(Washington, D.C.) — President Barack Obama today urged Congress to add $600 billion to the $800 billion economic stimulus package, designating the money to buy up U.S. bonds, held by China, that have become nearly impossible to value.
“This is no time to play political, or nationalistic, games,” the president said. “China owns about $600 billion in U.S. debt which will be nearly worthless when Congress passes my stimulus plan. We need to rescue the nation that’s rescuing us by purchasing the junk bonds we sold to them. Frankly, the People’s Republic of China is simply too big to fail.”
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Obama has already ordered Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to draw up several “blue sky scenarios” in which the value of U.S. bonds rises rapidly, buoyed by investor confidence in a stabilized Chinese economy thanks to the sudden liquidity of Chinese-held U.S. debentures.
Hours after the announcement, a coalition of 2,000 university economists, purchased a full-page ad in The New York Times declaring that this latest Obama proposal is “now the only way to avoid the inevitable catastrophic economic meltdown so bad that it will force even the newly-wealthy Tom Daschle to Dumpster-dive for Ramen noodles.”
Under the terms of the amendment, the U.S. would place its own repurchased Treasury notes in a so-called “bad bond bank” where they would remain in a kind of “time out” until they increase in value.
The president called the move a “short-term measure that would, nevertheless, create about four million new jobs…somewhere.”
A spokesman for the People’s Republic of China said, “We welcome this gesture of concern from President Obama. In return for his kindness, China will allow the United States to retain ownership of its North American territory for the foreseeable future.”
Examiner columnist Scott Ott is editor in chief of ScrappleFace.com, the family-friendly news satire site, and anchor of ScrappleFace Network News (SNN), seen on YouTube.
