Had dinner with Mike and Teresa at TKwu today... had some pretty interesting discussions. Anywaez, after reading Tris's blog on the US presidential race thus far, i decide to voice some opinion tat was exchanged during the dinner as a response to Tris's blog entry.
To quote Prof Lieberthal's word,"no american president is elected to the office solely base on his foreign policy". I guess alot can be inferred from here. Clark come across to me, and i am sure most other observers, as the most familiar with how to conduct US's relation with foreign countries. His record as NATO chief suggests that ability. However, compare to Kerry n Dean, i really dun think it will be enuff to win for him to win the race. I think the same can be said to most other countries. Taiwan's Prez election in 2000 for example. Ah Bien won not because he of his pro indy stand, but because he stood for no corruption and a change to domestic rule as oppose to the other two candidates. Also in US, recent elections also tells us that voter's focus will have to be on the domestic front. From Clinton's "It's the economy, stupid" to his all time long period of sustained growth tat won him his reelection. I think it is not difficult to more or less rule Clark out of the picture even though i kinda like tat guy...
Also, Teresa mentioned that BUSH might just win. i really dun think so.. at least not yet. Teresa say the capture of Saddamn is a REALLY big thing. I totally agree. but still, Bush I lost in his reelection coz he could not maintain the domestic issues. Dessert Storm was an impressive success then. A great display of US might (despite the grossly exaggerated ability of the patriot missles... heehee...) overseas was not able to get Bush I back into white house. I think we all know the reason and so i am too lazy to type them out. but yeah, it's the economy BAKA!!!
but BUSH II is making some real effort not to follow in the footstep of daddy. The recent depreciation of the US dollar is one sign of wat they are up to. I kinda said this in my last post for my Global economy class last semester. below are some parts of it...
With the election coming up less than one year from now, the current administration is facing the daunting prospective of going into re-election with less jobs in this country than it had before it came in. Jobs are losing at an average of 80K per month since Bush came into office and it will definitely be the administration's archilles heel that democrate oppositions will aim at. Thus in my opinion, the current trend of letting the dollar becoming "weak" is a sign that the administration is trying to solve this issue which they need to solve fast.
As we learned in the IS-LM-BOP model, in an economic system that has high capital mobility and a floating exchange rate, the most effective economic tool will be to adopt a expansionary monetary policy. This policy requires the country to increase its money supply which will lead to a decrease in interest rate. As a result capital will flow out from the country causing the currency to depreciate. With a depreciated currency, other countries will find it US goods to be more competitive and this will drive export to increase which result in an increase in the IS curve (which is the goods and services market). This will lead to a desired increase in demand for labor and creating job to produce the increasing demand of US goods by other countries. As we are well aware, US interest rates are still at a all time low and signs are now showing that this economy is slowly recovering and on its way back to growths.
So yeah... i got 8/10 for this post... so i think my prof agree with me on this post oso... MUAHAH... and he is a prof at the sch of public policy... so i should think my BSing made some sense to him... so yeah... here is my take on take on the situation in the upcoming prez election in US... will blog about the the Taiwan part later... so Tris if you are reading this, maybe you want to post something on your site first then can inspire me to tok something here? hahah...
posted by David at 1/29/2004 12:17:00 AM