OPINION

SEPTEMBER 1, 2009, 10:37 A.M. ET.

The Yin and Yang of U.S.-China Relations

Don't expect a 'strategic alliance' anytime soon.

By BY IAN BREMMER AND NOURIEL ROUBINI

American and Chinese officials said all the right things during this summer's inaugural round of their Strategic and Economic Dialogue. President Barack Obama pledged to "forge a path to the future that we seek for our children." Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo wondered aloud whether America and China can "build better relations despite very different social systems, cultures and histories." He answered his own question, in English, with a "Yes we can."

They can, but they probably won't. Yes, Mr. Obama will visit China in November. But when it comes to international burden-sharing, Washington is focused on geopolitical headaches while China confines its heavy-lifting to geoeconomic challenges. The two sides have good reason to cooperate, but there's a growing gap between what Washington expects from Beijing and what the Chinese can deliver.

Many of the issues that create conflict in U.S.-Chinese relations are well known: an enormous bilateral trade deficit, disputes over the value of China's currency, protections for U.S. intellectual property, the dollar's role as international reserve currency, conflicts over human rights, naval altercations, protectionist threats from both sides, and disagreements over how best to handle North Korea's Kim Jong Il. But there are other, less obvious obstacles to partnership.

First, both governments remain largely focused on formidable domestic challenges. Mr. Obama knows his political fortunes depend largely on the resilience of the U.S. economy and its ability to generate jobs. He's occupied for the moment with a high-stakes poker game with lawmakers in his own party over ambitious health-care and energy-reform plans.

China's leadership faces competing internal demands from those who want to stimulate the economy toward another round of export-driven growth and others who want to shift quickly toward greater dependence on domestic consumption. Given the trade deficit, Washington would like Beijing to focus on the latter, but China won't move as fast as the U.S. would like, in part because the leadership recognizes that the loss of millions of manufacturing and construction jobs in recent months could fuel further turmoil in a country that already sees tens of thousands of large-scale protests each year.

Second, there's the bureaucratic problem. For the past several years, former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson chaired a strategic dialogue with Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan. Washington and Beijing have now expanded the scope of talks to include the State Department and China's foreign ministry. Leaving aside the difficulties in building trust between U.S. and Chinese negotiators, State and Treasury don't coordinate well on strategy, and there's no guarantee that China's foreign and finance ministries will work seamlessly together either. The new formula for talks is bureaucratic infighting squared.

The third reason the U.S. and China won't build a durable strategic partnership is that Beijing has little appetite for the larger geopolitical role Washington would like it to play. Why should Beijing accept the risks that come with direct involvement in conflicts involving Iran and Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, Israelis and Palestinians, Somalia and Sudan, and other sources of potential turmoil? It has more immediate problems at home.

On many issues where the U.S. wants China's support—on Iran's nuclear program, for example—Beijing's interests don't coincide with Washington's. Even in East Asia, China has good reason to avoid the heavy lifting on security, because the U.S. naval presence limits the risk that Japan, India, and other states will spend much more money on their militaries.

It's not as though Beijing is enjoying a free ride. China's more than $2 trillion in foreign currency reserves gives its leadership enormous clout as international lender of last resort. Its considerable contribution to global stability is mainly in financing Washington's spiraling debt. By righting its own economy, China can be the primary engine of near-term global growth. Isn't that service enough, Chinese officials ask, at a time when economic crises aggravate so many international problems?
The one tangible result of this summer's Strategic and Economic dialogue, a "memorandum of understanding" on climate change, reveals the larger problem. It's valuable to have an agreement in principle, but there were no hard choices on the primary bone of contention—carbon emissions. That's a problem that will generate friction in months to come.

Whenever U.S. and Chinese officials get together these days, they trigger a new round of speculation that the world's most important bilateral relationship might soon become its most valuable strategic alliance. It's wrong to entirely dismiss the value of effective speeches and positive political symbolism. But as U.S. and Chinese negotiators move from words to work, they're going to be pulling in different directions.

Mr. Bremmer, president of Eurasia Group, is co-author of "The Fat Tail: The Power of Political Knowledge for Strategic Investing" (Oxford University Press, 2009). Mr. Roubini is a professor of economics at New York University's Stern School of Business and chairman of RGE Monitor.

Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

The Renminbi as a Reserve Currency (Part 1)

by: Patrick Chovanec

August 31, 2009

Earlier this year, NYU professor Nouriel Roubini attracted worldwide attention by speculating in a New York Times op-ed that the Chinese Yuan, or Renminbi (RMB), might someday supplant the U.S. dollar as the world’s main reserve currency. Chinese officials have been quick to embrace the notion, regularly floating either its negative (the U.S. dollar should not be the global reserve currency) or positive (the RMB should be) formulation in their public pronouncements. Just a week ago, a leading Chinese economist told Bloomberg that “Eventually, the yuan should be demanded as a reserve currency,” but noted that China was still far away from this goal.

It’s no surprise, then, that the Renminbi’s prospects as a reserve currency is one of the issues I am most frequently asked to speak or consult on. In particular, people are eager to understand how recent moves by China to swap currencies with other countries and establish offshore clearing markets fit into the equation, and whether they represent significant steps towards a more prominent international role for the RMB. These are some of the topics I’d like to address over the next few days.

First of all, however, it’s worth defining what we mean by “currency reserves” and why countries keep them. It may help to begin by noting the obvious: everyone needs to live and function primarily in their own country’s currency. Americans need dollars, Europeans need Euros, Indians need rupees, and so on. We only need a foreign currency when we want to pay someone who requires it to live and function somewhere else, where that currency is used. Each country’s currency is like a special kind of commodity that allows us to offer something of immediate value to people in that country’s economy. Certain actual commodities like gold and silver can be used as a kind of super-currency whose value is recognized and easily exchanged for local currency in all economies.

In an economic sense, “currency reserves” refer to the sum of all foreign currency (including cash-equivalent liquid assets denominated in foreign currency) and specie (such as gold and silver) available within a country’s financial system. It represents the resources immediately available for any actor, public or private, in that economy to buy goods and services abroad or to pay interest and principal on debt borrowed in foreign currency. If a country’s banking system doesn’t have enough currency reserves to meet such needs, it can buy the foreign currency it requires in exchange for its own domestic currency. It can also, of course, trade one foreign currency it holds for another. Either action, however, affects the overall supply and demand for the currencies traded, and thus their relative prices, the exchange rate. Economists pay attention to a country’s “currency reserves” because they indicate to what extent a country’s economy can meet its trade and debt obligations relying on its own ability to earn foreign currency, without being forced to bid down the value of its own currency in world markets.

Some or all of a country’s “currency reserves” may be held directly by its government or central bank as “official reserves.” These two terms refer to distinct concepts, but are often used interchangeably, especially in countries, like China, where the government restricts private holdings of foreign currencies and/or actively buys and sells foreign currency in order to maintain a fixed exchange rate for its own currency. In principle, a country’s government doesn’t have to hold any “official reserves” at all – it could simply let the banking system meet the economy’s foreign currency needs on its own. In practice, governments often hold their own foreign currency reserves for fiscal, monetary, and structural reasons:

Fiscal. Some governments accumulate reserves in order to sponsor or facilitate high-priority projects such as roads, dams, or ports. This is particularly true for developing countries that must hire outside technology and expertise, and whose own currency is not widely accepted abroad. Official reserves can also be used to subsidize politically-sensitive imports, such as food and gasoline, and to ration people’s ability to engage in private transactions (such as importing luxuries) that might deviate from state-sanctioned priorities.

Monetary. The most common reason countries hold official reserves is to maintain a fixed or semi-fixed exchange rate in the face of economic fluctuations. When there’s an influx of foreign currency from a trade surplus or foreign investment, rather than allow the excess supply to lower the price of foreign currency (and raise the price of the domestic currency), the central bank will buy the excess at the official (above-market) rate and hold it in reserve. Then when economic conditions change, and the country runs a trade deficit or foreign investment withdraws, causing a shortage of foreign currency, the central bank will reverse the process, selling back its reserves at the official (below-market) rate. Of course, this can only work as long as conditions correct themselves before the reserves are depleted. If the problem is more serious or persistent, the country will have no choice but to accept a more lasting change in the relative value of its own currency. Nevertheless, the ability to ride out temporary swings can minimize the disruptive effect of unpredictable exchange rates on trade and investment.

