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parvati_roma
Joined: 30 Mar 2004
Posts: 8433
Location: Italy
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 Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2009 5:25 am Post subject: "Chimerica" under strain: the Chinese POV |
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By way of info, here's my trans. of a v. interesting/significant article from today's edition of La Repubblica - it's by Federico Rampini, one of Italy's top "Asia hands":
| Quote: | Beijing - "We hate you but we can't do without you". On the eve of Hillary Clinton's arrival in Beijing, one of China's top monetary policy managers has vented his resentment in an undiplomatic outburst that perfectly sums up China's current mood in relation to America. China is feeling the stress of being tied down into "Chimerica", the symbiotic relationship with the United States that had been the magical recipe for its development has now become a trap. Its close embrace with America, through its economic repercussions, can drag the Peoples' Republic down into the abyss too. This unusually outspoken phrase was spoken by Luo Ping, a top central bank official, at a meeting with a group of American bankers. Luo Ping said out loud what many here are thinking: "You are preparing to flood the financial markets with new issues of public debt securities, in 2009 you will print treasuries for a value of between 1,000 and 2,000 billion additional dollars. We know what that means: sooner or later the dollar is destined to lose value. And along with the dollar, a great deal of our own investments will be depreciated. We hate you because we have to keep on buying your Treasury Bonds".
Hillary Clinton's arrival will provide an occasion for celebrating the crucial partnership between the two world superpowers. But behind the flowery language of diplomacy and the inevitable promises of cooperation, the causes of tension between the two shores of the Pacific are becoming sharper. In addition to strategic and military rivalry, the "decline anxieties" America is experiencing and the protectionist temptations that have surfaced in the Buy American campaign, there is now an increasing amount of resentment on China's part. The top leaders in Beijing are feeling betrayed by their most important partner, let down for having believed in the American economic model to the point of becoming a pillar engaged in propping it up. With 338 billion worth of Chinese exports purchased by the USA in 2008, US consumerism has been the locomotive driving China's economic development: it has raised standards of living and maintained social stability in China. In exchange for the opening-up of the US market, Beijing has been generously subsidizing America's vice of living beyond its means: China's trade surplus - 266 billion last year - has been reinvested in dollars, mostly in the form of US treasuries. This is how the planet's biggest factory provided credit to its biggest customer. But now this recycling of Chinese capital is no longer sufficient to keep American consumption levels afloat. (...)
Those who expected the globalization scheme labelled Chimerica to run into difficulties caused by the Chinese side have been proved wrong: it is the implosion of the USA financial system that has got the two partners into trouble. Tian Guo Li, chief executive of the Cinda group and one of China's most imporant bankers, expresses the disappointment of the country's entire westernized nomenklatura: "Who could have imagined that those Wall Street banks we admired so much we saw them as models we should imitate, such as Citigroup, would come to such a bad end?" And the fact that China's Icbc and China Constructions Bank are now the world's two largest credit institutions in terms of stockmarket capitalisation is a poor consolation for China's national pride.
What really angers them is the way the "teacher" has betrayed its pupil's trust. For thirty years, Beijing's economic policies have followed Washington's neoliberalist paradigm. Now this model has collapsed, they are discovering how vulnerable the People's Republic has become. And they are speaking their thoughts loudly and clearly. Tian Guo Li, who invested Chinese government capital in Wall Street through Cinda Asset Management, is alarmed at the slowness of the Obama therapy: "They must act more quickly and decisively. The toxic securities in the banks' balance sheets are like a rotten spot in an apple: it must be cut out fast, before it can spread to rot the whole apple. It will be disastrous if Washington behaves as hesitantly as Japan did in its long depression in the nineties".
The palpable tension on the upper floors of China's leadership structure is proportionate to the wealth that Beijing has entrusted to its great overseas debtor. Fang Shangpu, the head of China's foreign exchange bureau, makes this very clear: "America must protect the interests of foreign investors. Its currency is China's number one foreign investment". With 2,000 billion dollars in official foreign currency reserves, Beijing's central bank is the richest on the planet. But that war-chest is subject to de facto sterilization. Its destination is obligatory: US Treasury Bonds, yet again, as always. In 2008 China bought a further 700 billion of them. Every US treasuries auction would fail if the Chinese central bankers did not turn up to play the role of kind-hearted creditor. And this situation continues despite the exchange-rate losses they have already suffered : since China's renminbi abandoned its fixed parity to the dollar (in July 2005) it has risen by 21%, thereby decreasing the value of China's dollar investments to an equal extent.
Meanwhile, the social costs of the US locomotive's crash are extremely severe. In the third quarter of 2008, as a result of the fall in exports, China's growth rate was brutally halved: 6.8% in GDP growth as compared to 13% in 2007. Following the mass layoffs in the textile, toys and electronics industries, the unemployed workers forced back into the rural economy now officially number around 27 million. Over a million and a half young college graduates too are unemployed: an even more politically explosive army of discontents. Now that Beijing needs to mobilize all available resource to relaunch its domestic growth, it is frustrating to remember those 2,000 billion dollars "frozen" to finance America.
The straw that has broken the camel's back is the revival of protectionism in Washington. First Treasury secretary Tim Geithner accused Beijing of "manipulating" its currency. Then came the Buy American clause in the 787 billion dollar public expenditure package launched by Congress, with Chinese steel as its number-one target. Xi Jinping, China's vice president and designated heir to the supreme leadership position, is furious. He too briefly abandons the language of diplomacy: "Even in this crisis", says Xi, "certain westerners seem to have nothing better to do than pick on us. I would like to remind them of some of our merits. Firstly, China does not export revolutions or hostile ideologies. Secondly, we do not export poverty or hunger. Thirdly, we do not export armed conflicts".
The seething resentment in these words does not yet mark the end of Chimerica. With Mrs Clinton the regime's leaders will rehearse the continuation of a constructive dialogue, convinced as they are that aggravating the global recession would benefit no-one. But in the light of mainstreet America's increasing hostility towards them, the leadership of the People's Republic is studying a "Plan B". Its most audacious moves include using the country's massive currency reserves for new purposes: to finance buy-ups of deposits of raw materials in other countries, ranging from Australia to Africa to Latin America. A reconversion that would have heavy consequences: a blow to the stability of the dollar, a worrying shortfall in treasury funding for Washington. However, the decision to step over this fatal threshhold has not yet been reached: "We hate you but we can't do without you" is still the key sentiment in the present phase. But even Confucian patience has its limits. |
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“Against barbarity, poetry can resist only by confirming its attachment to human fragility like a blade of grass growing on a wall while armies march by.” Mahmoud Darwish |
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johnwilkins
Joined: 15 Apr 2002
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| Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2009 6:10 am Post subject: |
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Again, this is just one-sided propaganda for those who want to consistently, relentlessly, and unthinkingly bash America. Here are some problems with this analysis.
| Quote: | | For thirty years, Beijing's economic policies have followed Washington's neoliberalist paradigm. |
No they have not. China has deliberately set up an export-based economy, with the intention of running an incredibly large positive balance by keeping its currency pegged artificially low relative to the US dollar. This is not a neoliberalist policy by any stretch of the imagination. It wasn't neoliberalist when Japan did it either.
| Quote: | | Its close embrace with America, through its economic repercussions, can drag the Peoples' Republic down into the abyss too. |
The US is not in an abyss--perhaps Japan is...
| Quote: | | In addition to strategic and military rivalry, the "decline anxieties" America is experiencing and the protectionist temptations that have surfaced in the Buy American campaign, there is now an increasing amount of resentment on China's part. |
The US government is asking US tax payers to increase the national debt to stimulate the US economy. If we buy goods overseas, we do not stimulate the US economy. We stimulate foreign economies. It's a one time bill, not a tariff.
