Beijing calls on US to stop dollar's fall (Role reversal)

[54anickel]

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2004/11/21...

China turned the tables on the US Friday, urging Washington to stop the slide of the dollar and restore equilibrium to global currency markets.

"As a major country having ownership to the most important currency in the global economy, I think the United States has the responsibility, as much responsibility as do the others, to act, to take the necessary actions to restore equilibrium in the currency market," Wang Xiaolong, a senior foreign ministry official in charge of economic affairs said.

"It is only wise, given the weight of the US economy in the world markets, it is only wise that they would take into account the concerns of others, as well as the world economy as a whole."

snip>

Wang refused to specify when and if China would take measures to loosen the peg, but strongly indicated that Beijing would closely watch the slide of the dollar before making any moves.

more...

[DireStrike]

1. Responsibility?

That's a moral value right? I guess we must have it here SOMEwhere.

[The Zanti Regent]

26. China is responsible. Jesusland isn't.

Momma China giving Jesusland ONE LAST CHANCE.

Then, the whip is coming out!

[madrchsod]

2. china doesn`t like buying goods and services with

deflating greenbacks. tough to buy german made windmills when the greenback is worth 70 cents. it also makes their products more expensive for the wal- martions...

[mulethree]

18. China is still tied to the dollar, Walmarts not suffering

But if China floated their Yuan today it would go up at least 40%.

But they wouldn't let it float completely free. They will pick a time when the dollar is higher - or at least not sliding, and then revalue the yuan like 25% and try to keep it somewhat stable within like a 10% range for a while, then gradually loosen the control range.

If the dollar keeps sliding then they may have to tie it to the euro or yen or both. Ideally dollar+yen+euro.


Bets? Chinese manufacturing costs go up 40%, do American factories start firing up?

$2 a day wages SKYROCKET! to $2.80 a day!

taxes and benefits go from .... umm $0 up to $0!
oil costs cancel out
trans-pacific shipping rates probably dollars or Korean Won which is up 10% over 3 months ago. But also higher due to oil prices.

[NuttyFluffers]

3. meh, switch to the Euro already, China.

can't you see the writing on the wall? or are you just being a nice friendly trading partner and giving us one last chance? ;)

[FloridaPat]

5. China is the writing on the wall. Our economy sinks if they dump

the dollar. Word was China and Russia have been dumping it for the last couple of weeks.

[Javaman]

4. You people don't get it. China, if anything, is also looking out for our..

Interests. They own roughly 1 trillion dollars in T-bonds. If the value of the dollar doesn't go back up, they cash in their bonds, which intern devalues the American dollar more and if they cash enough in, what ever that amount maybe, that may cause a run on the US Dollar and everyone else will begin to dump their own T-bonds. Basically they are saying, get the dollar back up, or we have to dump some of these bonds. Aka, the US will be in very deep shit, unless the value of the dollar comes back up.
The last thing this world needs is a collapse of the US Dollar.
They are voicing what anyone, that has a clue, should be saying.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

8. That's pretty accurate

If the rest of the world were to begin selling US securities China stands to lose a bundle. They are warning us to clean up our mess before they take preemptive measures.

[TexasChick]

13. Thanks, Chimpy McFlightsuit! Thanks for the knee deep crap you have

taken our country into, you smarmy little s**t!!!

[Rumba]

40. Knee deep?

Only if you're standing on your head on the top of a ladder.

[TexasChick]

42. You know what I meant! LOL n/t

[cliss]

9. You're right. It's like that saying in the movie Backdraft.

Kurt Russell, playing the part of the fire chief, showed his solidarity to the firemen by saying, "You go, we all go". Meaning, if his colleague's life was at risk, they would die together.

We will die together in the upcoming currency crash. China knows it. They are one of our biggest creditor nations. I believe we owe them $160 billion. We're not showing any signs of repaying them real soon.

They could switch to Euros right now if they wanted to. (hint = what does a 500 pound canary say? Polly wants a cracker NOW). They can do anything they want. If they do, however, we go spiraling down and so does the rest of the world's currencies.

Including China. It's a gigantic game of chicken. The major players do not want to be the one to pull the plug, unless there is no other option. Now, the smaller countries......

[VegasWolf]

11. You're right, it's a very bad game of chicken, they are driving a semi

truck and we are in a Honda. They will get scratched, we'll
die, especially if they don't loan us money for the new deficit
that congress has just passed. I'm moving my assets out
of US dollars and getting the fuck out of the Honda.

