Chinese Premier: Currency not undervalued, warns of "Double Dip" Recession
Submitted by
CalculatedRisk on Sat, 03/13/2010 - 10:19pm (72 comments)
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Right...the yuan isn't undervalued. Bald faced lie. I dare you to float your currency, and see what happens. Hahahahahaha!
Might be right - only one way to find out - let it float.
Go to bed, CR. It's a short night.
PS: I plan to follow my own advice.
CR is up late!
dryfly, that sounds too much like "mark to market".
picosec wrote:
Good point,
C'mon, float your fiat like a man.
C
ee, you see this?
Matt Simmons on energy & water
Victor Shih has some very interesting posts
regarding Chinese internal politcal maneuverings. 
Good point. I forget to set my clock ... thanks for the reminder.
Darn - it will definitely be a short night!
best to all
OPEN SOURCE "HARD" (Fixed float) CURRENCY, now.
These childish currency games are a drag on trade.
We don't need no stinkin' central bank paper mills...
Anybody else having trouble with the character set on Victor Shih's site? Can't read it. It's all boxes instead of letters.
It's fine on my system, as fine as the simplified character equivalent of Unicode Sans can look. Ugh.
C
Counterpointer wrote:
Bet you're running Linux. It's all boxes of 16-bit codes on Windows.
How long before Freedom CLO joins Repo 105 in the lexicon...
Fed Helped Bank Raise Cash Quickly - NY Times
Appears the FRBNY was the direct counterparty. Not just the dog that didn't bark on Repo 105.
More questions for timmaay.
C
I'm off to meet with investors tomorrow morning. Where am I going to do this?
Wait for it....
Wait for it...
Las Vegas. No kidding.
I'll be gone for a week with spotty connectivity. Maybe I can get some more cell phone shots of empty towers at night. Maybe I'll take a real camera and see if I can get anything good... after all, it's hard to shoot dark towers at night with a crap camera.
probably windows XP. 7 and probably vista would display it fine, as the language packs are optional on XP. if you just install those, it should show up.
The characters show up fine on my computer. Both Firefox and IE8.
FYI: New York Times lead story:
Dodd to Unveil a Broad Financial Overhaul Bill - NY Times
The Federal Reserve would see its bank supervision powers significantly diminished. It would continue to oversee bank holding companies with $50 billion or more in assets, and would be entrusted to regulate systemically important nonbank financial institutions. Mr. Dodd had considered setting the threshold at $100 billion, which would have been even worse for the Fed.
Smaller bank holding companies, if they have a federal charter, would be overseen by a new regulator formed out of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which already oversees national banks. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which already oversees state-chartered banks that are not members of the Fed system, would gain oversight over those that are.
....
On the other hand, the Fed would lose oversight over more than 4,900 bank holding companies with roughly $3 trillion in assets, and about 870 state-chartered banks that are members of the Fed system and have a total of $1.7 trillion in assets.
sm_landlord wrote:
Get out in the deserted suburbs while you're there, count the "for sale" signs. I'm sure you'll gauge the CRE available signs, too.
Will be there Wed. - Sat. for a bachelor party.
Not my idea, but one of our party is a local lawyer.
hans wrote:
I would install Vista on my systems about the same time that I would voluntarily drink hemlock. Some of our clients did that, and support is a complete nightmare.
Currently evaluating Win7 on a new system. I'll probably end up running it in a VM under Ubuntu.
I am so done with Windows, except as a reverse compatibility patch to run the few apps that still require it.
BTW, Gnome on Ubuntu looks better than Windows. They finally fixed the font problem, which was the main reason we stayed with XP.
We converted our servers to Linux in the late 1990s, and it's time to do the same for our desktops. I think we waited too long.
1 currency now -yogi wrote:
Yeah, I'm sure you're going kicking and screaming. Oh, by the way,...did you know they play poker there?
TJ and The Bear wrote:
Yeah, I plan to. An old friend of mine bought one of the last houses built out in the western burbs recently. I think he paid about $250K and has already lost $50K.
I'll be looking for industrial space. There's something attractive about ghost towns. Let's hope that FlyMiwok stays in business.
1 currency now -yogi wrote:
Drop me a line if you want to have a drink and a rant. I'll be there through Thursday if nothing blows up here in LA. Staying at Bally's.
For money? I will try this game, but as a beginner I wouldn't want to slow up the game.
Ok. We're at the lawyer's Wed. for dinner but may venture out for St. P. At Trump something.
He says [client] Louie Anderson may grace us.
1 currency now -yogi wrote:
Dinner and Entertainment. Sounds like fun!