| Quote: | | With 338 billion worth of Chinese exports purchased by the USA in 2008, US consumerism has been the locomotive driving China's economic development: it has raised standards of living and maintained social stability in China. In exchange for the opening-up of the US market, Beijing has been generously subsidizing America's vice of living beyond its means: China's trade surplus - 266 billion last year - has been reinvested in dollars, mostly in the form of US treasuries. |
What would you have us do? Not buy $338B worth of goods? That can be arranged. China has not bought $338B worth of goods from the United States, which is why we don't have the means to continue to buy more from China, or Japan, etc.
| Quote: | | But now this recycling of Chinese capital is no longer sufficient to keep American consumption levels afloat. |
It never was sufficient. What would be sufficient is buying American goods and services in exchange. However, China thinks that by pulling in American dollars, it can buy goods and services with US dollars from the rest of the world and somehow "level" the playing field. That worked just like it did when Japan was set to overtake the US--except you cannot finance your growth on the receipts of the customer you are trying to bankrupt. Why does that logic escape heads of state?
| Quote: | | "America must protect the interests of foreign investors. Its currency is China's greatest foreign investment". With 2,000 billion dollars in official foreign currency reserves, Beijing's central bank is the richest on the planet. But that war-chest is subject to de facto sterilization. Its use is obligatory: US Treasury Bonds, yet again, more and more. In 2008 China subscribed a further 700 billion of them. Every US treasuries auction would fail if Chinese central bankers did not turn up to play the part of the kind-hearted creditor. And this situation continues despite the exchange-rate losses they have already suffered : since China's renminbi has abandoned its fixed parity to the dollar (in July 2005) it has risen by 21%, thereby decreasing the value of China's dollar investments to an equal extent. |
Rubbish. China got to the position of having the largest foreign reserves of any country on the planet by pegging its currency artificially low relative to the US dollar. They did not reciprocate by taking their US dollar reserves and investing in private enterprises in the US nor by buying a similar amount of goods and services from the United States. Yes, the US got a free ride relative to what it might have paid in goods and services. However, China has the third largest economy on Earth now and the largest foreign reserves of any country--except, without recycling them into the US economy by also buying US goods and services or investing in US industries--not just consumer credit and government bonds--China has precipitated this situation; as our European posters are quick to point out when it serves their interest to do so.
| Quote: | | Now that Beijing needs to mobilize all available resource to relaunch its domestic growth, it is frustrating to think of those 2,000 billion dollars "frozen" to finance America. |
Just sell holdings and buy American goods and services. As soon as American incomes go up, so will consumer demand.
| Quote: | | The straw that has broken the camel's back is the revival of protectionism in Washington. First Treasury secretary Tim Geithner accused Beijing of "manipulating" its currency. Then came the Buy American clause in the 787 billion dollar public expenditure package launched by Congress, with Chinese steel as its number-one target. Xi Jinping, China's vice president and designated heir to its supreme leadership position, is so furious about it he too briefly abandons the language of diplomacy. "Even in this crisis", says Xi, "certain westerners seem to have nothing better to do than pick on us. I would like to remind them of some of our merits. Firstly, China does not export revolutions or hostile ideologies. Secondly, we do not export poverty or hunger. Thirdly, we do not export armed conflicts". |
Myanmar? Vietnam? Korea? Sabre rattling over Taiwan? Significant interest in the Panama Canal? Footsie with Chavez? It's not all perfect. Rather, it is China who has targeted US industries year-by-year, decade-by-decade for destruction and replacement with Chinese industries. Indeed China is manipulating its currency; and the Europeans are apparently furious about it too. Why did Americans "let" it happen? Because it benefited us to do so, as is becoming readily apparent.
| Quote: | | Its most audacious moves include using the country's massive currency reserves for new purposes: to finance buy-ups of deposits of raw materials in other countries, ranging from Australia to Africa to Latin America. |
Or... they could buy them from America... yet they choose not to, because they are targeting the US economy with the intent that they will one day become the world's number one economy--but using their own currency manipulation practices to make that happen. The problem now is that China cannot engage in the practice of dollar dumping without hurting its own economy even more; that's what is making them mad. And they don't want to buy raw materials or finished goods from the US for the reasons previously stated--which is why they ultimately end up killing their own investment in the US dollar.
The bottom line is you cannot be a mercantilist with a fiat money system. If this were a gold-based world, maybe that would be different, but it's not. Stop running a mercantilist economic policy--that was Japan's real mistake, and it's China's too.
The vitriol from this recent meeting suggests to me that China is going to have to report--as I said earlier--that their exports are set to fall off by 40%, which means a deep recession for China. A country that was once growing exports at 18% per year could see exports completely collapse. There will be no way to hide recession--indeed maybe even depression--from the rest of the world.
So yes, China can play more inflation games just as was done with oil stockpiling and subsidies, which drove oil to $147 per barrel among other factors--which in part collapsed consumer demand in the developed world. Sure the Arabs love it, and probably whispered anti-American sweet nothings in their ears. So what? Did it lead to the end of America? No. It's looking like depression in Asia, and possibly some very severe strains on the European Monetary Union.
ps... nobody resents the loser, but they sure do hate the winner.
_________________
"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery |
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parvati_roma
Joined: 30 Mar 2004
Posts: 8433
Location: Italy
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| Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2009 6:32 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Again, this is just one-sided propaganda for those who want to consistently, relentlessly, and unthinkingly bash America. |
I wouldn't call Rampini a propagandist, JW: he's Beijing-based and along with Francesco Scisci, he's recognised as Italy's top commentator on Far East economies and politics, has written several books on 'em. In this article, afaik his object - like my own in translating it - was informative not propagandistic: simply to convey the Chinese mood and POV - both via direct quotes and via statements reflecting the content of the various Chinese ventings and earbashings he's been absorbing from other sources.
Fyi, Italians are very seldom strongly pro-Chinese, JW - and for good reason: although we certainly respect China for its abilities and accomplishments both past and present we tend to view the way America has been fostering/force-feeding the rise-and-rise-and-rise of the Asian giant - a direct competitor of ours, btw - as way-too-extreme and dangerously shortsighted, queasily suspecting that you-all have been hand-feeding an immense, helluva-nationalistic potential Frankenstein that will sooner or later reduce the entire Han-despised rest-of-world to second/third/fourth-class "global citizenship". That in addition to our resentment of the deliberately-undervalued yuan... 
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“Against barbarity, poetry can resist only by confirming its attachment to human fragility like a blade of grass growing on a wall while armies march by.” Mahmoud Darwish |
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parvati_roma
Joined: 30 Mar 2004
Posts: 8433
Location: Italy
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| Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2009 8:25 am Post subject: |
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From the voice-of-America thingy Rferl:
China, U.S. Rethink Partnership That Helped Fuel Global Economic Crisis
| Quote: | (...) "The United States has something like a $700 billion current-account deficit last year, something like 5 percent of our [gross domestic product]," says Charles McMillion, an economist who heads MBG Information Services in Washington. "Over the last eight years, the U.S. current-account deficit has totaled just about exactly $5 trillion."
The current-account deficit is the primary measure of how much more Americans spend on foreign goods and services than they themselves produce or sell abroad.
At a daily rate, the amounts McMillion cites translate into Americans spending about $2 billion a day more in foreign trade than they earn.
Even before the start of the U.S. recession in December 2007, many economists were warning this rate of spending more than you earn was unsustainable.
Now, exacerbated by banks' losing vast amounts in the housing market and by speculation in the stock market, the unsustainable has become the catastrophic.
