Perspectives on the global economic meltdown- (Nov 28 2010)

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TSJones
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown- (Nov 28 20

Post by TSJones »

Another factor I think is that at least in America, currency is in the form of script (personal and business checks), debit and credit cards. Over 50% of the greenback dollars are *overseas* not in the US. I don't hardly use any currency and really within my social/economic group I don't know anybody else that does either. I never have more than $20-$40 dollars on me in actual cash. No way. So any new reserve currency is going to have to take that into consideration at least for most Americans.
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown- (Nov 28 20

Post by TSJones »

wong wrote:
Suraj wrote: As for the Chinese, my view is that they'll lose around $1-1.5 trillion of their forex holdings no matter what they do. That's just too much hoarded nominal holdings to effectively manage. The far east Financial Times edition a couple of days ago reported how NO one wanted to head the CIC, which is in the agency in charge of investing the Chinese forex reserve load. Even the vice-mayor of Shanghai ran away like a cowering SDRE - no small matter considering all chosen nominees have to explain their rejection to the President and Premier, who head the committee to find the new head. The problem is that everyone knows huge losses may be hidden on the books, and no one wants to kill their career by being the scapegoat.
57% of CIC assets are outsourced to professional money managers around the world. The sovereign wealth fund only has $500 billion in assets. To lose $1 Trillion dollar is impossible. Even if it was possible, it would be a 20 sigma event and pretty much the end of the world. If you mean China will lose 50% of its $3.2 Trillion forex, short of a selective default by the US, that also would be pretty much impossible. The day the US defaults on its debts is the day the US dollar ceases being a reserve currency. If you mean the dollar will collapse, that's also pretty much impossible as long as the US military guarantees the Arabs must accept US dollars in trade for petroleum. In the meantime, China will continue to buy as much commodity real assets as possible with its American IOUs. It just bought $7 billion worth of pigs yesterday.
China didn't buy the pig, they bught the brand or the operation there of.

Also the US imports about 10% of its oil from the Persian gulf and that may be dwindleing as new technology comes on line.
Last edited by TSJones on 31 May 2013 01:27, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown- (Nov 28 20

Post by svinayak »

How can you trust ANY fiat currency? The only reason the USD hasn't collapsed is b/c the rest of the world pegs their currency to it. ....lucky for the US. But not for long. Once foreign entities abandon the dollar because they see the US Govt is heading toward default, they will abandon the Dollar, quit buying US debt, and the US Govt will be forced to economically enslave


In a way, the Chinese have no choice - they are stuck holding worthless US$ (exporters are required to exchange the dollars from US trade into yuan) which they exchange for worthless US debt. guess the Chinese are just tired of accumulating more worthless US$.
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown- (Nov 28 20

Post by wong »

TSJones wrote:
China didn't buy the pig, they bught the brand or the operation there of.

Also the US imports about 10% of its oil from the Persian gulf and that may be dwindleing as new technology comes on line.
Sure, it bought a pig company with no pigs. Yeah, right buddy.

Petroleum is traded in US dollars. It's that petroleum that gives dollars most of its value.
And you thought it was your American 'Exceptionalism', didn't you??
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown- (Nov 28 20

Post by member_26147 »

wong wrote:
Suraj wrote: As for the Chinese, my view is that they'll lose around $1-1.5 trillion of their forex holdings no matter what they do. That's just too much hoarded nominal holdings to effectively manage. The far east Financial Times edition a couple of days ago reported how NO one wanted to head the CIC, which is in the agency in charge of investing the Chinese forex reserve load. Even the vice-mayor of Shanghai ran away like a cowering SDRE - no small matter considering all chosen nominees have to explain their rejection to the President and Premier, who head the committee to find the new head. The problem is that everyone knows huge losses may be hidden on the books, and no one wants to kill their career by being the scapegoat.
57% of CIC assets are outsourced to professional money managers around the world. The sovereign wealth fund only has $500 billion in assets. To lose $1 Trillion dollar is impossible. Even if it was possible, it would be a 20 sigma event and pretty much the end of the world. If you mean China will lose 50% of its $3.2 Trillion forex, short of a selective default by the US, that also would be pretty much impossible. The day the US defaults on its debts is the day the US dollar ceases being a reserve currency. If you mean the dollar will collapse, that's also pretty much impossible as long as the US military guarantees the Arabs must accept US dollars in trade for petroleum. In the meantime, China will continue to buy as much commodity real assets as possible with its American IOUs. It just bought $7 billion worth of pigs yesterday.
Commodities are also severely leveraged in the markets and their value doesn't always methodically increase, which is the underlying assumption in your argument. What is so great about buying 7 billion worth of pigs? It only brings more money back into the United States.
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown- (Nov 28 20

