New "Big Mac Index" Pokes Yet Another Hole in China Currency Hawks' Boat

One of the more mainstream, if admittedly crude, measures of the relative value of countries' currencies is The Economist's "Big Mac Index."  As the magazine explains, the index "is based on the theory of purchasing-power parity (PPP), the notion that in the long run exchange rates should move towards the rate that would equalise the prices of an identical basket of goods and services (in this case, a burger) in any two countries."  For years now, people seeking aggressive unilateral action by the US government to "force" China to appreciate its currency have cited to the Big Mac Index as further proof that the Yuan is, like, totally undervalued and hurting the American economy (insert ominous music here).

For example, the AFL-CIO's "China Currency Coalition" cited to the Index in its 2004 petition to the US Trade Representative under Section 301 of US Trade Law, demanding that the United States impose "across-the-board tariffs on imports from China and to take measures to offset the disadvantage to U.S. exports to China."  More recently, the Fair Currency Coalition, an alliance of businesses, farmers and unions seeking similar actions by the US Government, approvingly cited to the Big Mac Index in a 2010 blog post, and several angry journalists have also relied on the index in order to complain about China's allegedly pernicious behavior (and, of course, politicians' refusal to "get tough" against the dirty commies Chinese).

The House Ways and Means Committee also has used the Big Mac Index to support its interventionist trade policies.  In September 2010 the Committee, Chaired at that time by Rep. Sander Levin (D-MI), issued a briefing memo to journalists showing that the Yuan was undervalued (based, in part, on the index) and that this alleged undervaluation is harming the American economy.  As you may recall, that memo was issued right before House Democrats spearheaded the unprecedented congressional passage of (anti)China currency legislation.  Even reputable economic journalists like the New York Times' Catherine Rampell have discussed the Big Mac Index as a respectable measure of the Yuan's significant undervaluation.

So, clearly, all of these folks think that the Big Mac Index is a worthwhile measure of countries' respective currencies, and thus I'm expecting them to be all over this new report from the folks at The Economist about the new and improved Index (emphasis mine):

At market exchange rates, a burger is 44% cheaper in China than in America. In other words, the raw Big Mac index suggests that the yuan is 44% undervalued against the dollar. But we have long warned that cheap burgers in China do not prove that the yuan is massively undervalued. Average prices should be lower in poor countries than in rich ones because labour costs are lower. The chart above shows a strong positive relationship between the dollar price of a Big Mac and GDP per person.

PPP signals where exchange rates should move in the long run. To estimate the current fair value of a currency we use the “line of best fit” between Big Mac prices and GDP per person. The difference between the price predicted for each country, given its average income, and its actual price offers a better guide to currency under- and overvaluation than the “raw” index. The beefed-up index suggests that the Brazilian real is the most overvalued currency in the world; the euro is also significantly overvalued. But the yuan now appears to be close to its fair value against the dollar—something for American politicians to chew over.

Be sure to check out the great charts at their site.  Very interesting stuff.  If you're still a little confused about how things changed so much, the Wall Street Journal provides some helpful detail and commentary (again, emphasis mine):

The index is based on the theory of purchasing power parity (PPP), essentially the idea that goods should cost the same in markets around the world no matter what currency they are priced in. Since Big Macs sell for 44% less in China than the U.S., the yuan is therefore figured to be 44% undervalued against the dollar.

But PPP only applies to tradable goods that are easily exchanged across borders, like commodities or electronics. Other, less mobile goods like labor and land may well cost different amounts in different markets, and in particular in developing countries where productivity and wages are much lower. Since labor and land are important inputs into the production of Big Macs, these differential costs feed through into the final cost of the burger.

Hence the new Big Mac index, which adjusts for GDP per capita, and thus takes into account the lower costs in poorer countries. As the magazine notes, China’s average income is one-tenth what it is in the U.S., meaning China’s burgers really ought to be substantially cheaper.

New York Senator and prominent yuan critic Chuck Schumer might want to make sure he’s sitting down before he checks out the Economist’s results, which show that on this basis the yuan is actually overvalued against the dollar by 3%. Against a group of various currencies, the yuan is still figured to be undervalued by 7%. which the Economist says is “hardly grounds for a trade war.”

Yes, based on this news, I totally expect Senator Schumer, Rep. Levin, the currency coalitions, and every other currency hawk who has ever approvingly cited to the Big Mac Index to loudly and immediately retract their earlier statements/reports criticizing China's currency policy, or to just drop their breathless protectionist demands altogether.

Riiiiight.


In all seriousness, the point here is not to boldly assert that the new Big Mac Index undoubtedly proves that the Yuan is no longer undervalued.  It's instead to caution, once again, against trusting anyone - whether it be a campaigning politician or a labor union lawyer or a lazy journalist - who aggressively seeks dangerous protectionism based on unequivocal claims that China's currency is significantly undervalued, and that such undervaluation is destroying the US economy.  The facts simply prevent such certitude, and often reveal currency hawks' ulterior motives.

Something to remember now that the 2012 election season is almost upon us.

~DEVELOPING~Missing Sister's Found In Wyoming, Father In Custody:

 
Abby and Isabella Chapman have been found in Wyoming




Two little girls from Exeter who have been missing since July 10th have been found safe in Wyoming.


Barry County Sheriff Mick Epperly says Isabella and Abby Chapman are in the custody of DFS in Park County Wyoming, which is near Yellowstone.  


Authorities reached out to the public after Matthew Chapman failed to return his daughters following an outing to Silver Dollar City.  A few days after the girls vanished it was discovered that Chapman had sold his vehicle and was on the run with the girls.


Epperly says his office received a tip today from a man who helped Chapman in Wyoming after his van had broken down near Cody.  
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Matthew Chapman

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Chapman has been charged with parental kidnapping and is awaiting extradition back to Missouri.

Epperly says the girls will be placed in foster care until a home a study can be completed.  

"We're tickled that it turned out the way it did.  Everyone is safe....and that's what matters," said Epperly.

Quick Reminder: FTA Delay Is Far From Painless

It's been pretty common knowledge for a while now that congressional consideration of pending US FTAs with South Korea, Colombia and Panama wouldn't happen before Congress' summer break (woo hoo!) August recess due to the unnecessary impasse between the White House and congressional Republicans about Trade Adjustment Assistance.  Insiders note that several different (Rube-Goldbergian) plans are circulating to secure passage of the trade agreements after the August recess, and most of the big "planners" are confident that the FTAs will be speedily passed in September.

Those of us who have been watching this comedy tragedy of errors unfold since mid-2007, of course, are taking a more cautious approach (read: we'll believe it when we see it).  But for a moment, let's just swallow the Kool-Aid and assume that the FTAs will finally get done in the Fall.  Everything will be cool then, right?  No harm, no foul, right?

Wrong.  Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong.

As I noted when the EU-Korea FTA entered into force on July 1, the delay of pending US trade agreements is imposing serious, and unnecessary, pain for US exporters and consumers who are facing higher tariffs (and thus higher prices/costs) at home and abroad that they would be if the KORUS (and other FTAs) had been implemented at some point over the last four(!) years.  When I first mentioned this problem, however, I was speaking in hypothetical terms, as the KOREU deal had just entered into force.  Now, after a few weeks of operation, South Korea's JoongAng Daily provides us with real proof of those formerly-hypothetical gains for European and Korean consumers and businesses (and, thus, of the real losses for American consumers and businesses):

Since the free trade agreement between Korea and the European Union took effect on July 1, cheap commodities from Europe are already helping ease consumer price strains here.

