Posts Tagged
‘international trade’
by ilene - October 9th, 2010 2:01 am
Courtesy of Michael Snyder at Economic Collapse
Some top Federal Reserve officials have come up with a really bizarre proposal for stimulating the U.S. economy. As unbelievable as it sounds, what they actually propose to do is to purposely raise the rate of inflation so that Americans will stop saving so much money and will start spending wildly again. The idea behind it is that if inflation rises a couple of percentage points, but consumers are only earning half a percent (or less) on their savings accounts, then there will be an incentive for consumers to spend that money as the value of it deteriorates sitting in the bank.
Yes, that is how bizarre things have gotten. It is not as if U.S. consumers are even saving that much money. Several decades ago, Americans typically saved between 8 and 12 percent of their incomes, but over this past decade the personal saving rate got down near zero a number of times as Americans were living far beyond their means. Once the recession hit, Americans very wisely started saving more money, and so now the personal saving rate has been hovering around the 5 to 7 percent range. This is well below historical levels, but the folks at the Fed apparently are eager for Americans to pull that money out and start spending it again.
In an article entitled "Fed Officials Mull Inflation as a Fix", Wall Street Journal columnist Sudeep Reddy described this bizarre new economic approach that some over at the Federal Reserve are now advocating….
"But as the U.S. economy struggles and flirts with the prospect of deflation, some central bank officials are publicly broaching a controversial idea: lifting inflation above the Fed’s informal target."
Does increasing inflation as a way to stimulate the economy sound like a good idea to any of you?…
Tags: Congress, Currencies, deflation, Federal Reserve, inflation, international trade, Obama, paper money, savings, spending, US Dollar, US economy, wealth
Posted in Phil's Favorites | 3 Comments »
by ilene - September 3rd, 2010 1:55 am
Courtesy of Michael Snyder at Economic Collapse
When you mention the word "globalism" to most people, they think of something that is going to happen someday in the future. But the truth is that globalism is already here. At this point we essentially already have a one world economy. Goods and services flow across national borders more freely today than at any other point in human history. A major economic event on one side of the world instantly affects financial markets on the other side of the world. Labor has become a truly global commodity. You can go to the exact same fast food restaurant or buy the exact same iPod on six different continents. A whole host of international trade agreements are making national borders economically irrelevant.
Today our "big box" stores and shopping malls are jammed full with products that have been made overseas and it is becoming increasingly difficult to find American-made products. The reality is that it has now become undeniable that globalism has arrived and we are now part of a world economy that is integrating at lightning speed. Unfortunately, all of this globalism has created some very clear winners and losers. But most middle class Americans are in such a deep sleep that they don’t even realize that they are the losers.
The sad truth is that as work has become a global commodity, middle class American workers have been placed in direct competition with the cheapest labor in the world. For years the U.S. economy was so strong that nobody really noticed that it was bleeding thousands of jobs every single month. But now that 14 million Americans are unemployed and the U.S. economy is literally hemorrhaging jobs people are starting to sit up and take notice.
Let’s take a look at one recent example. Ford Motor Company has just announced the closure of a facility that produces the Ford Ranger in St. Paul, Minnesota. Approximately 750 good paying jobs are going to be lost.
But isn’t Ford doing better these days?
Sure.
Don’t people still need Ford Rangers?
Of course they do.
Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty even offered Ford a multi-million dollar incentive package full of tax cuts…
Tags: American jobs, cheap labor, Ford Motor Company, globalism, Globalization, international trade, manufacturing, Offshoring jobs, one world economy, overseas, shopping malls, US economy
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by ilene - December 2nd, 2009 12:57 pm
Courtesy of Michael Pettis of China Financial Markets
The stock market had a bad day today, with the SSE Composite down 3.62%, mainly on rumors that banks will be seeking to raise equity capital next year in response to their loan surge this year. On Tuesday Bloomberg reported that the five largest banks were supposed to have submitted plans to regulators for raising money, after unprecedented lending eroded their capital.
I would argue that a more compelling reason to raise capital is the almost-certain surge in NPLs over the next three or four years. In fact I am pretty surprised that these rumors caught the market by surprise. Every time that banks have engineered a policy-induced surge in lending, they have followed up with a surge in NPLs [non-performing loans], and it would be pretty extraordinary if this time were any different. A refusal to raise capital levels would have been very imprudent, and it is pretty clear that the PBoC and the CBRC are already worried about the impacts of the credit expansion on the banking system.
Raising capital by selling equity is one way for banks to protect themselves from the consequences of bad lending, but I have been arguing for a long time that the main way banks have been recapitalized in the past has been the very wide spread between the PBoC-mandated lending and deposit rates. This was more or less confirmed in an interesting but perhaps little noticed speech last week by Governor Zhou. According to an article in Reuters,
China needs to maintain a certain spread between deposit and lending rates in order for banks to be able to support the economy, Zhou Xiaochuan, the governor of the People’s Bank of China, said on Friday. The central bank sets a ceiling on the rates banks may pay depositors and a floor on their lending rates. The built-in margin is a rich source of profit for Chinese banks that strengthens their balance sheets.
Speaking at a forum, the central bank chief also said China must ensure that its pro-investment policies do not lead to overcapacity, which he said was already plaguing some sectors.
The low deposit rates mean that Chinese savers are effectively being taxed to replenish bank capital. Although this may be…
Tags: Banks, CHINA, exports, Interest Rates, international trade, Michael Pettis, NPLs
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by ilene - July 2nd, 2009 2:11 pm
Courtesy of Jesse’s Café Américain
China is proposing a new reserve currency regime less dependent on the dollar, along with other BRIC countries, and the US and its financial allies in the status quo will resist change because it is in their short term interest to do so.
China can take ‘pre-emptive’ action by diversifying its holdings ahead of any change, and there are some indications that it is doing so already. But while the dollar is the prime medium of international trade, China must buy dollars to support its mercantilist industrial policy. Its own alternative is to boost its domestic consumption and ‘grow a middle class’ which in some minds erodes the power of the narrow political elite which rules the country.
The US needs to stand firm in some areas, and acquiesce in others. Standing firm with regard to the yuan being free of a peg and currency controls is one area that ought to have been sine qua non when first Clinton and then Bush gave China its openings as a preferred trading partner even while maintaining de facto industrial subsidies through its currency and markets.
The first line of negotiation will be to agree on a dollar substitute, which will probably be the SDR. The US will resist and delay this as long as is possible.
The fallback position then will be the composition of the SDR, and a long phasing of the change in the primacy of the dollar and a few G7 currencies. China will seek more diversity and the inclusion of gold and silver, which is anathema to the Wall Street banking cartel.
The US must change or face more seismic, involuntary dislocations. As Britain surrendered its far flung colonial Empire, so the US must downsize its financial sector, restore balance to its own economy and its place in the world economy, and relinquish the primary reserve currency status which has become a powerful instrument of manipulation by the Wall Street banking cartel.
The dollar is the last, the mother of bubbles. Few understand this even now.
The epic US credit expansion was enabled by the preferred position of US debt instruments as the reserve currency of the world. The bond and the dollar are the absolute foundation of that debt pyramid.
Those days are undeniably over.
…
Tags: banking cartel, BRIC countries, Bubbles, change, CHINA, Dollar, financial sector, international trade, reserve currency, SDR, United States
Posted in Phil's Favorites | No Comments »
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW. She manages the site