Getting the priorities right..
According to the RTÉ report, US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, “thanked Beijing for its continued confidence in US debt” on her first overseas visit in office. And the BBC report has additional quotes
“Our pressing on those issues (human rights, Taiwan and Tibet) can’t interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crises,” [Mrs Clinton] said. “We have to have a dialogue that leads to an understanding and co-operation on each of those.”On the economy, Mrs Clinton sought to reassure China that its massive holdings of US treasury notes would remain a good investment. “I appreciate greatly the Chinese government’s continuing confidence in United States treasuries. I think this is well-grounded confidence”
[What about China's currency manipulation? - Ed]. Well, you have to borrow from someone to pay for all that pork stimulus..
Hey, apparently “Change we can believe in” actually referred to Obama’s belief that the US coinage system was sound.
Seriously, though, this shows two things: 1) Obama is a fraud — he is no progressive, he’s a right-winger; and 2) it is time to dump dollars and buy gold, land, pigs, anything that doesn’t derive its value from the full faith and credit of the US government.
No surprise really is this?
Garibaldy, unfortunately this just further proves to me that I was a naive idiot to have supported Obama in the first place.
“On the economy, Mrs Clinton sought to reassure China that its massive holdings of US treasury notes would remain a good investment.”
Is it fair to say that the only thing stopping the American economy from tanking completely is the Chinese desire not to be left holding “massive holdings” of worthless paper?
NCM,
“unfortunately this just further proves to me that I was a naive idiot to have supported Obama in the first place.”
Don’t be so hard on yourself. These front men are always adept snake oil salesmen when it comes to election time. The faces may change but the policies stay the same.
Wilde Rover, the fact is, I actually thought Obama was going to represent a watershed break from the past and would usher in a new era of progressive politics. Turns out this was insanely wishful thinking.
On the question of worthless paper, yes, that is exactly the problem. We’re printing more and more of this stuff, giving it by the truckload to folks like the bankers who don’t do anything productive to earn it, and what’s the end result? Massive inflation. The other shoe will drop…
100 years ago the Chinese were ‘ripe ‘ or so the western powers and Japan thought for a ‘carve up ‘ along the African model of earlier times . The British paid for their trade imbalance with China by becoming official ‘opium ‘ peddler and dealer to the middle kingdom .
100 years ago in the USA the Chinese were the disparaged , and discriminated against yellow ‘peril’ who did the laundry, and built railroads .
Today Chinese and Sino Americans make up a large minority of American ‘undergraduates ‘ particularly in the sciences , mathematics , physics and engineering faculties .
And the moral of the story ?
Discrimination is good for some people especially if they’re Chinese or Jewish or dare I say it even Irish ?
‘anything that doesn’t derive its value from the full faith and credit of the US government.’
Go look at a dollar – It says in God we trust on the back of a ten dollar bill but in the real world ‘God ‘ when this crisis unfolded happened to be the former Chief Executive of Goldman Sachs -Henry M.Paulson Jr
So you are /were trusting Henry Paulson and now it’s Timothy Geithner not to print too much of the green paper a la Mugabe in Zimbabwe or the German Weimar Republic or many other governments in history who have succumbed to the printing presses ot their equivalent in order to buy /rescue political power or peace .
Obama is doing all he can do given present circumstances . Anybody who expected ‘instant ‘ turnaround in the economy must not have understood that it has taken 20 years or more for this phase of banking ‘evolution ‘ courtesy of the neo conservative ethos to reach this critical moment .
Obama may yet have to ‘nationalise ‘ the American banking system to restore ‘confidence ‘ I suspect he’s leading to that ‘decision’ . There are now hundreds if not thousands of banks in the USA who are on the edge .So far they’ve been held back by the promise of being bailed out . Letting them all collapse sounds only like natural justice . However if and when that happened such a collapse would bring final destruction on whatever is left of American ‘equity ‘ in remaining non foreclosed homes . As their equity disappears Americans will resort to dumping any remaining stocks and shares which will wipe out the Stock Exchange (now down almost 50% since it’s peak back in 2007 when the American Economy was fundamentally ‘sound ‘ as per Messrs Paulson and Bush the former of course being the ‘chap ‘ whose squiggle of ‘trust ‘ is to be seen on every 10 dollar bill ?
Clinton has to paly ball with the Chinese . She knows that if the latter who are also facing a major downturn try to address that issue by pulling their trillion dollars out of US securities then it’s goodbye ‘dollar ‘ hello Zloty
The ‘neo conservative ‘ revolution has run it’s course to destruction . It’s early days to see what will replace it .