The 22 November 2013 was an extremely important day for the world economy and of course, news of such magnitude go unnoticed by the press or the television channels and other mass media outlets.

On November 22, the central bank of China officially announced that from now on will stop saving dollars (slowly will spend all dollars in its possession and will continue buying gold and other productive investments, continue supporting the Euro because of the austerity measures that are not inflationary). In simple words, it was announced that China's decision means to remove the dollar from the global currency list and reduce rapidly the U.S. power!

After a few hours came the second and – and more important surprise by Beijing. China officially announced its intention to build in Shanghai a new oil market where oil will not trade in dollars but probably (as said) in The Chinese Yuan Renminbi!

These announcements are tantamount to declaring war to an economically traumatized USA, which is threatened directly from China rather than Saddam Hussein or Muammar Gaddafi. The magnitude of the threat is huge and needs a response and clear position from the White House, but so far prefers to keep silent.

In normal pace of bombardment, came the third bomb on the U.S.A. And this time from another great power, India, which is known to cover almost all of its energy needs by buying oil from Iran. It is also known that since the time the Americans imposed the embargo on Iran, India is paying in gold, because of the embargo the dollar could not get into Iran.

What is not known (but not least) is that Iran and India are close to an agreement on trade between them using the Euro!

The only one who had dared to do so was Saddam (selling oil in Euros) and his "luck" was to be found hanged, while immediately after his execution the monopoly of the dollar returned...

And here is the big question: Can Europe or the U.S. go against China and India? These developments so far - in economic terms - prove that it is not possible. Indeed, if we take into account the economic relations between Russia and China, which provides Russian military expertise and sales of military equipment, then it is unknown how soon the superpower China will be able to stand against the militarily more capable war machine of the USA. If we take the Europeans and Americans together, they do not ad up half the population of China.

We - the so-called Westerners – have tided up our belts , due to the economic crisis and this naturally has had an impact on China's economy.

So, rightly thinking, what the Chinese suppose to do?

Proceed to create those economic conditions that in turn will allow them to create in China a middle class (who doesn’t exist) which then will afford to consume, but - above all - support the choices of their political leadership, even in their " opponents " who sofar seem invincible. The truth is that the Chinese are so many (in number) that will be relatively easy to replace the lost market due to the crisis in the West with their own customers by supporting their development, and at the same time, achieving the creation of an autonomous powerful international economy.

On the other hand, news and predictions become increasingly worse. Well known managers of Hedge Funds and columnist, in the recent weeks have seeing clear parallels in the course of the economic fundamentals, to that of "black" 1929. In recent days, the graphic variation of the Dow Jones index has been showing to confirm this fact, as it’s clearly seen in the charts of the way ahead for 1929 that looks now to be repeated.


If you compare the graphics for the corresponding period of the last 18 months, the similarities are very chilling. As bad joke, the identification of which, according to the "red line", the first half of January is the key point that will tell if history repeats itself. So in a a few weeks we will know.

Some other analysts see farther, linking economic times with current policies and geopolitical developments. The U.S. despite Putin's admonitions that led to their disengagement from the Middle East and Iran, they open a large front with China in the Pacific. The "dragon" as disclosed, the last two years has been creating a "cushion" against potential bankruptcy of the U.S. Nevertheless, the report about China’s holding in U.S. Treasury bonds, still remains colossal, constituting a potential time bomb, which if "explodes" will create problems in China, but will flatten the U.S. economy.

So if the history of 1929 is repeated, China will be the one that will give the final blow to the American economy, something that could not happen at the beginning of the last century because the crisis affected investment positions, primarily from individuals.

In practice, and in the case of an eventual collapse, China could ... buy America using the help of the international law. In such case, the only way out for the superpower would be the "usual", a belligerent conflict (war) with the creditor, unless the U.S. decided to confront China (a surprising move, since today Beijing is considered not to be ready for a head on collision with Washington) long before the current "reasonable" predictions come true.

It appears that such conflict seems inevitable, but the intensity and scale, however, could be from simple hostility to nuclear holocaust.

However, as history repeats itself, and the known, "samples" this repetition leads mathematically to a "violent expansion", as happened with the Second World War. The centre of interest now is the rate at which the today "factors" will evolve and that will lead to the final solution. After the loss of power from non U.S. involvement in Syria, it is almost impossible to have a second regular global recession and loss of prestige on the part of Washington, which will try to master the impending crisis - conflict, by acting and deciding the place , the time and the means to be used. Moreover, the U.S. know that towards China, time stands against the United States of America and to China ...

By K. Terzis - 21 Dec 2013

I enjoy reading articles like this and find them very thought provoking. This one makes some interesting points but there are lots of things I would disagree with.

