IT is getting harder for governments to buy United States Treasuries because the US's shrinking current-account gap is reducing supply of dollars overseas, a Chinese central bank official said yesterday.
The comments by Zhu Min, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, referred to the overall situation globally, not specifically to China, the biggest foreign holder of US government bonds.
Chinese officials generally are very careful about commenting on the dollar and Treasuries, given that so much of its US$2.3 trillion reserves are tied to their value, and markets always watch any such comments closely for signs of any shift in how it manages its assets.
China's State Administration of Foreign Exchange reaffirmed this month that the dollar stands secure as the anchor of the currency reserves it manages, even as the country seeks to diversify its investments.
In a discussion on the global role of the dollar, Zhu told an academic audience that it was inevitable that the dollar would continue to fall in value because Washington continued to issue more Treasuries to finance its deficit spending.
He then addressed where demand for that debt would come from.
"The United States cannot force foreign governments to increase their holdings of Treasuries," Zhu said, according to an audio recording of his remarks. "Double the holdings? It is definitely impossible."
"The US current account deficit is falling as residents' savings increase, so its trade turnover is falling, which means the US is supplying fewer dollars to the rest of the world," he added. "The world does not have so much money to buy more US Treasuries."
China continues to see its foreign exchange reserves grow, albeit at a slower pace than in past years, due to a large trade surplus and inflows of foreign investment. They stood at US$2.3 trillion at the end of September.
#1
Yeah, well we know the world is financially screwed, what else is new. Don't buy the bonds, treasuries and financial instruments and you will kill the ONEs programs. You would not do that to a fellow "Progressive" would you ?
#4
That's ok - We'll just print more. After all -- we still have checks left!
That's what the Treasury has been doing when it can't sell bonds, it in turn buys them with more printed money. The bonds mitigate the debt over a number of years [hoping inflation will eat some of it] whereas the purchase makes the debt and debasement of the currency immediate.
#5
"The world does not have so much money to buy more US Treasuries."
I think he is saying China's surplus has peaked and is now falling.
International currency flows are always automatically in balance. There is always enough USD outside the USA to buy treasuries to fund the trade deficit.* Although not of course the budget deficit.
Apologies for my being so dense, but could you please expound on your words, "International currency flows are always automatically in balance. There is always enough USD outside the USA to buy treasuries to fund the trade deficit.* Although not of course the budget deficit". Not being an economist, I'd just like to understand the nuance of your words.
Thank you, Sir.
This era is like no other in American journalism: People are consuming more news than ever before, but they're also far more critical of its purveyors than they've ever been. We remain generally agreed that a free press is democracy's cornerstone, but there's less consensus than ever on what the news media ought to be -- or, for that matter, what rapid technological, economic and demographic change will allow it to be.
That makes three sets of little-noticed numbers released this week of more than passing interest.
The first set has to do with the audiences of the three cable news networks. For the first time, CNN's prime-time broadcasts will finish the year in third place, behind Fox and MSNBC among the 25- to 54-year-old viewers advertisers regard as the desirable television audience. To some, that seems to suggest that the television news audience is increasingly split along ideological lines. Fox has made itself king of the prime-time ratings hill by programming a slate of right-wing commentators, while MSNBC has set itself up as the progressive alternative. CNN's attempt to play it down the journalistic middle looks like a ratings loser.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
12/20/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
FTA: "Fox has made itself king of the prime-time ratings hill by programming a slate of right-wing commentators, while MSNBC has set itself up as the progressive alternative. CNN's attempt to play it down the journalistic middle looks like a ratings loser."
CNN is down the middle? I think I would take this analysis with more than a grain of salt.
#3
The question now is whether, once the recession recedes, U.S. papers will be in a position to satisfy it
Answer: What U.S. papers, the majority are sliding down into bankruptcy, pulling back their correspondents, loosing advertising revenue.
Loose the bias LA Times, New York Times, San Franciso Gate, Chicago Tribune and all you other Zero supporters. You have lost the trust of your American readership.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/20/2009 10:25 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Chomosh -
"Loose the bias LA Times, New York Times, San Franciso Gate, Chicago Tribune and all you other Zero supporters. You have lost the trust of your American readership."
They would rather fly their papers and everything they are supposed to represent into the ground, rather than change their outlook. They are desperately hoping - and in some cases actively negotiating - for the same kind of bailout the auto industry got, believing that the One cannot live without them.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
12/20/2009 10:32 Comments ||
Top||
#6
Loose Lose the bias LA Times, New York Times, San Franciso Gate, Chicago Tribune and all you other Zero supporters. You have lost the trust of your American readership.
