China and the U.S.: Too Big to Fail
by ilene - February 4th, 2010 2:22 am
China and the U.S.: Too Big to Fail
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By Jeffrey Wasserstrom, courtesy of TIME
Beijing has fervently denounced U.S. President Barack Obama’s plan to sell more arms to Taiwan, and loudly demanded that he break his coming date with the Dalai Lama. Is this proof that China-U.S. relations have entered a radically new and deeply worrisome phase?
It’s tempting to see it that way. There has been much talk of China ruling the world and the clash of civilizations this would prompt. Much has been made of the notion that Chinese leaders have been showing an unexpected cockiness vis-à-vis the U.S. of late, tightly controlling what Obama did when in China, refusing to follow American leads in Copenhagen and then lambasting Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for criticizing Beijing in a Jan. 21 speech on Internet freedom. But it’s a temptation worth resisting.
China’s long, slow return to great-power status is of historic importance and something that will lead to recalibrations of many diplomatic relationships, including that between Washington and Beijing. But as foolish as it would be to ignore this, it’s equally foolish to see too much novelty in headline-grabbing stories that fit neatly within established patterns. Chinese officials have expressed outrage before about meetings between foreign leaders and the Dalai Lama. And the Taiwan arms tale follows an even more familiar script. There’s nothing new about a U.S. Administration announcing, as Obama’s just did, that it’s going to sell military hardware to Taiwan. Nor is there anything new about Beijing treating this announcement as proof that the U.S. lacks respect for Chinese sovereignty and for the principles of the "one China" policy that, since the 1970s, has provided the groundwork for relations between the two.
Both sides need to guard against overstating the extent to which the landscape of the international order has changed and against treating China’s rise as a more exotic development than it actually is. Keeping these four things in mind should help:
• Just as all politics is local (to a degree), all diplomacy is domestic (to a large extent). China’s dramatic growth may have increased its ability to be less deferential toward the U.S. But when officials loudly proclaim that foreign leaders should steer clear of the Dalai Lama, lash out against Clinton’s "information imperialism" or stoke popular indignation about Taiwan, their motivation is largely a desire to…
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THE GREAT LIQUIDITY RACE – WHY GOLD WILL SOAR
by ilene - October 29th, 2009 1:52 pm
THE GREAT LIQUIDITY RACE – WHY GOLD WILL SOAR
Courtesy of The Pragmatic Capitalist
Paul Tudor Jones appears to have shifted from the bear market rally camp to the bull market camp. As of our last update he was firmly in the position that the market had rallied too much and was due for a downturn. Late last summer Tudor Jones stated his desire not to chase the 45% rally in stocks and rather, buy into an autumn downturn in anticipation for a year end rally:
While 45% is nothing to ignore, one should take into account that the S&P through July 31 is still down more than 20% on a price basis year-over-year. The bottom line is that we are not inclined to aggressively chase the market here. Rather, we eye a better opportunity to be long equities into year-end on a potential autumnal pullback.
He has changed his tune a bit now and believes the economy has the potential to remain quite robust into Q2 of 2010 as Fed policy remains accommodative, the dollar remains weak and inventory de-stocking continues:
The forceful policy response to avert depression tail risks posed by the financial crisis has likely unleashed a wave of liquidity which is probably greater than that of 2001-2003. Our job is to identify the best performing assets of this “Great Liquidity Race.” At present, it appears those assets are gold, emerging market equities denominated in local currencies, and commodity related stocks.
Liquidity is making its way into bond purchases by banks, into equity markets, into capital flows to emerging markets and into international reserve accumulation and related diversification away from the dollar. This will be the trend over the next quarter—or two—even before discussing potential portfolio shifts within it.
Due to this easy money approach he is becoming heavily invested in gold and other precious metals as he expects metals to win the “great liquidity race”:
“precious metals exposure has been increasing and is currently the largest commodity exposure. As a result we have included, for this quarter, a separate discussion on gold as an appendix. I have never been a gold bug. It is just an asset that, like everything else in life, has its time and place. And now is that time.”
In the bond market he likes Curve Flatteners as inflation is likely to pick-up in the coming quarters. …
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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