Post by wong »

^^^^

Physical vs. Financial. Both have their purpose. Financial is merely synthetic storage of the physical. What can they do with billions of dollars worth of pigs?? I don't know. Eat it?? Chinese people do enjoy their pork.
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown- (Nov 28 20

Post by TSJones »

wong wrote:
TSJones wrote:
China didn't buy the pig, they bught the brand or the operation there of.

Also the US imports about 10% of its oil from the Persian gulf and that may be dwindleing as new technology comes on line.
Sure, it bought a pig company with no pigs. Yeah, right buddy.

Petroleum is traded in US dollars. It's that petroleum that gives dollars most of its value.
And you thought it was your American 'Exceptionalism', didn't you??
Well I went to Smithfield's corporate web site and it appears that they do raise their own hogs. They started this in the 1980's. They are the largest vertically integrated hog producer in the world according to their web site.

America has the largest, most unrestricted economy in the world. *That* gives the dollar its value. China may soon have a larger economy but it won't be the most unrestricted, or dynamic in the world. Not by a long shot. China doesn't have the culture for it with its top down restrictions. China will just have to keep copying the US I guess.

China will benefit greatly from American expertise in food production and espcially food safety and purity wich China seems to have lots of problems with. Our food production is the best in the world and China needs to copy it. We are even better than the Euros where you may get horse meat instead of beef. As usual American Exceptionalism will lead the way and we will teach China that transparency and cleanliness really does matter in food production. Alas China is not the largest meat producer for that falls to a Brazil firm that bought out Swift Company in the US which makes it the largest meat producer in the world.

China will now be eating cleaner and better food thanks to American technology and inventiveness!! China is so lucky to benefit from Amercan Exceptionalism.
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown- (Nov 28 20

Post by member_26147 »

wong wrote:^^^^

Physical vs. Financial. Both have their purpose. Financial is merely synthetic storage of the physical. What can they do with billions of dollars worth of pigs?? I don't know. Eat it?? Chinese people do enjoy their pork.
Except that the 'synthetic storage' can be over-leveraged and controlled and affects the physical more than you think.

The Chinese can sure eat their pigs and the American corporation would be more than obliged. It doesn't give the Chinese any leverage.
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown- (Nov 28 20

Post by Suraj »

I'm not putting words in anyone's mouth. The very suggestion of some cartel as such, existing over a period of decades or longer, and coordinating some plan towards global control or hegemony, is in the realm of conspiracy theory. The banking system has in reality been in a state of constant churn, as banks and investment firms have come and gone. The often zero sum nature of derivatives transactions further pushes the creative destruction process. The end result is that there's no 'cartel' as such over the long term - just loose collaboration towards making money, when financial interests coincide.
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown- (Nov 28 20

Post by member_26147 »

Suraj wrote:I'm not putting words in anyone's mouth. The very suggestion of some cartel as such, existing over a period of decades or longer, and coordinating some plan towards global control or hegemony, is in the realm of conspiracy theory. The banking system has in reality been in a state of constant churn, as banks and investment firms have come and gone. The often zero sum nature of derivatives transactions further pushes the creative destruction process. The end result is that there's no 'cartel' as such over the long term - just loose collaboration towards making money, when financial interests coincide.
You implied that I think the banking cartels are omnipotent. That is the meaning of the phrase 'putting words in someone's mouth'.