This is the same thing liberals said to newspapers and other businesses when they wanted to gain more power. It wasn't true then and it isn't true now.
I think the bias present in all news organizations is the symptom rather than the cause of the disease. It is a symptom of a diseased organization which has gone in size beyond a certain point that its product becomes diminished in value. When that malaise sets in, elements in the organization seek to change the inputs, rather than examine the cause of the decline, ( the large unwieldiness of the institution ) which is a very human and understandable error.
And the institution may not have changed at all in size to be affected. Other institutions may have also come into the market to market the same product. The size may not have changed but the institution has because its share of the market has declined, making the institution too large for the market it is in.
The internet has changed the game forever, and news organizations being in many cases large and unwieldy institutions are slow to react positively to the changes instead preferring to rattle their lawyers' briefcases about intellectual property, or to purchase a property they see assisting them in their drive to remain competitive and profitable.
The world is flooded with media of every type imaginable.
Fox is successful because they are marketing editorial viewpoints which appeal to a larger segment of the potential audience than the other news institutions. They are meeting demand.
CNN and MSNBC are not meeting anything but the exit, Stage Left
#7
The death of "dead-tree media" isn't the result of people not paying attention, but of the fact they ARE paying attention. The same thing is killing newspapers that is killing many other businesses - a strong left-wing slant in the training of the people entering the field. That goes right back to our universities and colleges. There is no "middle ground" in any non-scientific field - it's either hard-left, or it's ignored and the non-compliant professors finding themselves without a job.
Our colleges are training a bunch of people to approach every problem from one direction, and one direction only. The fact that many such problems CANNOT be solved from the leftist viewpoint is ignored. Eventually, online colleges and universities will overwhelm the ivory-tower bastions of "classic" education, and they, too, will die, just as most of today's true journalism occurs online. Rantburg is a much better "newspaper" than the LA Times could ever be.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/20/2009 15:01 Comments ||
Top||
Why the young democracy is sending nearly 1,000 troops to the war effort.
By MIKHEIL SAAKASHVILI
Following President Obama's speech on our common mission in Afghanistan, NATO members and other countries pledged about 7,000 additional troops. My country committed just under 1,000, which makes Georgia the highest per-capita troop contributor to the war effort.
Some might be surprised that a small country not yet in NATO--and partly occupied by more than 10,000 hostile Russian troops--would make this commitment to an Allied mission abroad. Let me explain why it makes perfect sense.
As President Obama pointed out, the threat of violent extremism endangers all nations that subscribe to the principles of liberal democracy. Those principles made America the target on 9/11. Spain was hit on March 11, 2004, and Britain on July 7, 2005. Any of our countries could be next.
We see ourselves as firmly allied with the values of the U.S. and the trans-Atlantic community. That is why we are sending serious forces--a heavy battalion and two light companies--with no restrictions on the kinds of missions and combat in which they can participate. Almost 800 will be deploying with the U.S. Marines into Helmand Province, where some of the most intense fighting has occurred.
Georgia is making contributions in other ways. The U.S. and NATO have already started using Georgian ports, rail lines and roads to transport nonlethal supplies to Afghanistan. American military experts have concluded this is a safe and cost-saving transit route, and we stand ready to expand its use.
Less than a decade ago, Georgia was considered by many to be a failing state. But with the support of our friends in the West, we were able to make dramatic changes.
Our experience as a young democracy gives us confidence that success is possible on the political and civil fronts in Afghanistan, and we will do everything possible to help strengthen Afghanistan's institutions. Our reform know-how could help in training Afghanistan's police forces and other civil servants, an effort that is crucial to achieving long-term stability and a more transparent government.
The test of the bonds among nations is not what we do when it is easy, but rather what we do when it is hard. Georgia has been grateful for the extent to which the U.S. and Europe have stood alongside us over recent years. Now we are proud to stand--and fight--alongside you.
Mr. Saakashvili is president of Georgia.
'Tis said those who think they run America read the New York Times; those who read the Wall Street Journal actually do.
H/T Lucianne.com The Ending:
It was almost unthinkable. The president of the United States walked into a meeting of fellow world leaders and there wasn't a chair for him, a sure sign he was not expected, maybe not even wanted.
Barack Obama didn't pause, however. "I'm going to sit by my friend Lula," he said, moving toward Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
A Brazilian aide gave the U.S. president his chair, and Obama spent the next 80 minutes helping craft new requirements for disclosing efforts to fight global warming. Along with India, South Africa and Brazil, the key member in the room was China, which recently surpassed the U.S. as the world's top emitter of heat-trapping gasses.
