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US engaging in gunboat diplomacy: China

Of course you are correct in arguing that so long as you can always increase your GDP (i.e. create wealth) higher than your interest payments then you are ok

GDP doesn't necessarily means wealth created, it just means there has been a transaction of money, and it counts money flowing both ways. So if US borrow money to make weapons it counts as their GPD, and it also counts as the GPD of the nation that the US borrowed from.

So larger global GPD figure just means greater flow of money, but tells pretty little about actual wealth created, which is itself a very loose thing to define anyway. Infact you could argue that money is actually only doing useful work when it is flowing.

So Japan and China may both have similar GPD, but because public spending in China is probably behind that of Japan it means more of it came from government spendings, which means the tax revenue collected by the government is more, so the Chinese society is more frugal to spend on stuff other than necessary commodities.

If talking about government owned debt I think debt to tax revenue ratio is more appropriate since that is money that government can actually use without borrowing. So infact the best indicatior of debt health is whether it is actually growing or decreasing.
 
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And what guarantee is it that the interest payment is higher than inflation?
Of course it is not always higher than inflation, this goes back to my first post that the US government has in the past "inflated" some of its debt away, but by keeping interest rate out of line with inflation creates even more economic problems down the line. I've alway argued that the whole sub-prime problem could have been averted had the feds kept its interest rate more in line with the actual inflation, and look at the mess it is in now.

You do realize it is impossible to know exactly how much M0 is in the system at one point which means inflation is at best an educated guess? This is why libertarian attempts at a zero-inflation economy don't make much sense.
How is that I'm advocating a zero-inflation economy?


Anyway, the fact remains that a capitalist economy should not reward investors who want to park their money in safe government bonds rather than private business. This means that in general, bonds should have poor return rates and absolutely not guarantee them to be higher than inflation because inflation is based on many factors besides merely printing money.
Refer back to my first point. It's not guaranteed to beat inflation and the government can manipulate its interest rates, but this is not without consequence, and it definitely does not deduce anyhow that a country can get away with towering amount of debt, your annual tax revenue increases (or indeed, decreases) cannot always beat inflation either and the country would suffer from its indebtedness either way.

Proof of this is that cost of living is going up far faster than the rate of inflation. Cost of living is not the same as inflation, not by a long shot.
Oh yes, the government frequently manipulates its inflation calculation methods to justify its current interest rate, but this is just lying to itself and passing the buck onto the next government.


Much of the problem with the PIIGS countries is due to foreign influence (the Euro -- if they had their own currency they would have many more options) and external debt. Consider that the USA, right now has more public and external debt total than those countries combined. So why hasn't it collapsed yet?
They would love that explanation wouldn't they? It's never your fault when you borrowed more than you can realistically earn and the problem is not that you borrowed but because you can't print your own currency. The ability of printing your own currency only buys you a bit more time on an irresponsible fiscal policy but does not solve it, Russia prints its own currency and why did it default in 98 by your argument? The fact is even with US better credibility it still cannot get away from forever increasing debt before it utterly destroys its own credibility and economy.

No one is arguing against borrowing money, it is over-borrowing without realising the consequences that I have problems with. This "no need to do anything with debt as it just goes away by itself" argument doesn't stand, however you try to defend it.
 
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Infact you can probably say that the most healthy form of economy is one in which people barter with actual products, however it is also the most limiting.
 
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"And what guarantee is it that the interest payment is higher than inflation?"

Interest rate is best to be higher than inflation rate otherwise your money in bank would lose value overtime.

money down the track = present money / (inflation factor) * (interest factor)

Basically by reducing debt you have to pay back you also reduce your purchasing power. You don't just cancel debts.
 
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These countries fell apart because of embargoes and the IMF shenanigans

The longest standing governments in world history are all AUTHORITARIAN

On the other hand there have been MANY DEMOCRACIES IN THE PAST

Democracy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And they have all collapsed, even the USA collapsed after 100 years falling into civil war

Ever heard of the Roman empire? Guess what happened? The politicians both votes by plundering the treasury and then collapsed from debt. Kind of what you are seeing now in the USA and Europe

Bloomberg

Rogoff Says ‘Horrible’ China Crisis May Trigger Regional Slump
February 23, 2010, 11:01 PM EST
More From Businessweek
Feb. 24 (Bloomberg) -- China’s economic growth will plunge to as low as 2 percent following the collapse of a “debt- fueled bubble” within 10 years, sparking a regional recession, according to Harvard University Professor Kenneth Rogoff.

“You’re not going to go a decade without having a bump in the business cycle,” Rogoff, former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, said in an interview in Tokyo yesterday. “We would learn just how important China is when that happens. It would cause a recession everywhere surrounding” the country, including Japan and South Korea, and be “horrible” for Latin American commodity exporters, he said.

