USA - Haushaltsdefizit und € und $ - 500 Beiträge pro Seite

[ComPin]

dass die USA im Haushaltsdefizit bei ca. 3,5 bis 4 % des BIP im Vergleich zu Old Europe nur marginal abweichen...scheint keinen zu stören,

dass die USA mit der Kohle noch große Kriege finanzieren, während Old Europe mit sich selbst zu tun hat , auch nicht,

dass die Wachstumsrate des BIP in USA ca. 3 bis 4 % höher ist als in Old Europe ist scheinbar auch egal,

dass man in USA in 2008 bis 2009 aufgrund des Wachstums zur Ausgeglichenheit zurückkehren will, egal...

wer hat angesichts der hohen Ölpreise eigentlich etwas vom immer noch zu schlecht bewerteten Dollar....Nachfragen könnte sich lohnen, da bei Uneinigkeit der EU-Finanzen die bewusste Dollar-Schwächung abrupt enden könnte!!!!


bye

[Steigerwälder]

Die USA und der $ haben sicher ihre Probleme.

Alle diese Probleme (Außer dem Handelsdefizit- nebenbei: warum ist ein Handelsdefizit schlecht?) gibt es aber in Europa in verschärfter Form. Dazu kommen aber noch Wachstumsschwäche und politisches Chaos bis hin zur drohenden Spaltung in der EU.


Keine Angst, spätestens wenn der € bei 0,80 $ steht merken das sogar unsere Analysten

[peter.wedemeier1]

U.S. must focus on its economic troubles

Molly Ivins

Published: Tuesday, Jul. 26, 2005

http://nsnlb.us.publicus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/2005…

"The U.S. is over $7 trillion in debt!"

[Joerg.E]

Das die USA im Haushaltsbudget die Kosten für den irak krieg rausrechnen scheint ebenso niemanden zu interessieren.
In Wirklichkeit liegt es nämlich bis dato bei 6,6%

[peter.wedemeier1]

ein par Ausschnitte:

"the war in Iraq costs $9 billion a month; by 2040, our kids will be unable to do more than pay the interest on the national debt; bankruptcy reform makes it impossible to escape your debts;...

...

"For those who prefer to get their economic news from a more respectable source than a cartoon, I recommend Bill Greider’s op-ed article in the July 18 New York Times, “America’s Truth Deficit.”

He begins with the startling thesis that we face structural economic problems as serious as those that destroyed the late Soviet Union and that, like the USSR before its breakup, our leaders cannot talk about these problems honestly."

...

"Problem is, our multinational corporations increasingly work against the interests of Americans themselves. In addition to outsourcing jobs, the companies locate sham headquarters in off-shore tax havens to avoid paying taxes."

[peter.wedemeier1]

Richard Russell:

How about these statistics? The US is now graduating 60,000 scientists and engineers yearly. China and India between them are graduating 500,000 scientists and engineers a year, and they are not being handicapped by a "faith-based" government.

"Chindia" is the new buzz-word for the combination of China and India. The current issue of Business Week features China and India on its cover. One article starts, "At an elite tech school near Calcutta, someone is trying to invent the next Blackberry, but one that will sell at a fraction of the US price. Outside Bombay, they`re putting the finishing touches on a $2,200 people`s car. In a world-class Shanghai lab, a Chinese team is mapping breakthrough cancer research."

If you read the above paragraph and it doesn`t start you thinking, then, dear subscribers, you`re not seeing the picture. The picture is increasing world competition coming from one-third of the world -- a third of which is very hungry, a third of which is just joining the game. It`s a third of the world that wants the good life, the kind of life that you and I enjoy.

I have no idea how it`s all going to turn out, but I do believe that we have massive problems ahead, and that we may be on the wrong track.

The US will not continue to be master of the world. The way to power in the future will not be through military supremacy. The US is losing power via our zero savings rate and our loss of our manufacturing base.

There must be, and will be, a leveling process, and that leveling process will probably result in a decline in the US standard of living while China and India and Asia improve their living standards. They are the savers while we are the spenders. They are the producers while was are the consumers.