Chinese Premier Wen may be right, but I don't think the U.S. worker would like to get a pay cut down to 60 cents to a dollar an hour. At least not all at once.
Of course we have also forgotten how to make real things any more, so a lot of people would have to be trained and most of us know how hard that would be.
Maybe they do need to let it float and expose how weak the dollar really is.
Double dip is now looking likely save for FedGov bail of states, but should be shallow and long.
Sorry to go
, but back to Greece for a moment. Always was a 
The ECB has been waiting for this moment since Greece/Spain/Portugal joined the Euro, this was all kabuki. Break the back of the speculators in the process helps the world economy to boot. Too pricey to attack Spain or Italy, Too easy to backstop Portugal, hard to attack UK because the pound has already been hammered to the point where manufacturing is now almost competitive and they can devalue further.
So bus drivers strike for a couple of weeks, BFD. They always strike, students riot once a year just like the seasons. As sacrilegious as it sounds, maybe the Greeks could be more productive if they went to a latin alphabet.
OT: I suspect there is a major generational schism developing between Generation Y (or millenials, or whatever you people call us now) and our late-boomer/early-GenX parents. Class lines are currently being redrawn with little respect to parental income and education. Combine downward financial pressure across the demographic spectrum with structural unemployment, then add the aggravating factor of student loan debt, and the expectations placed on us are no longer reasonable. Something has to give, and it's going to be ugly.
Some mood music,
YouTube - "Something's Got To Give"
More blame it on the snow.
I sure am glad climate change will solve all these problems for us, unless you live below 20 ft above sea level that is.
Storms Probably Hurt Production, Housing: U.S. Economy Preview - Bloomberg.com
Well so much for cheap national and international transfers of money.
This does look like yet another step by big brother to limit and control cash.
IRS to Track Online Sellers' Payment Transactions Beginning Next Year
Mood music "just because" . . .
YouTube - My Romance by Bernadette Peters
Very OT, Outside of not needing a passport, this is another thing that Hawaii has going for it. (I'm trying to be optimistic)
24 killed in western Mexico; 11 in one shootout | honoluluadvertiser.com | The Honolulu Advertiser
Kauai_Kahuna wrote:
Absolutely right. For spring break this year, I know of a family fatigued with winter who looked around for places with warm water and warmer weather. They've got younger kids and a week off. There are some nice resorts south of the border, including some all-inclusives, but Mexico wasn't even on their radar because of reports like that. They worry about endangering their kids, and themselves. Personal choice, of course, but that's gotta be really putting a crimp on their tourism numbers. Told me, "I don't want to go on vacation and die." Nobody really says that about the Islands, except for the odd drowning or Helicopter tour crash.
Ends up they are going to Aruba. Hawaii is just too long-ass of a trip with kids, and with the time change, they'd need 10 days or so to make it worthwhile. So I guess the hotel occupancy numbers over there won't capture this family. Oh well. I even tells 'em da good weddah onna Big Island is guaran ball bearins, but dey just look at me funny.
sm_landlord wrote:
Got Vista on this machine and EVERY day it decides to just go blank. I have to hold down the power button about 15 seconds to power down and then turn it back on. Five minutes later, I'm back. Windoze sux. Thinking about getting one of those Ipads this summer and passing this one on the teenager.
I was readin gthe last thread about the chinese housing bubble and how it would not have much of an effect because of large down payments.
As a chinese american, I probably have slightly more insight as to how people come up with these large downpayments to begin with. Its a cultural thing to borrow money from your relatives , parents etc, to get what they believe is a "good investment". They do expect you to pay it back so in the end it is still essentially an investment that got defaulted on.
In 2006 , my father and mother offered to pay the 20% down on a condo in los angeles, since i was a renter. Condo was probably like $500k for something crappy in west LA where I was living at the time . I split rent with a friend in a 2 bedroom place for $1250 a month in a similar area where said $500-600k 2 bedroom condo would have been. Anyhow I told them I didnt want a condo regardless since I wanted to not be tied down to it, and they seemed really overpriced but my parents were a little disappointed since they said I was throwing my money away in rent.
Lo and behold its been 4 years, I moved to northern california about 6 months after that to work at a startup (for like 35% more pay to boot) and still rent. They have not lost their 20% downpayment of $100k which I would have had to eventually pay them back on even at say 2% interest had I short saled a place or something I'd probably be cheap for years to pay that debt off if say I had to short sale the place and my parents would be worrying about their $100k in savings that got pissed away.