China, set to surpass Japan as the second-largest economy this year, has helped pull the world out of its deepest postwar slump. Record lending, soaring property values and accelerating economic growth prompted the government to begin retracting stimulus measures implemented during the global recession.

“Their response to the latest financial crisis clearly raised the risk that they have a debt-fueled bubble in the economy,” said Rogoff, who in 2008 predicted the failure of big American banks.

In 2008, China cut interest rates, started rolling out a 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) spending package and scrapped quotas limiting lending by banks to counter slumping exports.

While Rogoff said he isn’t sure what will cause China’s bubble to pop, he said land is “the best bet” as it is “the most common source” of crises. Real estate values in Shanghai and Beijing have “taken a departure from reality,” said the economist, co-author of “This Time is Different,” a 2009 book that charts the history of financial calamities in 66 countries.

‘Very Painful’

A collapse would depress output gains to 2 to 3 percent, a “very painful” period which would persist for about a year and a half, Rogoff said. The slowdown won’t lead to a Japan- like “lost decade,” he added. In a speech earlier yesterday, he said China will do “very well this century.”

China, the world’s fastest-growing major economy, expanded 10.7 percent from a year earlier last quarter. The World Bank forecasts a 9 percent expansion in 2010.

China may provide more than a third of global growth in this year, according to Nomura Holdings Inc., Japan’s biggest broker. The country’s policy makers aim for a minimum of 8 percent growth annually to create jobs and avoid social unrest.

World exporters are increasingly relying on China as consumers in the U.S. and Europe retrench.



Property prices in 70 cities climb at the fastest pace in 21 months in January. The government aims to reduce new loans to 7.5 trillion yuan this year from a record 9.59 trillion yuan in 2009. The People’s Bank of China raised the proportion of deposits that lenders must set aside as reserves twice this year to cool the economy.

“If there’s a this-time-is-different story in the world right now, it’s China,” Rogoff said in the speech at a forum hosted by CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets, a unit of Credit Agricole SA, France’s largest retail bank.

People say China “won’t have a financial crisis because there’s central planning, because there’s a high savings rate, because there’s a large pool of labor, blah blah,” he added. “I say of course China will have a financial crisis one day.”
Rogoff Says ‘Horrible’ China Crisis May Trigger Regional Slump - BusinessWeek

Then China will come apart.

Funny isnt it, China has the worlds worse goverment and economic system in the 19th century, now in the 20th century they think they are qualified to tell the world how to improve their econmic system.
 
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It is not about the system used but how the economy is managed. Seriously guys what does "capitalism" and "communism" mean anyway, just a lable thrown around too often that they already lost their meanings. They seriously belongs to the 20th century and not to be dragged into the 21st.
 
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1. Dump Canadian debt?

2. Unless your location is wrong, the US is your country too, Why does it sound like you would want to see the market you go to have no food and for the gas station you go to have no oil?

3. I'm pretty sure its not so easy as dump debt = starving and stranded Americans with a continuing ascendence of of other countries, else other governments, certainly the Chinese government, would have done it already with smiles on their faces.

2. Because the USA needs to restructure its government, many Americans want to see the fall of the USA because right now the government is failing its job, its no longer a republic of the people but rather a large corporation that caters to the wealthy.

The USA uses the most energy per capita, highest C02 per capita. The USA is decades behind every modern country in embracing clean energy. The transportation system/freight system in the USA is **** that was built in the 60's. Highways, streets are not maintained, bridges and dams collapse every month. The education system is failing, classes are overcrowded. The industries based in the USA are collapsing (GM and Ford). The people are in debt with no social security and no money. The legal system has never sentenced a wealthy person in history.

Why is this happening? Where have our tax dollars gone? It has gone into the pockets of greedy multinationals, corrupt politicians and spent on meaningless wars.

3. It is that easy, where does the value of money comes from? Why is the Japanese Yen worth so much more than the Indian Rupee?

The value of your money comes from your reputation and demand, it is no longer backed by anything else. Despite popular belief it is NOT backed by assets.

When a country like China dumps their debt it is the same thing as when a large bank dumps shares of a major company. The price will go down because they have more sellers than buyers. The price of the stock decreases just like the value of the American dollar will decrease. And if that happens everything will cost more, a barrel of oil could rise from $79 a barrel to $5000 a barrel overnight.

The Chinese government is not doing this because they are afraid of a bankrupt but heavily armed country that has no regard for international laws. And also because it will lead to a world wide crash since so many countries will lose jobs that is focused on selling things to Americans.
 
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"And what guarantee is it that the interest payment is higher than inflation?"

Interest rate is best to be higher than inflation rate otherwise your money in bank would lose value overtime.

money down the track = present money / (inflation factor) * (interest factor)

Basically by reducing debt you have to pay back you also reduce your purchasing power. You don't just cancel debts.