Clinton's priority will be to try to reassure the Chinese that they should keep investing their money in America. That would help the U.S. government finance its some $3 trillion worth of measures intended to revive the U.S. economy.
But convincing China to keep investing may not be easy.
The Chinese already has some $682 billion worth of savings in America in the form of U.S. government bonds.
Chinese officials worry now that the value of those savings, as well as the nearly $2 trillion worth of foreign currency, mostly American, that Beijing holds, could erode if Washington lets the U.S. dollar get too weak.
Beijing could demand -- as a condition for more investment -- that Washington promise to support the dollar's exchange rate. That would also preserve the current between a strong dollar and a weak renminbi, the Chinese currency, which keeps China's exports irresistibly cheap for many American consumers.
It may not sound like much to ask. But, in fact, it represents a major reversal in the previous relationship between the two countries.
In recent years, U.S. officials have repeatedly asked the Chinese for just the opposite: to let the renminbi strengthen against the dollar. Washington hopes for a stronger renminbi to drive up the price of Chinese products and reduce Americans' demand for them.
View From Beijing
If all this sounds as if China now holds the advantage in the game, that is not entirely true.
Beyond safeguarding its investments in America, its foreign-currency reserves, and the cheap price of its exports, China has to protect a large part of its industrial sector that now is geared solely to foreign trade.
McMillion says that without foreign trade, there is nowhere for China's industrial surplus production to go.
"They produced last year over $400 billion, or 12 percent of their GDP, more than they themselves can consume," McMillion says.
China's global exports fell 17.5 percent in January compared to the same month last year -- the sharpest drop in a decade -- as a result of the recession in the West. That could provide a warning sign to China that it cannot risk fueling protectionist sentiment in America.
Perhaps the best way to characterize the mutually dependent relationship of China and America today is as equal partners in crisis.
It is an odd partnership between the world's last great communist state, with its mixed command/free-market economy, and the world's foremost capitalist power.
Until now, the partnership's functioning has relied upon easy credit and ever more debt in the United States -- a period that now is clearly over.
But what the next chapter in the relationship will look like has yet to be determined.
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| Federico Rampini wrote: |
Its most audacious moves include using the country's massive currency reserves for new purposes: to finance buy-ups of deposits of raw materials in other countries, ranging from Australia to Africa to Latin America.
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| JW wrote: | Or... they could buy them from America... yet they choose not to, because they are targeting the US economy with the intent that they will one day become the world's number one economy--but using their own currency manipulation practices to make that happen. (...) And they don't want to buy raw materials or finished goods from the US for the reasons previously stated--
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Some would say your envy is misplaced, JW - that is, unless it's all-the-same-to-you how they intend to buy up those raw materials, and why?
Australia May Hold Inquiry Into Chinese Investments
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“Against barbarity, poetry can resist only by confirming its attachment to human fragility like a blade of grass growing on a wall while armies march by.” Mahmoud Darwish |
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johnwilkins
Joined: 15 Apr 2002
Posts: 4862
Location: West Coast
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| Posted: Fri Feb 20, 2009 12:50 pm Post subject: |
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I wasn't simply railing against your lovable Italian reporters. Rather, I'm saying that Chinese laments are totally out-of-sync with reality. The Japanese used to complain about this too--e.g., "America should get its deficits in order." Okay. So, what are we doing right now? Remember us? We greedy over consuming Americans? Well... we're retrenching. We're cutting back as has been suggested for so long. And what happens? Now people are complaining all over the world that we're doing what they've told us we should have been doing all along.
At what point does the whining and sniveling stop?
Remember, I also agreed that we could not support consumption at 72% of GDP. That's too large a fraction of the total economy. My alternative? Add to gross investment. Socialists? They want to raise taxes and spend more money. What's happened overall? Taxes remain lower and spending has increased--but I don't see any reason gross investment should increase dramatically this year.
I've also said that to cut the deficit in a serious way, we need to develop domestic energy. The big "green" crowd has put the US into a bind with its bogus "global warming" theory. China's the dirtiest polluter in the world, and for all our oil consumption our skies are relatively clean.
But if we're going to take a cold shower and cut spending from 72% of GDP to like 65% of GDP--that's -7%. That's a pretty nasty recession. And like I said, since we import something on the scale of the entire GDP of Britain every year, this type of contraction in the US will cause painful recessions if not outright depressions in other parts of the world.
What was I countered with for so long? Decoupling. Well... there's no decoupling. The Chinese should just suck it up and quit whining.
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"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery |
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parvati_roma
Joined: 30 Mar 2004
Posts: 8433
Location: Italy
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| Posted: Sun Feb 22, 2009 8:31 am Post subject: |
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| JW wrote: | | The Chinese should just suck it up and quit whining. |
Ever the optimist, eh?  That from the guy who pointed out to this forum how often battered wives end up killing abusive spouses.
Believe me, JW - no-one but no-one ever "sucks it up" one minute longer than absolutely necessary. And even while "sucking it up", the restless mind never stops questing for the safest, most effective and most gratifying path out of the double-whammy bind: whining is phase 1, uncanny silence due to cessation-of-whining is phase 2, knife-stuck-in-abuser's-back is phase .... get the idea now?
Ah btw...
Perhaps a reason to be cheerful?
For those looking gamely for bright spots, China flickers
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“Against barbarity, poetry can resist only by confirming its attachment to human fragility like a blade of grass growing on a wall while armies march by.” Mahmoud Darwish |
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johnwilkins
Joined: 15 Apr 2002
Posts: 4862
Location: West Coast
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| Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2009 5:25 am Post subject: |
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| parvati roma wrote: | | Believe me, JW - no-one but no-one ever "sucks it up" one minute longer than absolutely necessary. And even while "sucking it up", the restless mind never stops questing for the safest, most effective and most gratifying path out of the double-whammy bind: whining is phase 1, uncanny silence due to cessation-of-whining is phase 2, knife-stuck-in-abuser's-back is phase .... get the idea now? |
I get the idea that you are in rather close proximity so communist propaganda outlets and you love to parrot it when it's critical of the US. What if the US erects trade barriers? And the EU? Are you not losing jobs to China too? If our dollar is too low, Chinese goods are ridiculously cheap in Europe.
U.S.-CHINA ECONOMIC AND SECURITY REVIEW COMMISSION
| Quote: | The propaganda system’s central purpose is to perpetuate the political authority of the Chinese Communist Party[b] by concealing negative information about the party and its history and by propagating narratives intended to bolster the party’s authoritarian rule. [b]The propaganda system also actively seeks to inflame Chinese nationalism in order to co-opt nationalist sentiment as a means of legitimizing the party’s authority.
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In line with this concept of ‘‘guiding’’ thinking, the propaganda apparatus does not limit its efforts solely to the suppression of unwelcome information. The system focuses on proactive propaganda, shaping messages in the media and entertainment fields that it believes its target audience should receive and the ideas it should believe. Chinese Internet expert Xiao Qiang testified that Chinese Internet executives receive messages several times a day via cell phone, e-mail, or text messages, providing them with instructions on the shaping of content on their Web sites. Similarly, journalists are subject to regular mandatory meetings with propaganda officials to receive directions on news content and since 2003 also have been subjected to intensified political study classes intended to tighten the party’s ideological control over the media. This attitude on ‘‘guiding’’ the thinking of the public also extends to foreign journalists:(especially parvati's beloved italian buddies) One western reporter described being scolded by Chinese officials in 2008 for the failure of western journalists to ‘‘do more work aimed at leading public opinion in an impartial . . . way.’’
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One example is the set of 21 edicts issued by the Propaganda Department in July 2008 to Chinese media outlets, directing them how to approach news coverage during the games. Among these were directives to avoid coverage of Internet policy, religious and ethnic issues, consumer product safety, and the officially designated Olympic protest parks in Beijing.