ON the other hand I have a friend who DID buy a condo summer 2007 in santa clara ca ( i told him it was the stupidest idea ever, given he was single, and would be broke paying for it but he said he had to get in because prices go up forever). Oh the more hillarious part is his parents are real estate brokers.. so he gets a 2 bedroom place next to a railroad track (actually 4 tracks). I kid you not, this was $560k for 1200 sq feet. His parents put down the money so he could get a non jumbo loan (he is a high school teacher and more o rless scared they will cut back pay). Anyhow he put down about $30k of his own money, $120k of his parents, and the place is worth maybe $380k today. So he's totally screwed but in theory the place is still being paid for just now his parents have lost their equity, so has he, but he's indebted for probably 20 years to his parents , feeling excessively cheap and is living off ramen and junio whoppers.
SO basically my point is, if the chinese housing bubble collapsed, even if just the equity was wiped out and there was no negative equity it would still destroy the economy because everyones "savings" was wiped out since they thought of the house as their savings and they would feel even more cheap in the future.
Granted no bank would fail, but the bank of mom and dad would fail. And that is probably just as bad anyway since now no one is spending any money or loaning money. It has exactly the same effect as a bank failing. if a bank fails it cant lend money. if mom and dad fail they cant lend money and the economy still dies.
dubfan wrote:
Speaking as a true Gen X'r born at the tail of the boom, we've already got that downward financial pressure. I think we've got more in common than the early boomers do with us. They ruined the job market, then the mutual fund market, now they're destroying the housing market. Too bad I'll be almost as old as them when they die...
vista really isn't that bad. the main problems with it are crappy drivers.
drivers are kernel level and if you have drivers from very early vista they are probably terrible. nvidia did some really horrible ones. I guess that is why mac os doesnt have these problems since they basically write the drivers for their very limited configurations.
vista in and of itself is very similar to 7 and security wise is much more secure than xp. the problem is XP has had super mature drivers since it uses the same ones as windows 2000 and its been what 7-8 years of driver maturity.
I bet if you update all your drivers you will be ok.
hans wrote:
Trust me, I've tried
I am technically a gen Y person by 18 days... (I think most people claim gen Y starts with people born starting 1981), so I guess I am right in between both of these "generations".
My parents are young boomers (born in 1957 and 59) so I have talked to them about this as well as coworkers who are in that age group.
My mom generally has no idea what im talking about, but my coworkers and my dad seem to go with the "hahah suckers" train of thought. I mean i told my mom that I will never get social security and that I think 401ks are pointless because by the time I cash out a 401k my tax rate will be much higher than today because we'll be supporting all of them in their 70s and 80s on medicare and paying off their debt.
she is an accountant and doesnt seem to grasp it since she goes "well i paid SS, i should get to have it", even though i said the amounts dont add up. I can someday see us in 2030 just refusing to pay taxes anymore. I mean we are the children whose futures were mortgaged away so once our demoraphic is large enough (after maybe 1/3 of the boomers die) i'm sure we'll have the political clout to take their benefits away when push comes to shove.
I have not heard this mentioned before and probably for good reason. I am wondering why no one mentions tarriffs as the only way to get us out of this mess we are in. Sure one might say that will result in trade wars but won't we reach the point where that option is better than the unemployment? Yes of course you may talk about the ripple effect of such action but if disperate do you think that would be ignored for relief in the present. Thank you.
hans wrote:
I'm either a very late boomer or early gen x. The deal with social security is that Wall Street looks at that huge flow of money between working stiffs and retired people and it drives them completely mad that they can't dip their straws into it. So they spread FUD in order to try and convince people that we need to scrap it, or the very least keep it from growing.
I'm with Hans on this... the problem with early Vista was bad drivers and by SP1 all of my problems were solved, although I
must say that I moved on to Win 7 which I find to be quite a nice OS.
...
I'm leaving Bangkok late late tonight so this is my last night in Bangkok. (cue music)
Wish I was leaving under better circumstances ... loss my youngest brother (46) and his beloved wife yesterday in
a tragic home fire in Indiana... this sucks in the most devastating of ways.
goodbye for now...
Duke
doug r wrote:
go back and read what you wrote and try to imagine yourself as the oldest generation, then beg forgiveness for you sins
nincompoop, that is a very good question. Tariffs would ultimately be great for the lowest 80% of the population as far as income, but would decimate the upper 1% who make their big money using global wage arbitrage and the FIRE economy, which would be absolutely devastated. They hold most of the bonds, which would lose probably half their value initially. The elites would not be able to wage war around the globe using foreign money as that source would stop flowing for their "pre-emptive strikes".The upper 1% don't give a damn about the sovereignty of this country or its imminent bankruptcy from these unproductive wars and global wage arbitrage, so in the long run, Smoot-Hawley would be good for this country. Incidentally, the latest figures for last year show China is still buying our treasury bills and notes after abstaining thru the last half of 2008.
hans wrote:
It must take a great deal of abuse to rile you
t r orwell wrote:
we now have two who are suggesting the stupidest idea ever
however, they're already upon us
Brazil launches salvo of trade sanctions against US / The Christian Science Monitor - CSMonitor.com
US cheese tariff angers French |
World news |
The Guardian
CHINA NPC: Wen: Tariff Cuts Likely Benefit For Taiwan In Cooperation Pact
reading is part and parcel of keeping current
Good morning from just the other side of nowhere...