This is correct unless the government manipulates the last two variables -- inflation and interest. Greenspan for years kept the interest rate artificially low despite the actual inflation was way higher to encourage housing demands, if you only earned the base rate then you probably lost money in real terms, but that doesn't mean the government has "got away" with it, it's still paying for its consequences now.
 
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^^^ That probably encouraged people to borrow more money from banks and creditors which on the long run made the economy unhealthy. And all that effort not very helpful due to large spending made by Bush.
 
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Rogoff Says ‘Horrible’ China Crisis May Trigger Regional Slump - BusinessWeek

Then China will come apart.

Funny isnt it, China has the worlds worse goverment and economic system in the 19th century, now in the 20th century they think they are qualified to tell the world how to improve their econmic system.

You do realize that people have been claiming a "China crash" since 1979 right? And everytime these experts were wrong they simply "pushed back" the date.

Notice how he DOESN'T give an exact date? He only says that China has to crash eventually since they have a bull cycle for 30 years now, something that has never happened in the history of economics.

Thats equivalent to saying that SOMEDAY a earthquake will happen in the USA.
 
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Rogoff Says ‘Horrible’ China Crisis May Trigger Regional Slump - BusinessWeek

Then China will come apart.

Funny isnt it, China has the worlds worse goverment and economic system in the 19th century, now in the 20th century they think they are qualified to tell the world how to improve their econmic system.

Yeah right, and we really need an"illiterate America Indian" to teach us economy? get real please, first take a few lessons of simple English before continuing your anti-Chinese rants, spend more time to speak up for all your brothers and sisters living under oppression.
For all your predictions claim regarding China's fall, read something about your lover boy "Fredman" failure of all his clownish so-called predictions about China, it might help you to get back to reality for once. :argh:

Friedman Makes Another China Prediction Despite Past Failures With Same

Thomas Friedman's January 12th op-ed in which he predicts continued and steady economic gains for China's foreseeable future will no doubt have convinced the fellow's readership that the Middle Kingdom's future is on the right track, particularly if those readers are unaware of Friedman's past attempts at predicting the future - and we may presume that they are indeed unaware of such things insomuch as that they bother reading the fellow's nonsense to begin with. There is, in fact, a direct correlation between how much one knows about Friedman's various failed predictions and how deeply one sighs when the fellow makes yet another one of the damned things. That Friedman has predicted an extended duration of Chinese economic growth does not necessarily mean that the Chinese economy is instead about to slow down, of course. Rather, it means nothing at all.

Friedman's most recent foray into the Far East leads the New York Times mainstay to provide "two notes of caution" to those who suspect that Chinese economic growth may soon be coming to an end:

First, a simple rule of investing that has always served me well: Never short a country with $2 trillion in foreign currency reserves.

... particularly if one lives in some bizarrely simplified dimension wherein no other factors need to be taken into account when determining the prospects of the world's most populous country. But then I am interrupting. Sort of. Not really. Anywho:

Second, it is easy to look at China today and see its enormous problems and things that it is not getting right.

It was also easy back in 2001, when Friedman dedicated a column to addressing various "myths" regarding that country and predicted that the biggest threat to its regime would be a massive increase in unemployment "as superior U.S. sugar and wheat start flooding China" due to relaxed trade barriers. In fact, unemployment had been rising in China since 1999 and continued to do so until 2003 - at which point it decreased and remained relatively low up until last year. Meanwhile, U.S. wheat and sugar failed to make any significant inroads at all - even as the Chinese continued to consume greater quantities of wheat, total imports from all other nations amounted to less than a tenth of China's domestic production in 2005. U.S. sugar didn't do much better.

In the same column, Friedman dismissed concerns over whether the Chinese regime would successfully insulate its population from dangerous ideas conveyed by way of the internet:

Yes, it's true that the Chinese government has tried to block access, but it's not working. Come with me here in Nanjing and I will show you how to view online Tibet.com -- the official Web site of the Tibetan government in exile -- or NYTimes.com. No problem. Deep down, the leadership here knows that you can't have the knowledge that China needs from the Internet without letting all sorts of other information into the country, and without empowering more and more Chinese to communicate horizontally and create political communities. In the long run this will only give more tools to the forces here pushing for political pluralism.

It turns out that "the leadership" didn't know anything of the sort, which is why they promptly established what's known today as The Great Firewall of China and continue to crack down on such things as social networking sites as new "problems" arise in their wake. Meanwhile, the regime even managed to force Google into compliance with the nation's censorship policy until such time as the company's executives got huffy at being spied on as if it were some sort of Chinese person using the internet or something. Perhaps some high official managed to figure out that free access to the internet would "only give more tools to the forces here pushing for political pluralism" and, being opposed to such things, decided to oppose such things. That would have been a tough one to predict, of course.