Frozen pork belly, known as samgyeopsal in Korean, from the Netherlands now sells at almost half the price of local pork belly, which stands at 2,280 won ($2.17) per 100 grams. Thanks to the imports, the sky-high price of Koreans’ favorite meat dish - which spiked from the mass culling of pigs after the recent foot-and-mouth disease epidemic - has come down considerably. Pork belly products from Belgium and France have also hit the shelves at more accommodating prices of 1,000 won per 100 grams.

The downward price movement does not only apply to produce: luxury European products also have modified their price tags. As a result, Koreans can now buy a BMW 3 Series for as much as 8.5 million won less than pre-FTA prices of 45.3 million won to 51.6 million won.

And the Korea-EU FTA has not only shaved prices of European products. Japanese and American carmakers are also reducing prices to compete with European imports. They are even cutting dealership margins in order to bring down prices.

In Europe, Korean companies are making big strides thanks to the tariff benefits of the FTA. Hyundai Motor, for example, sold 336,000 vehicles in 25 European countries in the first half of the year and is expected to outpace Japanese automaker Toyota by raising its market share in the euro zone by more than 5 percent in the second half. Japanese media have begun worrying that Japan will lose its share in the European market to its Korean counterparts due to a strong yen and the Korea-EU FTA.

It is undisputable that benefits from free trade agreements are immense. During the seven years of the Korea-Chile free trade agreement, bilateral trade has surged by 287 percent. In Chile, Korean motor vehicles and electronics now outperform their Japanese competitors.

Very cool.  For Europeans and Koreans, I mean.  It's totally un-cool for American consumers and exporters who needlessly face (and in some cases have needlessly faced for over four years now) higher prices at home and tougher competition abroad due to their government's embarrassing inability to implement the pending US FTAs.  And some of the Korean (and soon, Colombian) market moves happening right now because of the "rival" FTAs will not be easily reversed if/when American companies gain equal footing with their European (or Canadian or...) competitors.

So, hey, if the US trade deals do finally get finalized in September, it'll certainly be better than if they don't move at all.  But let's please never forget that (i) American families and businesses are paying a steep price for their government's incompetence, and (ii) all of this pain easily could have been avoided if President Obama really cared enough to make that happen.

But he doesn't.  So here we are.

See you in September, I guess.


[P.S.  I've often said that FTAs are the least-good option when it comes to free trade policies (third to unilateral and multilateral liberalization), but the article above really hits the point home that FTAs, while far from perfect, are still a significant improvement over the status quo.]

~BREAKING~"We're Sure It's Her"; Porter's Bodies To Be Sent Out Of State For Further Testing:

Taney County Coroner Kevin Tweedy says specialized and reconstructive testing will be performed on two bodies found last week in rural part of the county.

Those bodies are believed to belong to Becky and Rusty Porter who went missing from their Willard home in
April. 
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"We're sure the female is her (Becky).....the dental's match up, but the sheriff (Greene County) asked that the bodies be sent to a lab in Texas for anthropological study."
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Becky and Rusty Porter

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Greene County Sheriff Jim Arnott told The Sentinel earlier this week that any statements regarding the bodies or the autopsies would be made by Tweedy since the bodies were found in Taney County.  Tweedy said today that he will have to check with Arnott to see what he can release.

"We're not going to release a cause of death at this time," said Tweedy.  However, a source close to the investigation says the couple were shot to death
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Tweedy says family members have been understanding,  "They agree that advanced forensic testing should be done."
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Excessive rain last spring and the oppressive heat this summer have contributed to the degradation of the bodies, according to Tweedy.

I Swear, I Had Nothing To Do With This...

On Monday night, I recommended that, given President Obama's depressing timidity on US trade policy, WTO Members should "formulate appropriate contingency plans, such as putting the [Doha] Round on ice until, oh I don't know, 2013 when the White House will (hopefully) be occupied by someone more amenable to free trade."  Well, less than a day later, it became crystal clear that pretty much everyone in Geneva, except the Obama administration of course, agrees with me (emphasis mine):

The likelihood of the Doha round of world trade talks being declared dead this year rose on Tuesday when it became clear that even a partial deal would not be possible.  The talks, named after the Qatari capital in which they were launched in 2001, have drifted further towards oblivion in advance of a twice-yearly meeting of ministers this December.

Pascal Lamy, the World Trade Organisation’s director-general, told negotiators in Geneva on Tuesday that the WTO’s negotiating function was “in paralysis”. He urged member countries to use the December meeting to have a broad conversation about the future of Doha rather than try to make concrete progress.

Negotiators have tried to rescue a minuscule part of the talks by proposing a stand-alone “early harvest” package to be agreed in December which would extend market access to some of the world’s poorest countries and reduce cotton subsidies – a subject of particular interest to a group of west African nations.

But the US said on Tuesday that such an agreement would not be possible because of the refusal of other governments to accept other elements in the package....

Michael Punke, the US ambassador to the WTO, said on Tuesday that the stand-alone deal was impossible. “It has become clear to us and to many others that a so-called early harvest package is not happening and is not going to happen,” he said. “As we feared, participants have proven much more comfortable in talking about what others can give than in talking about what they can contribute themselves.”

A deal to give the least-developed countries (LDCs) completely free access to rich nations’ markets and reduce cotton subsidies would require difficult commitments by Washington. The US has already failed to reform its generous payments to politically powerful cotton farmers, despite having had them declared illegal by the WTO, and a deal for the LDCs would cut across the existing US scheme to give preferential access to all African countries.

Yi Xiaozhun, the Chinese ambassador, took implied aim at the US, saying that the insistence on bringing in new issues was crippling discussions. “The intention of various members to put on their own demands . . . would finally kill the core package that the LDCs really need,” said Mr Yi.

The Doha round has made no significant progress since a ministerial meeting collapsed in mid-2008 in Geneva. An increasing number of officials admit privately that the round will never conclude, but as yet no government has publicly declared it over.

We all see what's going on here, right?  Any deal on cotton and LDCs - relatively minor issues that almost all WTO Members support - would require legislative changes to US laws and, of course, the expense of political capital by the already-campaigning White House to get that done.  As I said on Monday, the President's unwillingness to spend such capital on trade issues is well-documented at this point.  Indeed, when it comes to our WTO-illegal cotton subsidies, the Obama administration is so utterly unwilling to take some political lumps and pursue necessary reforms that it's resorted to bribing Brazilian cotton farmers (with taxpayer dollars, of course) instead of modifying the offending programs.

And let's please not kid ourselves here and blame Congress for the Administration's political pusillanimity on these trade issues - the House voted to terminate the Brazilian payoffs just last month, and both the Republican-controlled House and Democrat-controlled Senate recently showed a willingness to address US preference programs by attaching them (rightly or not) to the US-Colombia FTA implementing legislation.  So if the White House really wanted to get a cotton/LDC package through Congress, it could very likely do so.

But that would require, you know, political courage and effort - something sorely lacking these days over at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (and not just on trade).

