Saturday, October 16, 2010

Foreign Exchange -
the new economic weapon misfiring

What a mess.

The Feds getting ready to buy tons of debt. This will probably lower long term interest rates. This will weaken the dollar which will strengthen foreign currencies which is the opposite that almost every other foreign government wants because most countries need to export in order to grow.

Then capital is escaping developed countries because interest rates are so low into the developing world expecting higher returns on emerging markets. The higher demand for these currencies continues to pressure these currencies up, and their governments can't do anything. More in trouble are the poorer countries of the Euro zone. They don't even have a currency to work with or by which to do economic plans.

Meanwhile, the countries that don't let their currency to float freely (e.g. China) are the ones winning. Is this a lesson for the rest?

It would be nice to see where all this is going. It is the new riddle. Maybe we should continue waiting for the bursting of the China real state bubble like James Chanos continues to predict like a new Enron: "Once the cranes stop going up like in Miami. Then you know."

An interesting idea came up (I think from the Feds), the world needs to start exporting inwards by creating and supporting their middle classes given US consumers won't be able to continue fueling the world economic growth.