[madrchsod]

10. yes you right there. also the chinese do not want to

put their money on the currency markets, so they rely, as do the oil countries, on our economic engine,which under bush,has derailed.

[kodi]

17. with the yuan tied to the dollar, their own currency gets beaten up too

if the saudis start demanding euros for their oil, we are all fucked

[Javaman]

30. Speaking of the Euro, did you know Saddam, prior to his 1991...

Invasion of Kuwait, switched from the Dollar to the Euro? That's right. Hmmm, gives a whole new spin on things.
Also were you aware that Saddam was petitioning the UN to fine Kuwait, because Kuwait was slant drilling into Iraqi oil fields. Saddam had been saying for months that he was going to invade, but the world ignored him. We didn't call his bluff.
I don't support or condone Saddam's actions, but nothing happens out of the blue, especially in international politics.
Kuwait was the cooperative and corporation sweetheart, and we were done with Iraq after the Iraq/Iran war.
Dig a little and you will see Daddio bush's oil and financial connections with the Kuwaiti's and suddenly everything will be all so clear.
oh yeah...it's neeeever about oil

[jamesinca]

34. Venezuela

President Chavez has been asking OPEC to go to the Euro or some other currency because oil is losing to much money being tied to the dollar. What does Bush think of Venezuela? He stated on Wed, Nov. 3 that they needed help stabilizing their country and that democracy needed to be spread in Venezuela. You are on to something there.

[reprobate]

38. Javaman, those of us here at the time knew this and predicted

...that with saddam moving to the euro bush would have to remove him and take over iraq. If he did not stem the rush to the euro the US currency would no longer be the reserve currency and that would destroy the economy.

We knew, but the country did not know. But that's normal now that the media is republican owned and operated.

Some of us have thought for a while that the country must self destruct before we can ever get to the place that we think the founding fathers intended in the first place.

It's certainly headed in that direction.

[Igel]

46. Link or reference?

I didn't follow the establishment of the Euro in real time, but the earliest references I can find to it are its naming in 1995, and setting up necessary treaties in 1992, and the actual apparatus in 1994-5.

[Clovis Sangrail]

47. this is incorrect

Saddam was making noises about refusing to sell oil in anything but euros, but that was well after the invasion of Kuwait in 1991.

IIRC, there were no euros in 1991, and they were not used in international trade until 1999 or so.

[Pepperbelly]

29. China's concerns are personal and have nothing to do with anything ...

other than their ability to dump cheap products into the market and the value of the bonds they hold.

Period.

[Javaman]

32. Read my above thread. Read about China US t-bond investment...

Of course it's personal, but they also see that if we go down they go down. Either way, if they switch to the Euro, we are dead. If we don't raise the value of the dollar and it continues to plunge, China, us and the rest of the world will have some major problems.
So damn straight China is looking out for it's own neck but at the same time, it's firing a warning shot across the US financial bow, saying we better get our shit together, otherwise China won't want to play anymore. See?

[Art_from_Ark]

45. Actually, it's JAPAN that owns the lion's share of Treasuries

"Japan is the largest foreign holder of Treasuries, owning $720.4 billion of the securities as of September, according to the U.S. Treasury."

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/markets/bonds.html

[Dover]

6. G20 Divided Over Dollar Slide, U.S. Mum

G20 Divided Over Dollar Slide, U.S. Mum

Sat Nov 20, 2004 04:48 PM ET

By Natsuko Waki

BERLIN (Reuters) - Europe and Japan voiced strong concern on Saturday over the slumping dollar but the world's 20 biggest economies, nearing the end of a two-day summit, looked divided over what if anything to do about it.

German Finance Minister Hans Eichel, playing host to the G20 meeting, said there was consensus that sudden currency swings were undesirable but ministers disagreed openly on whether the dollar's slide fell into this category.

In Chile, President Bush reiterated his administration's support for a strong dollar in the face of increasing disbelief from financial markets.

But in Berlin, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and other U.S. officials, whose comments drove the greenback to a nine-year low against a basket of currencies last week, remained silent.

Japanese and European delegates at the gathering of finance ministers and central bankers from the G20 group of rich and emerging countries in Berlin said they were concerned by the pace of the dollar's decline.

