March 29, 2024

Senate Seeks to Punish China for Low Currency Rate

The bill, which faces an uphill battle from both the Republican-controlled House and a reluctant White House, would require the Treasury Department to determine whether China is manipulating its currency, and then order the Commerce Department to impose retaliatory tariffs on certain Chinese goods.

China intervenes in currency markets to keep the value of its currency, the renminbi, artificially low, which makes Chinese goods cheaper in the United States — a practice that lawmakers and some economists say undercuts American businesses and worsens the nation’s jobless rate.

“Trade has helped us export our values of a free democratic society,” said Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama and one of the bill’s co-sponsors, “but like democracy itself, trade must operate under a set of rules and values.”

 The measure, which goes further than a similar version that passed the Democratic-controlled House last year, cleared an initial procedural hurdle in the Senate on a 79-19 vote, with 16 Republicans and three Democrats opposed. It faces more debate before a final vote. The legislation would require the Treasury to use a lower standard for determining whether China’s currency was misaligned, prompting higher duties on Chinese imports. The Obama administration has pushed China to let its currency rise in value, but has stopped short of labeling it a manipulator.

While the debate over China’s currency is several years old, it has taken on new urgency amid a three-way race among the White House, House and Senate to write legislation to revive the job market. Senate Democrats, like Charles E. Schumer of New York, have chosen trade, a populist issue, while working behind the scenes to find a way to make President Obama’s jobs bill, which includes tax increases, more palatable to their members.

“This is a jobs bill because it is about American competitiveness,” said Senator Debbie Stabenow, Democrat of Michigan, another co-sponsor. Noting that auto suppliers have lost bids to Chinese companies because of the currency, she said leveling the playing field would create 1.6 million American jobs.

But while the Chinese currency measure enjoys Republican support in the Senate, it is viewed less favorably in the House, where Representative Dave Camp, the Michigan Republican who is chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, is expected to offer his own less aggressive version later this year. Some lawmakers fear that the measure would cause a trade war at a time when China has moved slowly to increase the value of its currency.

Representative Eric Cantor, Republican of Virginia and the House majority leader, said the bill could have “unintended consequences,” contributing perhaps to an increase in consumer prices.

The measure also puts the White House, which has recorded only limited success in lobbying China, in a tough spot. The press secretary, Jay Carney, said China’s currency had not gone up enough, but added, “We need to make sure that if we are pursuing this goal, a goal that we share with members of Congress, we need to do it in a way that’s consistent with our international obligations and is effective.”

The vote drew criticism from some lawmakers who said that at a time of economic crisis, the Senate had gotten its priorities wrong.

Similar criticisms came from some in the business community, who said that punishing China would not create more jobs at home, and would distract attention from more urgent issues, like lack of market access.

“Much of what we import from China is stuff we imported from somewhere else before that,” said John Frisbie, president of the U.S.-China Business Council, who noted that as costs rise in China, companies would simply move their factories to even cheaper countries. “If this is a jobs bill, it is a jobs bill for Vietnam.”

The renminbi has risen about 6 percent against the dollar since China loosened its peg in June 2010. Economists estimate it is still undervalued by 25 percent relative to the dollar. That disparity has spiked in recent weeks, as the dollar has risen, after a prolonged period of decline, because of the debt crisis in Europe.

China continues to run yawning trade surpluses with the United States: $273 billion in 2010, compared with $83 billion a decade earlier. But China’s trade surplus has declined, as a percentage of its overall economy, since 2007 — a trend that Chinese officials cite to argue that it is gradually moving to a market exchange rate.

“They say they’re on a glide path to currency equilibrium,” said Nicholas R. Lardy, an expert in the Chinese economy at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. With growth slowing in China, Mr. Lardy said it was highly unlikely that Beijing would risk anything that would slow its export engine.

Over time, tensions between the United States and China have shifted from the exchange rate to other issues, like intellectual property rights and measures that bar American companies from access to the Chinese market. Worries about currency have also waned as American corporations have established their own factories in China, enabling them to benefit from its cheap currency.

In a new survey of its members, the U.S.-China Business Council found that exchange rates ranked 27th on a list of concerns.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=ff2db5650a1b45c35fb0ec5b73effa16

Employers Say Jobs Plan Won’t Lead to Hiring Spur

That sentiment was echoed across numerous industries by executives in companies big and small on Friday, underscoring the challenge for the Obama administration as it tries to encourage hiring and perk up the moribund economy.

As President Obama faced an uphill battle in Congress to win support even for portions of the plan, many employers dismissed the notion that any particular tax break or incentive would be persuasive. Instead, they said they tended to hire more workers or expand when the economy improved.  

Companies are focused on jittery consumer confidence, an unstable stock market, perceived obstacles to business expansion like government regulation and, above all, swings in demand for their products.

“You still need to have the business need to hire,” said Jeffery Braverman, owner of Nutsonline, an e-commerce company in Cranford, N.J., that sells nuts and dried fruit. While a $4,000 credit could offset the cost of the company’s lowest-cost health insurance plan, he said, it would not spur him to hire someone. “Business demand is what drives hiring,” he said.