The power of the US lies in the rest of the world`s willingness to accept US dollars. This cannot last, when the nation that issues the dollars is a nation that is running endless deficits.

Gold always gravitates toward the powerful and the successful, both in individuals and in nations. Gold is now moving toward Asia.

Somewhere ahead the US economy will falter, then decline. That will be deflationary. The Federal Reserve will not tolerate deflation, since deflation renders the Fed impotent. To fight deflation, the Fed will open the floodgates of fiat money creation. They will send short rates to zero if need be. Under those conditions, gold will move into its third frenzied phase. Interest in gold will then be the opposite of the disinterest that we see now.

The primary bull market in gold that started in 2001 continues to be a hidden non-event as far as the great majority of investors are concerned. They don`t know it exists. And the chart below shows you why. Gold has moved up in steps, each step followed by a "discouraging" correction. But when you view the big picture as seen in the chart below, you see that a primary bull market is very much in force.

[bluebay]

Ich habe den entsprechenden Artikel in der Business Week "Chindia" gelesen.
Sehr zu empfehlen.


mfg

bb

[peter.wedemeier1]

GOING, GOING, GONE
THE SAGA OF FINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

By: Ed Henry

Instead of changing its ways, what was once the richest most industrious nation in the world stays the course of economic suicide with a balance of trade deficit of more than $700 billion, a federal budget that exceeds income by more than a half trillion once everything is counted, and borrowing that is running the national debt “to the moon, Alice.

http://www.etherzone.com/2005/henr081905.shtml

[peter.wedemeier1]

Noch ein Ausschnitt aus diesem Essay:

If our former enemies and strategic competitors, now holding hundreds of billions in legitimately contracted treasuries, ever decide that they are sick of our aggressive foreign policies, military expansion, and Mafia style protection of our “national interest,” they could bankrupt us overnight. Since legitimate treasuries are payable on demand, these countries could ask for their money back at any time.

mfg

[peter.wedemeier1]

Experts warn that heavy debt threatens American economy

http://www.napanews.com/templates/index.cfm?template=story_f…

[peter.wedemeier1]

"You owe $145,000. And the bill is rising every day. That`s how much it would cost every American man, woman and child to pay the tab for the long-term promises the U.S. government has made to creditors, retirees, veterans and the poor."

[peter.wedemeier1]

Financial Times: "Derivatives Cannot Take the Strain"

"The real problem is that the US economy is just too leveraged. Starting with the housing industry, the country is too dependent on derivative markets to create the illusion that interest rate risk can be conjured away. The technical problems of the 10-year are just another early warning sign of this fundamental weakness."

[peter.wedemeier1]

Borrowing, Spending, Counterfeiting

http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2005/tst082205.htm

[peter.wedemeier1]

Ron Paul at the dinner table

"How their own deficits are going" ---> "Government is different!"

"Please don`t confuse me with facts, kind sir - my politics are powerful enough to spend their way through any fiscal abuse!"

[peter.wedemeier1]

The Bell Tolls for the Dollar
Alf Field
September 2, 2005

The bell tolls for the US Dollar because it is doomed. Like the Dodo bird, the US Dollar will, within the foreseeable future, disappear into the history books in the chapter on "Extinct Species."

This will be an event of profound importance that will impact every being on the planet. It will impact all corporations and businesses around the world. It is not too far fetched to say that it will be the most important investment variable in the years ahead. It will transcend fundamental and technical analysis. Such analyses require a firm measuring device, but that measuring device will be destroyed.

It is vital for our mental, physical and financial health that we all understand what is happening and why. I am only the messenger, so please be kind to me. I just call the shots as I see them, so let me explain my reasons in more detail.

Let`s start with the following recent posting from Richard Russell`s Dow Theory Letters web site:

August 23, 2005 -- The American Institute for Economic Research out of Great Barrington, Mass. 01230, publishes an index for the dollar along with the dollar`s purchasing power. Every time I look at this index it makes me angry. Why? Here`s why. When I left the Army Air Force in 1945 the Institute`s dollar index stood at 100. In other words, a dollar bought a dollar`s worth of goods.

