[quote=patientrenter][quote=partypup]
But hey, PatientRenter says Bernanke should be able to put a stop to these interest rate hikes – so we should be just fine. I’ll go back to bed now and dream of lollipops and unicorns…
So partypup, put some facts with those taunts. Can you describe the limit that you think Bernanke will hit that will stop him from buying more Treasuries?[/quote]
LOL. I wish I could, PR, but my predictive abilities only extend so far 😉 I have no idea what the tipping point will be (although I suspect we moved significantly closer to the edge this week). What I will say is this: I sincerely and strongly believe that we are going to experience an ugly and rapid unwinding of the dollar by the end of the year, in all likelihood starting this Fall when the U.S. fiscal year ends and we face the prospect of funding a budget that will by that point be, literally, un-fundable. I have been sensing this for the past few months now. The ONLY thing standing in the way of a currency crisis right now is the Chinese. At this point Bernanke, Obama and the other clowns seem to be thinking/hoping that we have China over a barrel because they have more to lose than we do by bailing out of greenbacks.
They’re wrong.
I feel so strongly about the dollar’s imminent demise that I am willing to make you a wager: within the next twelve (12) months the dollar will lose its reserve currency status. And I think we all know what happens after that. Are you so confident in the dollar’s future that you will put a little skin in the game…? 😉
“No one knows for sure when the tide started to turn, or the exact moment when American gold started its slow but seemingly irreversible loss of luster,” Victor Zhikai Gao, a former interpreter for Deng Xiaoping, said. But now, “[m]any Chinese people increasingly fear the rapid erosion of the American dollar.”
Many shops no longer accept dollar-based credit cards, and there are quotas on how many dollars can be converted to renminbi. Those who still keep large amounts of U.S. dollars are those who need it to send their children to U.S. schools, or to travel in other countries that still use U.S. dollars.
For the most part, Chinese multinational corporations still happily accept U.S. dollars as a form of payment—but Mei jin is on its way to becoming a derisive anti-American joke, even a dirty word. China’s appetite for holding dollars is turning into revulsion.
But China isn’t the only Asian country to show public disdain for the U.S. dollar.
Ii eh, domo. That is essentially what the chief finance spokesman of Japan’s opposition said concerning the U.S. dollar on April 12. Ii eh, domo means “no thanks”—as in, dollar-denominated U.S. treasuries? No thanks. Masaharu Nakagawa told the bbc that he was worried about the future value of the dollar, and that if his party were elected in the upcoming national elections it would refuse to purchase any more U.S. treasuries unless they were denominated in Japanese yen.
“If it’s [in] yen, it’s going to be all right,” Mr. Nakagawa said. “We propose that we would buy [the U.S. bonds], but it’s yen, not dollar.
As a U.S. ally, Washington officials don’t often talk about Japan being stuck in a dollar trap. But this recent announcement illustrates the clear weakening of U.S.-Tokyo relations.
“We have come to assume that Japan under the Liberal Democratic Party (ldp) will always cleave to America, if only to safeguard U.S. protection against Chinese naval expansion,” writes Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in the Telegraph. “But crashes have a habit of bringing regime change.”
Brian Reading, a Japan specialist at Lombard Street Research, says Japan may experience a “seismic shock,” as voters revolt. Will Japan soon have new leadership that is less accommodating to Washington? Even America’s strongest allies are questioning the wisdom of lending money to a nation that has so much debt.
According to a recent unconfirmed report, Germany may be in the dollar skeptic camp too. Economic Analyst Jim Willie quotes an unnamed source saying that the Germans have demanded the “return all their gold bullion held in custodial accounts on U.S. soil.” Dubai has recently sent the same request to London (which is also facing a currency crisis). According to Willie, Germany is acting as a “hidden archenemy” toward the U.S. and UK “on all matters pertaining to gold bullion.” He says Germany is also acting as an adviser to the Chinese on currency and gold issues.
When America’s allies, let alone its enemies, publicly question the viability of the dollar, we can know that things behind the scenes are even worse.
“We’re going to have a currency crisis, probably this fall or the fall of 2010,” said famed commodities investor Jim Rogers on May 12. “It’s been building up for a long time. We’ve had a huge rally in the dollar, an artificial rally in the dollar, so it’s time for a currency crisis.”
