Dollar Continues Plunge As Oil Rises And China Demands Higher Interest Rates

Elaine Meinel Supkis

The dollar is diving, Bush is demanding the government cease hassling coroprations, the GOPredators try, as final move, to remove GAO oversight of government contracts and on top of this, the Chinese announce they are diversifying their FOREX funds so it earns at least 4% a year! Kiss cheap loans goodbye! Also, a clever online publication finishes computer program that can track M3 funds and this shows clearly, the money supply is being indeed, inflated. Arrest Bernanke! Arrest Bush!

&hearts The GOP takes the pile of s**t they dropped and dumps it on Pelosi and Reid's laps.

The 109th Congress will leave town without completing crucial business. The leadership has “decided to punt their annual spending bills until next year,” a step that will dump “almost a half-trillion dollars of spending bills” on incoming lawmakers. The move would leave the new Congress “with the responsibility of passing the nine remaining spending bills, totaling almost $500 billion for government programs ranging from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to the national parks.” Passing the remaining bills should not be this difficult. “In 1994,” GovExec.com reports, “when Republicans swept back to power in the House after four decades, there was no spending mess to clean up—all appropriations bills had been enacted by the Democrats before the end of the fiscal year.”

I was annoyed when Bush took over and the right wing tools in the media universally began to whine and holler about how Clinton, who left everything in good order including a long session explaining bin Laden and why he was so dangerous, anyway, the media whined about those missing 'w' keys, etc. It doesn't surprize me the GOP elephants are leaving a giant mess behind. After all, they destroyed significant parts of the world! And want that to continue, too!

I seriously doubt this will paralyze the Democrats who are eager to clean up this monumental mess the 'conservatives' (sic) left behind. They remind me of bad tenants: when evicted by the cops, they always trash the place.

&hearts Bush puts a neocon in charge of the very important GAO.

By Scott Higham and Robert O'Harrow Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, December 2, 2006; Page A01

The new chief of the U.S. General Services Administration is trying to limit the ability of the agency's inspector general to audit contracts for fraud or waste and has said oversight efforts are intimidating the workforce, according to government documents and interviews.

GSA Administrator Lurita Alexis Doan, a Bush political appointee and former government contractor, has proposed cutting $5 million in spending on audits and shifting some responsibility for contract reviews to small, private audit contractors.

One last fox in the hen house. They can't help it! Even though this vicious woman might strive to destroy the GAO, now her ass can be hauled into Congress and she get hammered. I suggest the Democrats start talking about arresting her because the actions all these criminals are taking are destroying our country. The out of control spending the GOP fostered is bankrupting America and weakening our influence over world events and is exposing us to terrific danger, indeed, total collapse.

I consider these people to be traitors and we can arrest traitors.

&hearts The traitors who run lobbying machines that corrupt Congress and the Presidency are pushing to get their last goodies through the dying GOP government.

By RALPH NADER

Here are some of CCMG's thirty-two recommendations, expected to be the goal of a big lobbying effort on the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Congress next year:

1. Limit how and when state enforcement agencies can pursue cases of financial fraud on investors. This is designed to take care of any future Eliot Spitzers, who take their oath of office seriously instead of ceremoniously. Quite properly, the Governor-elect, present New York Attorney General Spitzer reacted, saying: "To eviscerate the power of the one set of regulators who did anything is absurd."

2. Governments should sue the corporations themselves only as a last resort and instead concentrate on the culpable officials in the company. That will give rise to all kinds of escape hatches and internal scapegoating by clever corporate attorneys. They do demand that companies pay the legal expenses of the accused, however.

The entire business process in America is at a dead end. The few businesses that still manufacture things in America are dying very fast this year. The military/industrial complex is openly looting the public till in order to engorge themselves and this is causing the government to run so far into the red, we are now getting 85+% of our loans from China and Japan and as the dollar dropped this month, disasterously, the only two currencies it didn't drop against were these! The American media which orchestrated this disaster makes no mention of this oddity nor even mentions it at all when discussing currency changes. Or if mentioned, it is a very small side note.

Even the parade of pundits screaming at China to raise the value of the yuan is falling silent. I wonder if they are now slinking away. Into spider holes. Then, when people 'forget' their past lies, they will jump out and start yelling about whatever again. Don't listen to them, heh.

&hearts The smart Chinese are telling us today, we must pay them at least 4% for anymore loans.

BEIJING, Dec. 2 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese government should moderately expand the high-yield assets in its hefty foreign exchange reserves and diversify their uses, says Li Yang, a finance expert with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Li proposes the government should guarantee the foreign exchange reserves against losses and try to increase the investment returns.

He estimated the investment returns of the reserves at four percent.

The reserves should be divided between liquidity funds and investment in pursuit of high returns, said Li.