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Other observers who have studied the issue of Chinese nationalism also have commented that it has deep popular resonance within large sectors of the Chinese population and that most Han Chinese appear to have little sympathy for the grievances of either Tibetans or other ethnic minorities, thereby making them inclined to accept government narratives on these issues.
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Alone among the world’s major economies, China refuses to allow the renminbi (RMB), its currency, to respond to free market movements. China’s leaders instead keep the currency trading at an artificially low level in order to suppress export prices—a deliberate violation of the rules of the International Monetary Fund, of which it is a member.
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Other Chinese government economic policies harmed the United States, China’s trading partners, and its own citizens. China made scant progress in reining in the rampant counterfeiting and piracy that deprive legitimate foreign businesses operating in China of their intellectual property, while they provide an effective subsidy to Chinese companies that make use of stolen software and other advanced technology.
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The economic impacts of China’s currency undervaluation and the concern about their effects on the global economy have not prompted the IMF to depart from its long-standing conclusion on the issue. In its half-yearly World Economic Outlook 2008 report, the IMF said the RMB ‘‘remains substantially undervalued,’’ an understated conclusion compared to a determination that the RMB is ‘‘fundamentally misaligned.’’ The latter conclusion would have indicated that China does not conform to guidelines prohibiting members from valuing their currency in a way that creates international instability and gives an unfair competitive advantage to its exporters, which would trigger significant IMF pressure on China to change its currency policy. |
And don't you carry on the same way? Obviously Chinese propaganda works on you. As I've said, I don't know how many times, foreign propagandists use your local journalists to disseminate their message. In the US, it is called PR, and usually involves under-the-table payments.
| parvati roma wrote: | | Ever the optimist, eh? That from the guy who pointed out to this forum how often battered wives end up killing abusive spouses |
You're comparing China to a battered wife? Who's industrial base has been shattered by China's currency manipulation? All those poor Detroiters you shed crocodile tears for are the battered wives. China is upset now, because it is getting the economic knife in the back. The world economy can no longer afford Chinese trade practices. Take read of the Congressional Report. In addition to their propaganda and trade/currency practices, they are also attacking our government computing systems--and yours too.
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"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery |
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parvati_roma
Joined: 30 Mar 2004
Posts: 8433
Location: Italy
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| Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2009 1:16 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | I get the idea that you are in rather close proximity to communist propaganda outlets and you love to parrot it when it's critical of the US. |
Wrong again, JW - that's your paranoia getting the better of you again. La Repubblica - which published Rampini's article - is owned partly by the Caracciolo family, a dynasty of princes-royal no less, linked by marriage to the Agnellis of FIAT fame, partly by industrialist Carlo De Benedetti - who's the paper's largest shareholder:
(BBC)
And fyi it was founded by prince Carlo Caracciolo together with Adriano Olivetti of the famous typewriter-industry dynasty, later taken over by the De Benedettis.
In Italian terms, La Repubblica's politics are "liberal-zone" center-left, pro-legality, pro-"enlightened-capitalism", pro-"freedom of the press" i.e. mainstream EU-type liberal-democrat capitalistic, plus strongly anti-Berlusconi because they/we think he's mafia-tied and he tried to take over the paper to shut it up plus the big Italian "industrial establishment" families such as the Agnellis and De Benedettis think he's a helluva-vulgar parvenu+thug who has no idea of what democracy and/or freedom of enterprise and/or foreign policy are about so is bad-for-Italy as such; plus it's strongly anti-fascist because to-know-them-is-NOT-to-love-them even by-whatsoever-revamped-name and the De Benedettis are Jewish-origin and - just like everyone else - think/know that even allied to Berlusconi those National-Alliance-etc guys are still... well, Fascists.
Here's La Repubblica's very-recently-deceased part-owner n' editor-in-chief Carlo Caracciolo's obit from the UK Independent for your edification - the guy's a legend!
| Quote: | (...) Born and raised near Florence, at age 18 Caracciolo dropped out of school to fight for the Partisans in the anti-Fascist resistance during the Second World War. After gunfights in the mountains he was arrested and condemned to death and at the same time ordered to clean the latrines. "If I'm going to die tomorrow," he declared, "I refuse to clean the latrines tonight." He was excused the duty and showed the first sign of his deal-making talents when he succeeded in negotiating his survival with the promise, later redeemed, that he would return the favour for his jailor at the war's end.
His time at Harvard gave him the idea of trying his hand at publishing, and after starting out with trade publications he launched L'Espresso with the sponsorship of Adriano Olivetti, the visionary manufacturer of typewriters. But the magazine lost money and its attacks on the powerful threatened Olivetti's typewriter sales so he sold it to Caracciolo for the token sum of half a million lira, about Ł250.
One of Caracciolo's gifts was for finding brilliant collaborators and chief of them was Eugenio Scalfari, who became editor of L'Espresso in 1963 and made it a sensational success in 1974 when he relaunched it in the format of Time magazine. Two years later the two men took their boldest gamble, launching La Repubblica into the stagnant pool of Italian dailies. With its tabloid format, stylish graphics and fusion of daily and weekly qualities it was decades ahead of its time.
Today La Repubblica is Italy's second most popular daily with sales of around 600,000, but its birth and early years were fraught with uncertainty. Caracciolo was still far from wealthy but he had one unique advantage: his sister Marella was married to Gianni Agnelli, "the uncrowned king of Italy", head of Fiat, Italy's most important company. "Everyone deluded themselves into thinking that with Agnelli behind us we would make it," says Mario Pirani, one of the founding journalists at La Repubblica. "But in fact Agnelli said he wouldn't give us a penny. And he wanted that fact to be known, because he was worried that if it was thought that he was involved in an opposition newspaper it would be a problem for him."
But the family link proved a sort of intangible collateral and helped persuade a core of ambitious journalists from a daily called Il Giorno to sign up. "Caracciolo was quite different from any other publisher," says Pirani. "He wasn't an industrialist, he actually wanted to publish a newspaper for journalists." And La Repubblica would be genuinely independent, tied neither to political parties nor to industrial tycoons. "So we all said, let's take a chance on this adventure." Their gamble was rewarded when, almost miraculously, the book publisher Mondadori agreed to finance the launch.
A tough line on the terrorism of Italy's "years of lead" gave La Repubblica a reputation for principle, though Caracciolo later said that he found the paper's rejection of negotiations for the release of the kidnapped former prime minister Aldo Moro "physically repugnant – a person's life was at stake." But he stuck to his principle of non-interference in editorial matters. And when his titles started giving away games and selling cut-price literary classics with the papers, circulations soared.
In the late 1980s Caracciolo fought a fierce battle with Silvio Berlusconi over the ownership of the titles. At the end of the bout Berlusconi walked away with half of Mondadori's publishing empire, but his bid to take over L'Espresso and La Repubblica was foiled. Now owned by Berlusconi's rival Carlo De Benedetti, the papers remain a thorn in Berlusconi's flesh.
Caracciolo was viscerally committed to the idea of the free press as a bulwark of democracy, and he began building bridges to like-minded newspapers elsewhere in Europe, including The Independent. Investment in The Independent by La Repubblica and the Madrid paper El Pais helped this newspaper survive a dramatic financial crisis in the early 1990s, and ties between the titles remain friendly. (...)
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Re Rampini, La Repubblica's top Asia correspondent: he's no more a commie, let alone a recipient-of-Chinese-communist-payoffs, than Caracciolo or the De Benedettis or the UK LibDems- in fact one of his first books was an Italian free-enterprise flagwaver entitled "Italian Entrepreneurs in the World, Yesterday and Today"... ... so as-such, very close to my own somewhat Italian-chauvinistic heart.