Let me start with an easy one. The chart showing the similarities of the stock market today and the chart of the period of the crash of October 1929 and/or Black Friday. Really both just show a rapid increase in prices which have happened many times. There is one fundamental major difference between now and 1929. Then the price run up was caused by people speculating on margin which only required them to put down 10% of the price of the stock. When the stocks started declining people had to put up more margin which they could only do by selling stocks. Today only a small portion of stocks are traded on margin. People who want to speculate go more for options, calls, puts, spreads and the like. A big decline today would not create the margin calls that caused the previous crash.

If there were to be an economic war China needs the USA more than the USA needs China. We have enough tablets, led TV's and cell phones to last a long time if need be but the jobs those exports create in China is something that would cause economic chaos in China if it ended. America is not economically traumatized as the article insinuates and many manufacturing jobs are coming back to the USA from China. We are actually making both some computers and some cell phones here now. American companies are finding that when you factor in the now higher wages in China along with transportation and the difficulties of dealing with the govt there it is now cheaper to make things in the USA for many companies.

Both the USA and China benefit from a decent working relationship between the two countries. I don't see the Euro replacing the dollar as the world currency for a while. The recent problems there have delayed that happening but I do see a strong possibility that 10 or 20 years from not that will happen. It won't be the currency of China that becomes the world currency however. Not in the next 50 years anyway.

That said, Merry Christmas everyone.

Turbo

Merry Christmas to you too!

My take of the article is that without examining certain stats about the American economy you cannot have a clearer picture but there is also the unpredictable factor to take into consideration.

For example, when China signed the New FSA agreement, back in the 90's, at the WTO and opened its banking sector a crack in return for access and control of the US auto parts and other markets. (Swiftly, two million US jobs shifted to China.)

The Bankers were saying the Lehman brother's was too big to fail .... but it did and you know the results around the world.

The American economy at the moment, is not in a good shape, because your National debt is around 17 Trillion Dollars and you know very well USA needs another war to kick start the economy, otherwise why Obama wanted to bomb Syria?

The Euro is not going to replace the Dollar as the Reserve currency and probably soon may crash.....

Back in the 1980s the leaders of Germany and France conceived an idea for a single currency. On the surface and in their speeches and rhetoric they said that having a single currency would unite the European economy and make it more efficient and productive. But really, their motive was political. It was to create a currency that would challenge the U.S. dollar.

The idea was certainly grand, but it lacked a basic underpinning. In truth it was not designed with the principles of good economics, but rather, on political considerations only.

When the global financial crisis hit, in the midst of the chaos and panic that ensued investors throughout the world clamoured for the safety of the U.S. dollar. Little was understood in the beginning and it was thought that America was facing the greatest difficulty, but soon it became clear that Europe had far worse problems and lacked the means to address them. .

What the economic crisis exposed so clearly was that the European countries no longer had the power to employ fiscal policy to support collapsing demand. Where countries like the U.S. and China have the ability to come in and stimulate their economies to whatever degree necessary to avoid a true depression, European nations can't.

It may help to think of it like this: if a state in the U.S. is strapped for cash then it is pretty much out of luck. The only thing it can do is dramatically cut back on services and spending. That would mean less police, fireman, teachers, road maintenance and many of the other essential things that residents in any state are used to. Or, it could tax its residents to death, which would cause people and businesses to move, collapsing revenues even further and triggering off a death spiral.

When push comes to shove only the Federal Government can bail out a state, but that's the difference. In the United States there is an overriding fiscal authority in the Federal Government that can come to the aid of an individual state, but in Europe there is none! There is no "Federal Government of Europe." This means if countries like Spain, Greece, Portugal, Italy or even France or Germany for that matter are strapped for cash they are in serious trouble with very little recourse.

BTW the Euro is supported by the American Government and sofar they have supplied the European Central Bank with 1.6 Billion Dollars, the ECB exchange these Dollars for Euros in the open market, thus has paper money to help the EU banks with liquidity and the Dollars been absorbed without putting inflation pressure to the US economy!

So who knows.... what may happen in the near future or later.

Yesterday I watching a film about the Koch brothers and did not liked what they are up to!

Click image to watch it!

Wiz, I agree with a lot of what you said. I don't think the Euro is going to have any problems surviving but yes, it does limit the options that member countries have for fixing their own problems.

I watched most of the movie about the Koch Brothers. This may surprise you but I sided more with them. It doesn't bother me that some have great wealth. If that wasn't a possibility then it is a sad world. I agree that the situation here is that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer but I don't blame them or anyone. Most people are responsible for their own success and failure. I agree with the Koch's that the welfare and unemployment programs encourage people to stay out of work. Why should they work if they can collect almost the same effective pay on unemployment. For example my welder was someone that was in the same bowling league I am in. He talked to me about coming to work for me over a several month period and then came to me one evening and said he was ready to go back to work because his unemployment was running out. He has been working for me for several years and is a great employee. We are supposed to have lots of out of work people who can't find jobs. However when I run an ad looking to hire I get almost no applicants and the ones I get are drug addicts and people who have had a troubled life.