Volker the Viking, if you want to side with Greenspan who made a fool of himself this past week again by talking about the need for more Americans to get more education and talking about the global economy instead of our sovereignty, then go for it. Hillary Clinton, who I have no respect for either, said a few weeks ago that it was Greenspan who bankrupted our country and "put our national security at risk". But don't you ever, ever forget what Greenspan said to Bernie Sanders in 2003. These words will live in infamy.
YouTube - Rep. Bernard Sanders vs. Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan
If China won't raise the value of their currency, we must lower the value of ours.
Simple enough...
I have no idea where that came from.
Rain can drop lots of things from the sky other than fish.
I'm going to go out on a Limbaugh, and predict that he doesn't leave the country if the health care bill is passed...
I'm going to go out on a Pelosi, and predict she is in need of more botox to pass the health care bill.
the reverse of many positions can also be true
Why bother to leave the country when the country is already leaving you? Lately we're all foreign travelers without the hassle of airports as our country changes around us.
Just trying to find a positive spin.
Wen's prediction of a double dip suggests to me that maybe he's been reading CR.
Maybe we should speak in code.
Sorry, no pun-no fun.
Wen appears to just be brighter than our blubs, most can see the writing on the wall with blinders being worn by power elites. Botox is 500dollars a vial, just saying
We are so vain.
Boughtulism ain't cheap...
and you find them in pears
Juvenal Delinquent wrote:
We need high tariffs. I know it is unenlightened and isolationist but I really feel we do not need to police the rest of the world or be the consumer of last resort. Bring our troops home and be like a porcupine.
C'pointer last thread: "How that factors in final demand for an export-led growth strategy (that's you, 'Muricans!) is a little unclear."
Meanwhile people talking tariffs, which is an answer of sorts.
Reviewing this thread and the one before it, I can see the usual bases have been covered.
About the only thing I’d add is that for labor intensive consumer goods, China presented a unique outsourcing opportunity twenty years ago, and one that’s unlikely to be matched by any other place, India, SEA, African countries, etc. Acceptable infrastructure, plus capital and tech support from the Chinese diaspora are simply unmatched anywhere else.
And that’s not to mention the lengthening days for the overleveraged US consumer, reliably cheap energy in dollars, and the bogus chits we’re passing back and forth. If the dollar blows up before or after the Chinese revalue, who’ll take it? The whole neo-liberal worldview gets blown with it.
So I suppose less stuff, higher prices, and more local production seem to be in the cards for a lot of products. Others will stay in China even if the RMB goes to 3:1. That’s barring a complete collapse of world trade due to Madmax, International Edition. Which, by the way, going Smoot would likely prompt.
Good article on Chinese inflation woes and possible results. Market Skeptics
I traveled quite a bit in New Zealand in the early 1980's when they were the ultimate cradle to grave socialist economy, with big tariffs on all imported goods, and the populace had learned to live with less and make things last, austerity.
For what it's worth, they went from one extreme to the other, later in the 1980's when they relaxed tariffs. The first thing you noticed was there were no more 1950's cars on the roads, as 3 year old used Japanese vehicles were imported to take their place...
Yeah, that progressive registration fee on aging cars in Japan is a perfect match for a she'll be right banger in godzone!
I rented a nine year old Toyota and drove it all over the north island a few years ago. Rental company was run by a Japanese expat.
juvenal deliquent, New Zealand when they reversed policy in the eighties, used the Japanese carry trade to party like it was 1999. It's currency last year in fact jumped 25% against the dollar using the Japanese carry trade, ie, lot of Japanese investment in Kiwi debt instruments over the years. Japan's Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama on Friday made a rare call for "firm steps" to stem the strength of the yen against the dollar, so that means more Japanese government debt to fund the carry trade and more sacrifices by the japanese workers for THEIR elites. Yes, Japan is like the US if you mean like the US in the year 1929
Incidentally, according to the latest US government figures, China was first and poured in 168 billion dollars in US debt instruments last year, while Japan was second among foreign countries, contributing 140 billion. They'll have to do better than that to bring down the yen to enable more exports to the US.
@Duke:
My condolences. I hope things get better for you and your family.