At the table this time for China was Premier Wen Jiabao, not an underling as before. Obama was bent on striking a deal before flying home to snowbound Washington.
How it Happened:
Obama's 15-hour, seat-of-the-pants dash through Copenhagen was marked by doggedness, confusion and semi-comedy. Constrained by partisan politics at home, and quarrels between rich and poor nations abroad, he was determined to come home with a victory, no matter how imperfect. All his "victories" are becoming imperfect
Obama was thrown off schedule almost from the moment he landed Friday morning in Copenhagen, where the summit's final-day talks seemed to be collapsing.
Instead of attending a planned meeting with Denmark's prime minister, he plunged into an emergency session of about 20 nations, big and small, wealthy and poor. Right away there was a troubling sign.
China was the only nation to send a second-tier official: vice foreign minister He Yafei instead of Premier Wen, who was in the building. The snub baffled and annoyed delegates.
For months, Obama had been pressing China to put into writing its promises to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Obama later seemed unusually animated when he alluded indirectly to China in a short, late-morning speech to the full conference.
"I don't know how you have an international agreement where we all are not sharing information and ensuring that we are meeting our commitments," he said. "That doesn't make sense." And just how much money has China "donated" to you, and you snub them?
Things then appeared to turn for the better, as Obama and Wen met privately, as scheduled, for 55 minutes. A U.S. official said they took a step forward as they discussed emissions targets, financing and transparency.
The two leaders directed aides to work on mutual language, and Obama's team proposed specific wording meant to solidify China's promise to be more forthcoming about its anti-pollution efforts.
A short time later, however, the U.S. team was more baffled and irked than before. At a follow-up session of the morning's big meeting, the Chinese sent an even lower-ranking envoy in Wen's place.
An irritated Obama told his staff, "I don't want to mess around with this anymore, I want to just talk with Premier Wen," according to a senior administration official who spoke on background to discuss sensitive diplomatic issues.
By now night had fallen, and it was clear Obama would be late getting home. He kept an appointment to discuss arms control with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. Meanwhile he asked aides to try to set up a final one-on-one meeting with Wen, and a separate meeting with leaders of India, Brazil and South Africa. He hoped these fast-growing nations, which had been loosely aligned with China on many of the key issues, might influence the Chinese.
Confusion reigned. Chinese officials said Wen was at his hotel and his staff was at the airport. The same was said of top Indian officials, but nothing was clear.
South African President Jacob Zuma agreed to meet with Obama, then canceled when he heard the Indian leader was away, and Brazil would attend only if India did.
The Chinese said Wen could meet with Obama at 6:15 p.m., then changed it to 7 p.m. Obama used the time to talk strategy with the leaders of France, Germany and Great Britain.
Meanwhile, a four-nation negotiating team known as BASIC gathered. The modified acronym reflected its members: Brazil, South Africa, India and China. This is beginning to sound like the game Chinese Fire Drill we played as teenagers: An old game that you play while driving. Your car needs to be full of people. When you stop at a red light, you put the car in park then ALL passengers (driver included) get out of the car and quickly switch into random positions elsewhere inside the viehicle. The object is to pull this off before the light turns green...Otherwise you're screwed.
Obama was unaware, however, thinking he was going to meet alone with Wen. After some confusion about who had access to the room, White House aides told the president that Wen was inside with the leaders of the three other countries, apparently working on strategy. Humm wondering if the Secret Service had checked out the room? some staffer knew he wasn't invited?
"Good," Obama said as he walked through the door. "Mr. Premier, are you ready to see me?" he called out. "Are you ready?" Maybe he gave lessons to the White House state dinner party crashers. Seems he knows just how to "walk right in."
Inside he found startled leaders and no chair to sit in. Maybe they were expecting Bush, thus no chair, but for The Won to descend into their presence unannounced? What a supremely embarrassing moment that must have been for these world leader. No chair for The One. /sarc
U.S. officials denied that Obama crashed the party, saying he simply showed up for his 7 p.m. meeting with Wen and found the others there. The no chair should have been his clue. But lacking certain social skills, and wearing his Doctorate in "The Chicago Way," barge right in, he did.
Whatever the meeting's original purpose, Obama used it to help strike an agreement on ways to verify developing nations' reductions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases, a good U.S. ending to their talks with the Chinese. And the Chinese continue to just keep laughing as they again play the game of "Yanking Obama Around." What is the score now? Chinese 10 Obama 0? Hard to keep track of scoring in a fast moving game, and the Chinese has experience on their side.
