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China ratings house says US defaulting: report
BEIJING — A Chinese ratings house has accused the United States of defaulting on its massive debt, state media said Friday, a day after Beijing urged Washington to put its fiscal house in order.
“In our opinion, the United States has already been defaulting,” Guan Jianzhong, president of Dagong Global Credit Rating Co. Ltd., the only Chinese agency that gives sovereign ratings, was quoted by the Global Times saying.
Washington had already defaulted on its loans by allowing the dollar to weaken against other currencies — eroding the wealth of creditors including China, Guan said.
Guan did not immediately respond to AFP requests for comment.
The US government will run out of room to spend more on August 2 unless Read more…
All Eyes on the U.S. Dollar: Danielle Park
China official: GOP ‘playing with fire’ with debt ceiling
There’s been an interesting warning on the debt ceiling today — from China.
Li Daokui, an adviser to the People’s Bank of China, told reporters in Beijing, “I think there is a risk that the U.S. debt default may happen.” And he puts the blame on congressional Republicans. “The result will be very serious and I really hope that they would stop playing with fire,” he said.
China is no disinterested party: It holds more than $1 trillion in Treasury debt as of March.
President Obama may well agree with the Chinese banker’s sentiment, as he urges Congress to go ahead and raise the nation’s $14.3 trillion debt ceiling.
Technically, U.S. obligations have already risen past that ceiling, but the Treasury Department says it can use accounting maneuvers to keep paying bills until Aug. 2.
Congressional Republicans, including those who control the U.S. House, say they won’t agree to a debt ceiling increase unless the White House and Democrats agree to major spending cuts.
The two sides are negotiating — as the world waits.
“I really worry about the risks of a U.S. debt default, which I think may lead to a decline in the dollar’s value,” Li said.
Beijing warned on dollar holdings
China is running a major risk in holding so many dollars because the US may deliberately devalue its currency, a senior Chinese official has warned.
The comments by Guan Tao, head of the international payments department in the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, knocked the dollar on Tuesday, adding to fears about the struggling US economy. The dollar fell to a one-month low against a basket of six leading currencies.
Pressure on the dollar has intensified amid heightened concerns that the soft patch in the US economy will ensure that the Federal Reserve sticks to its ultra-loose monetary policy in the near future.
Despite Mr Guan’s concerns, which are often voiced in Beijing, analysts said that China had little choice but to recycle its vast foreign currency reserves into dollar-denominated assets. “The United States has adopted expansionary fiscal and monetary policy to stimulate economic growth,” Mr Guan said in an article that was published on the website of China Finance 40 Forum, a Beijing economic think tank.
“The United States may find it hard to Read more…
Gold Price Nears $1,550, Time for a Gold Standard?
GOLD PRICE NEWS – The gold price, at $1,542.50 per ounce, traded near unchanged Monday morning despite modest strength in the U.S. dollar. While gold prices were flat, silver advanced higher by 1.5% to $36.79 per ounce. Global equity prices have been under pressure over the past month with the S&P 500 falling for five consecutive weeks. Weak data points in housing, manufacturing, and labor have all combined to heighten worries over the prospect of a double-dip recession. Precious metals, notably gold, have benefited from their safe haven qualities as investors seek to lower their risk profiles.
The strong performance of the gold price in recent years has led to a growing collection of calls for the United States to return to a gold standard. Steve Forbes, the billionaire CEO of Forbes Inc., wrote a piece in Forbes Magazine urging candidates for the 2012 U.S. presidential election to consider returning to some form of gold standard to support the value of the U.S. dollar.
Forbes began the article by stating that “Monetary policy is one of Read more…
What Would Fractional Silver Mean?
In Mid-may of this year, something curious happened, which I’d not seen before.
I’ve been following the course of where the dollar was heading and how it related to the pricing of gold and silver. Typically, I follow a number of sources for information, then try to wrap all those opinions into something concise, allowing me to share it with others. Most everyone following precious metals knows how GATA has been beating the drum about gold manipulation for quite some time now. History (past and current) is a very good place to start down the rabbit trail.