The cartels are a group of powerful people and bankers who collude to maximize returns. That is why wall street works like a pack of wolves. Its not conspiracy theory. Its a fact. I have worked and broken bread with such people albeit only at the lower level. I know these meetings exist. You're behaving like a ostrich sticking its head under the sand. The very bailout of 2008 and the rescue of the powerful people by the Federal reserve proves it. Heck, even the banks that went under were ordered to be absorbed by BAC, C and JP Morgan Chase. The CEO of BAC spoke to press about this after he was sacked when he refused to buy those toxic assets. So, The players change over timebut the cartels exist.
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown- (Nov 28 20

Post by TSJones »

DhruvP wrote:
Suraj wrote:I'm not putting words in anyone's mouth. The very suggestion of some cartel as such, existing over a period of decades or longer, and coordinating some plan towards global control or hegemony, is in the realm of conspiracy theory. The banking system has in reality been in a state of constant churn, as banks and investment firms have come and gone. The often zero sum nature of derivatives transactions further pushes the creative destruction process. The end result is that there's no 'cartel' as such over the long term - just loose collaboration towards making money, when financial interests coincide.
You implied that I think the banking cartels are omnipotent. That is the meaning of the phrase 'putting words in someone's mouth'.

The cartels are a group of powerful people and bankers who collude to maximize returns. That is why wall street works like a pack of wolves. Its not conspiracy theory. Its a fact. I have worked and broken bread with such people albeit only at the lower level. I know these meetings exist. You're behaving like a ostrich sticking its head under the sand. The very bailout of 2008 and the rescue of the powerful people by the Federal reserve proves it. Heck, even the banks that went under were ordered to be absorbed by BAC, C and JP Morgan Chase. The CEO of BAC spoke to press about this after he was sacked when he refused to buy those toxic assets. So, The players change over timebut the cartels exist.
The Fed was trying to save the system which came very close to collapsing. The logic that you are implying is that this was not an emergency directive from the Fed in order to save the system but a conspiracy of elite cohorts to aggrandize their financial power. If you are not implying this then you might want to restate your logic. In the US, the banking system at the national level is subject to the Fed directives and regulations. If they tell a bank they must divest, then they will divest, if they tell a bank to buy, they will buy, if they tell a bank they must increase their reserves then the bank must find more captial and increase its reserves, if there is suspicious activity in one of the banks customer accounts then the bank will keep a dossier on the customer and report it to the Treasury, etc. etc. The National. Banks. Serve. At. The. Discretion. Of. The. Fed.

I would note that when a British bank executive said the Fed couldn't tell him how to operate their bank (a bank that was operating in the US and converting Iranian money into US dollars which was against Fed directive) he was as stupid as a box of rocks and his bank paid hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties and fees for his stupidity. I have been in meetings with auditors from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and me and every other banking executive were writing down every word the auditors were telling us what to do. The Fed's word is LAW. You dig?
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown- (Nov 28 20

Post by member_26147 »

Learn about what the 'Fed' is, who owns it and you will answer your question.
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown- (Nov 28 20

Post by TSJones »

DhruvP wrote:Learn about what the 'Fed' is, who owns it and you will answer your question.
The system is owned by the member banks. But the system is subject Federal regulation. Period. End of story.
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown- (Nov 28 20

Post by member_26147 »

TSJones wrote:
DhruvP wrote:Learn about what the 'Fed' is, who owns it and you will answer your question.
The system is owned by the member banks. But the system is subject Federal regulation. Period. End of story.
Owned by private banks. Don't skirt around it, Jones :rotfl:
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown- (Nov 28 20

Post by KrishnaK »

Suraj wrote:The very suggestion of some cartel as such, existing over a period of decades or longer, and coordinating some plan towards global control or hegemony, is in the realm of conspiracy theory.
But we've always had tea readers, oops, strategic experts here, sifting through random events and picking up trends that point to a well defined plan extending over centuries my dear sir. Centuries not decades. All encompassing political and economic plans that involve subversion and subjugation of entire peoples. Sab maya hai !!
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown- (Nov 28 20

