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- Uncivilized Investing
- Investing in Gold as World Economies Falter
- Bracing for a Greek Exit
- Currencies Try to Rebound Today
- Superior Biotechnology Leads to Superior Drugs
- The Delusion of Regulating Risk
- Talk of a Greek Exit Gets Louder
- Doug Casey on Taxes and Freedom, Part II
- Is Facebook the Rusty Hinge of the Stock Market?
Obama signature creates ‘continental perimeter’
Move described as key step in advance of North American Union.
Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper quietly have taken a major step toward erasing the border between the two nations with a new “Beyond the Border” bilateral declaration.
In a ceremony designed to remain below the radar of national public opinion, Obama and Harper bypassed Congress to sign on the basis of their executive authority a declaration that put in place a new national security vision defined not by U.S. national borders, but by a continental view of a “North American perimeter.”
It happened Friday, the day the Obama administration usually pushes through issues that it prefers the media ignore.
By signing the declaration, the Obama administration has implemented without congressional approval a key initiative President Bush began under the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, moving the United States and Canada beyond the North American Free Trade Agreement, commonly known as NAFTA, toward a developing North American Union regional government.
The declaration signed by the two heads of state and titled “Beyond the Border: A Shared Vision for Perimeter Security and Economic Competitiveness,” was described as “For Immediate Release” on the websites of the White House and the Canadian chief executive.
Harper followed Obama’s lead in signing the declaration as a form of executive order, deciding to bypass the Canadian parliament, much as Obama had decided against taking a proposed bilateral “Beyond the Border” declaration to Congress for prior review and approval.
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The Global Debt Clock – interactive map of government debt across the planet
Economist.com The clock is ticking. Every second, it seems, someone in the world takes on more debt. The idea of a debt clock for an individual nation is familiar to anyone who has been to Times Square in New York, where the American public shortfall is revealed. Our clock shows the global figure for all (or almost all) government debts in dollar terms.
Does it matter? After all, world governments owe the money to their own citizens, not to the Martians. But the rising total is important for two reasons. First, when debt rises faster than economic output (as it has been doing in recent years), higher government debt implies more state interference in the economy and higher taxes in the future. Second, debt must be rolled over at regular intervals. This creates a recurring popularity test for individual governments, rather as reality TV show contestants face a public phone vote every week. Fail that vote, as the Greek government did in early 2010, and the country can be plunged into imminent crisis. So the higher the global government debt total, the greater the risk of fiscal crisis, and the bigger the economic impact such crises will have…
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Currency Wars
Currency wars are one of the most destructive and feared outcomes in international economics. At best, they offer the sorry spectacle of countries’ stealing growth from their trading partners. At worst, they degenerate into sequential bouts of inflation, recession, retaliation, and sometimes actual violence. Left unchecked, the next currency war could lead to a crisis worse than the panic of 2008.
Currency wars have happened before—twice in the last century alone—and they always end badly. Time and again, paper currencies have collapsed, assets have been frozen, gold has been confiscated, and capital controls have been imposed. And the next crash is overdue. Recent headlines about the debasement of the dollar, bailouts in Greece and Ireland, and Chinese currency manipulation are all indicators of the growing conflict.
As James Rickards argues in Currency Wars, this is more than just a concern for economists and investors. The United States is facing serious threats to its national security, from clandestine gold purchases by China to the hidden agendas of sovereign wealth funds. Greater than any single threat is the very real danger of the collapse of the dollar itself.
Baffling to many observers is the rank failure of economists to foresee or prevent the economic catastrophes of recent years. Not only have their theories failed to prevent calamity, they are making the currency wars worse. The U. S. Federal Reserve has engaged in the greatest gamble in the history of finance, a sustained effort to stimulate the economy by printing money on a trillion-dollar scale. Its solutions present hidden new dangers while resolving none of the current dilemmas.
While the outcome of the new currency war is not yet certain, some version of the worst-case scenario is almost inevitable if U.S. and world economic leaders fail to learn from the mistakes of their predecessors. Rickards untangles the web of failed paradigms, wishful thinking, and arrogance driving current public policy and points the way toward a more informed and effective course of action.
James Rickards is a counselor, investment banker, and risk manager with over thirty years’ experience in capital markets. He advises the Department of Defense, the U.S. intelligence community, and major hedge funds on global finance, and served as a facilitator of the first ever financial war games conducted by the Pentagon. A frequent guest on CNBC, CNN, Fox, C-SPAN, Bloomberg TV, and NPR, Rickards also lectures at Northwestern University and at the School of Advanced International Studies.
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You, Me, and the SPP
‘You, Me, and the SPP: Trading Democracy for Corporate Rule’
What do secrecy, police provocateurs, an assault on democracy and infringements on citizens’ rights have in common? The Security Prosperity Partnership.
‘You, Me, and the S.P.P: Trading Democracy for Corporate Rule’ is a feature length documentary which exposes the latest manifestation of a corporatist agenda that is undermining the democratic authority of the citizens of North America. Two processes, the Security Prosperity Partnership (SPP) and the Trade Investment Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA) are rapidly eroding and eliminating standards, civil liberties, regulatory systems and institutions put in place over generations through the democratic process. Proponents of the SPP and TILMA say that they are needed to keep trade flowing, opponents say these agreements not only undermine the democratic authority of citizens they threaten the sovereignty of the three nations through the integration of military, security structures and regulatory regimes.
China, Japan to Back Direct Trade of Currencies
Japan and China will promote direct trading of the yen and yuan without using dollars and will encourage the development of a market for companies involved in the exchanges, the Japanese government said.
Japan will also apply to buy Chinese bonds next year, allowing the investment of renminbi that leaves China during the transactions, the Japanese government said in a statement after a meeting between Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in Beijing yesterday. Encouraging direct yen- yuan settlement should reduce currency risks and trading costs, the Japanese and Chinese governments said.
China is Japan’s biggest trading partner with 26.5 trillion yen ($340 billion) in two-way transactions last year, from 9.2 trillion yen a decade earlier. The pacts between the world’s second- and third-largest economies mirror attempts by fund managers to diversify as the two-year-old European debt crisis keeps global financial markets volatile.
“Given the huge size of the trade volume between Asia’s two biggest economies, this agreement is much more significant than any other pacts China has signed with other nations,” said Ren Xianfang, a Beijing-based economist with IHS Global Insight Ltd.
Currency Swap
China also announced a 70 billion yuan ($11 billion) currency swap agreement… Continue reading
Barack Obama announces US-Australia military agreement as he warns China to ‘play by rules’
Julia Gillard and Barack Obama announce details of the new military arrangement.
Australia has agreed to host a full US Marine task force in the coming years, Prime Minister Julia Gillard has announced at a news conference with US President Barack Obama in Canberra.
She said about 250 US Marines would arrive next year, eventually being built up to 2,500 personnel.
The deployment is being seen as a move to counter China’s growing influence.
But Mr Obama said the US was “stepping up its commitment to the entire Asia-Pacific”, not excluding China.
“The main message that I’ve said, not only publicly but also privately to China, is that with their rise comes increased responsibility,” he said.
“It is important for them to play by the rules of the road.”
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Liu Weimin questioned whether the move was in keeping with the region’s peaceful development.
“It may not be quite appropriate to intensify and expand military alliances and may not be in the interest of countries within this region,” he was quoted as saying by AFP news agency.
The Global Times, a newspaper produced by the Communist Party-controlled People’s Daily group, has been much more bellicose, says… Continue reading
