short sided. we can expand production from 6 million barrels a day to 10 million a day with conservation we can cut down what we import by a couple million barrels a day. then that money stays here, stimulates our economy, creates jobs. jared, you were in the white house until recently. what is the administration s thoughts on boosting the economic production even in the wake of the bp scandal? not all that different from what peter was just expressing. obviously in the wake of that real disave thor in the gulf, you know, we re not the folks a the white house are by no means ready to throw any of the kind of protective measures overboard the way some folks have add vericated but i want to say something about peter s point. one of the things that always gets under my skin, you are absolutely right that more domestic production would help. but the oil companies have all of the incentives they need and all of the available land they need to do a lot more production
they re doing great. i think there is one other piece to this, peter, see if we agree on this. let s not forget this is a finite resource and the mark set sending a signal. i agree with your introduction matt that this is pinching families big time. an interesting sideline here, payroll tax holiday kind of amounts to the same pmt amt that increase in gas is stucking out of the system. a bit of an offset there. but the fact is that the mark set sending a signal to conserve and we see consumers responding to that and that s not a bad thing. let me build on that point. peter let me ask first to you. jared, i want your view on this. one of the things i have trouble reconciling in my mind, europe is paying dlb 8, $7, $9 a gallon and that s through higher taxes on gas and other carbon based energy. as a result they have a lot more incentive to drive smaller car.
china is determined to increase its domestic demand in a way that japan was never prepared to do so. so i think it s a wheel that will turn, it will turn slowly, and i suspect not fast enough for my good friend peter. so your take on this. if president obama does get tough on china, is richard right that just means folks in the u.s. will be paying more no for goods? you would pay no information certain things. however, it only workses for you if you get to keep your job. free trade is great if you goat move workers when they lose their job to imports to something else. you we unfortunately, a lot of people lost their jobs all together. and the u.s. consumer really has taken a beating and president obama says we ll double exports to create jobs here at home. so where in the whole world really are these new consumers for u.s. goods really going to come from? there are plenty of consumers.
the trade deficit is agreeing aagree froeing and the culprit once again is china. americans consume more than we produce. china produces goods at a fraction of the price that we can here in the u.s. in part because of the way it values its currency. peter moricci is an economist and professor. you say that we either get china to play fair or we re headed for a depression. absolutely. if china doesn t play fair, there s just not a demand for what americans make. businesses need customers and capital. the customer side, there s just not enough demand for what americans make because we spend so much in china. it undervalues its currency by 40% or 50%. either we re going to grow very slowly or we ll tank. but we re not going to recover quickly enough to get unemployment below 9%.
commented on the partisan resistan resistance. too often the republican leadership in the united states senate chooses to filibuster our recovery and obstruct our progress. that has very real consequences. lawmakers argue over whether it s good or bad, this bill tonight we are going right to the bottom line here. what does this huge bill mean to the little guy, to the everyday consumer? professor peter moricci from the university of maryland joins us. good to see you. nice to be with you. what immediate changes will we see with this? let s start with credit cards? well, credit cards will be clearer. for example, i have my latest bill from hsbc. it tells me if i make the minimum payment it will take me 20 years to pay it off and the interest charges will be almost double the principal that s here. if i make a larger payment it will take only three years to