The relationship between the world’s great economic powers — the U.S., Europe and China — will be in transition in 2013, and changing political leadership is a big reason why, says Daniel Franklin, editor of The Economist magazine’s “The World in 2013."

The relationship between China's new leader Xi Jinping and President Barack Obama “is absolutely the crucial one now for global politics,” Franklin tells The Daily Ticker.

Related: U.S. Refuses to Label China a 'Currency Manipulator' but All Countries Manipulate Their Currencies

Franklin says both men need to keep U.S.-China trade flowing. China is the second largest trading partner of the U.S. Last year $503 billion worth of goods were exchanged between the two countries. 80% of those items were U.S. imports from China.

Franklin says both countries also need to work on resolving disputes between China and other countries over ownership of islands in the South China Sea. Many of those countries, including Japan, South Korea, Taiwan

Editor's note: This post originally appeared on Business Insider

A common argument you hear from conservatives is that raising taxes on the rich is a joke of a deficit reduction proposal, because it hardly makes a dent in the deficit.

According to CNBC, reverting to Clinton-era levels would just get you about $40 billion to $45 billion in the first year.

GOP Congressman Tom Price has gotten a lot of attention for saying it would only fund the government for eight days... so what's the point?

So what is the point?

Well, it's not really about deficit reduction at all.

Related: Higher Taxes Will Create Jobs and Cut the Deficit: David Cay Johnston

Zachary Goldfarb at The Washington Post has a great piece on how Democrats once vehemently opposed the Bush tax cuts, but are now trying to permanently preserve all of them for the vast majority of taxpayers. One big reason is that the economy has changed, and there's a recognition among virtually everyone that the economy is too weak to let