Amero/Economic News on CKNW Radio

[dumpthemonarchy]

While listening to CKNW radio this morning, Michael Levi, one of several financial gurus on the station, was asked a question by a caller about the conspiracy oriented Amero currency. He did not outright dismiss it as he said issuing a new currency could be used to write off up to 70% of the current US national debt. He said the Amero could be used for the US, Canada, Mexico, and Brazil. Brazil of all places! Like Brazil would go for this scheme.

Levi is very pro-American, when he discusses financial issues he always stresses US problems, one time the host had to bring him back to reality to talk about "Canadian issues."

Levi talked this morning of the "excesses of the past 28 years," serious, but the excess is of the lack of regulation, derivatives and too many grossly rich people-in the US. For us ordinary worker bees, I don't see excess when real incomes have been in decline for decades.

His voice also rose greatly on the "10 trillion dollar debt" of the US and how it could cause everything to come crashing down because it is bigger than the US economy. The US could become bankrupt and lose its superpower status. He also said China and other countries are no longer so keen to buy US Treasury Bills, the Fed-a private organization, is buying T-Bills with inflated dollars. A strange arrangement he waxed upon.

I also saw on the CBC recently, the US has printed $10 trillion in new money paper currency.

Maybe he was trying to obliquely tell us to sell USA.

 

[Kreskin]

I listened to Levi for years. Although he talks a good game and raises his voice quite well for fear factor, I have yet to hear him be right about anything.

 

[Francis2004]

I listened to Levi for years. Although he talks a good game and raises his voice quite well for fear factor, I have yet to hear him be right about anything.

I remember Levi saying there was no better time to buy real estate last year, at this time, and that it would never lose it's value. 8O

 

[Kreskin]

I remember Levi saying there was no better time to buy real estate last year, at this time, and that it would never lose it's value. 8O

That was around the same time he was calling for $2000/oz gold.

 

[CanadianLove]

What would this do to aveverage Joe? Should people be thinking of converting to Gold (or Plutonium) to secure their cash assets. Doesn't really sound like the exchange rate will be that good paper or electronic money.

 

[dumpthemonarchy]

Plutonium? I think you mean platinum C-L, but maybe not in these uncertain times.

Two weeks ago I heard Peter Schiff-who heads an investing company, is predicting a hyperinflationary depression in the US. Schiff said the only people buying US bonds were speculators for short term trading as no one is buying them for 20-30 year terms anymore. So now Levi is saying big countries seem to want to move out of US bonds. This is not speculation, but news today. It could become a fact very soon. Not good.

Schiff said the US should have had its recession with the tech crash, so this one will be extra big. Politicians always want to be Santa Claus, never the Grinch.

 

[Kreskin]

I'm not too fond of big speculations. Few of them are ever correct.

 

[Scott Free]

It is a worry that the best argument against the Amero is the credibility of the messengers. That alone suggests some credibility.

We should never underestimate the capacity for evil possessed by our ruling elite. It is a very poor premise indeed that is based on their good intent.

 

[Cannuck]

I listened to Levi for years. Although he talks a good game and raises his voice quite well for fear factor, I have yet to hear him be right about anything.

I could say the same thing about my wife.

 

[EagleSmack]

What would this do to aveverage Joe? Should people be thinking of converting to Gold (or Plutonium) to secure their cash assets. Doesn't really sound like the exchange rate will be that good paper or electronic money.

I absolutely believe we should be converting cash to plutonium. We should all carry it around in our pockets and be used as a national currency.

 

[Cliffy]

I absolutely believe we should be converting cash to plutonium. We should all carry it around in our pockets and be used as a national currency.

That would certainly take care of the over population problem. But I would make it voluntary. Only idiots would carry it and then we could accomplish two birds with one stone - thin population and make a giant leap in evolution.

 

[EagleSmack]

What you and I could do Cliffy is set up a money exchange. We could take people's money and give them bits of plutonium in exchange. At the proper rate exchange to make it legitimate of course. Perhaps they will chuckle a bit at our funny white HAZMAT Radiation suits but I am sure we can handle that.

 

[Cliffy]

What you and I could do Cliffy is set up a money exchange. We could take people's money and give them bits of plutonium in exchange. At the proper rate exchange to make it legitimate of course. Perhaps they will chuckle a bit at our funny white HAZMAT Radiation suits but I am sure we can handle that.

You get the plutonium and I'll design an ad campaign to real in the suckers.

 

[dumpthemonarchy]

I think Levi is one of those "analysts' who figured all was well in the runup to the subprime scandal. After all, he was making loads of dough.

