September 16, 2010 SouthAmerica: Article on front page of the Financial Times (UK) says that: "Yen's fall draws European criticism". .
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/US-Ad...3.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=2&asset=&ccode= âWe are concerned, as are many of Chinaâs trading partners, that the pace of appreciation has been too slow and the extent of appreciation too limited,â Mr. Geithner plans to say, according to excerpts of his statement released on Wednesday night by the Treasury Department. The United States brought two cases to the World Trade Organization on Wednesday, accusing China of improperly blocking imports of a specialty steel product and denying credit card companies access to its markets. The move came just hours before House lawmakers demanded action on the currency issue. The renminbi has risen about 1 percent against the dollar since Beijing promised new exchange rate flexibility in June. In his testimony, Mr. Geithner is not expected to rule out declaring China a currency manipulator, a finding that could lead to retaliatory trade measures. The administration has so far refused to take such a step, relying instead on persuasion, though with little success.
. âChina's Yuan Gesture Could Backfireâ By Andrew Batson The Wall Street Journal September 16, 2010 BEIJINGâThe sudden rise in the Chinese yuanâwhich on Thursday hit a new high against the dollar for the fifth straight trading sessionâhas fueled widespread speculation that China's government is trying to head off a political backlash in the U.S. But China's approach to managing its exchange rate risks aggravating anger in Washington instead. The yuan ended trading Thursday in Shanghai at 6.7248 per dollar, its strongest close since the currency began trading 1994. That came after the central bank set the reference rate for daily trading at a fresh high, as it has done each trading day since Friday. The yuan has risen more against the dollar in the last two weeks than in the previous year, and is now up 1.5% since the government pledged greater exchange-rate flexibility on June 19. "The renminbi is definitely on a track of appreciation," said Fan Gang, a prominent Chinese economist and former adviser to the central bank, referring to the currency by its official name. Most market watchers do not think it a coincidence that the gains in the currency began ahead of Congressional hearings on China's currency policy in Washington Wednesday and Thursday. That fits a past pattern of China making gestures to U.S. concerns about currency undervaluation at politically-sensitive timesâwhile at the same time denying that outside factors influence its currency policy. On Thursday, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was expected to express concern over China's currency policy in testimony at those hearings, saying that the pace of appreciation "has been too slow and the extent of appreciation too limited," according to prepared testimony. The rapid 1% gain in a week underscores China's ability to micromanage its exchange rateâthe very control that many U.S. legislators believe gives the country an unfair trade advantage. But the size of the move is very small relative to the demands made by members of the U.S. Congress, many of whom think the yuan is undervalued by 20% or more. "With the bilateral trade imbalance widening and U.S. unemployment still very high, there is a rising danger that China could misjudge the amount of movement needed to placate the U.S.," said Mark Williams of Capital Economics in London. "Political developments can easily take on a momentum of their own." China's Foreign Ministry on Thursday rejected Mr. Geithner's criticism, reiterating Beijing's position that appreciation of the yuan won't resolve America's trade deficit with China or high unemployment in the U.S. Adding pressure won't resolve U.S.-China trade issues and "rather may have the opposite effect," ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said at a regular briefing. China's central bank faces a difficult balancing act: On a daily basis, it has to set a number for the exchange rate that not only is appropriate for the domestic economy, but also sends the right signals to global investors in the currency markets and keeps contentious trade politics in the U.S. and Europe under control. Since its June 19 pledge of greater currency flexibility, China seems to have worked mostly on the first two prioritiesâwith decent resultsâwhile doing little to appease critics abroad. Central bank officials have made clear they don't want to see currency-market bets lead to a surge in speculative capital flowing into China. Such inflows have been a problem before for the central bankânotably when the yuan was rising rapidly against the dollar in 2007 and 2008âand officials fear a repeat could destabilize the economy. The slow pace of appreciation since June, and repeated government comments downplaying the chances of currency gains, seems to have been mostly successful in deterring such speculation. Many investors have in recent months abandoned bets on a big rise in the yuan, and offshore derivative markets, which in June were pricing in a 2.7% appreciation in the yuan in 12 months, now reflect expected gains of around 1%. Official voices continue to send the message that major swings in the exchange rate are off the table. "I don't see the conditions for a big fluctuation in the yuan," since China's trade surplus is already much lower than it was in 2008, central bank adviser Li Daokui said Wednesday