Our Pulitzer-possessing columnist has not fared much better in sizing up the future of Russia or even its past and present. In late 2001, he called on Americans to "keep rootin' for Putin," who had already proven himself a crook to those who were paying attention; three years later, he announced that the country "was tilted in the wrong direction and is now tilted in the right direction," noting that being titled in the right direction entails "enough free market, enough rule of law, enough free press, speech and exchange of ideas that" that the next generation "can grow up, plan its future and realize its potential." It was not until 2007 that Friedman finally got around to noticing that Russia can no longer even be termed a democracy and explained this to his readers, who are always the last to know. In Friedman's defense, he's not as bad as Putin.

At any rate, China's economy may continue to hum, or it may begin to decline. If you'd like to find out which is most likely, ask a ******* economist. :lol:Barrett Brown: Friedman Makes Another China Prediction Despite Past Failures With Same
 
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^^^ That probably encouraged people to borrow more money from banks and creditors which on the long run made the economy unhealthy. And all that effort not very helpful due to large spending made by Bush.

Absolutely, because the rate is so low compared to inflation of housing prices, everyone ends up borrowing from the banks to earn the actual inflation, even people with low incomes were making false income claims to get mortgages. Had the feds kept the real rate more in line with inflation, there's no way people with low incomes could afford to take out those mortgages, and there's no way there would have been so much demand in the housing market. The bottom line is when someone manipulates the debt it owes, it will face the consequences in other means.
 
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Of course it had to be inflation's problem.

Couldn't be that banks were under regulated and didn't require a ten thousand dollar downpayment for mortgages like Canada. Of course not.

I have news for you: the subprime borrowers didn't borrow directly from the Fed. In fact banks would not touch people with sub 500 FICO score. They borrowed from corrupt lenders who went into churches and community centers and found anyone who wanted a house, even helping them forge fake documents. These people wouldn't have cared if inflation was low, high or even know the meaning of inflation.

You want to blame inflation because you don't want to blame the real problem: an under regulated market and too much human greed.
 
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topjumper said:
This "no need to do anything with debt as it just goes away by itself" argument doesn't stand, however you try to defend it.

In the end we can quote economists who think one way or the other and I could even quote Adam Smith and say a little debt for a country is a blessing. But there is no need for that. Economics is an interpretative science at best, based on reading graphs and trying to quantify that which cannot always be quantified.

So in the end its best to use a little common sense rather than ivory tower academic nonsense. What if some sucker came to you and gave you one thousand dollars? And what if you say you're going to repay the money one day? Now you say you're going to repay the money, but you have the police, the military and even the courts on your side. In fact it is much worse than that -- you can actually make the money whenever you want. Under such conditions whoever gave you money would be a fool wouldn't he? Of course he would, and the world is full of fools.

You may not agree with the above but that is the game the USA is playing and you better hope they keep winning since a worldwide meltdown is in nobody's interests.
 
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Of course it had to be inflation's problem.

Couldn't be that banks were under regulated and didn't require a ten thousand dollar downpayment for mortgages like Canada. Of course not.

I have news for you: the subprime borrowers didn't borrow directly from the Fed. In fact banks would not touch people with sub 500 FICO score. They borrowed from corrupt lenders who went into churches and community centers and found anyone who wanted a house, even helping them forge fake documents. These people wouldn't have cared if inflation was low, high or even know the meaning of inflation.

You want to blame inflation because you don't want to blame the real problem: an under regulated market and too much human greed.

Thanks for your news, I must be the only one who never knew the consumers couldn't borrow directly from the fed. You forgot that the mortgage lenders could borrow directly, and a higher base rate would have to be passed onto the end borrowers. And it's not just that some loan sharks that forged some documents for the borrowers that nearly blew up the whole world's economy, it was loose lending policy and artificially low borrowing cost being the root cause of it.

You want to blame inflation because you don't want to blame the real problem: an under regulated market and too much human greed.
No, I think we also differ our opinions on this one. I have no problem in criticizing under regulation if I believe that was the root cause of the problem, but I don't. I have been in this industry for too long to have any hopes in the regulators being able to keep up the pace with the market developments, but that's not even the point and let's not yet digress again.

I believe that had the fed raised its rates in pace with the inflation, many people would not have been able to get away with vast amount of unsustainable debt, and the banks would have not been able to create so many CDOs no matter how hard it tried. The bottom line is I blame the government for the mess this time round, the banks to a large extend exaggerated the devastating effects through leverage and its global distribution platforms, but they are not the root cause: when the government through its un-intented actions created an opportunity for the banks to make a lot of money, why shouldn't they?
 
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