I do think something needs to be done with Social Security and agree with the Koch's on that. Probably raising the retirement age is a good option. When the program started the average life expectancy was far younger than now. People are living longer and we have more older people and fewer younger people to pay into the system.

People can be strange. People used to think that the SS money was being put into a trust for them. The first anyone came out and said there were financial problems with Social Security was an expose in Readers Digest that detailed how there was little money in SS. So what happened when that came out. Masses of older people waged a protest. They marched on Readers Digest and protested. Dumb isn't it. They should have been marching on Washington.

I tended to agree with a lot of the things the Koch Bros advocate. Unions nearly ruined the country. We have too many regulations. It is hurting business and the economy. Government is too big, we have too many regulations. Smaller neighborhood schools would be a good thing. Social Security needs to be overhauled. Our education system is failing. I don't necessarily agree with some of their ideas on segregation but I do think there are problems there that are being dealt with the wrong way. Education is one of the biggest problems in America.

I was reading something a while back where a company was debating about opening their factory here or in China. They would need to hire 6000 engineers if they opened it here and the study showed it would take 18 months to hire them here. They opened it in China and hired 6000 engineers in two weeks. We are training people for things with no opportunity and not training people for jobs that exist in the world today.

I do have to say that things have gotten a lot worse in the past 20 years.

20 years ago we had Bob Hope
20 years ago we had Johnny Cash.
20 years ago we had Steve Jobs.

Now we have No Jobs, No Hope and No Cash

So please, don't let kevin bacon die!

Turbo your above comments ... say it all, that's why Mark is worried about his Bacon!

Obviously I have not as good knowledge as you have about the US Social Security system but here we have some similar examples of the kind you mentioned. Some people prefer to stay on benefits than looking for a Job, if they can find one! BUT Not everybody wants to do that ...... and we should not brush everybody with the same brush.

What I would like to bring to your attention is, we should be very careful with ours and any other Goverment's propaganda, around the world! You know perfectly well these politicians are not idealists and go to politics for the chance to improve the standard of living of the people in the country. Their prime motivation is to line their pockets and will use any measure or trick to achieve it and one of the most powerful tool it's TV, which they use to spread propaganda, to cover their actions and tracks.

May I remind you and ask you, what was the reason for people to create the Unions?

In my opinion was to improve the standard of living of the general population in our respective and any other country, otherwise would not have been the "American dream" and the improvement of our lives and would have remained in the dark ages...... I would agree that some Unions have gone over their remit and duties, become very powerful and many times, today, use their power for other or personal reasons of the leaders.

Personally, I would not agree or trust the Koch Brothers intentions!
It is the same everywhere on the world and government's have to make assessments of their SS Systems and correct the structural problems and make sure the systems do not go bust!

I have to admit that the past 3 years have directed my attention and more time writing in the Greek newspapers, websites and blogs, for the situation in Greece and not on this board, where I learned a lot about financial matters, banks, politics and many more!


I promise to pay more attention over here and write more .....

The world was very different when the Unions came into being. People often took a job and stayed in that job for life. Most jobs were in manufacturing companies. In my area it was mostly steel mills. The unions served a good purpose and were a positive thing in the American economy.

Now the jobs have changed. People have more opportunities and more mobility. The average person stays in a job for a few years to maybe a decade. The unions have not only pushed for higher wages but pushed for a lot of featherbedding that created unnecessary jobs. As one example Hostess Baking Company which went bankrupt last year. Their two most popular items were hostess cupcakes and Twinkies cakes. They came off the line side by side but because of union regulations could not be delivered on the same truck. The Hostess went in a Hostess truck and the Twinkies went in a Twinkie truck and they would deliver separately to the same stores. Another is GM. At the time they went bankrupt their cost of labor (with benefits) was $ 95.00 per hour and they were competing with Asian automakers building in the USA with a labor cost of $ 35.00 per hour.

Turbo, you may find this Video very interesting.

Just came across, this morning ... and it seems to support all comments made on original post #



The text in the last clip in the video is very chilling!

“Why do great nations fail?

They all make the same mistakes. America tried to spend and tax itself out of a great recession. Massive changes to health care. Enormous so-called ’stimulus spending,’ government takeovers of private industries, and crushing debt.

Of course, we owned most of the debt…ha ha ha, so now they work for us.”]

Yes, the ending was particularly funny and there is some truth in it. I am not sure I agree with everything in the video. There was a part at the end about oil that doesn't take into account that we will soon be energy independent thanks to the shale oil drilling boom. Actually we could be net exporters of energy thanks to natural gas.