But finance ministers from India and Brazil said the drop was no reason to worry and one official said there was no appetite among the G20 as a whole to intervene to stem the fall...cont'd

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=businessNews&storyID=6875098

[mulethree]

19. President Bush reiterated his administration's support for a strong dollar

While congress was authorizing the printers to make up $800,000,000,000 more dollars.

[VegasWolf]

7. Yes, but China is the numero uno nation in the world. We spent

ourselves to death trying to colonize the middle east and
have failed as badly as everyone before us. We are slipping
day by day. Saw an interesting picture of the Port of Los
Angles the other day, trucks stacked for days trying to unload
China's goods to the US. Remember when the US used to be
the dominant world power, Britain remembers back when they
were before they broke their pick trying to colonize countries
that don't want to be colonized.

[Dem2theMax]

12. But do they realize who they are talking to?

"It is only wise, given the weight of the US economy in the world markets, it is only wise that they would take into account the concerns of others, as well as the world economy as a whole."

* take into account the concerns of others, let alone the world?
Pardon me while I laugh my ass off. /sarcasm

Edit: forgot the sarcasm. Well, I didn't, but I did. You know.

[lasttrip]

14. wouldn't that be considered a moral value?

or is that "take into account the concerns of me".

[Dem2theMax]

24. Boy, you hit that one dead center.

As we all KNOW * doesn't have any moral values, it has to be your second line, "take into account the concerns of me".

Yep, dead center. If what you wrote wasn't so true, I would laugh.

God help us.

[gennifer6]

15. They must not get FOXnews in China.....

They can't seriously think the Bush administration isgoing to pay any attention to what they think....

They should dimp the dollar, hell, half the civilized countries on this Earth should do it. We're so intent on decreasing our dependence on oil in the Middle East, how easy would it be for the rest of the world to decrease its dependency on us?

[WildClarySage]

16. Next step

investigating China for womd's?

Ok, no, not really. Thank God we can't bully China- but we can manipulate them, and that's exactly what the Admin is trying to do- they're just letting * know he won't get away with it.

But why won't Americans say this to *?

And how ironic that * campaigned on his 'Ownership Society' crapola.

[VegasWolf]

20. Exactly how can we manipulate China, they outpace us in every financial

means possible. They are the 100 pound gorilla, not us.
Thanks to the go it alone war in Iraq, we don't have a pot to
piss in. The deficit means we are borrowing money from other
countries, and China by far has the most.

[Robert Oak]

21. China 1 good, 1 bad

good one is they might have to float the yuan...right now it's pegged
to the dollar and one of the reasons they are killing the US in trade..
supposedly value 40% lower than actual

bad one is they have purchased a huge percentage of US debt. If they sell it off, it could cause a strong economic disasters.

[sandnsea]

22. Multi-national profits

All rely on foreign sales for at least 62% of overall sales.

The weak dollar helps companies with significant non-U.S. income. They get a boost when they convert profits earned in other currencies, such as euros and yen, back into dollars.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/2004-11-15-dollar-multinationals_x.htm

[PurityOfEssence]

23. "...take into account the concerns of others..."??? REPUBLICANS?

The selfish steamroller of faith-based greed doesn't need to consider paltry OTHERS. How can ya do business with fantasyland "carers" like this? Sheesh. Ya'd think they'd know how the Mercantile Monarchists work by now.

[Zhade]

25. "it is only wise that they would take into account the concerns of others"

That's a warning.

How many will we get?

[bleedingheart]

27. So will the Republicans listen to RED China????

hahahaha...will they listen to the pinko Chinese government????

They don't give a rat's ass what the "liberal pinko" Democrats say here in the US.... I will watch this development with great interest...

[mmonk]

28. The strategy is to force China to float its currency

and this is the first signs they might.

[fedsron2us]

33. Correct. Its an old ploy

If you read William Engdahls book a 'Century of War' the US government has used dollar devaluations in the past as a geopolitical weapon against the Asian economies. The aim is to force them to open up their capital markets so that they can be attacked by Western capitalist speculators. First, the foreign economy is flooded with dollars to create an asset bubble. It is followed by a speculative offensive on the rival using politically controlled hedge funds and financial institutions to cause stock market crashes etc. The victim is then turned over to the IMF. Chalmers Johnson described the result of the 1990's Asian currency crisis as follows

The funds easily raped Thailand, Indonesia and South Korea, then turned the shivering survivors over to the IMF, not to help the victims, but to insure that no Western bank was stuck with non performing loans in the devestated country

The problem for the US is that the Chinese are now well aware of the play. They are also a lot bigger and a lot tougher than the previous targets. It is true that the US is a major export market for Chinese manufactures but it still only accounts for 21% of all the goods that leave China. The remaining 79% go to the rest of the world. In over all terms the US lags behind the EU and Japan in its share of China's trade. This means that the Chinese government have got the capacity to cause quite a bit of speculative damage to the US if they care to turn nasty. I think that we should all fasten our seat belts because the next few years are going to be a very bumpy ride.

