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Experts warn debt may threaten US economy
Washington DC, USA: Experts say that it would cost every American man, woman and child US$145,000 to pay the bill for the long-term promises the U.S. government has made to creditors, retirees, veterans and the poor.

This figure incidentally does not include credit card bills, mortgages and all other debt that each American has racked up personally. As for savings, the average American puts away barely US$1 of every US$100 earned.

In the global marketplace, as a society America spends US$1.9bn more a day on imported clothes and cars and gadgets than the entire rest of the world spends on its goods and services. A new Associated Press/Ipsos poll finds that barely a third of Americans would cut spending to reduce the federal deficit and even fewer would raise taxes.

Not surprisingly, economists, government officials and elected leaders, both conservative and liberal, are warning that America's nonstop borrowing has put the nation on the road to a major fiscal disaster. David Walker, who audits the federal government's books as the U.S. comptroller general, put it starkly in an interview with the AP:

"I believe the country faces a critical crossroad and that the decisions that are made, or not made, within the next 10 years or so will have a profound effect on the future of our country, our children and our grandchildren. The problem gets bigger every day, and the tidal wave gets closer every day."

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan echoed those worries just last week, warning that the federal budget deficit hampered the nation's ability to absorb possible shocks from the soaring trade deficit and the housing boom. He criticized the nation's "hesitancy to face up to the difficult choices that will be required to resolve our looming fiscal problems."
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EU trade chief urges release of Chinese garments from customs
London: Seeking ways to resolve an increasingly acrimonious dispute, Peter Mandelson, European Union trade chief, will urge EU member states this week to unblock millions of Chinese garments from customs warehouses, arguing that importers and retailers have the right to receive goods ordered before a new EU quota system for Chinese imports was put in place.

"If the member states cooperate, I believe we will be able to unblock all the goods currently held at customs in the middle of next month," the EU trade chief said.

But he could face opposition from textile producers such as France, Italy, Spain and Portugal, countries whose textile manufacturers are finding strong competition from China, if a deal unleashes millions of extra pullovers, trousers, bras and blouses onto the European market.

Chinese and EU negotiators finished a fifth day of talks Sunday on how the blocked goods should be treated under the June 10 quota deal.

According to the Financial Times, UK, EU negotiators in Beijing are proposing a combination of three solutions on how to treat goods ordered by retailers that exceed import quotas.

The first is to exclude some blocked goods from this year's quotas on grounds that they were ordered in good faith before the quota system was fully operational.

The second is to transfer some oversubscribed goods such as pullovers or bras to under-subscribed quotas for items such as cotton fabrics.

And the third is to deduct some blocked goods from next year's Chinese quota.
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