at the World Economic Forum in Tianjin. Convincing markets that the yuan is not, at least on a day-to-day basis, a one-way upward bet may actually give the central bank more leeway to move the currency in the future. And the state of the domestic economy could also give authorities more confidence. After slowing for several months, China's growth seems to have stabilized, with indicators for August showing manufacturing picking up and construction still strong. Worries that the government measures taken in April to restrain property prices would lead to a sharp slowdown in construction have not materialized. "The government's measures to rein in the economy have slowed activity less than expected," so the pressure for appreciation has built up again, said Liu Yuhui, a researcher on economics and finance at the state-funded China Academy of Social Sciences. But it's unlikely that any economic policies by either China or the U.S.âincluding moves in the currencyâwill do much to reduce the two countries' trade gap in the short term, said Wing Thye Woo, a professor of economics at the University of California, Davis. So the political tensions over trade may ultimately need a political solution. "It's important for the U.S. and China to work together to reduce trade tensions," he said at a forum in Beijing Wednesday. Japan's move Wednesday to intervene in currency markets for the first time in more than six years to push down the value of the yen appears to have added to frustration toward China in Washington. But Chinese officials haven't commented on the Japanese move, and economists in China say they don't expect it to have significant impact on China. Meanwhile, in a reminder that China has its own views on how policy in Washington affects the U.S. currency, the chairman of China's $300 billion sovereign wealth fund wrote in a book published this month that China could diversify its assets away from the dollar if the U.S. maintains loose monetary policy that threatens to weaken the dollar. The comments by China Investment Corp. Chairman Lou Jiwei were published in a collection of essays by Chinese and foreign economists for a conference that took place Wednesday in Beijing. It isn't clear when Mr. Lou's 12-page essay was written, but it appears to have been at least weeks, and possibly months, ago, and therefore wasn't likely intended as any response to this week's hearings in Washington. A Chinese official who helped organize the conference said Mr. Lou submitted the piece about three weeks ago. The article refers to an announcement by the U.S. in December as having happened "recently." A CIC spokesman couldn't be reached for comment. Reiterating a point that Chinese officials have made before, Mr. Lou wrote that if the U.S. maintains easy monetary policy over a long period and "let the U.S. dollar depreciate freely," then the things China can do to reduce related risks include to "divert forex reserve to non-dollar assets." He didn't elaborate. âSue Feng and Owen Fletcher contributed to this article. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704394704575495443619071232.html?mod=googlenews_wsj .
. September 16, 2010 SouthAmerica: According to the article, C. Fred Bergsten, director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics said: âThe United States should seek to mobilize the European Union and countries like Brazil, Russia and India to press China to realign the renminbi, and should seek W.T.O. authorization to impose restrictions on Chinese imports if it does not do so.â The only problem with Mr. Bergsten suggestion is that the current game is working very well on behalf of Brazil â and Brazil has been building a new stockpile of foreign currency reserves as never before, and Brazil is on its way to become a rich country. On the other hand, the United States has been building a sky-high pile of new US government debt, and the United States is following a strategy that will place it in no time on the poorhouse. ***** âU.S. Gets Tough on Chinaâ By: SEWELL CHAN The New York Times - On Thursday September 16, 2010 WASHINGTON â The Obama administration is moving to take a harder stance on the Chinese governmentâs trade and currency policies, with anger toward China rising in both political parties ahead of midterm elections. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, in separate hearings before House and Senate panels, plans to acknowledge on Thursday that China has kept the value of its currency, the renminbi, artificially low to help its exports and has largely failed to improve the situation as it promised to do in June. âWe are concerned, as are many of Chinaâs trading partners, that the pace of appreciation has been too slow and the extent of appreciation too limited,â Mr. Geithner plans to say, according to excerpts of his statement released on Wednesday night by the Treasury Department. The United States brought two cases to the World Trade Organization on Wednesday, accusing China of improperly blocking imports of a specialty steel product and denying credit card companies access to its markets. The move came just hours before House lawmakers demanded action on the currency issue. The renminbi has risen about 1 percent against the dollar since Beijing promised new exchange rate flexibility in June. In his testimony, Mr. Geithner is not expected to rule out declaring China a currency manipulator, a finding that could lead to retaliatory trade measures. The administration has so far refused to take such a step, relying instead on persuasion, though with little success. The currency issue is increasingly likely to be a focus when leaders of the Group of 20 nations meet in November in Seoul, South Korea. A bill with support from 143 House members from both parties would allow the United States to impose tariffs and other penalties on countries that undervalue their currencies. But many economists believe that China is unlikely to yield to American pressure, and they have called on the Obama administration to do a better job of enlisting support from the European Union and Japan. