Thursday, August 20, 2009

Sarah Palin: "Does The U.S. Export-Import Bank Offer Free Checking?"

Sarah Palin, who couldn't figure out how to finish her term in a small state awash in federal money, is now fixing her glazed-over gaze on international matters and getting everything completely wrong.
This time, the unemployed former governor of Alaska botched the rationale behind a U.S Export- Import Bank plan to lend $2 billion to Petrobas, the Brazilian oil company.
Sarah Baraquitter has about as much credibility opining on the intricacies of international business as she does discussing anything other than what can be shot from a helicopter or caught on a hook.

Rachel Weiner of HuffPo points to Palin's Facebook entry, which includes this misreading of a Wall Street Journal editorial:
Why is it that during these tough times, when we have great needs at home, the Obama White House is prepared to send more than two billion of your hard-earned tax dollars to Brazil so that the nation's state-owned oil company, Petrobras, can drill off shore and create jobs developing its own resources? Buy American is a wonderful slogan, but you can't say in one breath that you want to strengthen our economy and stimulate it, and then in another ship our much-needed dollars to a nation desperate to drill while depriving us of the same opportunity.
Weiner notes:
While the Journal lamented the fact that we were exploring for oil offshore in Brazil and not in our own country, it did not suggest the deal would take jobs or income away from Americans. That's because it won't. A spokesman for the U.S. Export Import Bank, Phil Cogan, explained to Politico that the bank does not rely on taxpayer money. Moreover, the bank lends money to foreign companies so that they can purchase American goods and services.
In this case, Cogan said, the proposed loan would likely finance engineering services, sales of ships to service oil platforms, or drilling equipment.
"This is the government doing what it's supposed to do: Create jobs and make sure that Americans get a fair shot at selling goods and services -- not the British or the French or anyone else -- and to help American workers compete on a level playing field," Cogan said, noting that most developed countries have similar credit-export agencies.

It is an unsubstantiated rumor that Palin was last seen outside a 7-Eleven in Wasilla, rifling through her bearskin purse, looking for a U.S. Export-Import Bank ATM card.

BeltwayBlips: vote it up!

allvoices

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

How does giving $2B to Brazil for offshore oil drilling create American jobs, then? Can't Brazil, who doesn't like the US that much, anyway, go to other countries for those engineering services, ships and drilling equipment?

And if the answer is "they have to go to US companies for those things because they are getting money from the US Ex-Im Bank (a government corporation, btw), then why don't WE in the US do offshore drilling and direct that money to American companies to do it? Why should Brazil get the money?

Thanks in advance.

JohnnyRussia said...

We don't drill offshore here because most coastal residents don't want it--including me. The goods and services provided by US firms for international projects are many--construction equipment, drilling equipment/services, project logistics, etc. I was an expat in Russia working on behalf of an Exxon project and worldwide projects such as that have been beneficial to the US economy for decades.

We need to "drill, baby, drill" it into people's heads that renewable energy is where this country needs to concentrate its resources, not to a finite, polluting resource such as oil.