Post by Suraj »

My point is that the 'cartel' is not some single entity with any sort of continuity. At any given time, the so called cartel is composed of a different set of entities, that may or may not have any historical or personal ties to what used to be considered the banking cartel at some past period. 'Cartel' here is some loose designation of whatever happens to be the 'TBTF' entities of the time, and are alleged to always collude to screw us, even though history has shown that they're more often busy screwing each other instead :)

Since the 2008 crisis and the banking bailout is given as an example, I'll provide a counterexample from the same period - upto the point when the bailout was made, those very banks were often at the opposite end of zero sum deals. Those deals resulted in more than one storied bank or investment house going under. The bailout was spread across them simply to prevent the whole lot from going under. It wasn't the government's job to be selective about the bailouts; it was their imperative to prevent the system from going under.

Depending on which school of economic though you may espouse, that exercise may have been mildly altruistic but badly implemented, or absolutely wretched to begin with. But that's just applying one's own perspective to an action in retrospect - it doesn't in itself prove there was a cartel at work pulling levers. There's enough prose out there suggesting that, far from being some all powerful colluding entity, these banks were not much more than a collection of money-hungry wolves incapable of individually thinking beyond their next quarterly result.

wong: PRC is never going to get the nominal value of its holdings, no matter what it does. Assume that $9 billion pig deal was a plan to buy $3.4 trillion worth of pigs. Today those imaginary pigs might be all be collectively worth $3.4 trillion in a collection of sales brochures. Beijing announces tomorrow that they're buying all those pigs. Think the price will remain $3.4 trillion anymore ? Every incremental attempt to use your holdings will push up nominal prices. The larger the deal, the larger the premium you'll pay. All the money managers of the world won't prevent PRC from being quoted 'China prices' when it goes shopping, because they all know how much you have in the pocket. It's in those very managers' interest to see you quoted the highest possible prices to maximize their own profits. They're a money hungry cartel after all :twisted:
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown- (Nov 28 20

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Suraj wrote:My point is that the 'cartel' is not some single entity with any sort of continuity. At any given time, the so called cartel is composed of a different set of entities, that may or may not have any historical or personal ties to what used to be considered the banking cartel at some past period. 'Cartel' here is some loose designation of whatever happens to be the 'TBTF' entities of the time, and are alleged to always collude to screw us, even though history has shown that they're more often busy screwing each other instead :)
I would rather stick to the international definition of cartel than a made up local definition. So, Cartel is a group of money-hungry, power-hungry players. And of-course they change over time. Their goal is to maximize their profits. And they'll benefit from a currency that encompasses the economic activity of the world if they lend and fund all over the world. Thus the portrayal of SDR as a contender by a very powerful group.
Suraj wrote: Since the 2008 crisis and the banking bailout is given as an example, I'll provide a counterexample from the same period - upto the point when the bailout was made, those very banks were often at the opposite end of zero sum deals. Those deals resulted in more than one storied bank or investment house going under. The bailout was spread across them simply to prevent the whole lot from going under. It wasn't the government's job to be selective about the bailouts; it was their imperative to prevent the system from going under.

Depending on which school of economic though you may espouse, that exercise may have been mildly altruistic but badly implemented, or absolutely wretched to begin with. But that's just applying one's own perspective to an action in retrospect - it doesn't in itself prove there was a cartel at work pulling levers. There's enough prose out there suggesting that, far from being some all powerful colluding entity, these banks were not much more than a collection of money-hungry wolves incapable of individually thinking beyond their next quarterly result.
The government's job was to prevent the system from going under. The bankers job was to gobble up local and regional banks to become more powerful. Both accomplished their goals while leaving a tab for the average taxpayer.
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown- (Nov 28 20

Post by wong »

The federal reserve board is a government agency.

The regional feds are private.

Here's how you tell.