Structural. A persistent outflow of foreign currency at a fixed exchange rate will ultimately deplete a country’s official reserves. But a persistent inflow can, in principle, go on forever, as long as the government is willing to keep buying excess foreign currency and stockpiling it as reserves. This is the situation in which Japan found itself in the 1980s, and China finds itself in today. In these cases, the accumulation of official reserves has no intentional purpose – or has at least outstripped its original purpose — and is merely the byproduct of pursuing other goals, such as export-driven growth and employment.

Not all foreign currencies fulfill the purposes described above equally well. A pound is not the same as a peso. Even in the last case, where a country accumulates reserves despite itself, the type of currency it accumulates reflects important economic realities. In fact, only a handful of currencies meet the requirements to be desirable and practical as widely-held “reserve currencies,” and of these, only one tends to play a dominant role at a given time. From 1816 to 1914, that role belonged to the British Pound (backed by the gold standard). From 1914 to the present day, it has resided in the U.S. dollar (sometimes backed by gold, but as often not).

There are four main factors that set the Pound and the Dollar apart as viable and attractive reserve currencies. Each was necessary. They were liquid. They were available. And they were perceived as safe. I’m going to run through each of these conditions in turn. I will consider how they applied to the Pound and the Dollar, and to what extent they are satisfied by China’s Renminbi.

(1) Necessity. The fundamental purpose of a reserve currency is to settle external obligations. The greater quantity and variety of obligations a particular currency can settle, the more useful it is as a reserve currency. The currency of a country that produces little of note and lacks funds to lend or invest is not nearly as useful as one whose home economy produces many goods and services desired around the world, serves as an important source of capital, and has many commercial partners who also find its currency relevant to meeting their own obligations. This idea — that the dominant reserve currency derives its status from its connection with the dominant national economy in an interconnected world – is what underlies Roubini’s reasoning that the Renminbi may be next in line to replace the Dollar.

But this conclusion misses something important. A reserve currency must not only be capable of settling obligations in connection with a heavy-weight economy. It must be required to. Because if you can settle those obligations, as sizeable and important as they may be, using your own currency — or the currency of another leading economy — there is no reason to hold that country’s currency as a reserve. That is precisely the case today with China.

During the 19th Century, Britain was virtually the world’s sole source of industrial products and capital for industrialization. Since the world came to London to buy and borrow, Britain could insist on being paid either in its own currency, or in a currency fixed, like the Pound, to gold. After World War I, the U.S. ended up with most of the world’s gold and took over Britain’s role as lead creditor. It, too, was in the position to demand payment in its own currency. And while the U.S. was never the sole supplier of industrial goods, its reliance on exports only rarely exceeded 10% of its GNP, giving it leverage over buyers. (When exports did exceed 10%, it was during the two world wars, when the U.S. enjoyed maximum economic leverage). If the world wanted to do business with America, it needed Dollars.

China, in contrast, relies on exports for 40% of its GDP. Its dependence on exports leaves it in no position to dictate payment terms. It must continue to accept dollars, Euros, and yen or cease to grow (I say this despite China’s recent efforts to stimulate domestic demand as a replacement). And because China accumulates so many dollars it has no use for, it all too happy to lend those dollars back to the U.S. (to be repaid in dollars). Nobody requires RMB to buy Chinese goods or repay Chinese loans. Dollars will easily do.

(2) Liquidity. Holding large amounts of reserves as cash carries a high opportunity cost. It is far preferable to invest those holdings temporarily and earn a return. However, such investments must highly liquid, so they can quickly and easily be redeemed when needed for use, without any significant loss in value. Part of the appeal of the Pound and the Dollar was due to the fact that their home economies hosted the world’s most developed capital markets of their day. Pound and dollar-denominated reserves did not sit idle, they could be invested in a wide variety of liquid instruments that enjoyed a ready market.

According to a 2006 McKinsey study, the United States accounts for 38% of the world’s capital markets (excluding bank deposits), including nearly half of all private debt securities. That does not even include dollar-denominated markets for trading commodities, such as petroleum.

