China, and the world's "Great Rebalancing."

[Columnist]

Originally Posted by Thinker

This thread has really gone downhill.

Can't we put the Jewish conspiracy theory stuff elsewhere? Seems some people just can't have a discussion on anything without getting into that.

This was supposed to be a discussion on the economic balances of China and the US.

BTW, Michael Pettis recently made a bet with the Economist that China's GDP would not surpass the US's by 2018. He says no, the Economist says yes.

The US could be seen as a Saudi colony.

[harjit]

Originally Posted by Columnist

The US could be seen as a Saudi colony.

Your inane one-line non-sequitors are ridiculous. You probably think they make you look intelligent and enigmatic, but you are the worst fucking poster on this board.

[Ivan III the Great]

Originally Posted by harjit

Your inane one-line non-sequitors are ridiculous. You probably think they make you look intelligent and enigmatic, but you are the worst fucking poster on this board.

Two thumbs up.

[Thinker]

China central bank bends to set yuan free

Twice since the beginning of the year, China’s central bank has strongly hinted that the government is ready to accelerate the pace of yuan exchange rate reform.

A Feb. 23 position paper said China has entered “a period of strategic opportunity for capital account liberalization.” It also said the yuan, whose value against foreign currencies is based on the government’s central parity rate, could be freely convertible in 10 years.

The second hint came two months later when the central bank, responding to critics who have called for gradual liberalization, said the time for speedy adjustment had arrived.

[banjo_billy]

Originally Posted by harjit

Your inane one-line non-sequitors are ridiculous. You probably think they make you look intelligent and enigmatic, but you are the worst fucking poster on this board.

Three thumbs up.

Whoops, what a minute. One ... two ... okay, two thumbs up.

[Columnist]

Originally Posted by harjit

Your inane one-line non-sequitors are ridiculous. You probably think they make you look intelligent and enigmatic, but you are the worst fucking poster on this board.

Thank you very much.

[Ignatz]

It may be correct to describe Europe as a 'colony of the Saudis' but that's not really appropriate to the US, which isn't dependent on Arab oil to anything like the same extent. If the Arabs threatened to cut off the American oil supply unless the US severed its ties with Israel, what would happen?

This is pretty much what happened in 1973. It had no effect except to increase anti-Arab sentiment in the US.

[President Barbicane]

Interesting stuff about China's central bank. I think that China's being a little optimistic, though. I don't think that they'll be able to wait 10 years before they reform their currency, there should be significant fiscal reasons to do so in the next few years.

Of course, the fed has pursued policies (quantitative easing) that would devalue US currency, although the full effects of this haven't been felt yet (although the fed didn't do it specifically to devalue US currency, they did it to stimulate the economy, but devaluing US currency is a side-effect). This should increase the fiscal pressures on China to reform their currency. I'm not sure if they'll respond, though. Chinese can be pretty hard-headed sometimes.

[Columnist]

Originally Posted by Felix the Cat

It may be correct to describe Europe as a 'colony of the Saudis' but that's not really appropriate to the US, which isn't dependent on Arab oil to anything like the same extent. If the Arabs threatened to cut off the American oil supply unless the US severed its ties with Israel, what would happen?

This is pretty much what happened in 1973. It had no effect except to increase anti-Arab sentiment in the US.

Europe is even more in the thrall of the Saudis, that is true. That is why Europe should play off Iran against the Saudis. The Wahhabi Saudi royal family stole the oil from the Shi'ites in the East, so they have to takfeer the Shi'ites.
Iran has severe demographic problems, and I promoted a religion that can take care of that.

[Thinker]

Michael Pettis: By 2015 hard commodity prices will have collapsed

For the past two years, as regular readers know, I have been bearish on hard commodities. Prices may have dropped substantially from their peaks during this time, but I don’t think the bear market is over. I think we still have a very long way to go.

There are four reasons why I expect prices to drop a lot more.　First, during the last decade commodity producers were caught by surprise by the surge in demand. Their belated response was to ramp up production dramatically, but since there is a long lead-time between intention and supply, for the next several years we will continue to experience rapid growth in supply. As an aside, in my many talks to different groups of investors and boards of directors it has been my impression that commodity producers have been the slowest at understanding the full implications of a Chinese rebalancing, and I would suggest that in many cases they still have not caught on.