[54anickel]

37. Not only is China well aware of the play, they've written their own

playbook. They will float the Yuan, within a narrow channel, in their own sweet time. Right now is not the time as there are too many speculators and hedge-funds betting on it right now (especially against the Hong Kong dollar - foolishly considered to be a proxy for the Yuan). Part of China's strategy is to raise the Yuan when least expected, they want and need the element of surprise.

They are also in a race to meet the required benchmarks to allow more foreign banks into their markets. I may be wrong on this, but I believe this is part of a web being intricately laid out for the western capitalist speculators. They desire to build up their domestic demand, these banks can help them overcome their non-performing loans, offer domestic loans and credit cards.

China has a plan, a strategy, and the patience to wait for the perfect opportunity to put it into play.

Couple of interesting articles regarding some of the recent developments.

Currency conundrums
Bit of background on the creation fo the G20 group, along with some insight to the expectations.

http://www.forextelevision.com/FT/Text/ShowStory.jsp?id=1569

snip>

WHEN the ringmasters of the world economy are flummoxed by a crisis, their instinctive response is to create a new committee, forum or group. In the wake of the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, they created one of each: the International Monetary and Financial Committee, the Financial Stability Forum and the Group of 20 (G20). This oddball group, which convenes for its annual meeting on Friday November 19th in Berlin, brings together finance ministers and central bankers from the big rich nations, several big oil exporters and some big emerging markets. It meets against the backdrop of a falling dollar and rising economic tensions between its members. Indeed, according to Stephen Jen, an economist at Morgan Stanley, the crisis that befell Asia seven years ago may be about to repeat itself. Only in reverse.

The legacy of that crisis still inhibits Asia’s policymakers. In the seven years since, they have sought to keep the region’s currencies cheap and its dollar reserves deep. The South Korean won, the Indonesian rupiah and the Taiwan dollar, which fell like dominoes after the Thai baht came off its peg in July 1997, have yet to regain their pre-crisis parities. The won is still undervalued by about 5% against the dollar, Mr Jen calculates. The Malaysian ringgit, which is pegged to the dollar, is about 25% below its fair value.
On Thursday, however, the won was bid up to its highest price since the crisis. The baht and the Taiwan dollar have also strengthened in recent days. Seven years after they suffered a dramatic run on their currencies, Asia’s emerging markets now find themselves trying to resist a (somewhat less dramatic) run into their currencies.

In 1997, the Asian countries exhausted their foreign-exchange reserves trying to prop their currencies up. Since then, they have dramatically expanded their dollar reserves in an effort to hold their currencies down. These purchases of American assets have helped to prop up its currency and finance its vast trade deficit. But they may not last much longer. For a country such as South Korea, buying dollars is both costly and possibly inflationary. The country’s excess savings, parked in low-yielding American Treasuries, would earn a higher return invested at home. And the finance ministry’s weak won policy, by making imports more expensive, has hampered its fight against rising prices. In the summer, annual inflation reached its highest rate for three years, though it has since eased. The other post-crisis countries in the region may share South Korea’s ambivalence about its won policy. But their freedom for maneuver is limited by China’s dedication to its peg against the dollar. During the financial storms of 1997 and 1998, the peg provided an important anchor for the region. Even as currencies collapsed all around it,

China refused to beggar its neighbors by devaluing the Yuan. But China’s peg, a bulwark against the financial crisis, is now blocking the “reversal” of the crisis that Mr Jen foresees and the dollar needs. To its neighbors, China is such an important trade partner and competitor that they dare not let their currencies strengthen too far against the Yuan. Even Japan is wary.