And apart from La Repubblica, my main everyday info-source - and links-source - is google news + the google-search thingy.
Anyway, that first article was written - and posted by me - essentially as a warning-to-the-wise tipoff, not as an anti-US rant - but IMHO you're way too far gone along the US far-right nationalistist-supremacist road to be still capable of understanding-or-even-perceiving even the blindingly obvious. And the sources of the other two articles I posted were 1) the US's very-own "voice of liberty" quasi-propaganda site rferl aka Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty and 2) the UK's free-enterprise flagship "The Economist" - both notorious commie fellow-traveller organs, right??
So having yet again made yourself ridiculous thanks to your ineffable mix of cold-war paranoia and laziness/unwillingness to go to the trouble of checking out your more delirious suspicions, JW - I'd say it's time you stopped trying to "shoot the messenger" with political slurs whenever you read something that doesn't suit your current line? ... Not effective, just makes you sound like a leftover ideology-blinkered cold-war warhorse constantly charging at windmills due to stubborn preference for living in a cozily idealized virtual-reality-based vision of the past.... "soviet-reality" style. 
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“Against barbarity, poetry can resist only by confirming its attachment to human fragility like a blade of grass growing on a wall while armies march by.” Mahmoud Darwish |
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johnwilkins
Joined: 15 Apr 2002
Posts: 4862
Location: West Coast
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| Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2009 5:56 am Post subject: |
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| parvati roma wrote: | | Wrong again, JW - that's your paranoia getting the better of you again. |
Me and the whole US government? Did you read any of the U.S.-CHINA ECONOMIC AND SECURITY REVIEW COMMISSION report? Probably not. Lots and lots of info on how journalists are compelled to report this sort of rubbish. Your's no less than ours, or local Chinese journalists.
| parvati roma wrote: | | In Italian terms, La Repubblica's politics are "liberal-zone" center-left, pro-legality, pro-"enlightened-capitalism", pro-"freedom of the press" i.e. mainstream EU-type liberal-democrat capitalistic, plus strongly anti-Berlusconi |
Those articles were straight out of the propaganda department. I guess they have no choice but to publish that garbage, but I think you'd be able to read between the lines.
| parvati roma wrote: | | 1) the US's very-own "voice of liberty" quasi-propaganda site rferl aka Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty and 2) the UK's free-enterprise flagship "The Economist" - both notorious commie fellow-traveller organs, right?? |
Both are left of center. But as I said, if you are sourcing it straight from the China desk of your local publication, it may well be force fed by the party.
| parvati roma wrote: | | So having yet again made yourself ridiculous thanks to your ineffable mix of cold-war paranoia and laziness/unwillingness to go to the trouble of checking out your more delirious suspicions, JW - I'd say it's time you stopped trying to "shoot the messenger" with political slurs whenever you read something that doesn't suit your current line? ... Not effective, just makes you sound like a leftover ideology-blinkered cold-war warhorse constantly charging at windmills due to stubborn preference for living in a cozily idealized virtual-reality-based vision of the past.... "soviet-reality" style. |
Blah blah blah... China's options are limited, just like everyone else's. China's Dollar Dilemma. See, same thing. Straight of the desk in Beijing. Same story here... China to heed Clinton's call on buying US bonds: economists
| parvati roma wrote: | | Anyway, that first article was written - and posted by me - essentially as a warning-to-the-wise tipoff, not as an anti-US rant - but IMHO you're way too far gone along the US far-right nationalistist-supremacist road to be still capable of understanding-or-even-perceiving even the blindingly obvious. |
Yes, and it's thoroughly unbalanced reporting all around...mostly, because it simply parrots the Chinese propaganda department. If the US cuts back consumption, that means a prolonged recession in China. If China wants to dump their bond holdings it results in the same problem. The only ways out are to buy US bonds, or US goods and services. If they don't want to, fine. But they can't pretend like they don't understand the ramifications of such actions. We're not dealing with inordinate complexity. This is basic economics.[/quote]
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parvati_roma
Joined: 30 Mar 2004
Posts: 8433
Location: Italy
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| Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2009 7:37 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Did you read any of the U.S.-CHINA ECONOMIC AND SECURITY REVIEW COMMISSION report? Probably not. |
You didn't bother to post the link - here it is: a 405 page pdf.
http://www.uscc.gov/annual_report/2008/annual_report_full_08.pdf
Some info-relevant stuff starts around p. 25 - nothing not common knowledge.
| Quote: | Lots and lots of info on how journalists are compelled to report this sort of rubbish. Your's no less than ours, or local Chinese journalists.
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I'd say the compulsion on local Chinese journalists is near-absolute, that on foreign journalists - especially high-profile US and EU ones with no less high-profile national papers behind them - is near-zero: any serious attempt to "compel" such journalists would/does cause a China-damaging stink = diplomatic incident, hostility-of-nation-concerned potentially damaging to Chinese trade etc etc. All they can do at most is attempt to blackmail them in silk-glove tones by hint-threatening they could cut off that particular journalists' access/withdraw visa/residence permit.
But as China is so heavily dependent on free-trade/non-protectionist policies being kept in place by the US - and to a lesser degree by the EU - they have to tread very carefully. Rampini is a "big name" who moves around constantly, reports not only on China but on India and other emergent-Asian economies and on EU trade issues/kerfuffles: he can afford to cock as many snoots as he pleases at the Chinese "official line" as he's NOT vulnerable to this (or any other) kind of Chinese blackmail: he has a helluva-wide network of sources n' contacts both internal and offshore-Chinese and also in the Italian and European business-community and diplomatic/quasi-diplomatic networks in China, doesn't need (unlike low-down-in-the-foodchain agency stringers) to rely on such Chinese -goodwill-subject doodahs as Chinese official-invites to press conferences etc. Doesn't need a Chinese residence permit either - with his level of background knowledge, decades of own-personal info-network cultivation and La Repubblica's Asia-desk tentacles at his disposal, he can operate just as well from wherever he pleases including la Repubblica's Rome HQ - all he needs is a phone and an internet connection.
In the light of which: what you seem to have totally failed to understand is that Rampini's article was not what the Chinese want to see in print in the west: not Chinese propaganda as it goes way beyond the officially-sanctioned "narratives" , unmasks what's behind the make-nice official-language pretty-pretty stuff you'll find in the Chinese party organs Xinhuanet (take a look, see how bland it is... ) and China Daily no less than in the New York Times, on CNN etcetc. Rampini's article was in fact the ONLY voice "singing loudly outside the choir" = NOT the Chinese party-line but a "watch your backs" warning to the "west" that China is nowhere NEAR as "west-friendly" n' reassuring as it likes to pretend: note that "we hate you but (just for now) can't do without you" theme - do you SERIOUSLY think China - with the winds of protectionism rising wherever you look - wants that kind of phraseology as definition-of-China's-attitude-to-the-west to get front-page exposure in the "western" MSM????
Admittedly the FT article you linked to carried part of the same phrase - but heavily airbrushed-into-picturesque-inconsequentiality by placing it in a far more "soothing" framework.
Bottom line: for now, China will continue buying US treasuries but is pissed and concerned because it expects the US dollar to lose value in the coming years and as "Chimerica" is a mutual-dependency-club that's bad news. So it has warned the US - and Ms Clinton has duly provided reassurances that her country intends to "maintain a strong dollar". Ergo: Rampini's article also usefully-reveals something of the climate of reciprocal armtwisting that's been going on behind the mutual-smiley-faces official "narratives" both Chinese and American.
Which is why I posted it - doh.