The board:
http://www.federalreserve.GOV

The regional fed:
http://www.clevelandfed.ORG
http://www.frbsf.ORG
Etc

Suraj: You went from China will lose half its foreign exchange reserves to a market impact argument. Market impact is at most 2 to 3% for a liquid asset or commodity. There are computer trading algorithms to minimize market impact even further (I built them in another life). When China gives $10 billion to Blackstone to invest, it pays the Blackstone price for acquisitions. If it bought Berkshire, it pays the Warren Buffet price for acquisitions. Of course prices will go up and down but the important thing is China will ALWAYS be able to afford the petroleum, Boeing/Airbus, Soybeans and Hogs to power forward its economy. Any way you spin it having $3.4 Trillion is a good thing, anything else is just sour grapes.
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown- (Nov 28 20

Post by member_26147 »

wong wrote: Suraj: You went from China will lose half its foreign exchange reserves to a market impact argument. Market impact is at most 2 to 3% for a liquid asset or commodity. There are computer trading algorithms to minimize market impact even further (I built them in another life). When China gives $10 billion to Blackstone to invest, it pays the Blackstone price for acquisitions. If it bought Berkshire, it pays the Warren Buffet price for acquisitions. Of course prices will go up and down but the important thing is China will ALWAYS be able to afford the petroleum, Boeing/Airbus, Soybeans and Hogs to power forward its economy. Any way you spin it having $3.4 Trillion is a good thing, anything else is just sour grapes.
China is reportedly paying 7 billion dollars for a hog company that is worth 4.5 billion dollars. Any acquisition that China tries to do in the future, it will have to pay premium price. That is what Suraj was trying to say. And that is true for local acquisitions as well, not just Chinese acquisitions. His argument is that you can buy American businesses (as long as they have a competitor that is owned by Americans, otherwise the deal would get scuttled) but you cannot buy 3.4 Trillion dollars worth. So, its good to have forex reserves. Its not good to go shopping all at once with that reserve. And I haven't calculated the tax payment yet.

Also, Boeing is not for sale and I'm pretty sure Airbus is not for sale either. Hogs and soybeans you can buy.
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown- (Nov 28 20

Post by wong »

^^^^

That's called a control premium. Suraj was clearly talking about market impact. Two totally different things.

Boeings and Airbuses are indeed for sale. Maybe not control (hence the concept of a control premium), but shares and planes most certainly are for sale.
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown- (Nov 28 20

Post by member_26147 »

wong wrote:^^^^

That's called a control premium. Suraj was clearly talking about market impact. Two totally different things.

Boeings and Airbuses are indeed for sale. Maybe not control (hence the concept of a control premium), but shares and planes most certainly are for sale.
My point stands. You cannot buy $3.4 trillion worth of entities, at most 2/3rd of it.

Huawei wasn't given a contract for network equipment. Think how far Boeing is from Chinese reach. So what if the planes and shares are for sale? Come back when there is a Chinese board member at Boeing.
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown- (Nov 28 20

Post by wong »

I never said China can have control of Boeing. Nor was it ever my argument. But China can buy as many Boeing planes as it needs for its economy with the $3.4 Trillion it has in foreign exchange. That's good enough. It doesn't need control of Boeing to buy the shares or the planes.

And that 2/3rd number you pulled out of no where. It's hard to argue with make believe.
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown- (Nov 28 20

Post by member_26147 »

wong wrote:I never said China can have control of Boeing. Nor was it ever my argument. But China can buy as many Boeing planes as it needs for its economy with the $3.4 Trillion it has in foreign exchange. That's good enough. It doesn't need control of Boeing to buy the shares or the planes.
wong wrote:If it bought Berkshire, it pays the Warren Buffet price for acquisitions. Of course prices will go up and down but the important thing is China will ALWAYS be able to afford the petroleum, Boeing/Airbus, Soybeans and Hogs to power forward its economy.
So you just conveniently mixed the hog company acquisition with Boeing airplanes purchase?

