companies, especially on Wall Street, that profit immensely from the status quo. Indeed, the history of the U.S. letting China into the WTO with no meaningful conditions dates back to a deal brokered by Robert Rubin in 1999, in which the U.S. would cut China slack for its other predatory trade practices as long as Wall Street companies, such as those long associated with Rubin, like Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, could get a big piece of the China action.
Since then, American corporations have profited from myriad financial deals, from outsourcing production to China (bribed to build state-of-the-art factories), to taking advantage of near-slave labor conditions to cheapen production costs, to sharing technology with Chinese “partners”. All of this has left the U.S. dangerously reliant on Chinese technology and supply chains.
Whenever the argument is made that we should re-shore production, whether in solar, wind energy, artificial Intelligence, drones, or other advanced products, the counter-argument is made that this would raise costs because China produces the stuff cheaper—often because of earlier predatory trade practices and slave labor. Thus, the dependence continues.
More from Robert Kuttner
The financial industry’s contribution to the China syndrome is the most insidious, both because it tends to be hidden, and because Wall Street has so much influence with administrations of both parties. A telling example is BlackRock, the world’s largest investment company, with some $6.5 trillion (not a typo—trillion) assets under management.
BlackRock’s CEO Larry Fink, a Democrat, was heavily promoted to be Biden’s treasury secretary. Several BlackRock alums have senior posts in the Biden administration, including National Economic Council chief Brian Deese, who previously served as BlackRock’s global director of sustainable investing, a pet project—some would say a greenwashing initiative—of Larry Fink. It falls to Deese to sort our diverse national economic objectives, from industrial to environmental to labor, when it comes to resetting the U.S.-China relationship.
I would never, never, never, ever, ever, ever invest through Blackrock. Their CEO is an uber leftist and has been pushing the corporate ESG scoring system. At the same time he is very cozy with China. Fink is a fitting last name though.
BlackRock needs to have a bad day.
A Rat Fink!
That’s cute. They talk about ‘both parties’ like they are separate.
One party - Establishment. One party (bigger outside of DC, smaller inside) - Populist.
And Tim Scott is not a populist. He’s a puppet. Don’t buy that sh!t for a minute.
What he DID was vote to impeach. What he SAYS is he’s the black Donald Trump.
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