_________________
“Against barbarity, poetry can resist only by confirming its attachment to human fragility like a blade of grass growing on a wall while armies march by.” Mahmoud Darwish
Last edited by parvati_roma on Tue Feb 24, 2009 1:40 pm; edited 3 times in total |
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parvati_roma
Joined: 30 Mar 2004
Posts: 8433
Location: Italy
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| Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2009 8:31 am Post subject: |
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P.S. In the "Chimerican" context, blackmail is of course a two-way game: this item - likewise from an Italian site, in this case a Vatican-funded one - may cheer you up a bit?
| Quote: | (...) According to the analyst Wang Xiangwei, however, Beijing has no alternative but to support the U.S. economy and invest in U.S. Treasury bonds, precisely as the Obama administration is seeking new funds to pay for the 787 billion dollar economic stimulus package. Wang Xiangwei (c.f. today's edition of the South China Morning Post - subscribers-only) says that there seems to be some minor blackmail on the part of the United States: if China does not buy Treasury bonds, information will be published in the United States about the money that the leadership and their relatives have deposited in banks there.
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btw the South China Morning Post is a long-established Hong Kong daily not a mainland-China one, which gives it a lot more "leeway": do NOT expect that kind of tidbit to get itself published by/with the official-blessing of the Chinese "People's Republic" establishment, for obvious reasons....
p.s. very-fact of its being reported/leaked at all could be indicative of some kind of factional power-struggle building up within the Chinese leadership zone????
.........
From the same Italian source, a more US-disquieting note:
| Quote: | Milan (AsiaNews) - While the comments of economic observers have focused on what is happening to U.S. public debt and to financial markets overseas, the news media rarely mention what is happening in Asia, almost as if there were not a strong correlation between the two phenomena. But it is logical that a substantial accumulation of foreign exchange reserves in China, Japan and throughout Asia corresponds to an unprecedented supply of dollars, the global reserve currency.
But Asia now understands that the increase of money supply decreases the intrinsic value of a currency. That is why China is seeking a possible and rational attempt to decouple Asian currencies from the dollar, as recent news stories report [1].
In practice, China is trying to make its currency convertible and give it a role as a reserve currency. The first experiment is limited to transactions between Hong Kong and the neighboring provinces. It is also proposed that the yuan renminbi be used in 8 neighboring countries, including Russia. With these countries, agreements have already been signed for the settlement of contracts in the Chinese currency. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the news was released on Christmas Day, when Western markets are closed, reducing the impact on the dollar. In addition, the first weeks of January are usually fairly quiet. This means that although for now the trial is limited, China is preparing to establish full convertibility of its currency to all other currencies. Many in China have spoken out directly or indirectly in this regard: for example, Wu Xiaoling, former vice governor of the central bank, and Zhao Xijun, a professor of finance at Renmin University of China. The current governor of China's central bank, Zhou Xiaochuan, in early December in Hong Kong had indicated that if the value of the dollar fluctuated drastically, its use as a settlement currency (for commercial transactions) would cause problems. It is clear that Chinese exporters, behind the scenes, are asking the government for permission to charge in yuan instead of dollars, which are losing value. Other warnings came in the middle of last December: the increase in purchases of U.S. Treasury bonds should not lead to the supposition that the U.S. can borrow its way out of the financial crisis [2]. Finally, on January 1, a well-known Chinese economist, Wu Jinglian, wrote that China must change its development model [3], with reference to the paradigm of economic growth driven by exports. (...)
If, after a trial period, China makes its currency convertible, the consequence is that importing countries must have reserves of yuan renminbi. To get them, central banks around the world will have to divest themselves of U.S. assets and Treasury bonds. The euro has a rather limited role in Asian exchange. In this case, a currency crisis would be triggered by the substantial and artificial lowering of the exchange rate of the yuan, of which we have written in the past [5]. The intention of the Chinese leadership is to correct this undervaluation, of which they are fully aware. The newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, the People's Daily, summarizes the thinking of China's foreign trade minister, Chen Deming, with the questionable assertion that China does not intend to promote exports by the depreciation of (its) currency [6]. It would have been more correct to say that it no longer does so, since that is what it had done since January 1, 1994, when the Chinese currency was devalued in real terms by about 55%. Western businessmen, first and foremost Americans, attracted by wages at the margin of subsistence and a workforce without rights, on the verge of slavery, have financed the transformation of the country from a Stalinist economy. They provided 80% of investments. Industrial-style development has taken aim at maximizing profits as soon as possible, and therefore resulted in a significant waste of resources, namely labor and raw materials. Today, therefore, production lines have largely been transferred to China. Chen Deming says that if America and Europe are unable to pay, we will continue our expansion by exporting to emerging countries like India and Brazil. (...)
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P.P.S.: if you think I'm some kind of "China-lover" you really are out of your tiny mind JW - here's my unchanging take on US relations with China, same today as it has been since you-all started letting your freetrade n' outsourcing kick/ideology/whatever get so totally out of hand/long-term self-destructive - put very crudely and openly, patiently spelling it out like 2+ 2 = 4 + 2 = 6 etcetc, as you-all don't seem to be capable of deciphering the kind of implicitly - but at least to me, helluva obviously - anti-US-complacency needling/goading/prodding postings I'd been engaging in - whose underlying "inspiration" I in-my-levantine/byzantine "innocence" had imagined should have been clearly readable between-the-lines, even by a not-too-bright [levantine/byzantine] two-year-old?
Parvati_roma's bottom-line view of the US's relationship with China:
You-all have been opening yourself up to letting those @&%?&%s slowly suck you-all aka America dry, spider vs fly style, by gradually-progressively destroying your industrial base thereby also destroying your social and fiscal base = eating you-all alive, progressively weakening and stupefying you-all with the ultimate slowly-slowly -catchee-monkey objective of making the US with its 300-million pop into a weak n' passive politico-economic hasbeen-appendage to China's 1.3 billion .... and you-all have let yourselves become so besotted/ anaesthetized/drugged by the short-term profits/benefits this apparently mutually-beneficial bondage-trap has provided for the US's rich n' powerful "few" plus so lulled by your deluded view that excess military hardware + Muslim-land invasions are the be-all and end-all factor in international power-plays/power-ploys that you've walked straight into it, eyes wide shut: you yourselves have enthusiastically draped China's silken noose around your own national neck.
Clear now??
| JW wrote: | The only ways out are to buy US bonds, or US goods and services. If they don't want to, fine.
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Fine?????
Question is how to extricate yourselves from the "Chimerica" trap - and IMHO severe blackmail's as good a method as any other.
Here's a pointer from Europe on another line that the US could/should start using ASAP: Europe has been not-all-that-discretely threatening China with import tariffs, screechings about "dumping" etc. to try to force China to "do something" about the trade unbalance (puny compared to the one with the US but still WAY too big for our liking...) by strongly upping the renminbi/yuan's still-way-too-low exchange rate and/or buying enough EU-made goods to "rebalance" its trade surplus.
Result: China has despatched a big Chinese trade delegation on a "shopping-trip" to Europe, promising to place lotsa new orders for European goods. A step in the "right direction", OK?
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4052078,00.html?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf
But compare the amount of extra orders it is considered likely to place on this occasion with the bottom-line amount of the EU-China trade deficit (mostly with the UK, btw) - the disproportion makes it clear this move is a mere sop/PR exercise! So I'd say LOTS MORE ARMTWISTING AND BLACKMAIL are still required against China- preferably in "concertation" with the USA as in this case in particular, "unity is strength" ... 