Much of the G20, then, is now waiting for just one of its members, China, to unpeg its currency. Some speculators can wait no longer. They are already swapping their dollars for Yuan, betting it will soon jump in value. To deter such speculation, Chinese banks on

snip>

Japan’s monetary authorities have no such compunction. The finance ministry happily spent over ¥20 trillion ($170 billion) propping up the dollar last year and over ¥14 trillion in the first three months of this year. For Japan, unlike South Korea, buying dollars is profitable. And if it is also inflationary, so much the better for a country still gripped by deflation. Interest rates on American assets, such as Treasuries, may be low. But they are higher than the zero interest rates on offer in Japan. Moreover, printing yen to buy dollars is one way to inject liquidity into Japan’s moribund financial system. The constraints on Japan are not economic, but political....

more...

No relief for Europe as G20 shuns action to halt dollar slide Trying to put an end to any speculation that a resolution will come from the G20 meeting?

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world_business/view/118232/1/.html

BERLIN : The Group of 20 finance chiefs have shunned action to halt the dollar slide, leaving Europe isolated at the end of a forum here and facing an almost certain further strengthening of the euro.

Worried European Union policy-makers, afraid the euro's strength will undermine the eurozone's fragile, export-led economic recovery, found no concrete support among the major wealthy and emerging economies.

The G20 finance ministers and central bank governors, while lamenting the "worrying" weakness of the dollar, which hit an all-time low against the euro last week, agreed to apply various economic remedies but showed no appetite for market intervention in Saturday's working session.

China, rebuffing Western pressure to loosen the yuan's peg to the dollar and share the EU burden of higher-priced exports, said it was too soon to talk about it.

more...


Fahrenheit Oil and Gold: China & the Final War for Resources
China's playbook?

http://www.kitco.com/ind/Ridley/nov182004.html

In their 1999 seminar treatise entitled, Unrestricted War: China’s Master Plan to Destroy America, Colonels Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui state that in order for China to become a dominant global power over the United States, “The Final War over Resources”, must be successfully concluded.

Though this could be easily blown off as People’s Liberation Army hyperbole, a closer look at the facts shows us that the United States is in a very vulnerable position on a number of fronts with China. And so with it, is the U.S. dollar.

snip>

The U.S. government has been keeping a lid on the brewing problems with China because of the delicate situation which has the Chinese central bank holding billions in U.S. dollars and treasury bonds which Washington fears they might sell.

snip>

The U.S. dollar reserves of China’s central bank soared 271% to $449 billion from 2000 to April of 2004. And while they have been filling their coffers with the greenback their balance of trade with the U.S. is also building. The trade deficit with China last year was a record $124.1 billion and this year, it’s increased a further 28%.

snip>

One fact which doesn’t sit well with the Bush Administration is that U.S. intelligence reports claim China’s military provided training to both the Taliban and al Qaeda. Though U.S. officials are at a loss to explain why the Chinese provided this training some analysts believe it was an attempt to gain influence over these terrorist groups.

Given China’s need for commodities, its human rights offenses, and their hawkish military actions one must wonder if the Chinese government really has a detrimental agenda for America.

The writings of People’s Liberation Army Colonels Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, state that the aggressor nation “must adjust its own financial strategy, use currency revaluation or devaluation as primary weapons, and combine means such as getting the upper hand in public opinion and changing the rules sufficiently to make financial turbulence and economic crisis appear in the targeted country or area, weakening its overall power, including its military strength. Whether it be the intrusions of hackers, a major explosion at the World Trade Center, or a bombing attack by bin Laden, all of these greatly exceed the frequency bandwidths understood by the American military..."

more...


PART 2: Tequila trap beckons China
Part 2 of a 2 part article - both very long, too long to try and decide what to snip.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/FK06Ad01.html

[54anickel]

39. Oh, and lookie here- China to set up Asian-Pacific Finance and Development

Center

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-11/21/content_2244314.htm

SANTIAGO, Nov. 21 (Xinhuanet) -- China will set up an Asia-PacificFinance and Development Center, providing a platform for Asia-Pacific economies to step up exchanges and capacity-building, Chinese President Hu Jintao announced here Sunday.

Speaking at Retreat II of the 12th Economic Leaders' Meeting ofthe Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), the Chinese president urged the APEC member economies to deepen their mutually-beneficial cooperation in the promotion of an Asia-Pacific Community.

The Chinese president said Chile, the host, chose this year's theme of APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting as "One Community, Our Future", thus well reflected the wishes of the APEC members.