Indeed, the industries that are hiring workers now — like technology and energy — are those where business is strong, in contrast to the overall economy. Administration officials and some economists, of course, say they believe the president’s plan, if adopted, could help increase demand more broadly. The proposed payroll tax cuts for individuals should spur consumer spending and in turn, prompt companies to hire more people.

But the plan also includes incentives for companies to hire more workers, including a payroll tax cut for businesses and a $4,000 tax credit for those employers that hire people who have been out of work for six months or more.

To the extent these measures could be used, many employers said they would most likely support people whom companies were planning to hire anyway.

Chesapeake Energy, one of the biggest explorers of oil and gas in shale fields across the country, for example, said it had 800 positions open, and had already received tax credits for hiring the long-term unemployed.

But Michael Kehs, vice president for strategic affairs and public relations, said in an e-mail that the credit “does not drive our hiring.”

For others, the math just does not add up. Roger Tung, the chief executive of Concert Pharmaceuticals, said the company, a privately held biotechnology firm with 45 employees, would save $150,000 a year from the proposed corporate payroll tax deductions.

But that is still not enough to cover the cost of hiring even one additional employee at the Lexington, Mass., company, Mr. Tung said, once benefits and other expenses besides salary are included. He can hire, he said, only when the economy improves and private investors become confident again.

Economists estimated that President Obama’s plan, costing an estimated $447 billion if it were ever fully adopted, could create anywhere from 500,000 to nearly two million jobs next year.

Most of those jobs would be added, economists say, as workers spend the additional take-home pay that would result from a proposed payroll tax cut for employees. As consumers increase spending, that can prompt more hiring by retailers, washing machine makers, restaurants and more.

Some of the new jobs would also probably come from measures like the proposed $35 billion to retain or hire teachers, police and firefighters, as well as $30 billion to refurbish school buildings and $50 billion to build or repair highways, railroads, transit systems and waterways.

Construction workers in particular are in dire need of work, as they were among the hardest hit by the collapse of the housing market. More than a million construction workers are still looking for employment.

Reporting was contributed by Steve Lohr, Duff Wilson, Damon Darlin, Reed Abelson and Robb Mandelbaum in New York, Clifford Krauss in Houston and Andrew Pollack in Los Angeles.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: September 9, 2011

An earlier version of this article mistakenly referred to Clean Line Energy Partners as Clean Energy Partners.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=3a3dd540443e53ce15f5b0fdf1c3abe4

You’re the Boss: Top 10 Sales Tips

Jo Opot, TerraCycle's vice president of business development.Courtesy of TerraCycle.Jo Opot, TerraCycle’s vice president of business development.

Sustainable Profits

The challenges of a waste-recycling business.

My biggest sales lesson came from a good friend who is now our head of Canadian business development (a fancy term for sales), Robin Tator. Robin taught me that sales is not about what you are selling, but about making friends and about getting someone to see the world the way you do. If you do that, everything else will take care of itself.

Sales can be a melancholy job. On one hand, many people (especially nonsales people) feel that it’s sleazy and lowbrow. On the other hand, it can be the most important function of a business. Until there’s a sale, there is no business. Personally, I’ve gone from thinking the former to believing the latter and honing my skills over a decade to where today I am effectively the chief sales officer of TerraCycle. I don’t know exactly when this transition happened, but it took me a few years to embrace the power of sales the way I do today.

I recently wrote a friend who is starting a nonprofit and suggested that the role of a company leader is to become the chief convincing officer. In the end these two titles are synonymous, because selling is really the art of convincing someone to believe and buy into your concept, whether by buying your product or service or by investing in your company or by working for your company.

Here are my top 10 sales tips, all of which have served me and our staff — including Jo Opot, pictured above — for years:

  1. You can sell only if you yourself are convinced: If you are not sold on the product or service, it will be an uphill battle to sell someone on else. Your lack of conviction will scream through.
  2. Be clear and direct: When pitching do not use complicated diction. Pride yourself instead on being able to explain the concept as quickly, clearly and simply as possible. This is important because the biggest problem in sales is client confusion. Confusion does not lead to a Yes.
  3. Pressure is an art: Creating FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) in your client’s mind can be a good thing because it will lead to serious consideration of your concept. In the TerraCycle world, we award brand exclusivity by country and by category. I often need to tell potential clients that their competition is also talking with us. The trick is to mention this once and to NOT rub it in, which is likely to anger them. No one who is angered into saying Yes.
  4. Know your client: Make sure to research your potential clients, know their challenges and their needs. One size hardly ever fits all, and you look much stronger if you care about the business enough to invest in the research. I can’t tell you how many times I get cold calls from sales people who don’t even know what TerraCycle does.
  5. It’s all about the presentation: Building an amazing deck is critical to the sales process. Practice it, memorize it and be prepared to shift your emphasis based on how the energy changes when you give the presentation. Internally, we always ask ourselves: “Is the flow of this deck right? Will it convince?”
  6. Be passionate and exciting: Most presentations are BORING! So create a show and make it exciting. Excitement is contagious – just like a yawn.
  7. If you don’t know the answer, do not guess: People will ask you tough questions, and you may not always know the answer. The person asking you may be testing you, knowing the answer full well. And if you fumble, it’s very hard to rebuild credibility. Do not guess.
  8. Answer questions directly and clearly: If you are asked a question and you give a “politician’s answer” – in other words, if you don’t answer the question – your credibility will decline, and you will hurt your chances of making the sale.
  9. Humor is a great lubricator: Funny stories always break the ice. Instead of using business cards, everyone in our company uses stamps (see right) to leave our contact info. It’s eco-friendly, it never runs out and it makes for a nice ice-breaker at the beginning of every meeting.
  10. You can always be better: Sales is an art, not a science. Which means it’s never perfect and can always improve. TerraCycle has a standard sales deck most of our associates use. We’ve gone through 94 versions in the last three years and version 95 is around the corner.
  11. Bottom line: sales is a critical function that is more art than science, so hone your art. And please share any of the sales tips you’ve learned.

