Most Popular
1. Banking Crisis is Stocks Bull Market Buying Opportunity - Nadeem_Walayat
2.The Crypto Signal for the Precious Metals Market - P_Radomski_CFA
3. One Possible Outcome to a New World Order - Raymond_Matison
4.Nvidia Blow Off Top - Flying High like the Phoenix too Close to the Sun - Nadeem_Walayat
5. Apple AAPL Stock Trend and Earnings Analysis - Nadeem_Walayat
6.AI, Stocks, and Gold Stocks – Connected After All - P_Radomski_CFA
7.Stock Market CHEAT SHEET - - Nadeem_Walayat
8.US Debt Ceiling Crisis Smoke and Mirrors Circus - Nadeem_Walayat
9.Silver Price May Explode - Avi_Gilburt
10.More US Banks Could Collapse -- A Lot More- EWI
Last 7 days
Stock Market Volatility (VIX) - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Investor Sentiment - 25th Mar 24
The Federal Reserve Didn't Do Anything But It Had Plenty to Say - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Breadth - 24th Mar 24
Stock Market Margin Debt Indicator - 24th Mar 24
It’s Easy to Scream Stocks Bubble! - 24th Mar 24
Stocks: What to Make of All This Insider Selling- 24th Mar 24
Money Supply Continues To Fall, Economy Worsens – Investors Don’t Care - 24th Mar 24
Get an Edge in the Crypto Market with Order Flow - 24th Mar 24
US Presidential Election Cycle and Recessions - 18th Mar 24
US Recession Already Happened in 2022! - 18th Mar 24
AI can now remember everything you say - 18th Mar 24
Bitcoin Crypto Mania 2024 - MicroStrategy MSTR Blow off Top! - 14th Mar 24
Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast 2024 - 11th Mar 24
Gold and the Long-Term Inflation Cycle - 11th Mar 24
Fed’s Next Intertest Rate Move might not align with popular consensus - 11th Mar 24
Two Reasons The Fed Manipulates Interest Rates - 11th Mar 24
US Dollar Trend 2024 - 9th Mar 2024
The Bond Trade and Interest Rates - 9th Mar 2024
Investors Don’t Believe the Gold Rally, Still Prefer General Stocks - 9th Mar 2024
Paper Gold Vs. Real Gold: It's Important to Know the Difference - 9th Mar 2024
Stocks: What This "Record Extreme" Indicator May Be Signaling - 9th Mar 2024
My 3 Favorite Trade Setups - Elliott Wave Course - 9th Mar 2024
Bitcoin Crypto Bubble Mania! - 4th Mar 2024
US Interest Rates - When WIll the Fed Pivot - 1st Mar 2024
S&P Stock Market Real Earnings Yield - 29th Feb 2024
US Unemployment is a Fake Statistic - 29th Feb 2024
U.S. financial market’s “Weimar phase” impact to your fiat and digital assets - 29th Feb 2024
What a Breakdown in Silver Mining Stocks! What an Opportunity! - 29th Feb 2024
Why AI will Soon become SA - Synthetic Intelligence - The Machine Learning Megatrend - 29th Feb 2024
Keep Calm and Carry on Buying Quantum AI Tech Stocks - 19th Feb 24

Market Oracle FREE Newsletter

How to Protect your Wealth by Investing in AI Tech Stocks

WIll China Keep Throwing Good Money After Bad?

Interest-Rates / US Bonds Jun 15, 2007 - 12:59 PM GMT

By: Peter_Schiff

Interest-Rates At a commercial real estate conference earlier this week, Alan Greenspan downplayed concerns that the Chinese might sell their significant holdings of U.S. Treasuries. The former Fed chairman based his opinion not on the inherent investment merits of Treasuries, but rather on their lack of them. His confidence stems simply from his belief that the Chinese have no one to whom they can sell. Furthermore, Greenspan sees this as a problem for the Chinese and not the U.S.


Although the performance of U.S. Treasuries has long been regarded as poor vis-à-vis other classes of sovereign debt, its overriding virtue has always been its supposed unrivalled "liquidity." As the most heavily traded asset in the world, it is argued that massive investors like the Chinese have few other markets in which they can operate.  However, if there are no significant buyers to whom the Chinese can sell, then there is no real liquidity at all. If there is no performance or liquidity, why would they continue buying?

True to form, Greenspan is completely wrong. The Chinese are not the ones who are stuck, Americans are.  In order to exit their positions in U.S. Treasuries, the Chinese do not have to sell, they only need to stop buying and let their existing bonds mature. Then the U.S. government, not the Chinese, will be the ones forced to find new buyers for its debt.

Most of the debt that the Chinese own is short-term. Therefore all the Chinese need to do is simply not re-purchase new Treasuries when the U.S. pays them for their existing notes. Perhaps Greenspan should rent a copy of the 1981 Kris Kristofferson movie “Rollover,” where the fear that Arab countries would not rollover maturing treasuries sent gold prices soaring.

Of course, even if the Chinese decide to cash out, they will be repaid in dollars, for which they will actually have to find buyers. So while Greenspan's contention does not pertain to Treasuries themselves, it certainly does to the dollars in which they are denominated.

China 's foreign exchange reserves are now approaching $1.3 trillion which amounts to $1,000 for every man, woman, and child in China . That figure roughly equates to 60% of China 's annual per capita income. A proportional foreign exchange reserve in the U.S. would equate to approximately $20,000 per capita, or $80,000 per household. Can you imagine the political outrage in this country if such a sum was extracted though taxation merely to be left idle as foreign reserves? Could you imaging the demands arising from the rank and file on how the government should return such a sum into the domestic economy? Of course if the Chinese keep buying, which they must do in order to prevent the U.S. economy from collapsing, their foreign reserves will likely eclipse $2 trillion sometime in 2008. That would equate to about $140,000 per American household, almost enough to pay-off the average mortgage! This coming from a country, China , whose per capita income is less than $2,000 and whose government provides virtually no healthcare, education, or retirement benefits.  

Greenspan may feel that the Chinese have no choice but to continue this lunacy, but to paraphrase PT Barnum: you can't fool all the Chinese all the time. To expect 1.3 billion hard-working, underpaid Chinese to indefinitely subsidize 300 million wealthy, over-consuming Americans is absurd. To paraphrase Winston Churchill: never have so few owed so much to so many. When the Chinese finally wake up the American dream will disappear. I wonder if Greenspan is loosing any sleep worrying about that!

For a more in depth analysis of the tenuous position of the Americana economy and U.S. dollar denominated investments, read my new book “Crash Proof: How to Profit from the Coming Economic Collapse.” Click here to order a copy today.

By Peter Schiff
Euro Pacific Capital
http://www.europac.net/

More importantly make sure to protect your wealth and preserve your purchasing power before it's too late. Discover the best way to buy gold at www.goldyoucanfold.com , download my free research report on the powerful case for investing in foreign equities available at www.researchreportone.com , and subscribe to my free, on-line investment newsletter at http://www.europac.net/newsletter/newsletter.asp

Peter Schiff Archive

© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.


Post Comment

Only logged in users are allowed to post comments. Register/ Log in