Informed people (like Paul Craig Roberts, Bob Chapman, Gerald Celente, Robby Noel, Lindsey Williams) have also helped shape a number of my opinions and speculations regarding where this economy is heading. Again, these are all very credible individuals who’ve been reporting on “real” financial issues for a number of years, if not decades now. And, even though it can be a bad habit, tune into the mainstream media to hear what they are trying to make the public believe for that moment. Every so often, they slip and Read more…
Global food inflation hits hemp seed, coconut oil and other superfoods: Here’s why it’s happening
Food inflation is hitting the superfood industry right where it hurts — in the wallet. Thanks to several factors you’ll read about here, prices on hemp seeds, hemp oils, coconut oil and other superfoods are set to skyrocket beginning in just a few days. One of the largest superfood suppliers in the USA, Nutiva, has announced an 11% price increase coming May 27th, and that may be just the beginning of an accelerating trend in steady increases.
In anticipation of this price increase, we’ve taken on a huge inventory of Nutiva’s Certified Organic Hemp Seed and Hemp Oil at the old prices, and we have a generous supply available to NaturalNews readers who want to beat the price increase (see below).
Why hemp and coconut oil prices are heading into the stratosphere
In a letter sent to us by Nutiva, founder John Roulac explains that the price of coconut oil has doubled in the last six months. While coconut oil suppliers are able to absorb some of this cost in the short term, they cannot do so on a permanent basis. This means that the prices consumers pay for coconut oil are headed sharply higher.
Impacting hemp seeds and hemp oil, the price of crude oil (up 30% or more over the last few months) adds to the cost of transporting these foods. Remember, thanks to the completely idiotic and utterly anti-American stance of the DEA, President Obama and most of the U.S. Congress, it is illegal to grow hemp seeds in America, Read more…
Forbes Predicts U.S. Gold Standard Within 5 Years
A return to the gold standard by the United States within the next five years now seems likely, because that move would help the nation solve a variety of economic, fiscal, and monetary ills, Steve Forbes predicted during an exclusive interview this week with HUMAN EVENTS.
“What seems astonishing today could become conventional wisdom in a short period of time,” Forbes said.
Such a move would help to stabilize the value of the dollar, restore confidence among foreign investors in U.S. government bonds, and discourage reckless federal spending, the media mogul and former presidential candidate said. The United States used gold as the basis for valuing the U.S. dollar successfully for roughly 180 years before President Richard Nixon embarked upon an experiment to end the practice in the 1970s that has contributed to a number of woes that the country is suffering from now, Forbes added.
If the gold standard had been in place in recent years, the value of the U.S. dollar would not have weakened as it has and excessive federal spending would have been curbed, Forbes told HUMAN EVENTS. The constantly changing value of the U.S. dollar leads to marketplace uncertainty and consequently spurs speculation in commodity investing as a hedge against inflation. Read more…
China’s yuan at record ahead of Washington talks
HONG KONG (MarketWatch) — China’s yuan rose to a fresh record against the U.S. dollar on Monday, edging up a fraction from its close in the previous trading session ahead of senior-level talks between Chinese and U.S. officials, slated for later Monday in Washington. China’s central bank set the official central parity rate for the U.S. dollar at 6.4988 yuan, compared to Friday’s setting of 6.5003 yuan. The level represented a record high against the dollar, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency. The U.S. dollar dropped below the 6.50-level for the first time on April 29, and was at 6.4955 around midday in East Asia on Monday, according to FactSet data.
How Far Does Silver Fall?
With silver dropping roughly 19% in the last three days, a correction is clearly under way. Let’s take a quick look at how far it might drop.
I’ve updated the “corrections” chart, which shows all major pullbacks in silver since our bull market began in 2001. The data measure any clearly visible drop in price greater than 10%, regardless of time length. As you’ll see, some drops occurred over short periods of time, while others were prolonged.
It’s clear that silver has had some large and scary sell-offs. But the “silver” lining to that fact is the realization that our current volatility is perfectly normal.
The average of all corrections is 19%. Applied to our high of $48.70 on April 28, silver would fall to Read more…
![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](https://i0.wp.com/www.kitconet.com/charts/metals/gold/t24_au_en_usoz_2.gif)
![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](https://i0.wp.com/www.kitconet.com/charts/metals/silver/t24_ag_en_usoz_2.gif)
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