"China's foreign exchange reserves have not increased for almost two years...."
The Califia Beach Pundit provides an extraordinarily canny assessment of Chinese monetary policy, its dollar peg, foreign exchange accumulation, and gold's commodity price:
China's decision in early 1994 to peg the yuan to the dollar was a key factor driving China's growth, since it brought Chinese inflation rapidly down to the level of the U.S. The prospect of a stable currency not only reduced inflation and its multiple distortions, it also increased the market's confidence in China, and helped boost investment in the country since it all but eliminated foreign exchange risk. Indeed, since the yuan has only appreciated against the dollar since 1994, foreign investors benefited from strong Chinese growth and yuan gains. China was the boom of the century.
Image courtesy of Pandawiki.net
Massive inflows of foreign capital seeking to benefit from rapid Chinese development essentially forced the BoC to buy over $3 trillion of foreign exchange, with a commensurate increase in the Chinese money supply. Converting capital inflows into yuan is the only way foreign capital could actually enter the economy, because you can't build a factory or hire workers with dollars—the dollars need to be converted to yuan, and it is the proper role of the BoC to buy those dollars and issue new yuan in the process. Yet despite massive forex purchases, which relieved pressure on the yuan to appreciate, the BoC still had to allow the yuan to float irregularly upwards. A stronger yuan helped to keep the inflationary pressures of rapid growth under control.
As I explained in this post, it now appears that this process of forex purchases and yuan appreciation is at an end. This is a big deal. China's foreign exchange reserves have not increased for almost two years, and the yuan has been stable against the dollar for the past two or three months. Capital flows and trade flows appear to have reached some kind of equilibrium, just as Chinese and U.S. inflation have converged.
... China's central bank started buying up capital inflows in earnest in early 2001, right about the time that gold was hitting a multi-year low. This came to an end in early 2011, as net capital inflows approached zero, and shortly thereafter gold peaked. Both forex purchases and the price of gold increased by many orders of magnitude over roughly the same period.
Is there a plausible explanation for the strong correlation between these disparate variables? I think there is, but I can't say so with authority.
...
Don Luskin ... argues that the outstanding stock of gold is relatively fixed—growing only about 3% per year—but that the demand for gold has jumped by orders of magnitude since China, India, and other emerging markets have enjoyed explosive growth and prosperity gains. In other words, the number of potential buyers of gold has risen much faster than the supply of gold, so naturally gold's price has increased. This is not a story about massive money printing and hyper-inflationary consequences, it is a story about a one-time surge in the demand for the limited supply of gold.
There has been considerable speculation by savvy observers -- such as financier and author James Rickards -- that "China this year or next will announce a tripling or quadrupling of its gold reserves after acquiring the metal surreptitiously." As Evans-Pritchard observes in the UK Telegraph, "It is no secret that China is buying the dips, seeking to raise the gold share of its reserves well above 2pc. Russia has openly targeted a 10pc share. Variants of this are occurring from the Pacific region to the Gulf and Latin America."
The FT observed in late 2011, central banks are net buyers of gold for the first time in 20 years.
George Gilder, whose new book publishes today, is one of the original pillars of Supply Side economics. As stated by Discovery Institute, which he co-founded, “Mr. Gilder pioneered the formulation of supply-side economics when he served as Chairman of the Lehrman Institute’s Economic Roundtable, as Program Director for the Manhattan Institute….”
He was the living writer most quoted by President Reagan. And he is back with his most brilliant work yet — one of potentially explosive importance if taken to heart by our political and policy thought leaders. It is a radical guide, with surprising insights on almost every page, to the creation of a new era of vibrant prosperity.
