The framing is a bit clumsy, but the latest data in favor of the artificial CNY surge comes to us from Bloomberg. The mainstream views currency flows as, well, flows of currency. That’s what makes their description so maladroit, and it can often lead to serious confusion. A little translation into the wholesale eurodollar reality, however, clears it up nicely. Demand for foreign exchange outstripped that for yuan for...
Read More »PBOC RMB Restraint Derives From Experience Plus ‘Dollar’ Constraint
Given that today started with a review of the “dollar” globally as represented by TIC figures and how that is playing into China’s circumstances, it would only be fitting to end it with a more complete examination of those. We know that the eurodollar system is constraining Chinese monetary conditions, but all through this year the PBOC has approached that constraint very differently than last year.The updated balance...
Read More »Swimming The ‘Dollar’ Current (And Getting Nowhere)
The People’s Bank of China reported this week that its holdings of foreign assets fell slightly again in August 2017. Down about RMB 21 billion, almost identical to the RMB 22 billion decline in July, the pace of forex withdrawals is clearly much preferable to what China’s central bank experienced (intentionally or not) late last year at ten and even twenty times the rate of July and August. The US Treasury Department...
Read More »Swiss National Bank Bubble Regains Lead Over Bitcoin
A week ago we tweeted… Dear @SNB_BNS_en – you are the next bitcoin: congratulations pic.twitter.com/cld4YNbNLb — zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 14, 2017 But as Bitcoin rebounded from its China challenges, it overtook The SNB once again as bubbliest bubble. However, a 13% spike in the share price of The Swiss National Bank today has put an end to that leaving the central bank back in first place among the...
Read More »A Clear Anchor
All the way back in January I calculated the total size of China’s 2016 fiscal “stimulus.” Starting in January 2016, authorities conducted what was an enormous spending program. As it had twice before, the government directed increased “investment” from State-owned Enterprises (SOE).By my back-of-the-envelope numbers, the scale of this fiscal side program was about RMB 1.45 trillion, or nearly 2% of GDP. It was about...
Read More »One-Tenth Of Global GDP Is Now Held In Offshore Tax Havens
Accurately measuring the scope of global wealth inequality is a notoriously difficult undertaking – a fact that was brought to light last year when the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists published the Panama Papers, exposing clients of Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca. As the papers revealed, Mossack Fonseca, which is only the world’s fourth-largest provider of offshore financial services, boasted...
Read More »Risiken in China nehmen zu
Andreas Busch, Senior Analyst Economic Research bei BANTLEON. Chinas Wirtschaft hat sich in den vergangenen Quartalen erstaunlich wacker geschlagen. Die Anfang 2016 im Umfeld abstürzender Rohstoffpreise aufgekommene Angst vor einem "Hard Landing", das die Weltwirtschaft in einen Abgrund reissen könnte, löste sich dank überraschend robuster Wirtschaftsdaten schnell in Luft auf. Andreas Busch, Senior Analyst Economic...
Read More »Moscow Rules (for ‘dollars’)
In Ian Fleming’s 1959 spy novel Goldfinger, he makes mention of the Moscow Rules. These were rules-of-thumb for clandestine agents working during the Cold War in the Soviet capital, a notoriously difficult assignment. Among the quips included in the catalog were, “everyone is potentially under opposition control” and “do not harass the opposition.” Fleming’s book added another, “Once is an accident. Twice is...
Read More »Top Institutions and Economists Now Say Globalization Increases Inequality
We’ve all heard that globalization lifts all boats and increases our prosperity … But mainstream economists and organizations are now starting to say that globalization increases inequality. The National Bureau of Economic Research – the largest economics research organization in the United States, with many Nobel economists and Chairmen of the Council of Economic Advisers as members – published, a report in May finding: Recent globalization...
Read More »Data Dependent: Interest Rates Have Nowhere To Go
In October 2015, Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Bill Dudley admitted that the US economy might be slowing. In the typically understated fashion befitting the usual clownshow, he merely was acknowledging what was by then pretty obvious to anyone outside the economics profession. Dudley was at that moment, however, undaunted. His eye was cast toward the unemployment rate and that was nothing but encouraging no matter the...
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