Re: The Euro vs Dollar Conspiracy Theory: part II - "T
Huck said:
toro:
The inflation for the US money printing happens only if the money goes back into circulation. If it is stocked up by a country in it's reserve, devaluation does not occur. As long as it remains in the countrie's safe, the devaluation will not happen.
...
... If a country usues it's USDs from its reserve back on the market, yes it will dilute the USDs. To buy bonds, they must pay in USD toro. banks hold the bonds, but they dont get paid in maple syrup, they get paid with USDs

(for US bonds)
That is only correct when a country mops up the excess liquidity in its financial system by tightening its own monetary policy. But often that does not happen. What I mean by this is when that transaction occurs, and the company exchanges its currency, say yuan (because this is most prevelent in China today), for dollars, the central bank has now increased the money supply of its own currency. So it
is inflationary, unless a country
sells its own bonds, which increases interest rates and takes money out of circulation. (Hint, that's an answer to the question I asked earlier.) This is called "sterilization". What should then happen is that the Chinese central bank should sell an offsetting position in the US bond market, which has the effect of increasing interest rates and decreasing the money supply in the United States. However, the Chinese government has chosen not to, and to keep the value of the yuan lower than it otherwise should be. This means that there is
too much money in the United States because the Chinese government has elected to hold US bonds rather than sell them. Selling US bonds increases interest rates and has the effect of pulling money out of the economy since, on the margin, other investors will exchange cash for bonds because the interest rate is higher. So, in fact, holding reserves, which are bonds, is inflationary, Huck.
And that's the answer to your question. If central banks started de-investing dollar bonds, the effect is
de-flationary, not
in-flationary, because selling bonds increases interest rates and takes money out of the economy. Interest rates would rise in the United States, unless the Federal Reserve opted to buy back the bonds, which is inflationary. Its one of the things
those of us in the know worry about, since if central banks stopped buying US government bonds, interest rates would rise.
Macro 101 stuff.
My bet is that you were going to tell me that central banks dumping dollars is inflationary. Maybe you were, maybe you were not. But I've seen that argued elsewhere by the conspiracy theorists, and its why they don't understand how this all works.