#3
By CHARLES BABINGTON and JENNIFER LOVEN
Associated Press Writers
Ay Pee. Ms Loven is apparently married to an AGW environmental activist, and as an AP writer we can assume has been enamored with President Obama since some time in 2008. The spin is obvious, but there are tells that she is becoming uncomfortable, even in the second sentence. I mean, how could it be that The One is ever unwanted? And later, his dash through Copenhagen was marked by not only doggedness but confusion and semi-comedy -- not words that should be associated with the Prez of Cool Charm and High Intelligence.
I take it all back. Copenhagen was worth it, after all -- if only for the sphincter-bursting rage its supposed failure has caused among our libtard watermelon chums. (That's watermelon, as in: green on the outside, red on the inside).
As Damian reports, on Twitter they're all planning to cleanse Mother Gaia of their polluting presence Jonestown-style.
The Great Moonbat is sounding more unhinged than ever:
Goodbye Africa, goodbye south Asia; goodbye glaciers and sea ice, coral reefs and rainforest. It was nice knowing you. Not that we really cared. The governments which moved so swiftly to save the banks have bickered and filibustered while the biosphere burns.
And Polly Toynbee is blaming the whole fiasco on false consciousness.
Most leaders in Copenhagen were out ahead of their people. Most understand the crisis better than those they represent, promising more sacrifice than their citizens are yet ready to accept -- while no doubt praying for some miraculous technological escape.
Sometimes we're inclined to dismiss Polly as a lovable comedy figure, what with her lovely house in Tuscany contrasting so amusingly with her prolier-than-thou politics, and the never ending japesomeness of her deft, lighter-than-air prose.
But you know what? When she reveals her true colours, as she does here, I think she's really, really scary. Her whole article teeters on the brink of demanding an eco-fascist world government to save us all from ourselves.
She yearns, like a woman wailing for her demon lover, for the righteous apocalypse which will teach us the error of our ways:
What would it take? A tidal wave destroying New York maybe -- New Orleans was the wrong people -- with London, St Petersburg and Shanghai wiped out all at once.
What she really wants, though, as you see from the plaintive, yearning tone of this sentence is global dictatorship:
As things stand, politics has not enough heft nor authority.
One day, Polly dear. One day.
UPDATE: Christ on a bike! You thought Moonbat and Pol-Pot were barking. Wait till you read Johann Hari's tearful summation in the Independent.
Throughout the negotiations here, the world's low-lying island states have clung to the real ideas as a life raft, because they are the only way to save their countries from a swelling sea. It has been extraordinary to watch their representatives -- quiet, sombre people with sad eyes -- as they were forced to plead for their own existence. They tried persuasion and hard science and lyrical hymns of love for their lands, and all were ignored.
Does he mean the man in the bow-tie from Tuvalu who wept openly for his island's fate but on closer cross-examination -- as Andrew Bolt reported -- turned out to live nowhere near Tuvalu (whose sea-levels, in any case, have not risen in several decades)?
#1
This article is depressing. One person (ostensibly) has re-written history, and it stands today, as re-written, intact. His censure by Wikipedia is hidden, but his impact lingers on. Hiding the censure signals implicit agreement. It is unreasonable to assume that writing the Wiki board will correct the situation, insofar as they are complicit and are trying to hide the problem. It follows then that everything you read on Wikipedia is suspect.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
12/20/2009 4:42 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Wikipedia is absolute crap for anything having to deal with politics or social norms.
#3
Consequences for the misbehaviour are piling on. From the article's comment thread:
From the wattsupwiththat site:
In September 2009, the Wikipedia Arbitration Committee revoked Mr. Connolleys administrator status after finding that he misused his administrative privileges while involved in a dispute unrelated to climate warming. This has now been added to his article.
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/20/2009 11:34 Comments ||
Top||
#5
#1 This article is depressing. One person (ostensibly) has re-written history, and it stands today, as re-written, intact. His censure by Wikipedia is hidden, but his impact lingers on. Hiding the censure signals implicit agreement. It is unreasonable to assume that writing the Wiki board will correct the situation, insofar as they are complicit and are trying to hide the problem. It follows then that everything you read on Wikipedia is suspect.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike 2009-12-20 04:42
#2 Wikipedia is absolute crap for anything having to deal with politics or social norms.
Posted by: lex 2009-12-20 06:04
This is why (when I was teaching Social Studies/History/Civics) I refused to accept Wikipedia as a source for any papers and projects I assigned my students.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
