The former chief economist at the World Bank, Justin Yifu Lin, is advising the Chinese government that the time has come for a single global currency. Lin, who is also a professor at Peking University, says that the U.S. dollar “is the root cause of global financial and economic crises” and that moving to a “global super-currency” will bring much needed stability to the global financial system. And considering how recklessly the Federal Reserve has been pumping money into the global financial system and how recklessly the U.S. government has been going into debt, it is hard to argue with his logic. Why would anyone want to trust the United States to continue to run things after how badly we have abused our position? The United States has greatly benefited from having the de facto reserve currency of the planet for the past several decades, but now that era is coming to an end. In fact, the central bank of China has already announced that it will no longer be stockpiling more U.S. dollars. The rest of the world is getting tired of playing our game. Our debt is wildly out of control and we are creating money as if there was no tomorrow. As the rest of the world starts moving away from the U.S. dollar, global power is going to shift even more to the East, and that is going to have very serious consequences for ordinary Americans. (Read More...)
Currency
10 Shocking Quotes About What QE3 Is Going To Do To America
Ready or not, QE3 is here, and the long-term effects of this reckless money printing by the Federal Reserve are going to be absolutely nightmarish. The Federal Reserve is hoping that buying $40 billion worth of mortgage-backed securities per month will spur more lending and more economic activity. But that didn’t happen with either QE1 or QE2. Both times the banks just sat on most of the extra money. As I pointed out the other day, U.S. banks are already sitting on $1.6 trillion in excess reserves. So will pumping them up with more cash suddenly make them decide to start lending? Of course not. In addition, QE3 is not likely to produce many additional jobs. As I showed in a previous article, the employment level did not jump up as a result of either QE1 or QE2. So why will this time be different? But what did happen under both QE1 and QE2 is that a lot of the money ended up pumping up the financial markets. So once again we should see stock prices go up (at least in the short-term) and commodities such as gold, silver, food and oil should also rise. But that also means that average American families will be paying more for the basic necessities that they buy on a regular basis. The most dangerous aspect of QE3, however, is what it is going to do to the U.S. dollar. Most of the rest of the world uses the U.S. dollar to conduct international trade, and by choosing to recklessly print money Ben Bernanke is severely damaging international confidence in our currency. If at some point the rest of the world rejects the dollar and no longer wants to use it as a reserve currency we are going to be facing a crisis unlike anything we have ever seen before. The real debate about QE3 should not be about whether or not it will help the economy a little bit in the short-term. Rather, everyone should be talking about the long-term implications and about how QE3 is going to accelerate the destruction of the dollar. (Read More...)
China Keeps Slapping America In The Face And America Just Keeps Taking It
If you were playing a game against a dishonest opponent and you allowed that opponent to lie, cheat and steal as much as they wanted to, who do you think would win? Today, China is absolutely crushing the United States on the global economic stage, but they are hardly playing fair. They shower their own firms with huge government subsidies, they brazenly steal technology, they publicly violate intellectual property rights, they manipulate currency rates so that foreign firms cannot compete with Chinese prices and they slap ridiculously high tariffs on many classes of foreign goods. In short, they basically do everything that they can get away with to give themselves a trade advantage. This predatory behavior has caused an enormous transfer of wealth from the United States to China. It isn’t as if it is just some sort of an “accident” that we now owe China about a trillion dollars. The truth is that China just keeps slapping America in the face and America just keeps taking it. We are like an abused spouse that just keeps coming back for more. It is disgraceful and it needs to stop. (Read More...)
Now That U.S. Government Debt Has Been Downgraded, The Rest Of The World Is Calling Even Louder For A New Global Currency
For decades, the U.S. economy was so dominant compared to the rest of the world that nobody really even challenged the status of the U.S. dollar as the reserve currency of the world. But now that U.S. government debt has been downgraded, the U.S. dollar is showing significant weakness and the U.S. economy continues to crumble, the rest of the world is questioning whether the U.S. dollar should be allowed to continue to have such a privileged position in the global marketplace. Politicians all over the world are now openly calling for a new global currency to replace the U.S. dollar in international trade. In fact, we are already seeing a shift away from the dollar in many areas of the globe. A decade ago, the U.S. dollar made up approximately 70% of all foreign exchange reserves around the world. Today, that figure is down to about 60%, and it continues to fall. As the debt problems of the U.S. government get even deeper, and as the U.S. dollar loses even more strength, the calls for a truly global currency are going to grow even louder. (Read More...)
As The Dollar And The Euro Continue To Collapse, How High Is That Going To Push The Price Of Gold?
Right now, the global financial system is facing a crisis that is really unprecedented. The reserve currency of the world (the U.S. dollar) is collapsing and the second most powerful currency on the planet (the euro) is also collapsing. As the major paper currencies of the globe crumble, the hunger that investors around the world have for gold continues to grow. Today, the price of gold hit an all-time record of $1607.90 an ounce. But that record surely will not live for long. The truth is that gold has been steadily climbing for quite some time now. A year ago, the price of gold was hovering around $1200 an ounce and and many “mainstream economists” scoffed at the idea that the price of gold could go significantly higher. Well, nobody is laughing now. As colossal debt loads continue to crush both Europe and the United States, the euro and the dollar are going to continue to collapse. There are going to be more bailouts and central banks are going to be doing more money printing. So how high is all of this going to push the price of gold? (Read More...)
The End Of An Empire And The Beginning Of A Depression
Since the end of World War 2, the United States has been the leading military power and the leading economic power on the entire globe. The U.S. has had the largest economy in the history of the world, the U.S. dollar has been used by nearly all of the nations on earth as a reserve currency and the U.S. military has had a physical presence in most of the countries on the planet. Today, the U.S. military is in approximately 130 different nations and it has a total of about 700 military bases around the world. But just like the Roman Empire, the U.S. empire has become overextended and it is starting to decline. Most of our politicians believe that we can continue to “police the world” and project our power to every corner of the globe, but the more we meddle the more the rest of the world hates us and the worse our financial problems get. America is now swamped with debts and our influence is fading. The truth is that what we are witnessing is the end of an empire and the beginning of a depression. (Read More...)