So, given these sad facts, what does USTR do in Geneva?  They submarine the December deal by making other demands that many nations adamantly oppose.  Who knows whether they did this to try to buy off domestic opposition to the cotton/LDC package or to just kill the chances of a final deal, but the result of their demands was the same in either case: inevitable failure.

Again.

Yes, other Members like the EU also have made additional demands, but do you really think that they would maintain their positions if the United States expressed robust support for the basic LDC/cotton package?  I sure don't.  Indeed, as Phil Levy and I argued last December, bold US leadership could have realistically secured a robust Doha package in 2011.  Certainly it could get this feeble package across the finish line.

And yet, here we are.  Sigh.

So, once again, American political cowardice has helped scuttle an important trade liberalization initiative.  And, once again, supporters of robust American free trade policy are reminded that we, like the WTO negotiators in Geneva, should just pack it all in until 2013 (hopefully).

Any optimism before that time would just be foolish.

~UPDATED ~Landlord - Tenant Dispute Turns Deadly In Newton County; Suspect Charged With First Degree Murder:

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Danny Kay Thomas

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Authorities in Newton County are investigating a homicide near Stella.

Sheriff Ken Copeland says a dispute last night between a landlord and tenant at 19348 Route O ended with the landlord, 54 year-old Darrell Bone, of Pea Ridge, Arkansas being shot to death. 

Copeland says a friend of Danny Kay Thomas, 60, called them this morning to report a shooting.  When authorities arrived at the probation and parole office where the friend worked they questioned Thomas, who told investigators he shot Bone about 9 p.m. the previous evening (07-26-11.)
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Property where Darrel Bone was found murdered (courtesy KOAM)

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When officers went to the farmhouse they found Bone dead in the backyard.  Newton County Prosecutor Jake Skouby says Thomas told detectives Bone "was bangin' on his door and threatened to kill him." When Bone turned to leave Thomas said he went and got a gun and shot him in the back,,,and then "shot him twice in the face to finish him off."
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Thomas told investigators he then drove around in Bone's pickup truck, "thinking about what he had done."
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The truck and a rifle found inside the vehicle were recovered at the probation and parole office, according to Copeland.
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According to court documents, Bone went to the residence to inform Thomas he would be selling the property and Thomas would have to find somewhere else to live. Thomas shot Bone in the back with a rifle as he was walking away and then walked up and shot him in the face twice.
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Thomas has been charged with first-degree murder and armed criminal action.  Skouby says he will ask a judge that Thomas be held without bond.
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Southwest Missouri Forensics will conduct an autopsy tomorrow in Springfield.
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UPDATE 09-07-11:

Thomas waived his right to a preliminary hearing and was automaticall bound over for trial.

Why the Doha Round Is in Deep Trouble

Apologies for the blog silence over the last week or so; I was travelling for work and had nary a free second to post.  (I trust you survived without me.)  And since the US FTA debacle remains at basically the same place where I left it (i.e., a frustrating, painful and unnecessary stalemate created by the White House), I want to stop obsessing about turn away from the FTAs tonight and look at another depressing trade issue: the sorry state of the WTO's Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations.

Columbia University's Jagdsish Bhagwati has a typically excellent op-ed in yesterday's NYT (h/t Steve Craven) on this very issue.  He laments, rightly I think, the bipartisan lack of support for the Doha Round, despite the fact that it has "far greater potential to create prosperity and help working Americans" than the pending FTAs that are currently sucking the life out of the US trade policy debate.  Bhagwati argues that the round deserves our attention and strongest efforts, and his reasoning is clear and pretty irrefutable:

Bilateral trade agreements are not the same as free trade. Yes, they liberalize trade for the parties involved, but outsiders then face a handicap. The discrimination comes in the form of barriers like tariffs and antidumping charges, which countries impose on imports that they believe are priced artificially low.

When the United States negotiates bilateral deals with other countries, the unbalanced nature of the one-on-one negotiations also opens the way for all manner of lobbies to ram their self-serving demands into the agreements.

For example, when Washington negotiated free trade deals with Chile and Singapore, Wall Street lobbied to curtail those countries’ right to impose restrictions on capital flows at times of crisis — even though the International Monetary Fund now admits that such restrictions often make sense. Business lobbies have also pressed for excessively favorable treatment on intellectual property rights.

American labor unions have learned these same tricks, urging Democratic legislators and administrations to block bilateral trade deals unless their demands for labor protections are met, as they did with the three long-delayed agreements now pending.

But larger countries with more clout, like India and Brazil, will allow no such provisions. They correctly see these labor provisions as a form of anticompetitive protectionism. And they point out that it takes chutzpah for the United States to argue for labor rights abroad that often exceed those at home.

Moreover, when powerful business and labor interests can extract concessions in those bilateral deals, they have no reason to support a multilateral trade agenda. Mr. Obama’s trade representative, Ron Kirk, points out that business leaders press bilateral trade deals, not the Doha round. The proponents of bilateral deals always complain that multilateralism is too slow. This surely confuses cause and effect....

The failure of Doha would cause immeasurable harm. It would undermine the credibility of the W.T.O. and its progress in promoting multilateral trade liberalization, and it would begin to erode the binding dispute settlement mechanism, an achievement unparalleled in other international institutions.

The value of that mechanism was demonstrated just this month, when a W.T.O. panel ruled for the United States and the European Union in a case challenging China’s restrictions on exports of industrial raw materials.

Bhagwati then offers a four-point roadmap for concluding the Doha Round.  It relies on one man - President Barack Obama - to "set our trade policy in the right direction" and get the Round across the finish line:

First, Mr. Obama needs to bring the business lobbies on board....

Next, the canard that Doha offers little gain for the United States must be put to rest....

President Obama must persuade labor unions, core Democratic constituents, that they are wrong to buy into the fear-mongering that says trade with poor countries produces poverty in rich countries....

The president should ask Democrats and Republicans to immediately add the Doha round, as it has been negotiated over 10 years, into the same all-or-nothing package as the three bilateral deals. Such a bold gesture has a precedent. After sitting on the fence his first year in office, President Bill Clinton embraced the cause of trade, despite the political costs, and fought fiercely, and against great odds, for the Uruguay round. Mr. Obama should do no less.

The specifics of Bhagwati's recipe for Doha success are different from those that Phil Levy and I set forth in an IBD op-ed last December, but the overall point of each piece is identical: Doha is extremely important, and its fate rests in the President's hands alone.

Unfortunately, as Levy and I noted last year, the political and economic conditions for White House leadership on Doha were much better back then than they are now, and, of course, the Obama administration did absolutely nothing to advance the Round since that time.  Nothing.  So, while I applaud Bhagwati's analysis and efforts, I think he's absolutely kidding himself if he really thinks that this already-campaigning President will wake up tomorrow and start vigorously defending the Doha Round and spending significant political capital convincing US businesses and, more importantly, American labor unions(!) that multilateral trade liberalization is an important and worthwhile endeavor.  Indeed, the current FTA impasse is a crystal clear reminder of President Obama's abject refusal to take on US labor unions in order to promote an American free trade agenda.  So why would he and his political team do it with a much larger (and more economically significant) trade agreement?

Quick (and obvious) answer: they wouldn't, and thus, the Doha Round remains in deep, deep trouble for the foreseeable future.