Here's a good article from AFP stating China is questioning the wisdom of buying US Bonds. Last week China suggested a new reserve currency for the world. These calls will not go away.

AFP: China has to keep buying US Treasuries: analysts

China has to keep buying US Treasuries: analysts


1 hour ago


BEIJING (AFP) — China has little choice but to keep buying US Treasuries despite concerns about the safety of its American assets, amid reports it has lost billions of dollars in forex reserves, analysts said.
China had 1.95 trillion dollars in foreign exchange reserves at the end of December, and a large proportion -- analysts estimate at least 70 percent -- has been invested in US-denominated assets.
China's Premier Wen Jiabao has voiced concern over his nation's investments in the recession-hit United States -- a view echoed by the central bank chief, who has called for ditching the dollar as the international reserve currency.
But despite these worries, Sherman Chan, an economist at research firm Moody's Economy.com, said China was unlikely to shun US Treasuries, at least as long as the global financial crisis raged on.
"It is in China's interest to support the struggling US economy," she said.
"The health of the world?s largest economy is crucial to the global environment and has direct implications for international trade."
China announced an unprecedented four-trillion-yuan (585-billion-dollar) stimulus package in November, as its own trade-dependent economy came under strain from falling exports.
But Chan argued this was only a short-term measure, and that a US recovery was the only cure for the tumble in exports and manufacturing.
"Knowing that the US government needs foreign funding to implement its stimulus measures, which play an important role in reviving growth momentum stateside, the Chinese have an incentive to get behind the plan."
China's concern comes as the US Federal Reserve decided earlier this month to buy up to 300 billion dollars in long-term US Treasury bonds in an effort to revive the ailing economy, a move which has sparked concern that returns on future bond purchases will be lower.
Adding to this, media reports have pointed to billions in forex reserve losses in China due to a drop in the value of non-dollar assets and to risky investments abroad.
According to a report in the China Business News, China's forex reserves fell by about 30 billion dollars in January, but the report cannot yet be confirmed as China only publishes monthly figures on a quarterly basis.
Personal estimates made by He Zhicheng, a senior economist at the Agricultural Bank of China, suggest China lost at least 80 billion dollars in forex reserves from August last year to February.
Part of this loss, he says, was on risky ventures on overseas stock markets that plunged in value last year and due to currency fluctuations.
Stephen Green, an economist at Standard Chartered, said that management of reserves was about preserving value.
"You can take a bit of money and play with it, try and play the markets and push your returns, but fundamentally, forex reserves are to be preserved rather than to be traded," he said.
And US Treasuries, analysts said, still provided an investment safe haven.
Still, China has been seeking to diversify its reserves from the US dollar for some time, as have other nations.
According to Wang Tao, an economist with UBS Securities, China has few other options.
"You can buy euro assets, but the euro is also very volatile," she said.
Andy Xie, an independent Shanghai-based economist, said China needed to pick different dollar assets.
"China should move towards stocks, to buy into the S&P 500 index (500 largest listed companies in the US), rather than US Treasuries," he said.
Zhou Xiaochuan, China's central bank governor, meanwhile suggested the world should move to an entirely different standard run by the International Monetary Fund, which would not be easily influenced by individual country policies.
China's move to reduce its reliance on US dollars will happen, according to Ken Peng, an economist at Citigroup, but he believes that is for the future.
"It will take a long time to unwind, and for now, China will continue to buy Treasuries," he said.


Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved.

So why does China "have to" keep buying US bonds? Not a very "free" market here. Nothing, no one, no business, no country is too big to fail.

 

[Kreskin]

The US would get the printing presses running to cover the redemptions. The devalued US dollar would create a lot of US jobs. No wonder the Chinese want to continue buying.

 

[dumpthemonarchy]

Medvedev Resurrects Idea of Replacing Dollar as Reserve Currency

By HELENE COOPER
Published: April 2, 2009
LONDON — So much for that fresh start.
Barely 24 hours after announcing that Russia and the United States would cooperate on a variety of long-simmering issues, President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia reproposed a Russian idea that the United States had thought it had batted away: starting a new basket of strong regional currencies to replace the dollar as the world’s reserve currency.
In a speech before leaders here at the Group of 20 summit meeting, Mr. Medvedev said that the countries most responsible for the global economic crisis (read: the United States) are not taking their fair share of the burden for “macroeconomic policies” needed to fix the problem.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/03/world/europe/03medvedev.html?ref=world

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However, talk of a new world currency to replace the US dollar started as a squeak a few years ago, to much more now. It is push for more power from G20 countries in international institutions like the IMF. Which a country like China now has the money to push its agenda. Which works against the US dollar. US power is diluted as the G8 is dead.