China’s capital markets are tiny by comparison, accounting for merely 4% of the world total. To offer some perspective, China’s capital markets in 2006 were barely twice as large as its total foreign currency reserves, whereas U.S. capital markets were 23 times as large (and easily able to accommodate such investment, especially when commodity markets are added to the mix). While the precise valuations of all capital markets have fluctuated since 2006, the relative magnitudes have not significantly changed. Markets for investing dollars are at least 10 times deeper than markets for investing RMB. In particular, the Chinese market for fixed income securities — the preferred instrument for storing ready reserves — is severely underdeveloped and illiquid, in sharp contrast to U.S. Treasuries.

But the relative size of the market is just the tip of the iceberg. A more immediate problem is that most of China’s capital markets are off-limits to foreign investors. Even when owning domestic debt or equity securities is permitted — through a QFII fund or a strategic joint venture investment, or by getting special permission from SAFE and MOFCOM — the process of getting money into China and back out is usually lengthy and cumbersome. Nor can these securities be freely traded to other foreign investors, which severely limits their utility as foreign exchange. For foreigners, faced with so many capital controls, the Chinese market is simply not liquid. If you own a RMB asset, what can you do with it outside of China? In most cases, the answer is “nothing.”

(3) Availability. It may seem obvious, but to hold a reserve currency you first have to be able to get your hands on it. That means its economy must export currency. 19th Century Britain was a net exporter of goods, paid with gold, but it re-exported both pounds and gold by investing its capital around the world. From World War I to the early 1970s, the United States performed essentially the same role. At that point, it switched to become a major importer of capital, but continued supplying the world with dollars by running trade deficits. In both cases, the balance of payments made it possible for other countries to obtain access to Pounds (or gold) and Dollars to use as currency reserves.

China does not export currency. It runs a large and growing trade surplus and — if you exclude the management of its reserves — is a net importer of capital, in part because it effectively prohibits Chinese companies and individuals from investing abroad without government permission. Currency flows into China through both the current and the capital account, leaving it no way to flow out again. As long as this continues — as long as China’s government continues to bolster export-oriented growth and employment by buying up all that influx of currency, and by barring private outflows of capital – there is virtually no way for foreigners to build up net balances of RMB. Even if they wanted to hold RMB reserves, the one-way flow of funds would make it impractical.

(4) Safety. Holding sizeable amounts of any foreign currency puts the owner at the mercy of another country’s fiscal and monetary policy. If that country were to undermine the value of its currency, either by defaulting on its debts or printing too much money, whoever held that currency would suffer a real economic loss. So when deciding which currency to hold as a reserve, the credibility and responsibility of the issuer is a constant concern. The British resolved these concerns by linking their currency firmly to gold. So did the Americans until 1971. The gold standard ensured that neither Britain nor the U.S. could arbitrarily inflate their currencies and damage their value.
After 1971, the United States was no longer constrained by a fixed exchange rate with gold. Some thought that meant the end of the Dollar as a reliable reserve currency. But in the end, people decided to trust the U.S., at least for the time being. Since the days of Alexander Hamilton, even through a Civil War, it had never defaulted on its sovereign debt. And the Fed’s decision to crack down on inflation in 1981, even at the expense of a recession, inspired confidence. But such trust was never irrevocable. Today, in the face of burgeoning budget deficits, many are wondering whether the Dollar is still a “safe” currency — the Chinese foremost among them. This is precisely the reason why people are starting to talk about the Renminbi as a potential alternative.

China is an unknown quantity. It experienced hyperinflation and defaults in the early 20th Century, but under a different government. The U.S. has a long track record as a leader in global economic affairs; China has only just stepped onto the stage. Its authoritarian style of leadership and opaque decision-making processes can sometimes inspire distrust. Just as China is reconsidering whether it feels confident entrusting its assets to the U.S., the world will have to decide, over time, whether it feels confident entrusting theirs to China.

On all four counts — necessity, liquidity, availability, and safety — the evidence suggests that China’s Renminbi is a long way off from being an attractive and viable reserve currency. Of course, this situation could change. China could reduce its dependence on exports to the point where it can start insisting on its own payment terms. It could expand its capital markets and open them to foreign investment. It could buy more imports and allows its citizens to invest abroad, letting currency flow out as well as in. And it can develop a positive track record of economic leadership that involves considering other nations’ interests as well as its own. But all of these steps will involve a dramatic and sometimes painful restructuring of its economy, from an export-led growth model to a more balanced and open system. For now, China’s policies and priorities are more reflective of a country that holds currency reserves than one that supplies reserve currency to the world economy.