The sooner we all realize this sad fact, the faster we can formulate appropriate contingency plans, such as putting the Round on ice until, oh I don't know, 2013 when the White House will (hopefully) be occupied by someone more amenable to free trade.

It certainly couldn't get any worse.

Barry County Sheriff Asking For Help In Locating Two "Endangered" Sisters:

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Abby L. and Isabella K. Chapman are missing

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Authorities in Barry County are asking for help from the public in locating two litle girls who have been missing for two weeks.

Seven year-old Abby Chapman and her 3 year-old sister Isabella were last seen on July 10th when their father, Matthew Chapman, picked them up from their mother's home in Exeter to take them to Silver Dollar City.
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Matthew Chapman

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Matthew Chapman sold his vehicle three days later and has not been seen or heard from since.  Authorities say he has contacts in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana and Texas.  They also believe he may be armed and dangerous.

If you have information on the whereabouts of Abby, Isabella or Matthew Chapman you're asked to call the Barry County Sheriff's Office at 417-847-3121 or 9-1-1.

~BREAKING - DEVELOPING~ Human Remains Found In Taney County Belong To Rusty and Becky Porter:

A joint news conference by the top cops for Greene and Taney counties was held today to announce that human remains were found in a vacant rural area in eastern Taney County.

Family members say they were notified last night that they are those of Becky and Rusty Porter who went missing three months ago.

Greene County Sheriff Jim Arnott has preliminary identified the remains found near Protem as the Poter's.  He says it will take about 5 days for authorities to make a positive identification through DNA.
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Taney County Sheriff Jimmie Russell says his office has been involved in the case for about six weeks and a Taney County deputy, working on information gleaned during the investigation, found the couple in an area about two miles from Cedar Creek Road near Cow Shed Ridge.
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The area is surrounded by the dense woods of  the Mark Twain National Forest and the nearest house is approximately two miles away, according to Russell.
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The bodies were found about two miles up from this rural road (courtesy KY3)

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The property is owned by someone who lives in the Forsyth area, according to Russell.

A source close to the investigation reveals that the Porter's bodies were covered with leaves and other debris when they were found.
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Neither law enforcer would not say specifically what led the investigation to Taney County, but early on in the investigation Arnott said the couple had ties to the Branson area.  "We've been searching that area on and off for some time with ATV's and watercraft.  Let's just say that there is no way we could have picked that area without some specific information leading us there," said Arnott.
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Becky Porter's daughter called authorities on April 19th.  She told authorities that she last talked to her mom on April 17th and that her mother was not feeling well.  After not being able to reach her mother for almost a full day she went to the house in Willard where she found the doors to the house open and the car keys to a newly purchased Mustang, the Porter's only mode of transportation, in the ignition.  Security cameras outside the house had been knocked down and the house reeked of bleach, according to family members.
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Family members say the Porter's installed the cameras because of a deep rift between Rusty Porter and his uncle, Robert Campbell, who lives on land adjacent to the Porter property, over a land transfer within the family.
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Campbell and Rusty Porter had each filed orders of protection against the other about a month before the Porter's disappearance - and Judge Mark Powell issued a consent judgement to each party on March 31st.  What that means is that each party was ordered to steer clear of the other.
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Arnott says the skeletal remains of the couple revealed a cause of death and investigators are now treating the case, "as a double homicide."  Although no one has been arrested in connection to the Porter's murders, Arnott says, "We have a focus."
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Family members say the couple were "executed."  Becky Porter's brother Darrell Huftt says, "They were found together."

Southwest Missouri Forensics will conduct autopsies on the remains on Monday in Springfield..
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Timeline in Porter case:

• April 17 - Russell and Rebecca's family finds their Willard home vacant.
• April 19 - Missing persons investigation launched.
• May 2 - Family announces reward of up to $15,000 for information.
• May 4 - Greene County Sheriff's Office begins digging up land on 3 properties near the Porters' home.
• June 10 - Darrell Hufft, Rebecca's brother, denies he had anything to do with the couple's disappearance.
• Mid June - Greene County Sheriff begins working with the Taney County Sheriff in the investigation.
• July 17 - Family members post fliers of the couple throughout southwest Missouri asking for leads.

• July 22 - Taney County and Greene County sheriffs hold joint news conference announcing they've found remains likely belonging to Russell and Rebecca Porter. The case is now considered a homicide investigation.

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News Release from Greene County Sheriff's Department:
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The Greene County Sheriff’s Office and the Taney County Sheriff’s Office are planning a news conference today at 2:30PM.
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Detectives with the Taney and Greene County Sheriff’s Offices along with the Taney County Coroner, Kevin Tweedy, have been conducting an investigation and have located human remains in Taney County.
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 Details of the case will be discussed at the news conference. 

UPDATED~DEVELOPING~ Woman Found Dead In Car Near Wal-Mart On Independence Identified:

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Crime scene tape surrounds a vehicle in which a dead body was found on Wal-Mart parking lot (courtesy Chase Snider) 

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DEVELOPING~AUTHORITIES HAVE BEEN CALLED TO THE SOUTH PARKING LOT OF THE WAL-MART SUPERCENTER ON INDEPENDENCE FOR REPORTS OF A POSSIBLE DEAD BODY THAT MAY HAVE BEEN IN A VEHICLE FOR SEVERAL DAYS.

UPDATE: 
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Cpl. Andrew Barksdale says a man noticed a red Ford Focus in the parking lot (he wasn't sure if it was a customer or an employee) earlier in the week and noticed the vehicle was still parked there today.  When he approached the vehicle a bad smell was emanating from it and when he looked inside he discovered a deceased woman and called 9-1-1.
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Police responded to the vehicle on the Wal-Mart parking lot at midday Sunday (courtesy KTTS)

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Barksdale says Christina Glastetter was 45 years-old and from Springfield.  He also said the keys were in the ignition in the on position and the battery was dead and it appears a fire of some sort had taken place inside the vehicle.

Most of the woman's family have been notified, however, Barksdale says the woman's son is en route to Springfield from Columbia and authorities will not release the woman's name until he arrives.

There are no signs of foul play or self inflicted wounds to the woman's body.  An autopsy and toxicology will be performed tomorrow.  It will take six weeks for toxicology reports to come back.
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In an unrelated case, a little over four years ago 45 year-old Amy Louise Meyer, of Nevada, was found dead in a locked vehicle in the same parking lot.

Kanakuk Won't Leave Family Who Filed Federal Lawsuit Alone, According To Court Records:

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The parents of a Texas boy who was allegedly sexually molested by former Kanakuk Kamp director Pete Newman at the Taney County based youth camp want a federal judge to grant them an injuction/and or a restraining order against Kanakuk and its CEO Joe White.

The Turner Report broke the news that on July 13, 2011, the plaintiff's listed as John and Jane Doe, acting behalf of their son who attended the camp from 2005 - 2007, say that White and Kanakuk have not left them alone since a federal lawsuit they brought against White, Kanukuk, et. al, was filed on March 11.

According to those documents, White and Kanakuk officials began contacting them on April 7th. "Since appearing in this case, defendants have maintained regular communications with the plaintiffs, directly, by way of mail, telephone, and e-mail, despite repeated requests (from both plaintiffs and plaintiffs' counsel) that they not do so."