... and btw, as I take China helluva-seriously as a longterm boot-on-neck expanding-economic-empire threat far more dangerous "down the line" to not-only-US-but-European-freedom-n'-independence too than anything else anywhere on the horizon including AQ + NeoCons combined, as if the US ends up becoming a helpless Chinese satellite it will be helluva-difficult for Europe to longterm-avoid the same fate even in EuRussian fortress-version: PLEASE "do something" not only about preventing the total destruction/Asian takeover of what's left of your industrial + raw materials base, but about setting up a policy to reconstruct at least some of the former-US industrial sectors you have let your huge "Asian friend" and its assorted-appendages smash n' trash over the last decade or so while dizzily dancing your great foreign-credit waltz with 'em - OK???
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“Against barbarity, poetry can resist only by confirming its attachment to human fragility like a blade of grass growing on a wall while armies march by.” Mahmoud Darwish |
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johnwilkins
Joined: 15 Apr 2002
Posts: 4862
Location: West Coast
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| Posted: Thu Feb 26, 2009 6:04 pm Post subject: |
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| parvati roma wrote: | | I'd say the compulsion on local Chinese journalists is near-absolute, that on foreign journalists - especially high-profile US and EU ones with no less high-profile national papers behind them - is near-zero: any serious attempt to "compel" such journalists would/does cause a China-damaging stink = diplomatic incident, hostility-of-nation-concerned potentially damaging to Chinese trade etc etc. All they can do at most is attempt to blackmail them in silk-glove tones by hint-threatening they could cut off that particular journalists' access/withdraw visa/residence permit. |
The Chinese government specifically tells reporters what it wants them to cover and what it wants them not to cover. It's standard fare.
| parvati roma wrote: | | But as China is so heavily dependent on free-trade/non-protectionist policies being kept in place by the US - and to a lesser degree by the EU - they have to tread very carefully. |
Yes. And it's interesting that China's government is the only one out there blowing sunshine on the economy. In fact, the zeitgeist here in the states is that Obama keeps talking down the economy and causing more problems. Since he's been in office, the stock market has continued to slide. For reasons I've already detailed regarding EU banking, derivatives, etc., I don't take Dick Morris' economic analysis to heart, but his political analysis is interesing. It’s Obama spreading panic. Morris is a pro-Israel pro-WOT center-left politico.
| parvati roma wrote: | | In the light of which: what you seem to have totally failed to understand is that Rampini's article was not what the Chinese want to see in print in the west: not Chinese propaganda as it goes way beyond the officially-sanctioned "narratives" , unmasks what's behind the make-nice official-language pretty-pretty stuff you'll find in the Chinese party organs Xinhuanet (take a look, see how bland it is... ) and China Daily no less than in the New York Times, on CNN etcetc. |
In the lead up to the crisis, b5d was making comments about how China WANTED a crisis and that China thought it could use the opportunity to overtake the US economically. The US is hurting financially now. There is no doubt about that. This is also true in Europe. However, it is Asia that is taking the brunt of this economic downturn. Undoubtedly there is some significant resentment about that. Japan has been quite a bit more humble since 1989--doing its level best to compete. China's double-digit growth numbers for a decade or so has left it much more arrogant. No doubt there is an "official" story, but governments often have an "unofficial" one too. Why do you think Hillary Clinton jetted out there pronto? Our leadership usually meets with Canada, Mexico, the UK, Japan, etc. straight away.... But Hillary was flying off to China, because the Chinese are flying off the handle. Their economy is grinding to a halt. The numbers don't lie. I mean, you can go on and on how the UK has it bad and so forth. But if you are an export-driven economy and your exports fall by half, that is a catastrophe.
| Quote: | | Clinton said that China and the United States find themselves "in the same boat," and are "rowing in the same direction." Beijing holds about 700 billion dollars in U.S. Treasury bonds. But the leadership is under pressure to diversify its holdings, because of the depreciation of the dollar. The economic crisis afflicting the United States risks reducing to nothing the value of its bonds. |
Obviously, the writer doesn't understand too much about economics if he thinks the value of US Treasury Bonds would fall to zero. After all, the bond market is in the midst of a rally of historic proportions. The dollar can be hedged and I imagine the carrying cost wouldn't exceed the projected decline in the dollar. However, the dollar decline is only imminent if our trading partners do not buy US bonds (or more goods and services from the US)--meaning, the Fed would have to print money.
| parvati roma wrote: | | p.s. very-fact of its being reported/leaked at all could be indicative of some kind of factional power-struggle building up within the Chinese leadership zone???? |
Perhaps. Obviously the military leadership is alwasy more "gung ho" for confrontation as the saying goes. However, the party is quite vulnerable to this downturn, and they'll want to point the finger of blame somewhere else.
| parvati roma wrote: | | P.P.S.: if you think I'm some kind of "China-lover" you really are out of your tiny mind JW - here's my unchanging take on US relations with China, same today as it has been since you-all started letting your freetrade n' outsourcing kick/ideology/whatever get so totally out of hand/long-term self-destructive - put very crudely and openly, patiently spelling it out like 2+ 2 = 4 + 2 = 6 etcetc, as you-all don't seem to be capable of deciphering the kind of implicitly - but at least to me, helluva obviously - anti-US-complacency needling/goading/prodding postings I'd been engaging in - whose underlying "inspiration" I in-my-levantine/byzantine "innocence" had imagined should have been clearly readable between-the-lines, even by a not-too-bright [levantine/byzantine] two-year-old? |
I must be hitting close to home... that's right out of Cheryl's playbook. I didn't say you were a China lover, but that you are pretty much always there with a dig against the US, and more particularly against the political right in the US (as you are in Europe too). The US trades for comparative advantage. We don't hold to the mercanilist philosophy. Our ability to set up industries isn't in question. It's that our capital markets want higher returns. Notice that the US government is talking about bailing out GM, Ford, and Chrysler; not BMW, Toyota, Nissan, Honda, etc. Toyota has always operated on rather thin profit margins. But if you haven't noticed, our recession (hard landing variety) is their depression.
Notice also the post rankings. I'm a fairly regular poster, but was in no way set to be number two. However, since Obama's election, criticizing the US government has lost some of its panache. Cheryl, Sašo, Frank, etc. all trail ME! in post count now. Only you have more posts. One of the things we used to do at the beginning of the year is post our predictions. Had that post materialized, my prediction is that StrategyTalk dies off... why? Because criticizing the US and the US presidency has been the central focus of the political left for the last 8 years.
For example, Cheryl writes these long and wistful posts about Obama, missile defense, diplomacy, etc. with this sort of "for the last 8 years..." clap trap. Yet, she doesn't pick up on things like this U.S. Ready to Respond to N.Korea Missile
| parvati roma wrote: | | In an exclusive interview with ABC News' Martha Raddatz, Adm. Timothy Keating, head of the U.S. Pacific Commands, said that the military is prepared to shoot down any North Korean ballistic missile -- if President Obama should give the order. |
See the shift? Obama is threatening to shoot down North Korean missiles; however, he dispatches a general to give an interview. Bush would either say it himself or have Cheney do it. This is entirely a matter of style, and that's principally what matters to people on the political left in the US. Not even a month into office, Obama has given the US the biggest budget deficit in American history. We get a big yawn from the political left, who would have been shouting bloody murder if Bush did exactly the same thing.
| parvati roma wrote: | | Fine????? |
It really helps to understand capitalist economics as distinguished from mercantilist. If China does not buy our bonds, the money has to go somewhere. If they hold it and don't buy bonds, what happens? They can deposit it in so-called "Eurodollar" accounts--although the term Eurodollar is probably fairly dated now--probably should call it Expatriate Dollars, or somesuch. Or they can spend it in other economies...e.g., buying commodities from Brazil. So now Brazil has those dollars. What do they do with 'em? They can buy US treasuries too; or, maybe buy some goods and services from Japan. What does Japan do? They can buy some US Treasury Bonds. What if they don't? Well... that cycle repeats. But the US has to sell T-Bonds, and if there are no first resort buyers, the uptake comes from the Fed. And that's what puts pressure on the dollar. So if the dollar tanks, and China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, etc. have already seen exports collapse... what do they do to their own economies in the process? If our credit worthiness is to remain solid, our businesses have to grow too. So at some point, those dollars must either return to the US as investments in US government debt, foreign direct investment, or purchases of US goods and services. I'm advocating more of the latter now; although, I think private investment would do a lot for economic growth too.
| parvati roma wrote: | Question is how to extricate yourselves from the "Chimerica" trap - and IMHO severe blackmail's as good a method as any other.