 

[dumpthemonarchy]

Amero Update

The financial newsletter Market Oracle has a very informative article discussing the Amero. But not just the Amero, but a trend toward regional currencies and a world currency. The Amero is no conspiracy of the week, it is no fantasy, it is in motion as we speak or chat.

Here are some excerpts (It is a very long article). I totally agree with the conclusion that we should resist the Amero and a future world currency. The majority of the world is not democratic, but becoming very capitalistic. This suits the bankers, but not citizens who must prevail because we demand transparency and accountability from our elected leaders. Capitalism does not need democracy-see China, citizens do.

Towards New Global Currency, New Financial World Order :: The Market Oracle :: Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting Free Website
Towards New Global Currency, New Financial World Order

Politics / Global Financial System Apr 08, 2009 - 01:50 AM By: Global_Research
Andrew G. Marshall is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is currently studying Political Economy and History at Simon Fraser University.


In May of 2007, Canada's then Governor of the Central Bank of Canada, David Dodge, said that, “North America could one day embrace a euro-style single currency,” and that, “Some proponents have dubbed the single North American currency the ‘amero'.” Answering questions following his speech, Dodge said that, “a single currency was ‘possible'.”[29]

In November of 2007, one of Canada's richest billionaires, Stephen Jarislowsky, also a member of the board of the C.D. Howe Institute, told a Canadian Parliamentary committee that, “Canada should replace its dollar with a North American currency, or peg it to the U.S. greenback, to avoid the exchange rate shifts the loonie has experienced,” and that, “I think we have to really seriously start thinking of the model of a continental currency just like Europe.”[30]
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He writes that, “even the international organizations and alliances we have today, flawed as they are, would have seemed impossible until recently, notably the success of the European Union – a unitary democratic state the size of India. The evolution and achievements of such entities against all odds suggest not isolated instances but an overall trend in the direction of what Tennyson called “the Parliament of Man,” or ‘universal law'.” He states that he is “optimistic that progress will continue to be made,” but it will be difficult, because it “undercuts many national and local power structures and cultural concepts that have foundations deep in the bedrock of human civilization, namely the notion of sovereignty.”[61]

He further writes that, “Mechanisms of global governance are more achievable in today's environment,” and that these mechanisms “are often creative with temporary solutions to urgent problems that cannot wait for the world to embrace a bigger and more controversial idea like real global government.”[62]
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In fact, the very concept of a global currency and global central bank is authoritarian in its very nature, as it removes any vestiges of oversight and accountability away from the people of the world, and toward a small, increasingly interconnected group of international elites.



As Carroll Quigley explained in his monumental book, Tragedy and Hope, “[T]he powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were themselves private corporations.”[71]



Indeed, the current “solutions” being proposed to the global financial crisis benefit those that caused the crisis over those that are poised to suffer the most as a result of the crisis: the disappearing middle classes, the world's dispossessed, poor, indebted people. The proposed solutions to this crisis represent the manifestations and actualization of the ultimate generational goals of the global elite; and thus, represent the least favourable conditions for the vast majority of the world's people.



It is imperative that the world's people throw their weight against these “solutions” and usher in a new era of world order, one of the People's World Order; with the solution lying in local governance and local economies, so that the people have greater roles in determining the future and structure of their own political-economy, and thus, their own society. With this alternative of localized political economies, in conjunction with an unprecedented global population and international democratization of communication through the internet, we have the means and possibility before us to forge the most diverse manifestation of cultures and societies that humanity has ever known.

 

[Trex]

I get paid in US dollars so I am a little twitchy these days about a possible rapid devaluation of the US dollar.
I trade out of them as soon as I recieve them.
However day in and day out they continue to be valued more than $CDN.
I agree with others that the US is probably setting itself up for possible devaluation and or inflation.
However it just doesnt seem to be happing.

Here's a quote from Conrad Black's jail cell.
He seems to think Canada is doing just fine with no worries to be had.

Quote
One thing we do know is that Stephen Harper, Jim Flaherty and Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney have navigated this crisis, so far, as well or better than the leaders of any other important country. They have not overreacted or underreacted, prematurely or tardily reacted; have revised prognoses promptly, preserved their credibility and kept plenty of dry powder to hand. Only Angela Merkel of Germany and Luis Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil have been comparably effective. The Liberals are not going to reap any harvest of votes on this issue.
Unquote.

I am not sure that convicted felons are the best source of fiscal information.
However he is a smart if somewhat arrogant man.
Be nice if he was right.

Trex