The latest contact with the family was on July 8th, when "a package from Defendant White and his wife, arrived at the Doe home," according to court records. The continued contact has compounded the boy's "emotional and psychological problems that stem from his sexual abuse."

The latest motion asks for a hearing as soon as possible.

The  Turley Law Firm filed the $10 million federal lawsuit against White, Newman, and Kanakuk after the Texas boy and other's were molested at the camp and that White ignored the situation and promoted Newman instead of firing him.

In the federal lawsuit attorney's allege, "At least as early as 1999, Defendant Joe T. White, Kanakuk Ministries and/or Kanakuk Heritage, Inc. knew that Newman, in the nude, was riding four-wheelers at the 'kamp' with nude 'kampers,' who were minor children entrusted to the care of Defendants. In response to this sexually inappropriate behavior, Newman was placed on probation."
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Peter Daniel Newman (mug shot MDOC)

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The court records go on to say, "In or about 2003, a nude Defendant Newman was streaking through the 'kamp' property with nude minor 'kampers.' Although this conduct came to the attention of Defendants Joe T. White, Kanakuk Ministries, and/or Kanakuk, Heritage, Inc., again Newman remained on staff in easy reach of his future victims, including John Doe I."
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The federal lawsuit was the second to be filed against Newman and Kanakuk, and the first to be filed against Joe White individually.

The first lawsuit was filed in Taney County on January 31st by Mike Merrell and Alabama attorney G. Rick DiGiorgio on behalf of a Little Rock man who was 12 years old when Newman began molesting him.  That case has since been moved to Christian County on a change of venue that was requested by defense attorney's.

The plaintiff, who is now 19 years old, says officials at the youth camp swept reports of Newman's sexual abuse of campers under the rug and continued to employ him because he generated a huge amount of revenue for the company. 

In a cost saving measure for the camp, Newman often asked families that had children active in Kanakuk's ministry if he could stay in their home while he was plugging "purity" for the camp.  At the time of those visits the families were unaware that Newman was either sexually abusing their children or attempting to groom them for sexual abuse. 
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Edward L. Ringheim

In March of this year Edward L. Ringheim of from Windermere, Florida, was charged with seven felony counts of lewd and lascivious molestation

Ringheim worked at Universal Studios and  volunteered for K-Life in Orlando.  Authorities allege he used free passes to the amusement park as enticement to molest some of the boys he accompanied to Branson.

Newman pleaded guilty in Taney County last year to several sex offenses involving underage male campers and is serving two life sentences, plus 30 years at the Jefferson City Correctional Center .

The TAA-FTA "Deal": The Law, One More Time

Last week, I explained why, based on the plain language of Trade Promotion Authority (as codified in U.S. law), the US-Korea FTA implementing bill could not contain provisions reauthorizing expanded Trade Adjustment Assistance and still qualify for TPA's "fast track" protections as it makes its way through Congress.  In particular, I explained how, despite White House assertions to the contrary, it was ridiculous to assert that TAA was "necessary and appropriate" to implement the KORUS FTA, as required under TPA, and thus any attempt to fast-track a joint TAA-FTA implementing bill relied on a blatant disregard of, or contempt for, the rule of law.  On Tuesday, however, Howard Rosen of the TAA Coalition has come to the White House's defense by arguing that the TAA-FTA legislation indeed does qualify for TPA's procedural protections because it's, like, totally "necessary and appropriate."  But is his defense valid?

In short, no.  Not at all.

On whether the TAA expansion could rightly qualify under TPA's  "necessary and appropriate" provisions, I stated last week:

It's absolutely laughable, however, that the TAA expansion attached to the US-Korea FTA would qualify as such a "provision." First, TAA expansion isn't "necessary or appropriate to implement" the KORUS FTA. Indeed, one of the key features of the TAA expansion package is that it de-links benefits from US FTAs. So, other than the fact that both the FTA and TAA have "trade" in their names, their actual substance is unrelated. Of course, one could argue that inclusion of TAA is politically "necessary" to ensure Senate passage of the KORUS FTA. However, by this silly political metric, anything - no matter how irrelevant and unconnected to the FTAs - could be deemed "necessary" to implement the FTA and thus entitled to special consideration (e.g., no filibusters) under House and Senate rules. So if, for example, a majority of US Senators said that they'd only vote for the KORUS FTA if the implementing legislation included a provision giving each of their spouses $1 billion in cold, hard cash, that "provision" would, under the White House's interpretation, be "necessary" to implement the FTA and thus qualify for TPA protections. This, of course, is absurd.

Second, the White House's expansive view of sub-paragraph (C) totally ignores its introductory clause: "if changes in existing laws or new statutory authority is required to implement such trade agreement or agreements or such extension." This clause makes it absolutely clear that the "provision... repealing or amending existing laws or providing new statutory authority" must be related to the "changes in existing laws or new statutory authority" that are required to implement the FTA at issue. So, if an FTA's implementing legislation amends US law, and it's determined that those amendments necessitate conforming edits to other US laws, the provisions containing those consequential conforming edits may be included in the implementing bill and granted TPA's protections. And this is precisely the type of "necessary provision" that has been included in past FTA implementing bills (such as that for the NAFTA).

So to claim that TAA expansion qualifies under sub-paragraph (C) and thus deserves TPA protection is a serious stretch. (And that's being kind.)

In short, because the TAA expansion at issue has no real, substantive connection to the US-Korea FTA, and because expanding TAA in the fashion contemplated here (e.g., renewing expired programs that covered services workers and, most importantly, expanded eligibility to workers allegedly displaced by competition from non-FTA countries) is not needed to conform existing US law to the laws changed by the KORUS agreement, then it simply cannot be "necessary and appropriate" under any reasonable reading of TPA's "necessary and appropriate" requirements.

Rosen disagrees.... well, sorta (emphasis mine):

Finally, including TAA reauthorization and reform in the US-Korea FTA implementing legislation meets the “necessary and appropriate” criteria set by historic precedent. Except for two cases, in 1981 and 2009, all Congressional action on TAA since the program was established almost 50 years ago, has been linked to trade legislation. TAA provisions were included in the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, the Trade Act of 1974, the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988 and the Trade Act of 2002.

TAA has only been directly linked to FTA implementing legislation once, the NAFTA Implementing Act in 1993, since there was no need to reauthorize or make changes in the program at the time Congress was considering other FTAs. For example, the Trade Act of 2002, which included significant reforms, reauthorized the program through 2007. The only reason there is an immediate need to act on TAA is that the program’s authorization and the reforms implemented in 2009 expired on February 12.

Ok, so that sounds pretty reasonable, right?  Yeah, except for the small fact that it's not reasonable.  At all.

First, it's really important to note here what Rosen isn't saying.  He's actually not arguing with my (correct) interpretation of US law.  Instead he's saying that it's totally ok to disregard a proper reading of US law because it's been disregarded in the past (i.e., "by historic precedent").  Thus, Rosen's primary defense of the joint TAA-FTA legislation is the classic "everybody's doing it" defense that I unsuccessfully tried to deploy against my parents throughout the 1970s and 1980s.  But as my mom (and all other moms) would tell us: just because other people disregarded the law doesn't mean that what they did was legal.  It just means that they didn't get caught.