    Tom Szaky is the chief executive of TerraCycle, which is based in Trenton.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=da5ef6a896fd7f3ce3a3d578931eee30

You’re the Boss: My Top 10 Sales Tips

Jo Opot, TerraCycle's vice president of business development.Courtesy of TerraCycle.Jo Opot, TerraCycle’s vice president of business development.

Sustainable Profits

The challenges of a waste-recycling business.

My biggest sales lesson came from a good friend who is now our head of Canadian business development (a fancy term for sales), Robin Tator. Robin taught me that sales is not about what you are selling, but about making friends and about getting someone to see the world the way you do. If you do that, everything else will take care of itself.

Sales can be a melancholy job. On one hand, many people (especially nonsales people) feel that it’s sleazy and lowbrow. On the other hand, it can be the most important function of a business. Until there’s a sale, there is no business. Personally, I’ve gone from thinking the former to believing the latter and honing my skills over a decade to where today I am effectively the chief sales officer of TerraCycle. I don’t know exactly when this transition happened, but it took me a few years to embrace the power of sales the way I do today.

I recently wrote a friend who is starting a nonprofit and suggested that the role of a company leader is to become the chief convincing officer. In the end these two titles are synonymous, because selling is really the art of convincing someone to believe and buy into your concept, whether by buying your product or service or by investing in your company or by working for your company.

Here are my top 10 sales tips, all of which have served me and our staff — including Jo Opot, pictured above — for years:

  1. You can sell only if you yourself are convinced: If you are not sold on the product or service, it will be an uphill battle to sell someone on else. Your lack of conviction will scream through.
  2. Be clear and direct: When pitching do not use complicated diction. Pride yourself instead on being able to explain the concept as quickly, clearly and simply as possible. This is important because the biggest problem in sales is client confusion. Confusion does not lead to a Yes.
  3. Pressure is an art: Creating FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) in your client’s mind can be a good thing because it will lead to serious consideration of your concept. In the TerraCycle world, we award brand exclusivity by country and by category. I often need to tell potential clients that their competition is also talking with us. The trick is to mention this once and to NOT rub it in, which is likely to anger them. No one who is angered into saying Yes.
  4. Know your client: Make sure to research your potential clients, know their challenges and their needs. One size hardly ever fits all, and you look much stronger if you care about the business enough to invest in the research. I can’t tell you how many times I get cold calls from sales people who don’t even know what TerraCycle does.
  5. It’s all about the presentation: Building an amazing deck is critical to the sales process. Practice it, memorize it and be prepared to shift your emphasis based on how the energy changes when you give the presentation. Internally, we always ask ourselves: “Is the flow of this deck right? Will it convince?”
  6. Be passionate and exciting: Most presentations are BORING! So create a show and make it exciting. Excitement is contagious – just like a yawn.
  7. If you don’t know the answer, do not guess: People will ask you tough questions, and you may not always know the answer. The person asking you may be testing you, knowing the answer full well. And if you fumble, it’s very hard to rebuild credibility. Do not guess.
  8. Answer questions directly and clearly: If you are asked a question and you give a “politician’s answer” – in other words, if you don’t answer the question – your credibility will decline, and you will hurt your chances of making the sale.
  9. Humor is a great lubricator: Funny stories always break the ice. Instead of using business cards, everyone in our company uses stamps (see right) to leave our contact info. It’s eco-friendly, it never runs out and it makes for a nice ice-breaker at the beginning of every meeting.
  10. You can always be better: Sales is an art, not a science. Which means it’s never perfect and can always improve. TerraCycle has a standard sales deck most of our associates use. We’ve gone through 94 versions in the last three years and version 95 is around the corner.
  11. Bottom line: sales is a critical function that is more art than science, so hone your art. And please share any of the sales tips you’ve learned.

    Tom Szaky is the chief executive of TerraCycle, which is based in Trenton.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=da5ef6a896fd7f3ce3a3d578931eee30