Backpedalling never helped anyone, wong. :rotfl:
wong wrote: And that 2/3rd number you pulled out of no where. It's hard to argue with make believe.
Basic math, Mr. wong. (4.5 billion / 7 billion * 100 = 64%). I was generous with 66.66% :rotfl:
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown- (Nov 28 20

Post by wong »

$7 billion is with the assumption of debt. $7 billion is the purchase price. The premium it paid is called the control premium. That's not market impact. They are two different things in finance.

You need to learn to read. I also said petroleum and soybeans. Did they buy a soybean company or just soybeans? How about petroleum?? Yeah, that's right.
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown- (Nov 28 20

Post by member_26147 »

wong wrote:$7 billion is with the assumption of debt. $7 billion is the purchase price. The premium it paid is called the control premium. That's not market impact. They are two different things in finance.

You need to learn to read. I also said petroleum and soybeans. Did they buy a soybean company or just soybeans? How about petroleum?? Yeah, that's right.
Keep jutting control premium and market impact. It won't change a thing, wong. China paid too much for hogs and an american company obliged. You keep thinking this is a 'Chinese' victory. It don't change a thing in the United States! :rotfl:

Oh and China tried to acquire a controlling stake in the United States through sinopec for petroleum that was scuttled. Nice try!
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown- (Nov 28 20

Post by wong »

^^^^

Sour grapes. Keep thinking being one quarter away from a ratings downgrade or a current account deficit crisis is the "non-sucker", "smart" strategy.
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown- (Nov 28 20

Post by Suraj »

wong: Don't get me wrong. $3.4 trillion is a fantastic amount of money to have. I love money. I'd love to have $3.4 trillion, or even better, $3.4 quadrillion. I'd even sign up to be the head of the CIC if they gave me a PRC passport and let me, and embezzle as much of it as I can and enjoy the high life before they have me arrested and shot.

But that apart, that's just way too much reserve accumulated way too quickly to effectively manage. Anything you try to buy, the buyer will tack on a premium or 25% or more. Using it in such small increments as to barely affect the market would be pointless because you'd not come anywhere near exceeding the rate of accumulation of paper holdings. Use it in large blocks (say $10B+ at a time) and you'll pay the China premium on every single deal, even on pigs, or melamine.

The Chinese coming buying with their large pockets is a blessing. If I were any government, I'd first talk up some old fashioned paranoia about the red peril. Then I'd talk up the dangers of monopoly. Then I'd cobble together another sock puppet domestic conglomerate to compete with the Chinese buyer and appeal to domestic nationalism. Having sufficiently driven up the price about 30-60%, I'd then grudgingly agree that the deal is not a security risk after placing excessive regulatory hurdles in place, and take the cash plus the premium. Rinse. Repeat.

DhruvP: 'international definition of cartel' ? A cartel requires them to cooperate to screw others. For most part the TBTF banks are busy screwing each other. The rest of us are just collateral damage, not the target. Most of us tend to think the bad service and fees are because the banks are out to screw us. We're just small fry; the average checking account is a breakeven or loss-making service. Their real game is screwing each other.
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown- (Nov 28 20

Post by ldev »

DhruvP,
You are correct, it exists, but it cannot control narrow money supply because of public oversight. However, there are massive amounts of contingent liabilities created and they just as with nX levels of derivatives created ultimately have to settle via the narrow/intermediate money supply route. That is the bottleneck which ensures that the hen that lays the golden egg will not be killed . And that is why there is an inverted pyramid today and the highly unstable nature of global finance and the constant hand holding and course corrections from central banks. Sorry for being cryptic.
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown- (Nov 28 20

Post by wong »

Suraj: if you look at the balance sheet of the USA alone, it's something like $70 Trillion (the number is published by the Fed). That's all assets, not derivatives. Global assets combined are probably north of $130 Trillion on a balance sheet basis. You can save and invest $3.4 Trillion without much market impact. Pimco and Blackrock manages Trillions with no problem. If Chinese money was the only game in town, what you wrote may be possible, but it's obviously not.
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown- (Nov 28 20