But there's an even bigger problem with Rosen's defense, and here's where the wheels really fall off: the "historic precedent" he cites is completely inapplicable to the current situation.  Rosen tries to pull a clumsy slight-of-hand in the first paragraph pasted above by switching "FTA implementing bill" with "trade legislation" and then citing all of this "trade legislation" to which TAA has been historically attached (i.e., the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, the Trade Act of 1974, the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988 and the Trade Act of 2002).  Yet no one is arguing that provisions amending, expanding or reauthorizing TAA can't be attached to "trade legislation," and the TPA legal rules that I cited in my original blog post (and which matter for the purposes of the current TAA-FTA debate) deal only with FTA "implementing bills."  So the fact that TAA has been attached to other trade bills is a red herring.

Second, the "direct linkage" of TAA provisions to the NAFTA implementing legislation actually supports my reading of the law because the TAA provisions included in the NAFTA Implementation Act of 1993 were actually linked to, and necessitated by, NAFTA's implementation.  Indeed, here's how the House Ways & Means Committee Report described the TAA provisions included in the NAFTA implementing bill (emphasis mine):

New Trade Adjustment Assistance Benefits.

The bill would add a new sub- chapter to the TAA program to allow workers who lose their job because their firm shifts production to Mexico or Canada to qualify for TAA. In addition, workers would be required to enter a job training program by their sixteenth week of unemployment or their sixth week of TAA certification, whichever is later, to be eligible for benefits. Unlike the current TAA program, beneficiaries under this sub-part could not receive a waiver from training and still collect cash assistance. TAA cash and training benefits under this amendment would be available to those who are displaced from their jobs between January 1, 1994, and September 30, 1998. CBO estimates that fewer than 1,000 workers annually would qualify for TAA payments under this provision. The average training benefit would be $4,000 per person, and the average cash benefit would be approximately $6,000 per person. CBO estimates that total TAA payments under this new sub-part would be less than $500,000 in fiscal year 1994, $7 million in fiscal year 1995, $8 million in fiscal year 1996, and $9 million each of the fiscal years 1997 and 1998.

Now, leaving aside the distressing fact that expanded TAA benefits under the NAFTA were only in the low millions (compared to the billions of today's TAA program), it's abundantly clear from the description above that the TAA provisions in the NAFTA implementing bill (a) amended existing, not new, TAA programs and (b) were clearly based on the projected effects on the TAA program caused by expanded trade with Canada and Mexico (i.e., NAFTA).

The TAA expansion attached to the KORUS, on the other hand, meets neither of these criteria.  Indeed, as I noted above, it actually de-links benefits from US free trade agreements!  It thus simply cannot be considered "necessary and appropriate" to implement the KORUS under even a liberal reading ot TPA.

As I said in my original blog post on this subject, all of this legal analysis, while correct, is probably moot because Congress can just "creatively interpret" or re-write TPA's rules and thus can basically do whatever it wants on the subject.

But let's please stop kidding ourselves that the joint TAA-FTA package currently being pushed by the White House and Congressional Democrats meets TPA's legal requirements.  Both the law - and precedent - clearly show that it does no such thing.

History Of Domestic Assault Connected To Murder/Suicide:

Michael Clavier (mug shot MDOC)

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New details are emerging about a married couple found dead in an apparent murder/suicide at 1407 W. Mt. Vernon in Springfield yesterday (07-12-11.)

According to court documents, forty six year-old  Michael F. Clavier beat up his then girlfriend, fifty three year-old Yvonne, and forced her to take more than 300 presciption pills before stabbing her in the chest and pubic area on November 7, 2008.

Michael Clavier told authorities he had been drinking and had no recollection of how Yvonne received her injuries.  Yvonne's son, William Michel, told cops he witnessed Clavier assaulting his mom and believed he was trying to kill her.

Yvonne Clavier

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Michael Clavier pleaded guilty to the assault of Yvonne In April of 2009 and received a suspended 7-year prison sentence and was placed on probation.  Four and a half months later Clavier violated the conditions of his probation and was taken into custody.  He spent three months in lockup before prosecutors withdrew their motion to revoke his probation and was released on January 1, 2010.
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The Clavier's were found dead in an upstairs bedroom (courtesy Springfield News-Leader)

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Over the next year and a half, Clavier violated his probation three more times - he was ordered not to have contact with his wife. He was also ordered into a program at the Salvation Army Family Enrichment Center in Springfield on July 30, 2010.  In August he was placed in a program at Harbor House.
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At the last hearing on the probation violation on June 14, 2011, Judge Calvin Holden ruled that Clavier could have contact with Yvonne as long as he wasn’t consuming alcohol.  He was also ordered to obtain a prescription for Antabuse and to begin taking it  According to court records, Clavier was living at Sigma House treatment center on June 24th, 2011.

In an unrelated case, Clavier was charged with DWI and driving while revoked on July 6th for a May 5th incident. A warrant was issued for his arrest on July 11th.
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UPDATE:

Autopsies reveal that both Yvonne and Michael Clavier died of sharp force trauma to the neck.

White House Does the TPA Two-Step; Hypocrisy Ensues

Today comes news from National Journal [$] that the White House supports a strict reading of Trade Promotion Authority, except, you know, when it doesn't (emphasis mine):

The White House pushed back a last-minute attempt on Monday to prevent it from attaching Trade Adjustment Assistance to the pending free-trade agreement with South Korea after closed-door efforts to find an alternative for its renewal failed.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, sent congressional leaders a letter requesting an unprecedented “mock conference” to reconcile two different versions of the Korea pact that were approved in committee last week. But, Hatch’s last-ditch effort quickly fell flat as the White House continued on what could be the only sure course to renew the program’s funds.

In his letter, Hatch escalated GOP skepticism of the legality of the White House decision to include TAA in the Korea bill and questioned whether the administration has the constitutional authority to choose between the House and Senate versions of the pact.

“Reconciling the two bills is the exclusive prerogative of Congress, a prerogative which cannot rightfully be devolved to the executive branch,” Hatch said. He urged legislative leaders to call a mock conference to reconcile the bills and present the White House with a template for drafting the final legislation.

Trade agreements, however, are not handled like normal legislation and the White House quickly dismissed Hatch’s claim. Bills on pending trade deals with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea are all slated to move through Congress under the protective rules of Trade Promotion Authority.

“Under Trade Promotion Authority, the results of informal ‘mock’ markups are recommendations to the president as he prepares to submit implementing legislation to Congress,” said an Obama administration official. “Both the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee have now made their recommendations.”...

Trade agreements moving under Trade Promotion Authority are not subject to filibuster or amendment and only require a simple majority for passage in both chambers.

“We’ve made clear that a robust renewal of TAA has to be part of the legislative agenda, and including it on an implementing bill for a trade agreement is the only viable pathway that has emerged,” the administration official said. “So far, no other credible alternatives have been offered to get the trade agreements and TAA done in a timely fashion.”

So, to summarize the White House's arguments:

• A strict reading of TPA, like, totally precludes unique procedural proposals like Senator Hatch's "mock conference," so his idea is stupid and illegal.  Thus, we're going to ignore it.