"Common interests and common future require us to shoulder common responsibility and exert joint efforts." Hu said. "We should grasp the opportunities brought about by economic globalization and regional integration process, take full advantages of the APEC platform to learn from each other, push forward closer and mutually beneficial economic and trade cooperation, for the sake of laying a solid foundation for achieving sustainable common development."

more...


Tie that in with the fact that they pretty much resist Western capitalistic ways...

The Rotten Fruits Of America's Strong Dollar Policy

http://www.nationalinvestor.com/rotten_fruits_of_america.htm

snip>

In this cycle, one of the most noteworthy features has been the rise in the real value of the dollar against the emerging world undefined particularly emerging Asia. This is in sharp contrast with the past, when higher domestic inflation plus a fixed real exchange rate caused these countries to experience an ongoing real appreciation of their currencies against the dollar. This real appreciation partially offset their rapidly improving abilities to compete with the U.S. in more and more markets.

By contrast, in this cycle, despite continued productivity increases in tradables relative to the U.S., these countries have undergone massive devaluations against the dollar. Even with the strong economic recoveries from the crisis-induced lows of 1998, these countries' currencies still linger well below levels sustained throughout most of the early 1990s. We have always believed that this huge departure from the trend path of these currencies would create the potential for quantum increases in competitiveness at the expense of the U.S. Such gains in potential competitiveness extend even to countries like China; even though there has been no devaluation of the Chinese currency, the combination of significant domestic price deflation in tradables and expanding export subsidies have reduced prices of manufactured exports relative to the cost of their production in the U.S.

All this has occurred during a time of incredible vulnerability for the U.S. economy. For two and a half decades the dollar has eroded amidst repeated balance of payment crises. This time conditions are far worse. The dollar's ascent since 1995 started with a current account deficit to GDP ratio that was higher than it was prior to the dollar bubble of 1984-85. We are now looking to an all-time record in the current account deficit relative to GDP. But in the past, in the case of each previous dollar crisis, the U.S. was a net creditor nation. This time it is a huge debtor nation to the tune of 27-28% of GDP. Its room to maneuver is limited, yet the Asian economic export juggernaut continues unabated.

snip>

The only real beneficiary of such inept and short-sighted policy making has been Asia, which has recovered faster than anybody thought possible a few years ago. Despite some short-term compromise, Asia did not fundamentally reform "Western style" as some arrogant market commentators and institutions such as the IMF advocated so strongly back in 1998 at the height of the region's financial crisis. Its governments are increasingly dominated again, not by Western, IMF-approved technocrats, but policy makers who recognize that Asia's "Alliance capitalism" is simply not compatible with volatile international capital flows and Hobbesian Western market behavior.

Above all, China has proved resistant to Western ways. Its relatively closed borders to volatile Western leveraged capital (notwithstanding the pleas of Wall Street) enabled it to emerge from the regional crisis of 1997/98 relatively unscathed. As the recent data suggests, it is now well prepared for growth on its own terms (which is why one should not expect imminent capital account liberalization and a corresponding revaluation of the currency). It will be the economic leader in the global recovery. Asian development strategies will continue to deepen further as China's regional economic dominance expands. China is not the source of the world's current problems; it is not, as is commonly argued, "exporting deflation." Rather, it has been the persistent refusal of the American government to conduct economic policy with an eye toward preventing a loss of U.S. competitiveness, and a corresponding rise in huge external imbalances, that has caused the relative shift in economic fortunes in regard to America and Asia. The source of potential U.S. deflation, and today's quandary for American monetary and financial officials, is very much home-grown.

more...

[Mika]

44. Oh sh*t!!

"One fact which doesn’t sit well with the Bush Administration is that U.S. intelligence reports claim China’s military provided training to both the Taliban and al Qaeda. Though U.S. officials are at a loss to explain why the Chinese provided this training.."


Its becoming clearer and clearer.

:scared:

[shesemsmom]

31. Don't we owe China billions of dollars

and what would happen if they called that loan in. Wouldn't we be screwed!!!!!!:wtf:

[Javaman]

35. Not only do we own them 166 billion in a trade deficit, read my..

above post about China and the US T-bonds.

[Sabriel]

36. Tomorrow's headline: "CARE sends aid to US children in poverty"

We're rapidly sinking in the rankings, right across the board.

[Barkley]

41. US to China: Stop North Korea's Nuke Program

I'm bet that's the quid-quo pro arrangement

[54anickel]

43. DANG - New Link. Original link is broken

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2004/11/21/2003211989