Post by TSJones »

wong wrote:Suraj: if you look at the balance sheet of the USA alone, it's something like $70 Trillion (the number is published by the Fed). That's all assets, not derivatives. Global assets combined are probably north of $130 Trillion on a balance sheet basis. You can save and invest $3.4 Trillion without much market impact. Pimco and Blackrock manages Trillions with no problem. If Chinese money was the only game in town, what you wrote may be possible, but it's obviously not.

geez, and the US is one quarter away from collapsing and the US dollar's value rests on international petroleum, etc., etc. Whatever's handy I guess? Go back to Taiwan dude. You won't be so miserable there.
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown- (Nov 28 20

Post by wong »

TSJones wrote:
wong wrote:Suraj: if you look at the balance sheet of the USA alone, it's something like $70 Trillion (the number is published by the Fed). That's all assets, not derivatives. Global assets combined are probably north of $130 Trillion on a balance sheet basis. You can save and invest $3.4 Trillion without much market impact. Pimco and Blackrock manages Trillions with no problem. If Chinese money was the only game in town, what you wrote may be possible, but it's obviously not.

geez, and the US is one quarter away from collapsing and the US dollar's value rests on international petroleum, etc., etc. Whatever's handy I guess? Go back to Taiwan dude. You won't be so miserable there.
Who said the US is one quarter away from collapsing?

"READING IS FUNDAMENTAL." Here's the link the help you out: http://www.rif.org/
SwamyG
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown- (Nov 28 20

Post by SwamyG »

As per wikipedia, the Indian Shipping conference (a cartel) existed for 134 years. The cartels need not have the same players, players can change over generations. Players could come from a set of families (dynasty) or outside the closed group. In one form, the Indian caste system could be viewed as a cartel, where people were kept away from trading or other occupation. And these lasted thousands of years.

One of the biggest failures of Obama is, that he is just Bush 3.0 when it comes banking. He is all noise and gas; he has not been competent enough to break the hold of bankers. At least Bush was straight forward.

America the land where people migrate to get brainwashed :-)
TSJones
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown- (Nov 28 20

Post by TSJones »

Europe's austerity causing problems:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/europes-a ... 02647.html

Faced with soaring unemployment, deepening recession, and a widening political backlash, European officials are easing up on two-year-old demands for painful budget cuts from its most debt-gorged members.
Hari Seldon
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown- (Nov 28 20

Post by Hari Seldon »

The constipation of EU austerity has its complement- the diahorrea of Fed policy across the atlantic. This can only end badly. But it doesn't have to end now, hey, eh?
TSJones
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown- (Nov 28 20

Post by TSJones »

Hari Seldon wrote:The constipation of EU austerity has its complement- the diahorrea of Fed policy across the atlantic. This can only end badly. But it doesn't have to end now, hey, eh?
I'm not betting against Bernanke and the Fed. No way. They've been correct so far. Ride with the winners. Always.
RoyG
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown- (Nov 28 20

Post by RoyG »

The "winners" dragged the US into the economic mess with their quantitative easing and low interest rates.
Neshant
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown- (Nov 28 20

Post by Neshant »

Even the br0thas are catching on

Neshant
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown- (Nov 28 20

Post by Neshant »

A libertarian view.

I do think govt has a useful role and perhaps 10 % of national earnings can be allocated to the govt for basic necessities.

The problem becomes a run away train when banking crooks & other paper shuffling shysters jump into the equation.

That 10% goes up to 50 - 60% as more and more is extracted from productive society.

Austin
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown- (Nov 28 20

Post by Austin »

RoyG wrote:The "winners" dragged the US into the economic mess with their quantitative easing and low interest rates.
Will this have any impact on US economy in near term or will the effects will be felt long term , which is to ask will Barak Obama face the music of QE and Low Int or the next President or the one after that will have problems in hand ?
TSJones
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown- (Nov 28 20

Post by TSJones »

RoyG wrote:The "winners" dragged the US into the economic mess with their quantitative easing and low interest rates.
What economic mess is that?
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