• A liberal reading of TPA, like, totally allows unique procedural proposals like our plan to attach expanded Trade Adjustment Assistance to the US-Korea FTA implementing legislation, so our plan is perfectly appropriate and legal.  Thus, we're going to pursue that plan and ram the TAA-FTA bill down the throats of objecting congressional Republicans.

Behold, unabashed political hackery!  Sigh.

I've already laid out - in excruciating detail - why the Administration's liberal interpretation of TPA is complete and utter nonsense (and dangerous nonsense, at that), and it appears that Senator Hatch's office is raising similar legal objections.  Good for them.  I hope they continue to do so.

But if you disagree (expressly or tacitly) with our legal analysis and thus are totally fine with the Obama administration's liberal interpretation of TPA, then surely you oppose the White House's immediate rejection of Sen. Hatch's "mock conference" scheme, right?  And surely you're incensed - and a little embarrassed - by the administration's clear hypocrisy, right?

Or do you, like the White House, have absolutely no regard for the rule of law?

The silence here - by the media and the Obama administration's supporters (redundant, I know!) - is rather deafening.

The TAA-FTA "Deal," Part 3: It's the Politics, Stupid

[Ed note: This is the third of a three-part series in which I'll review the joint FTA-TAA legislation proposed by the Obama administration and Senate Democrats last week. Familiarity with the White House's brilliant plan and recent events is presumed.  Parts 1 (on the spending) and 2 (on the law) of the series are available here and here, respectively.]

Now that Republican and White House positions seemed to solidify over the weekend and ultimate passage of pending US FTAs with Korea, Panama and Colombia is in question, it's a good time to analyze what everyone in DC really cares about - who's to blame for any ultimate collapse.  I had planned to do an extensive history of how we got here, replete with damning quotes from certain parties, but there's no need for that now, as Doug Palmer's latest Reuters' piece on the TAA-FTA stalemate does most of the heavy lifting for me (emphasis mine):

President Barack Obama appears headed toward a fight with Republicans over a long-delayed trade deal with U.S. ally South Korea, even though both sides say they want it to pass Congress.

Obama administration officials say no deal has emerged to ease passage of an agreement that supporters contend would create tens of thousands of jobs and help the White House aim of doubling U.S. exports in five years....

The Korean deal, and two other pending pacts with Colombia and Panama, were negotiated and signed under former President George W. Bush. He could not win their approval after Democrats took control of Congress in November 2006.

A year ago, Obama moved to resolve Democratic concerns with the deals. That accelerated after Republicans won the House of Representatives in November and demanded action on all three deals by July 1.

Obama could send the agreements to Congress as early as this week after committee-level action in the House and Senate last week.

The administration has signaled to business groups it intends to submit the Korea agreement with the controversial Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) retraining program included, one business source said.

McConnell strongly opposes that but the administration official said they see no other way to win approval of TAA, a key White House priority along with the pacts.

The administration does not want to further upset organized labor, which is wary of trade deals over their potential impact on U.S. jobs and is an key Democratic Party constituent....

Congress created TAA in the 1960s. An expanded version expired in February after newly elected Republicans, who now lead the House, balked at the $1 billion annual price tag.


Although the underlying TAA program remained in place, the White House warned Republicans in May that it would not send the three free trade agreements to Congress until there was a deal to renew many of the expanded benefits approved in 2009....

Democrats believe the administration needs to include it in the Korea bill to prevent Senate Republicans from killing it. Republicans believe they should be kept separate and have called plans to put TAA in the Korea bill "a poison pill."

Obama appears poised to defy Republicans, apparently counting on their traditional support for free trade deals which many of his fellow Democrats traditionally oppose.

That strategy might backfire. "We can't speak for every Republican, but (McConnell) has said he'd be compelled to vote against the Korean trade bill if it includes TAA," a McConnell spokesman said, adding the Republican leader would first do "everything in his power" to block action on the bill....

A Republican aide said McConnell believes TAA would pass in the Senate on its own and would not work against it if he got a vote on renewal of the [Trade Promotion Authority] fast-track powers.

House Speaker John Boehner also wants separate votes on the TAA program and the trade bill.

So to recap:

• Because the White House, a significant minority of House and Senate Democrats and almost all congressional Republicans support the pending FTAs, the deals could, if submitted under TPA, pass both chambers of Congress relatively easily.  Like tomorrow. 

• However, the TPA "fast track" protections needed to ensure congressional passage only apply if the President submits the FTAs' implementing legislation to Congress.  Thus, the agreements' fate rests solely in the President's hands.

• Republican opposition to TAA expansion has been known since February, when the House overwhelmingly rejected extending the expanded TAA program because of substantive concerns about the program's purpose, scope and cost.

• Knowing the Republicans' substantive opposition to TAA, the White House in May demanded that TAA renewal be part of congressional consideration of the FTAs.  Republicans, quite unsurprisingly, objected.

• It is well-known that the White House's TAA demands are politically motivated in order to garner labor union support for the 2012 elections.

• Because TAA cannot pass the House or Senate on its own merits, the President has refused to submit the FTA implementing legislation to Congress without TAA being attached.  Such extortion is the only way that the President can score the political victory he wants.

• The President has issued his demands knowing full well that (a) Republican opposition to TAA is longstanding and substantive; (b) the FTAs would almost certainly be approved by Congress under TPA; and (c) the FTAs very likely cannot pass both chambers without TPA's procedural protections.  Thus, Obama's strategy is extremely risky and depends entirely on congressional Republicans reversing a substantive position on a controversial, billion-dollar spending program (of dubious value) that they cemented only a few months ago.

To summarize: the FTAs are the only thing that the White House and a majority of both chambers of Congress support, while TAA simply cannot survive the normal congressional process.  The President is thus risking the FTAs' sure passage by attaching a politically untenable program, and he's taking that risk in order score a cheap political victory.  And, of course, if the agreements' die, the President also benefits politically because US labor unions - a core Democratic constituency - steadfastly oppose them.

So, knowing this, can really there be any doubt as to who's to blame if the FTAs remain unimplemented into the Fall (and maybe even longer)?  Can there be any doubt as to who bears responsibility for the harms caused to US consumers and exporters as these trade agreements remain shelved?

Of course not, regardless of what the White House and its media supporters claim.

Still don't believe me?  Ok, then let's close with a simple hypothetical:

My wife hates anchovies, and I kinda like them.  I've known that she hates the little buggers - can't even stand to have 'em on the same plate as her food - since we first started dating.  So say one night we go to a local pizza joint and she, as she sometimes does, leaves her purse at home, thus leaving me the only Lincicome in the place with the ability to pay for dinner that night.  I only have enough cash on me for one large pie, so we're going to have to share (so much for "recovery summer," I guess).  Fortunately, we'd both be fine with a plain cheese pizza, so if I order that, we both will eat well and go home happy.  But if I were to demand that we order a large pizza with extra anchovies, she's almost sure to refuse to eat it even though, technically, she could force down a few slices and be fine (it's not like she's allergic or anything).  So say, after warning me against ordering anchovies and just begging for a plain cheese pie, I order the anchovy pizza anyway because that's what I want and, frankly, I have the cash.  When the pizza arrives at our table, she flatly refuses to eat it and, furious, demands to be taken home immediately.  So we just end up walking out of the restaurant without eating anything.  And everyone loses.