That’s where I’m going to stop today. In the next installment, I’ll talk about China’s recent moves to expand the use of the Renminbi, and what they really mean. These initiatives are significant, but not in the way they are often portrayed. If the Renminbi is not on track to becoming a global reserve currency, as I have argued, then what is.

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The U.S. Housing Market’s False Dawn

By Martin Hutchinson
Contributing EditorMoney Morning

Is the U.S. housing market truly at a turning point, as investors seem to increasingly believe? Or is this actually a false dawn, meaning that there are problems and pain ahead for those who turned bullish too soon?

New home sales jumped almost 10% in July, while the Case-Shiller home price index rose for the second successive month. Yet luxury homebuilder Toll Brothers lost $493 million in the quarter ending July 31, considerably worse than analysts had expected.

Housing stocks are certainly acting as if a recovery must be on the way. Pulte Homes Inc. (NYSE: PHM) has more than doubled from its low. Toll Brothers Inc. (NYSE: TOL) is up around 70% from its bottom. D.R. Horton Enterprises (NYSE: DHI) is up almost four times from its bottom. Lennar Corp. (NYSE: LEN) is up about 4½ times from its low. Finally, Hovnanian Enterprises Inc. (NYSE: HOV) is up almost tenfold from its low after a flirtation with bankruptcy. Yet all of these companies are still racking up quarterly losses, according to their most recently released earnings reports.

In terms of house prices, it would seem unlikely that a bear market bottom has been reached. Yes, the average house price is now back down around its long-term average of about 3.2 times average earnings, or only a little above it. But history suggests that markets don’t bottom at their average valuation: In fact, after such a huge excess to the upside, they overshoot on the downside.

The Case-Shiller 20-cities index is still 42% above its January 2000 level, having outpaced inflation during the last 9½ years. Yet January 2000 was not the bottom of a housing depression – far from it, in fact. That was actually close to the top of the dot-com bubble, when valuations of all assets were at all-time highs. So an average price over the whole country that – even now – remains 42% above the average price recorded at the very top of a huge economic boom does not seem like a market bottom to me.

You also have to remember that the U.S. federal government is hugely subsidizing the market. Interest rates are artificially low, and the U.S. Federal Reserve has bought more than $1 trillion worth of housing debt. Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) and Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) have been rescued by the government, and provided with more than $100 billion of taxpayer capital. And Ginnie Mae (the Government National Mortgage Association), directly a government agency, has provided almost $1 trillion of mortgages that require a 3% down payment.
And that’s not all.

The government is spending additional billions helping homeowners avoid foreclosure. First-time buyers are given a tax credit of $8,000 towards the down payment on their house – this credit currently runs out on December 1. So the current overall market bottom is propped up artificially. Even if the proposed tax-credit extension is approved, at some point, those props will be removed.

In individual cities, the picture is somewhat brighter. Phoenix and Las Vegas prices are less than 10% above their 2000 levels, having been halved from their respective peaks. In those markets, house prices may truly be reaching a bottom, although the overhang of foreclosures after such a huge drop may make recovery slow. At the other extreme, Detroit housing is 30% cheaper than in 2000, a testimony to the awful economic environment there, with the bankruptcies of General Motors Corp. and Chrysler Group LLC.

Again, with the government bailouts of both companies, there may be something of a recovery in the local housing market.

Probably the best prospects, however, are in Denver and Dallas, where prices are about 20% above their 2000 level, roughly in line with the increase in consumer prices during that same period. However, the local economies are strongly based on natural resources, particularly oil, whose price is triple its 2000 level. With prices in Dallas and Denver down only about 10% from their 2000 peaks, a true recovery in those cities may be near.

At the opposite extreme are the metropolitan “Big Three” of Los Angeles, New York and Washington, where prices are 61%, 71% and 74% above their 2000 levels, respectively.
Washington will be fine, of course: The Obama administration’s spending-and-legislation plans have attracted yet another huge influx of bureaucrats, lobbyists and lawyers, all of which will boost the housing market to new highs. With New York you have to worry about all the financial-services jobs being lost as a result of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

From a nationwide standpoint, the most likely path for the housing market is for a modest recovery, with some later slippage as subsidies are removed. Housing is likely destined to once again become a highly regional market, as it always was prior to the 2001-2006 market boom, with the cycles in each market being very different.

