I realize that I owe DU follow up on the Fannie/Freddie nationalization (it's coming), but research keeps turning up other fascinating/disturbing tidbits.
Like this one.
US foreign currency reserves have sunk to about
$72+ billion, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The southern African nation of Botswana's foreign currency reserves stand at about
$6 billion.
Yeah! USA! USA! WE'RE NO. 1 ! Our foreign reserves are about 10 times bigger than Botswana's !!
Oh yeah. Botswana is a nation of 1.8 million people, while the US is a nation of about 300 million people -- there are 166 times as many Americans and there are Botswana citizens.
Which means that on a
per capita basis (per person), Botswana's foreign currency reserves are $3,277 while on the same basis ours are about $250 -- so the
Tswana have have 13 times the foreign currency reserves per person we have.
OK what about a more suitable match up? How about USA versus Greneda! Oh wait, we already kicked their asses.
What about Hong Kong? I read somewhere that their foreign reserves are
falling! Yeah, Go USA! Ooops, they were falling by a billion or so, but they were up at the end of August by $400 million and currently stand at
$158.1 billion.
That's Hong Kong.
Not China.
Hong Kong, with its population of about the same size as New York City, has twice the foreign currency reserves of the entire U S of A. (China of course has around $1.8 trillion, about 23 times as much foreign reserves as the US).
Of course, a small country like Botswana, or a city-state like Hong Kong, or a big third world factory town like China, have to save foreign currency because they need dollars. We make our own goddamn dollars, thank you very much, and as long as the world accepts our manufactured dollars for their manufactures, we don't need no stinkin foreign currency reserves.
Oh wait a minute. If Freddie and Fannie default on the several trillion dollars worth of mortgage backed securities and other debt instruments, the world probably won't accept dollars any more.
Well, if so, we've always got that $72 billion or so in foreign reserves, right? That is what we would have to cover all needed imports including oil and the rest of our energy needs, and that $72 billion will last for ...
Does that mean were screwn?
On edit: Point of information: It is unlikely that foreign exporters or central banks would refuse to accept dollars at any price, but dollars would become much less valuable and prices of all imports would increase.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