One of the men who post stories at Angrybear got a nasty note from me last week when he suggested the Feds offer 1% or 2% loans. I explained that savers have been punished for five years now and the savings rate here is now negative which is a disaster and the Chinese want real interest returns on their loans so it will never go below 4% again. As usual, I was right. Geeze, even 'liberal' bloggers tracking this mess fall into the trap of wanting Santa Claus to save us.

&hearts I was one of the very first bloggers to write about the Feds maliciously hiding the M3 numbers.

Last year, we lamented the passing of M3 reporting. This broadest of money supply measures had shown a discomforting increase in liquidity, far greater than what M2 was revealing.

At the time of the M3 announcement, we suspected the Fed was attempting to cover their tracks, disguising an ongoing increase in money supply and an unstated "easing" in Fed bias. Since that time, we have learned: the Treasury Department was also adding liquidity -- a duty they have assumed, in part, in addition to the same performed by the Fed. Indeed, based on the credit growth data Doug Noland published last month (October Credit Review), it appears that the Fed has – despite increasing interest rates – actually eased over the last two years.

In light of all this excess cash sloshing around, we wondered what M3 might look like if it were still being reported.

I predicted accurately that the M3 was being hidden so the Feds could inflate the dollar while keeping interest rates below the rate of inflation. As a saver, I noted my money's return in savings was collapsing already when they decided to do this. Bernanke was just coming into office and he supported money inflation in his writings in the past so I accurately predicted he would over-inflate the currency. I hate being right all the time, har.

Anyway, his inflation was supposed to be hidden from the army of Chinese money crunchers in Beijing. I suppose, like many Americans who don't understand the incredible level of Chinese cultural abilities to comprehend complex topics especially in money matters, he thought we could pull a clever Ponzie scheme on these 'slanty-eyed Orientals.' China invented paper money and learned about fiat inflation back, oh, when Europe was trying to figure out how to mint coins! So thinking the Chinese are dumber than us on this matter is dumb. And racist.

Already, by last October, the Chinese were warning the Fed to fix itself or else. The Fed sent their agents over there and Bush and the latest Wall Street Treasury looting secretary went to China and yapped their heads off and didn't make the reforms the Chinese suggested. Now the Chinese are going to squeeze our balls, good.

&hearts And why, pray tell, is ONLY the euro and the pound shooting up?

A turbulent week for the dollar ended with further sharp falls after manufacturing activity in the US contracted for the first time since April 2003.

The dollar plunged as low as $1.9847 against sterling and to $1.3348 against the euro on Friday after the Institute of Supply Management’s manufacturing index fell unexpectedly to 49.5 in November, from 51.2 in October. This signalled that manufacturing activity in the US contracted in November after more than three years of growth.

Why, someone (after looking at their abacus, of course) figured out what was really going on with the M3 funds! I might throw a hint to the Americans who consistently underestimate the skills of the Chinese: they got computers, dudes. And they know how to program them. Duh. And they understand how currencies operate and are now using data mining programs to track our sneaky, criminal activities and they intend to punish us for breaking our trust. Eat that.

&hearts Since everyone knows the Fed is printing money faster and faster, the dollar is now losing value.

By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
Published: December 2, 2006

WASHINGTON, Dec. 1 — As the dollar tumbled against the euro this week, reflecting fresh concern about a possible weakening of the American economy, Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. issued the usual phrase from the catechism: “A strong dollar is clearly in our nation’s best interest.”
Treasury secretaries since Robert E. Rubin in the 1990s have, with rare exceptions, offered precisely that formula whenever the subject comes up.

But many economists say that Mr. Paulson’s statement does not reflect what the United States actually seeks right now. For one thing, the Bush administration is in active pursuit of a weaker dollar against China’s currency, which would probably encourage similar changes with other Asian competitors. The goal would be making American exports there less expensive, and imports more expensive, helping to spur an industrial revival at home.

Because the economists and the government refuse, actively refuse to understand how money works, they have to feign cluelessness while doing stupid things. The excuse, they are inflating the dollar to punish the Asians who fund our government, is a LIE. A total lie. It is designed to fool Americans who have to resign themselves to a dying currency that threatens to destabilize the world. The people who are suffering from this dollar inflation are....drum roll, please...the oil pumping nations like Mexico, Venezela and the Middle East.

This hostile action is causing us some serious problems. Note which countries are in the news with destabilization problems or Americans threatening them? In retaliation, the OPEC nations are cutting production and increasing oil prices. If we succeed in collapsing oil value via a weak dollar, the governments of the corrupt pro-american countries will collapse and bin Laden will ride in triumph into Mecca, and I mean this, even if it is his bones on the back of a white horse, he will ride in.

