Courtesy of The Automatic Earth
Albert Freeman Effect of gasoline shortage in Washington, DC 1942
Nicole Foss recently participated in a live Skype ‘forum’ discussion at the Doomstead Diner site that also included among others, Gail Tverberg and Ugo Bardi. I declined to participate, too many cooks and all that, and seeing how long this thing went on, I have no doubt that was a good decision. Even if my absence obviously reduced the potential charm and entertainment value considerably.
I’ll run this in episodes. Today’s post contains the first.
Part II – Economics at the end of the Age of Oil
The site blurb:
China Currency Devaluation
Q: Perhaps the biggest mover in the credit markets these days is China. They have a huge shadow banking industry, and have been the recipients of a lot of ‘hot money’ seeking high yield returns for years. however, they are now rapidly devaluing their own currency of the Yuan or Renminbi, basically destroying the carry trade across the currency pair with the dollar. Can currency devaluation help the Chinese? What are the knock on effects across the rest of the developing world and industrialized countries?
Market Manipulation
Q:The Chinese devaluation brings up another question, that of market manipulation. The Chinese not only banned short selling on their bourses, they in fact banned selling entirely. Here on our own markets, HFT programs are regularly causing market flash crashes in various sectors, and there is constant talk of manipulation in the PMs. How pervasive is this manipulation, and how long can it work to keep the system running?
