Friday, June 10, 2011

Then shut up and buy EURO's: China claims US already defaulting?

Yahoo:

A Chinese ratings house has accused the United States of defaulting on its massive debt, state media said Friday, a day after Beijing urged Washington to put its fiscal house in order.

“In our opinion, the United States has already been defaulting,” Guan Jianzhong, president of Dagong Global Credit Rating Co. Ltd., the only Chinese agency that gives sovereign ratings, was quoted by the Global Times saying.

Washington had already defaulted on its loans by allowing the dollar to weaken against other currencies — eroding the wealth of creditors including China, Guan said.

You must be kidding. That means if we stop spending, and the dollar itself appreciates, you will return that bonus? If you decide to hold ANY ASSET, dollars, shekel, ruble, yuan, EU, diamonds, cars, oil, water, you are holding risk. If you are worried about risk minimization, the dollar is the best bet on the planet. JUST LOOK AROUND THE WORLD. If you are worried about appreciation vs inflated depreciation, study up and become day traders, AND STOP WHINING about the nature of your business…managing investment wealth by rating risk.

Guan did not immediately respond to AFP requests for comment.

The US government will run out of room to spend more on August 2 unless Congress bumps up the borrowing limit beyond $14.29 trillion — but Republicans are refusing to support such a move until a deficit cutting deal is reached.

Ratings agency Fitch on Wednesday joined Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s to warn the United States could lose its first-class credit rating if it fails to raise its debt ceiling to avoid defaulting on loans.

A downgrade could sharply raise US borrowing costs, worsening the country’s already dire fiscal position, and send shock waves through the financial world, which has long considered US debt a benchmark among safe-haven investments.

China is by far the top holder of US debt and has in the past raised worries that the massive US stimulus effort launched to revive the economy would lead to mushrooming debt that erodes the value of the dollar and its Treasury holdings.

Beijing cut its holdings of US Treasury securities for the fifth month in a row to $1.145 trillion in March, down $9.2 billion from February and 2.6 percent less than October’s peak of $1.175 trillion, US data showed last month.

Foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei on Thursday urged the United States to adopt “effective measures to improve its fiscal situation”.

Dagong has made a name for itself by hitting out at its three Western rivals, saying they caused the financial crisis by failing to properly disclose risk.

The Chinese agency, which is trying to build an international profile, has given the United States and several other nations lower marks than they received from the the big three.

12 comments:

ronmorgen said...

Washington is defaulting by allowing the dollar to weaken by pumping un-backed dollars into the system. In so doing, they are stealing from everyone to build their big government utopia. Watch the price of gold increase. It is a good indication of the decrease of the dollar.
http://www.goldprice.org/spot-gold.html

Pastorius said...

America is engaged in economic warfare against China. And, guess what? America will win.

Pastorius said...

My theory is that is what the stimulus, and some of the other seemingly egregious economic maneuvers, have been about, in the past few years.

That was the armament period of an economic war.

I've been saying for three years now, haven't I, MR?

Pastorius said...

China is squawking now, because they are beginning to see the jig is up for them.

Pastorius said...

Of course, I could very well be wrong. After all, I'm an idiot.

midnight rider said...

Nah, you're not an idiot. And you have been saying this for as long as I've known you.

Still for the harm or non-good the stimuless and other bonehead moves have caused I rather wish'd they hadn't.

But, I'm a complete dollard when it comes to world economics (like Herman Cain on foreign policy) which is why I comment so little on them.

Ciccio said...

The only country of in Europe which follows the EU rules on budgets and spending is actually not in the EU -
Switzerland. Thirty years ago the Swiss franc was worth about 25¢. Today it is $1.19. That does not mean the Swiss economy has grown that much or that the country got so much richer, it means that the States has gone that much downhill.

Pastorius said...

MR,
When I said I am an idiot, I meant the same thing as you calling yourself a dullard.

I just don't know much about Economics.

midnight rider said...

Yeah, it's just something that I've never been able to really grasp.

Ciccio said...

Here is a very simple lesson in economics. The King declared a penny is to be 1/240th of a pound of silver.
Hence 12 pennies to the shilling, 20 shillings to the pound.

Down the road the new King is spending more money than he has -
BUDGET DEFICIT - and decides to solve his money woes the easy way by mixing base metal with his silver when pressing coins - QUANTITATIVE EASING.
The peasant groan and mutter, price is going up and so on and so forth but they don't count and nobody has ever listened to them. INFLATION.
The goldsmith and the importers and the exporters to whom money is just what it weighs and not what it says on the coin say : 20 shilliings to the pound with this crap, no way, we want 66 shillings. CHINA SAYS US DEFAULTING.

That's all you need to know about economics, it is in fact a very condensed history of the British currency, the £ sterling was originally that, one pound sterling silver. Twelve ounces to the pound troy, at current prices it would be about $ 480. The actual exchange rate is $1.60

Pastorius said...

Although I did not know the specifics, I do understand that much of economics.

I do not believe in a silver standards, or a gold standard for money. I think it is an illusion

I think units of money are, instead, a temperature gauge of the creativity of a society.

We have become less creative, because creativity is simply not rewarded to the same extent under Obama as it has been in the past.

The more government interference (up to and including taxes) the less creative we will be, resulting in our money being worth less and less.

Another definition of the worth of money is that, money is worth that which other nations are willing to pay for it.

When China says we are defaulting, what they are saying is, our money is not worth enough for them (at this point) that they would be willing to pay the same rate today as they did last year.

Gotta laugh at that.

They are, essentially, whining and complaining.

No one gets to pay the same as last year FOR ANYTHING.

Fuck China.

In a land war, we devalue the life of the enemy by killing him.

In an economic war, we devalue the life of an enemy by making his goods become worth less.

It's the same thing as in an old-fashioned "Gas War". Remember those? There used to be two or three gas stations on every corner. One of them would decide he was going to try to take market share from the other two by lowering the price, forcing them to also lower their price.

It was a war because he was making it so his enemies goods were worth less.

Now, of course, in a war, one's owns goods are worth less, because one is cheapening the value of one's own goods as well.

But, such is war.

We go to war if we think we are smarter than the enemy and/or that we can beat him in a game of attrition.

That's the situation with us vis a vis China.

This has been in the planning stages for a long time now, in my opinion.

The only difference now is that we are seeing the blatant executing stage right now.

But, the war has been going on for a while.

Epaminondas said...

But ciccio, you've left out the magic bullet... the fed.

.............................
I made some promises to Mrs. Epa for a nice boat or something. Actually it doesn't matter what.

I am having trouble getting the money I need, you see. Well actually I don't need it, I want it.

But I have some ideas.

I have nice new BIG digital color printing press and I am going to print up Epa bonds.

I am going to start a corporation. And that corporation will have two business services.

The first service will be to buy those bonds.
Since the corporation HAS no money, the second service will be to print the money it will buy the bonds with and loan to me.

When my corporation makes interest when I pay myself back, I get that money too.

Whenever I detect I am short of money, I will just make more bonds.

Maybe, since this is an unlimited source of money, and others might want some interest money too, I might let others buy them besides my new corporation. If I have trouble paying these other bonds off, guess what? I will make special bonds only my corporation can buy, and the newly printed money I get from my corporation will pay off those other bonds I let others buy, besides my corporation.

But any way you look at it, since I can make as many Epa bonds as I want, what does it matter?

What could go wrong?