Paulson's woes

Poor Hank Paulson, The charmed life of a Goldman Sachs executive and now this--basically begging the Chinese to let their Yuan float more so we don't keep buying so many of their products. Today, a second Senate panel, this time the Banking Committee, passed a measure by 17-4 to tighten the government's definition of currency manipulation and to close a loophole that's allowed the Bush Administration to delay tacking action against China. Earlier this week, the Senate Finance Committee passed a measure allowing company's claiming to be hurt by currency abuses to seek antidumping penalties. So Paulson has to go to Beijing and say, please help us, otherwise mean old Chris Dodd and Max Baucus are going to come after you. And now it seems clear that the Chinese told him, "Hey we're working on it." So essentially the trip is just one more in a series of losing battles. And given how much money we borrow from the Chinese are we really in any position to pick a fight with our banker? The irony is I'm not even sure anything short of a really drastic shift in the value of the Yuan would really make that big a cut in Chinese exports. They've now reached a degree of quality and ubiquity in American life that it's hard to see their numbers diminishing.