Now, is there really any way on earth that we could blame my wife for that ridiculous result?

Of course not.

So could somebody - anybody - please tell the President to just hold the damn anchovies?

Right Now

There's an old joke that the definition of "chutzpah" is when a man kills his parents and then pleads for mercy on the grounds that he's an orphan. (Ba-dum-cha!)  Well, after President Obama's speech this morning on the dismal June jobs numbers, I think we have a new definition: when a President and his political party do everything in their power to stall four-year old US trade agreements and then publicly grouse about the deals' still-pending status.

In trying to deflect blame for the United States' continued inability to escape the doldrums of the 2009 recession (the worst "recovery" ever, by the way), the President stated today:

There are a few things that we can and should do, right now, to redouble our efforts on behalf of the American people.... Let me give you some examples.... Today, Congress can advance trade agreements that will help businesses sell more American-made goods and services to Asia and South America, supporting thousands of jobs here at home. That could be done right now.

Actually, Mr. President, that could have been done in 2008, had then-Speaker Pelosi (D-CA) not rewritten the longstanding congressional-executive agreement on Trade Promotion Authority (and "fast track" before that) when President Bush tried to implement the US-Colombia FTA.

And that could have been done in 2009, had you not shelved the FTAs in order to placate your party's protectionist wing.

And that could have been done in 2010, had you not demanded that each one be renegotiated in order to further stall the agreements and to pay off powerful domestic constituencies.

And that could have been done earlier this year, had you simply submitted the renegotiated FTAs' implementing legislation to a Republican-controlled House of Representatives that was literally begging for you to do so.

And that even could have been done last week, had you not attached a "poison pill" to the US-Korea FTA in the form of an expensive and highly controversial Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) expansion that congressional Republicans had already voted down in February and had repeatedly warned would be deal-killer.

And, despite all of this, Mr. President, you and Congress could still implement these FTAs right now if you would just submit clean FTA implementing legislation to the House and Senate pursuant to TPA.

So, what do you say, Mr. President?  How about we get on this?

Right now.

The TAA-FTA "Deal": The Law, Ctd.

On Tuesday, I blogged about whether the Obama administration's brilliant plan to jam through Congress joint legislation containing Trade Adjustment Assistance and the US-Korea FTA would, based on a reasonable reading of the law, qualify for the procedural protections afforded FTA implementing bills under Trade Promotion Authority.  My conclusions were that the White House's legislation shouldn't qualify for TPA, but that the Senate could - and probably would - just ignore the law.

Phil Levy picks up where I left off and opines on the broader implications of a decision by the White House and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to ignore the law and go through with their plans to move the TAA-FTA bill using TPA.  His conclusions are as depressing as they are correct (emphasis mine):

This [fast track] process worked until April of 2008, when then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi demonstrated, to widespread surprise, that Congress had not really committed itself at all: When President Bush tried to submit the Colombia FTA under Trade Promotion Authority, she just changed House rules and blocked it. This dealt the first serious blow to the underpinnings of U.S. trade policy.

Last week, the administration dealt the second such blow. By stuffing TAA into the Korea FTA implementing bill - i.e., by protecting it with Trade Promotion Authority that was supposed to be reserved exclusively for these trade agreements -- it may have sounded the death knell for this critical trade procedure.

The maneuver may well work.... But there is a significant future trade agenda now at serious risk. The administration has ambitious negotiations underway for a Trans-Pacific Partnership that could set the rules for trade with Asia. Global leaders have repeatedly called for a conclusion to beleaguered talks under the auspices of the World Trade Organization. For any of these, the White House will need new trade promotion authority. Such authority was hard to come by even in the best of circumstances. What chance would it have now, if it is interpreted as giving any White House the right to attach controversial and unrelated spending measures in a protected way?

The passage of the pending FTAs is long overdue. The compromise on TAA is acceptable, if it paves the way for a necessary reworking of the program. But, as with mishandled fireworks, the administration's narrow and divisive approach to solving the present impasse may prove crippling for U.S. trade policy in years to come.

In short, the Obama administration's attempt to use the KORUS FTA and a dangerously expansive interpretation of TPA as a sketchy vehicle for achieving a narrow political victory on TAA might win the legislative battles over the Korea, Colombia and Panama FTAs, but the plan seriously risks losing the bigger war over the future of American trade policy and potential trade agreements worth far more than the three currently being debated.  So free traders really need to ask themselves the following question:

If the President refuses to yield and a joint TAA-FTA package passed under fast track really ends up being the only way forward, is it worth it?

I think we all know which direction I'm leaning these days.  And that's pretty sad.

Finally, let's also not forget that, considering that all of the troubling TPA chicanery noted above has come from Democratic politicians doing the bidding of anti-trade American labor unions, the big winner from the passage of these FTAs might just be the very folks most opposed to them - the unions.  (No, seriously.)  In the process of "losing" the current FTA battles, their elected minions might just ensure the demise of future trade deals and America's long history of leading global trade liberalization initiatives.  Such a result would be one helluva "win" for them.

And one helluva loss for the American people.

[UPDATE: I somehow forgot to mention that the Obama administration's erosion of TPA's value actually began last December with its steadfast assertions that the Agreement's renegotiated automobile provisions would somehow not remove the deal from TPA's procedural protections.  So, really, the joint TAA-FTA package is the third blow to the longstanding congressional-executive agreement on TPA (and fast track before it).  The third, however, definitely remains the most egregious and problematic for the reasons Phil states.]

New Details To Be Released In Willingham Murder Investigation

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Donald "Don" and Helen Willingham

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Greene County Sheriff Jim Arnott will release the new details tomorrow (07-08-11) regarding the brutal stabbing deaths of an elderly couple this past April.

Donald "Don" and Helen Willingham, who were both 79 years-old, were found murdered inside their home on April 25th after Mrs. Willingham called 9-1-1 to report an intruder inside the couples home at 2919 W. Swan. 

Arnott will be joined by several members of the Willingham family at the 11:00 a.m. press conference at the Greene County Sheriff's Office.

There have been no arrests in the couples murder even though hundreds of pieces of evidence were collected at the crime scene.  Arnott asked the Highway Patrol Crime Lab to expedite testing from the Willingham crime scene as well as evidence collected in the disappearance of Rusty and Becky Ellsworth-Porter who went missing from their home near Willard on April 18th.
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Rusty and Becky Porter (family photo)

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The rush on testing was hampered when the lab had to switch gears to help identify victims of last month's tornado that ripped through Joplin.

In April Sheriff Arnott said it appeared the Willingham's murders were "violent and random," saying there was no sign of forced entry into the their home.  "This is one of the worst cases of my career.  It's a rough deal, not only for the family but for everyone involved." Arnott said. 

The Willigham's, who were married for 59 years, served as missionaries in Guam and Mr. Willingham was a retired Baptist minister.  "This is a wonderful couple.  From visiting with family and neighbors, this is a couple who would do anything to help anyone.  His voice breaking, Arnott said, "They dedicated their life to the Lord."

Both the Willingham and Porter families are offering rewards for information leading to the resolution of the cases.  If you have any information that could help investigators in either case you're asked to call the Greene County Sheriff's Office at (417) 868-4040, Crime Stoppers at (417) 869-TIPS (8477) or 9-1-1.