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said Thursday that the pressure from the United States would not help resolve the currency issue and could even backfire, Reuters reported. ââI would point out that appreciation of the renminbi will not solve the U.S. deficit and unemployment problems,ââ a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Jiang Yu, said at a regularly scheduled news conference in Beijing. The office of the United States trade representative, Ron Kirk, said the timing of the new W.T.O. cases was unrelated to the other economic tensions with China. In one case, the United States accused China of violating world trade rules when it imposed antidumping duties and countervailing duties on grain-oriented, flat-rolled electrical steel, which is used to make transformers and reactors used to generate electricity. The two largest makers of such steel are Allegheny Technologies, based in Pittsburgh, and AK Steel, based in West Chester, Ohio. China imposed duties as high as 65 percent in April after concluding that the American manufacturers had sold the steel at less than fair value and had received improper subsidies from the United States. The Americans say the charges are false. In the other case, the trade representativeâs office accused China of illegally blocking American electronic payment companies from access to its markets, through its support of a state-financed company, China Union Pay, which has had a monopoly since 2001 over renminbi-denominated debit and credit card payments in China. Mr. Kirk said his office was âfighting for the American jobs threatened by Chinaâs actions, and insisting on the level playing field promised in our W.T.O. agreements.â Leaders of the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees trade, applauded the filings. Its chairman, Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, called them âcritical steps forward in our effort to enforce our market access rights in China.â The panelâs senior Republican, Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, said, âItâs about time the administration decided to act.â Mr. Grassley added: âThe administration should go one step further and bring a case against Chinaâs unfair currency manipulation at the W.T.O.â On Wednesday, the House Ways and Means Committee began two days of hearings on Chinaâs currency, its third set of hearings this year on the topic. Its chairman, Representative Sander M. Levin, Democrat of Michigan, said âa multilateral approach would be the most likely to yield the broadest results.â Mr. Levin also called Japanâs move to weaken the yen, that countryâs first intervention in the currency markets since 2004, âa deeply disturbing development.â Mr. Levin said that the International Monetary Fund had little power to enforce its rules against currency manipulation, adding that the G-20 should take up the issue. But he warned that âthere does not appear to be anything remotely approaching an international agreement to end predatory exchange rate policies.â Mr. Levin urged the administration to bring a case before the W.T.O. arguing that Chinaâs currency policy amounted to an illegal export subsidy. He said he thought the United States could impose countervailing duties against China without violating its own obligations under world trade rules. More than 140 House members have signed onto a bill sponsored by Representatives Tim Ryan, Democrat of Ohio, and Tim Murphy, Republican of Pennsylvania, that would compel the administration to impose such duties. The United States-China Business Council has said it believes such a move would antagonize China without yielding meaningful results, and the senior Republican on the committee, Representative Dave Camp of Michigan, expressed similar skepticism at the hearing. Manufacturers, labor unions and politicians from the Midwest have been among the most vigorous in calling for sanctions, but there were indications on Wednesday that policy experts were increasingly in favor of tough action. China permitted the value of the renminbi to rise about 20 to 25 percent against the dollar from 2005 to 2008, before the government reimposed a currency peg to support its export-centered economy after the global financial crisis. C. Fred Bergsten, director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a leading research organization here, told House lawmakers on Wednesday that a similar increase over the next two to three years would create about 500,000 jobs. He said it would reduce Chinaâs current account surplus by $350 billion to $500 billion, and the American current account deficit by $50 billion to $120 billion. The United States should seek to mobilize the European Union and countries like Brazil, Russia and India to press China to realign the renminbi, and should seek W.T.O. authorization to impose restrictions on Chinese imports if it does not do so, Mr. Bergsten said. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/US-Ad...tml?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=main&asset=&ccode= .