Here's a pointer from Europe on another line that the US could/should start using ASAP: Europe has been not-all-that-discretely threatening China with import tariffs, screechings about "dumping" etc. to try to force China to "do something" about the trade unbalance (puny compared to the one with the US but still WAY too big for our liking...) by strongly upping the renminbi/yuan's still-way-too-low exchange rate and/or buying enough EU-made goods to "rebalance" its trade surplus. |
Do you think the American government doesn't see this? We extricated ourselves from the Japanification trap. If you remember the 1980s, the non-stop political drumbeat was that the Japanese would take over the world economy--leaving the US in the dust. Now the drumbeat is that China will. With China, it is more believable since they have more people and more in the way of natural resources. They also are run by the communist party. However, China has about the crappiest intellecual property law system in the world. Until they embrace intellectual property, China will never be a market leader. Japan's "lost decade" is nothing more than growing at the same sort of rate as the rest of the world. If China ends up growing at 4% per year instead of 10% per year, that would be a disaster for them in their ambition to overtake the EU and the US. However, that may be what is transpiring here. Already, there is outsourcing from China to Vietnam.
| parvati roma wrote: | | But compare the amount of extra orders it is considered likely to place on this occasion with the bottom-line amount of the EU-China trade deficit (mostly with the UK, btw) - the disproportion makes it clear this move is a mere sop/PR exercise! So I'd say LOTS MORE ARMTWISTING AND BLACKMAIL are still required against China- preferably in "concertation" with the USA as in this case in particular, "unity is strength" ... |
Of course it's a PR stunt, and nothing more. That may be why the ECB had kept fiscal policy so tight. Like I said, the only country on earth trying to blow sunshine on the economy is China. Why is Obama talking the economy down? (Oh, and by the way, the fact that he's a fear peddler and the political left isn't calling him on it has not escaped notice) Is it that he's just trying to continue to push his agenda through Congress? He already took a big bath on spending $400M on sex education to prevent STDs... that'll do wonders to stimulate the economy. Or, does a crash in consumer spending in the US punish China so much more than could ever be done by erecting a trade barrier? I can't think of anything more punishing to our international trading partners than a recession in the US.
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parvati_roma
Joined: 30 Mar 2004
Posts: 8433
Location: Italy
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| Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 12:35 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | I must be hitting close to home... that's right out of Cheryl's playbook. |
Nah, since when does Cheryl self-define her mentality as "levantine/byzantine" ...? 
| Quote: | | I didn't say you were a China lover, but that you are pretty much always there with a dig against the US, and more particularly against the political right in the US (as you are in Europe too). |
Half the point of frequenting a mostly-US forum is the chance it gives me to vent/complain to Americans about those US policies/actions I-as-Italian-eurocritter object most strongly to, and explain why.
Following the same instinctive approach, every time you have a tame eurocritter within posting distance you-yourself constantly earbash it for one reason or another about what-you-most-object-to-in-latest-eurodoings/nondoings, including most recently the insanity-of-Trichet and the urgent-need for the ECB to cut its prime rate to zero.
Re right/left bias: to be quite honest, to me the "great divide" seems more and more anachronistic - yes I object to Berlusconi who's officially-rightwing but mostly because of his mafia-ties and media-monopolizing plus those idiotically vulgar/nationally-embarassing quips, so far his economic policies seem fairly middle-of-roadish - and I actually quite like some aspects of his FP though especially re Iran and Russia. On the other side of the Italian fence, I strongly objected to the Veltroni-critter that just got kicked out as head of our big leftish opposition party but rather miss having D'Alema around as FM as he's less kneejerk pro-Israel than Frattini. Sarkozy's rightwing but I greatly appreciate some of his more Gaullist-type FP lines plus I think he did well as Eu leader in the Georgia/S. Ossetia crisis - I also sympathise with some of his "economic patriotism" stuff including defence of "national champion" industries-etc and services which comes in handy as precedents for Italy-to-do-likewise - although I don't think this crisis is the best time for it. And I don't much like his line on Iran. Merkel's centre-right - I know practically nothing about her domestic-policy stuff, think her FP consists mostly of spineless creme-puffery but don't object strongly. Zapatero's left, dunno much about his policies apart from Iraq-withdrawal ...other than some hard-line hyper-secularist moves which left me at best tepid.
Re US right - only aspects that really get me riled are aggressive/idiotic/dangerous US FP/military actions in Europe/Med/ME + Russia-baiting - geographic range temporarily extended to include South Asia too re AfPak seeing we're now embroiled in it too and our EU immediate-neighbour the UK is highly Pak-repercussions-sensitive for post-colonial-backflow demographic reasons. Apart from which I don't particularly care which of your parties is in power nor what it does in office - in left/right terms or otherwise - just as long as it doesn't try to impose itself/its fixations by brute force and/or blackmail onto this part of Eurasia. During the last year or so of Bush's term I noticed distinct signs of return-to-sanity in the FP n' military area so my hostility had decreased proportionately. My big objection to Palin was her knee-jerk anti-Russian line - I emphatically don't want another cold war splitting Europe let alone a hot one sending us all to kingdom-come and she seemed just the gal to drag us all along that road if she had to take over from her elderly front-man - but apart from that I thought she was kinda-cute in her "gidget goes to washington" way and as a woman I admired her family-spiritedness/maternal courage. So if she'd been US isolationist-conservative-right not US militarist-supremacist-right I'd have clap-clapped her complete with alaskan bear-skinning knives and kenyan anti-witchcraft blessings services - also because I'm queasily superstitious myself especially in the hex-beliefs sector so can sympathise.
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“Against barbarity, poetry can resist only by confirming its attachment to human fragility like a blade of grass growing on a wall while armies march by.” Mahmoud Darwish
Last edited by parvati_roma on Sat Feb 28, 2009 5:24 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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parvati_roma
Joined: 30 Mar 2004
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Location: Italy
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| Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 1:40 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Or, does a crash in consumer spending in the US punish China so much more than could ever be done by erecting a trade barrier? |
Results probably more or less equiv. in the short term - but if you-all had gone/will sooner or later go for gradual reintroduction of trade quotas accompanied by domestic industrial investments for gradual -progressive import-substitution purposes in the framework of a serious trade-deficit-rebalancing policy you'd be doing something to fix the problem - as it is, at best you're just postponing it.
And re rise-and-rise of China: with its human capital plus knowhow plus reach plus drive, however its chips fall this year and next my bet is that it won't stay down for long.
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“Against barbarity, poetry can resist only by confirming its attachment to human fragility like a blade of grass growing on a wall while armies march by.” Mahmoud Darwish |
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parvati_roma
Joined: 30 Mar 2004
Posts: 8433
Location: Italy
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| Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 3:56 pm Post subject: |
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By way of non-partisan info re treasuries, China, US savings rate etc, this may cheer you-all up slightly?
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“Against barbarity, poetry can resist only by confirming its attachment to human fragility like a blade of grass growing on a wall while armies march by.” Mahmoud Darwish |
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