As reviewer Paul Brodsky, a professional investor in New York City, perceptively notes,
"Lewis Lehrman is one of a very small group of contemporary gold advocates able to successfully bridge the gap separating practical conservative intellectualism from fleeting, half-baked idealism. His CV lists great success across many fields including education (degrees and teaching fellowships from Yale and Harvard); industry (past president of Rite Aid); politics (narrow loser to Mario Cuomo in the 1982 New York governor’s race); finance, (past Morgan Stanley managing director); private sector entrepreneur (founder, L. E. Lehrman & Company); public sector advocate (founder, Lehrman Institute); historian (author, Lincoln at Peoria: The Turning Point); and recognized philanthropist (awarded the National Humanities Medal by George W. Bush in an Oval Office ceremony). ... Only someone erudite and elegant in demeanor could hope to pull it off . In an irreconcilably over-leveraged world where irritated bond vigilantes question economic sustainability and angry Tea Partiers protest the immorality of it all, Lehrman’s views are considered and his convictions carry weight. He brings gravitas to his cause, and he does so from within as a member of the club."
Before the Fed: JP Morgan Summons the Bank Presidents
"Finally, on the night of Sunday, November 2, Morgan summoned the presidents of the major New York banks to his new library, at the corner of Madison Avenue and Thirty-sixth Street, an Italian Renaissance-style palace he had built next door to his house to showcase his collection of rare books, manuscripts, and other artwork. Its marble floors, frescoed ceilings, walls lined with tapestries and triple-tiered bookcases of Circasian walnut, crammed full of rare Bibles and illuminated medieval manuscripts, made it an incongruous setting for a meeting of the banking establishment. Once the moneymen had gathered, Morgan had the great ornamental bronze doors to the library locked and refused to let anyone leave until all had collectively agreed to commit a further $25 million to the rescue fund."
— Liaquat Ahamed, Lords of Finance (Penguin Books, 2009, p. 54)
Lately we have been engulfed by headlines reporting financial turmoil on every continent, in almost every nation, large and small. The commissars of central planning who so marred the history of the 20th century have been replaced by central banks in the 21st. In Cyprus, the new leadership now dares to confiscate citizens’ wealth with a one-time tax of up to 60 percent on bank deposits above 100,000 euros. Self-interested prime ministers blame continental monetary policies for instigating the currency wars that they themselves surreptitiously carry on.
Constitution.org provides an extensive and thoughtful Memorandum of Law by Larry Becraft, Esq., of Huntsville, Alabama, on Article I, Section 10, clause 1 of the US Constitution.
Sir William Blackstone courtesy of Wikipedia
One of many interesting matters the Memorandum treats is Blackstone's Commentaries, a book that was a fixture in the...
The value of the yuan has been slowly rising. The value of the Japanese yen has been sharply falling. Abenomics is attempting to reflate the Japanese economic – slowly, slowly. “Japan is back!” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe tells the Japanese.
Coming back isn’t easy. The Financial Times’ Jonathan Soble has noted...
Sean Fieler, James Grant, Steve Hanke, John D. Mueller, Lawrence Parks, Judy Shelton, Lawrence H. White
Senior European Advisor Paul Fabra
Advisors Jeffrey Bell, Ralph J. Benko, Andresen Blom, Frank Cannon, Rich Danker, Brian Domitrovic, Charles Kadlec, Christopher K. Potter, John Tamny and Frank Trotta
In Memoriam Professor Jacques Rueff (1896-1978)
Now Available on Amazon and from The Lehrman Institute
George Gilder, whose new book publishes today, is one of the original pillars of Supply Side economics. As stated by Discovery Institute, which he co-founded, “Mr. Gilder pioneered the formulation of supply-side economics when he served as Chairman of the Lehrman Institute’s Economic Roundtable, as Program Director for the Manhattan Institute….”
Lately we have been engulfed by headlines reporting financial turmoil on every continent, in almost every nation, large and small. The commissars of central planning who so marred the history of the 20th century have been replaced by central banks in the 21st. In Cyprus, the new leadership now dares to confiscate citizens’ wealth with a one-time tax of up to 60 percent on bank deposits above 100,000 euros. Self-interested prime ministers blame continental monetary policies for instigating the currency wars that they themselves surreptitiously carry on.