Iran talked about using euros for oil and then went silent. I think this is because Europe convinced Iran, if they didn't do this, they would defy the USA/Israel/British Axis which wanted war with Iran. Since last October, the attempts at using the UN to threaten Iran has quietly died and Iran still accepts dollars for oil but if our government keeps debasing the currency, they will stop. Europe isn't too unhappy about the rising dollar simply because oil is denominated in dollars which means oil is DROPPING in cost for them! This is significant.

The Japanese and Chinese won't revalue their currencies easily simply because this reduced their FOREX funds significantly. Europe's FOREX kitty is dwarfed by these two giants so they have less to lose in this latest con game by the USA. Japan is helpless, they need to keep this game going because they are ravaging our auto markets here and they want to take over it totally and the Chinese don't have this level of investment, they are, unlike the Japanese, now actively seeking alternative markets elsewhere successfully. But they won't revalue the yuan until we pay them a significant penalty via them loaning us their FOREX funds! So we are caught in a trap: interest rates for mortgages can't drop below 6% if the Chinese force us to raise interest rates. And there goes our housing bonanza.

Bloggers are advised to stick to only one topic if they want readers. I don't do this because I believe all the things I blog about are directly tied to each other and my job is to light up the connections and drive forwards this all-over arching idea: the decline and fall of empires are fueled by greed. And when, under Reagan, many Americans began to chorus, 'Greed is good,' I knew we arrived at the fearful tipping point which is where empires begin their slide into oblivion.

British writers back around 250 years ago, tried to push the idea of 'The Golden Mean' which actually was started by the Greek democrats of the city states in Classic Greece. They recognized that a life of simplicity and self-control gives citizens power and strength. Luxury, indolence, greed and lust brings imperialism and death. Right on the heels of British appeals for self-control, Britain lurched out of control and began actively rather than accidentally, looting all other civilizations. The grabbing for more lands, more loot, more power kept accelerating until the explosions of WWI and WWII terminated it.

So it is with us. We ceased being a nation doing business and have become a nation pulling scams and violent muggings. We all know what is going to happen next.

Culture of Life News Main Page

Comments

[blues]

Every so often, as much as I can, I try to explain to the jolly pirates over at MyDD that the high times of their joyous raids on the Democratic Party are about to end. But they have very little interest in the big financial funnel cloud just ahead. They think Hillary Clinton could be a big problem. I tell them, anyone who has enthusiastically dumped a trillion dollars on the liberation of Iraq will not be seen as a viable anything, much less get to be a "problem," by 2008.

I keep telling them they are going to need General Wesley Clark, because we are going to have a crisis, and maybe we will need a real General.

Another interesting thing. Even though many folks would call me far to the "left" of the MyDD gate crashing hellions, I like a lot of sincere paleo-conservatives. Robert Chapman, of International Forecaster is a really nice, decent paleo-conservative who spent his career life as an investment counselor before becoming a blogger. I love his blog:

http://www.theinternationalforecaster.com/

And sometimes I am irresistibly drawn to the paleo-conservative ranter and intrepid bullhorner Alex Jones, even if he doesn't put down that bullhorn long enough to get all of his material straight.

[DeVaul]

I still do not understand how debasing our currency will not hurt the Chinese. Anyone who is the victim of a ponzi scheme usually loses, and for China to be holding all those dollars or T-bills or whatever cannot be good for them. If they could buy US assets, then yes, but they cannot.

And I still do not understand how China will profit from all of this, or how they will get anything at all from what our government is doing to our currency.

Maybe someone here can explain it to me in simple terms. I have given up on the financial websites. Most of them are deluded or even downright criminal, thinking they are going to make a killing off of their investments when the world collapses.

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

I know the Chinese very well, the leadership, that is.

They lived without money in the past. I remember explaining 'money' to them in 1982. They don't want things out of hand in China so they don't fear a post-SUV McMansion world, they are quite capable of strangling the Golden Goose if it destroys America.

Period.

Just like the Saudis love wealth and corruption but it is a Saudi who is deliberately driving us into bankruptcy. He wants Saudi Arabia POORER!

Most people can't accept this truth. We think everyone wants to be the super-rich. This is a false belief and one that will bite us very hard in the future.

[DeVaul]

Ok, well I think I understand what you are saying. Their forex fund is just a giant WMD that they can unleash on us when they feel the need to.

I am also assuming their industry will not collapse or that they will not suffer civil unrest if their government loses a lot of money.

I did not know Hu and Wen were planning for a poorer China, but that is what Mao wanted, at least as far as the super rich were concerned.

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

The entire world banking system can collapse if a trillion dollars suddenly try to become half a trillion euros.

[glassishalfempty]

Excellent blog Elaine. Few bloggers are addressing this issue. Keep on it. Sadly, the people most adversely affected by these policies will not understand what hit them. Keep educating as best you can.

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

thank you, glassishalfempty. Cartooning about money actually amused the hell out of me. It was hard at first but now, with the cast of cartoon characters, it just flies out of my pen.