Senate bill on the road to nowhere

you have to love our politicians' penchant for meaningless gestures, like this new senate bill to punish china for undervaluing its currency:

Senate bill punishes China over undervalued money - BusinessWeek: "The Senate is advancing legislation to punish China for undervaluing its currency and taking away American jobs. At issue is whether the measure would boost the American economy or initiate a damaging trade war with a major trading partner.
The legislation has bipartisan backing and on Monday evening is expected to garner the 60 votes needed to move it to the Senate floor. But the bill faces considerable hurdles. The Obama White House is leery of taking bilateral action against China, and House Republican leaders have shown no interest in bringing it to a vote."

it may play in peoria, but everyone knows you don't fuck around with your banker -- and china has been a big help in financing the US government's financial armageddon. indeed, when dick cheney said "deficits don't matter," he meant that deficits didn't matter so long as the chinese were willing to put up the money to finance his futile and counterproductive imperial wars.

the story notes that the US house has little appetite for the bill. just today, majority leader eric cantor was published as saying that his colleagues are more interested in passing new, so-called "free trade" pacts -- in effect rewarding campaign contributions by eagerly facilitating continued off-shoring of jobs.

not to put it entirely on the GOP, however, since the obama administration is pushing for the trade agreements, too. here we have clinton triangulation redux, with the GOP majority siding with a repub-lite president to pass anti-labor, job-killing trade deals.

that's the real road to nowhere for american workers.