. September 29, 2010 SouthAmerica: The international trade war is right on schedule. ***** "House set to approve bill aimed at China yuan" By Doug Palmer and Paul Eckert in WASHINGTON Reuters - Wed Sep 29, 2010 (Reuters) - The House of Representatives is poised on Wednesday to pass legislation to pressure China to let its yuan currency rise more quickly, fanning the flames of a long-running dispute over trade and jobs. The House is expected to approve, with bipartisan support, a bill to treat China's exchange rate as a subsidy, opening the door to additional duties on Chinese goods entering the United States, some of which are already subject to special levies. But the measure must gain Senate approval and be signed into law by President Barack Obama -- by no means a sure bet. U.S. lawmakers have long brandished the sword of trade retaliation for what they see as China's deliberate policy of undervaluing the yuan, which they say gives its exports an unfair edge in global markets, but have never sent the president any legislation to be signed into law. President Barack Obama and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao discussed China's currency and huge trade surplus with the United States during a meeting on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly last week, aides said, but declined to discuss the sensitive issues with reporters after the meeting. The House move, little more than a month before U.S. congressional elections, is certain to further roil relations with Beijing, which resents the criticism and says it is its decision alone how fast to proceed with currency reforms. In another brewing trade row, more than 180 U.S. lawmakers urged President Barack Obama on Tuesday to fight back against what they called China's "unfair" tactics to spur development of clean energy technologies within its borders.... You can read the entire article at: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68S0NJ20100929 .
November 5, 2010 SouthAmerica: "In First Press Conference Brazil's New President Says Currency War Can Lead to Real War" - Written by Yara Aquino - Brazzil magazine Thursday, 04 November 2010 16:50.... Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and the president elect, Dilma Rousseff, held a joint press conference. What follows is a summary of what Rousseff, said to reporters on a variety of subjects: ...Economy - Dilma said that everybody except the United States and China can see that there is a currency war underway that cannot be resolved by any one country by itself. She added: "Individual solutions leave countries unprotected and when you start competitive currency devaluation you get what you got [60 years ago]: the Second World War." ***** SouthAmerica: After the General's at the Pentagon found out about Dilma Rousseff latest comments they took immediate action. They called China to order a new supply of smart bombs to be prepared for a possible war. ***** Even basic common-sense is dead in the United States. For those who still have the illusion that Americans advanced technologies and innovation is going to help the recovery of the US economy in the coming years. http://www.bloomberg.com/video/63400346/ How dumb can you get? As I mentioned on another posting about: The US economy it is sinking just like the Titanic â Here is why: Every place you look at you can see signs of massive decline of the US economy. The Shuttle space program is having its final voyage into space in the coming weeks then NASA is laying-off thousands of high power scientists in Florida, and in California â and keep in mind that NASA has been for a long time one of the symbols of American advanced technology â this NASA implosion it's just another sign of American decline and that the American economic system has become completely obsolete. If you look around and connect the dots probably you will find 100's of similar examples here in the United States, and the dismantling of NASA it's not an isolated fluke. I can already picture the US defense secretary calling China and saying: âThe US is thinking about having a military confrontation with your country - Please can you send us a new supply of smart bombs to replenish our inventory of smart bombs which is very low right now?" ***** How dumb can you get? I am talking about the US decision making process: not only in the financial system that lead to a complete economic and financial meltdown, but also regarding the US government....as per above examples. Can you name another former superpower in world history that got this dumb? Here is another example: Afghanistan War: Here is a conversation between two Generals at the Pentagon - We can't bomb the Taliban because we run out of smart bombs. Please call the Chinese and tell them that we need to replenish our inventory of smart bombs ASAP, and in the mean time we place that war on hold. Before we change the subject - please also give a call to Israel and let them know that they can't bomb anybody in the Middle East in the near future, because we are not in the position of supplying Israel with more smart bombs. We could go on and on with this laughable routine until we run out of funny ideas... ***** Now do you understand why China is financing this massive deficit spending of the United States? In exchange the United States will manufacture all its military armament in China. You can get a lower cost in China, and the Chinese are very efficient and they are able to fill in any order from the United States - ASAP. I wonder if the Russians are also get that dumb, and are outsourcing their military armament production to China? .
September 7, 2011 SouthAmerica: Regarding the current "Currency War." http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-...wars-ignited-by-global-economic-slowdown.html
October 21, 2011 SouthAmerica: Reality check Senate Bill Threatens Currency War with China â October 18, 2011 <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/3_3KBhtAaZg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> First Great War of The 21st Century is Here! with Gerald Celente â October 14, 2011 <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/LGfNO4-6bhA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Let Them Eat Cake! with Gerald Celente â October 14, 2011 <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/0QrvwIy_TJ4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> .