As for homebuilding stocks, they appear to already be discounting a recovery in their businesses that may well be years away. Selling at well above net asset value (NAV), with Price/Earnings (P/E) ratios that are infinite because the companies continue to lose money, shares of homebuilders represent a very poor value, indeed.

August 31, 2009

Op-Ed Columnist

Missing Richard Nixon

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Many of the retrospectives on Ted Kennedy’s life mention his regret that he didn’t accept Richard Nixon’s offer of a bipartisan health care deal. The moral some commentators take from that regret is that today’s health care reformers should do what Mr. Kennedy balked at doing back then, and reach out to the other side.

But it’s a bad analogy, because today’s political scene is nothing like that of the early 1970s. In fact, surveying current politics, I find myself missing Richard Nixon.

No, I haven’t lost my mind. Nixon was surely the worst person other than Dick Cheney ever to control the executive branch.

But the Nixon era was a time in which leading figures in both parties were capable of speaking rationally about policy, and in which policy decisions weren’t as warped by corporate cash as they are now. America is a better country in many ways than it was 35 years ago, but our political system’s ability to deal with real problems has been degraded to such an extent that I sometimes wonder whether the country is still governable.

As many people have pointed out, Nixon’s proposal for health care reform looks a lot like Democratic proposals today. In fact, in some ways it was stronger. Right now, Republicans are balking at the idea of requiring that large employers offer health insurance to their workers; Nixon proposed requiring that all employers, not just large companies, offer insurance.

Nixon also embraced tighter regulation of insurers, calling on states to “approve specific plans, oversee rates, ensure adequate disclosure, require an annual audit and take other appropriate measures.” No illusions there about how the magic of the marketplace solves all problems.

So what happened to the days when a Republican president could sound so nonideological, and offer such a reasonable proposal?

Part of the answer is that the right-wing fringe, which has always been around — as an article by the historian Rick Perlstein puts it, “crazy is a pre-existing condition” — has now, in effect, taken over one of our two major parties. Moderate Republicans, the sort of people with whom one might have been able to negotiate a health care deal, have either been driven out of the party or intimidated into silence. Whom are Democrats supposed to reach out to, when Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who was supposed to be the linchpin of any deal, helped feed the “death panel” lies?

But there’s another reason health care reform is much harder now than it would have been under Nixon: the vast expansion of corporate influence.

We tend to think of the way things are now, with a huge army of lobbyists permanently camped in the corridors of power, with corporations prepared to unleash misleading ads and organize fake grass-roots protests against any legislation that threatens their bottom line, as the way it always was. But our corporate-cash-dominated system is a relatively recent creation, dating mainly from the late 1970s.

And now that this system exists, reform of any kind has become extremely difficult. That’s especially true for health care, where growing spending has made the vested interests far more powerful than they were in Nixon’s day. The health insurance industry, in particular, saw its premiums go from 1.5 percent of G.D.P. in 1970 to 5.5 percent in 2007, so that a once minor player has become a political behemoth, one that is currently spending $1.4 million a day lobbying Congress.

That spending fuels debates that otherwise seem incomprehensible. Why are “centrist” Democrats like Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota so opposed to letting a public plan, in which Americans can buy their insurance directly from the government, compete with private insurers? Never mind their often incoherent arguments; what it comes down to is the money.

Given the combination of G.O.P. extremism and corporate power, it’s now doubtful whether health reform, even if we get it — which is by no means certain — will be anywhere near as good as Nixon’s proposal, even though Democrats control the White House and have a large Congressional majority.

And what about other challenges? Every desperately needed reform I can think of, from controlling greenhouse gases to restoring fiscal balance, will have to run the same gantlet of lobbying and lies.

I’m not saying that reformers should give up. They do, however, have to realize what they’re up against. There was a lot of talk last year about how Barack Obama would be a “transformational” president — but true transformation, it turns out, requires a lot more than electing one telegenic leader. Actually turning this country around is going to take years of siege warfare against deeply entrenched interests, defending a deeply dysfunctional political system.

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company