By 1960 the index was down to the point where the 1945 dollars that I`d been saving bought only 61.1 cents worth of goods. The erosion continued. By the time that Alan Greenspan took over the Fed in 1983, the index bought only 18.0 cents worth of goods. By 2003 the index bought only 9.9 cents worth of goods. I don`t have the latest figure for 2005, but let me put it this way -- the dollar that the Army Air Force paid me in 1945 will now, here in 2005, buy me less than a dime`s worth of goods.

So thanks, Federal Reserve. Thanks Alan. Since my youth when I was 22, I`ve seen the buying power of the dollar collapse over 90 percent. You see, the damn irony of the thing is that we hear our government talk about only 2 percent inflation today -- but they don`t dare talk about what`s happened to the dollar over five, ten, twenty, forty years. They don`t dare even whisper it because it would sound God-awful. It would tell the American people that not only are they being taxed by their government, but they are being viciously taxed again by Fed-created inflation. - Richard Russell, Dow Theory Letters.

Richard Russell is indignant about the destruction of the purchasing power of the US Dollar, but why is there not a general outcry against what is happening?

There appear to be two main reasons, these being:
1. The decline in purchasing power of the US$ has been fairly slow and people have been able to adjust to it;
2. There has been deliberate deception, distortion and dis-information of the items that would alert people to problems in this area.

The trend toward loss of purchasing power of the US Dollar over the past 30 odd years has been very gradual and people have adjusted to the annual changes. People seem to have the ability to absorb and adjust to small, gradual changes in their lives but react poorly to dramatic changes.

We all have the problem of earning our daily bread, of simply managing our day to day lives. Earning a dollar has been more important than worrying about the fact that the dollar was gradually losing purchasing power. We simply adjusted to it. Our salaries and wages were increased or we found ways of increasing our capital by taking advantage of the declining purchasing power of the currency.

There is an experiment that I cannot vouch for (I have never tried it) that involves dropping a frog into a pot of boiling water. The frog apparently will leap out of the boiling water. If the frog is dropped into a pot of cold water it will happily stay there while the water is heated very gradually until the frog is boiled to death. The frog simply adjusts to the gradual temperature change until it is comatose.

I have been able to conduct a different experiment which proves that we humans are no different. We react violently to dramatic change but we do have the ability to adjust to gradual change. I tried the following experiment on a German autobahn where there was no speed limit. I was driving at a safe speed of about 70 mph when I suddenly speeded up to 100mph. The reaction from my wife was instantaneous: "Slow down, you`re going too fast!" I dropped the speed back to 70mph and after a while started to very gradually increase the speed until I was doing 110mph - this time without getting a reaction. My wife had adjusted to the gradual speed increases.

The items that are included under the "deliberate deception, distortion and dis-information" reason include the official price indices, the gold price and the exchange value of the dollar. These manipulations have all been dealt with extensively elsewhere and I don`t propose to spend much time on this issue. The disinformation will continue for a while but once we enter the period of rapid change, the deception will be obvious to everyone.

So we have adjusted to the gradual loss of purchasing power of the US Dollar over the last 30 years, but why should it not take another 30 years to lose a further 90% of its current purchasing power? Why should things not continue as before?

The answer is that the problems that have been building up in the US economy over the past many decades have been brought to the point where they are approaching crisis level. The expectation is that the creation of new US dollars to meet these crises will accelerate very rapidly. We will have entered the period of rapid change, when the depreciation in the purchasing power of the US$ will become exponential, and the changes will be so rapid that people WILL react to this.

The problems facing the US economy all seem to start with the letter "D." They are:

DEBT,
DEFICITS (both Balance of Payments deficit and Federal Budget deficit), the DOLLAR itself,
DEVALUATIONS (competitive depreciation of foreign currencies to protect their export industries),
DEMOGRAPHICS (Baby Boomers reaching retirement age, under funding of pension funds, social security etc),
DERIVATIVES (possibly the largest problem with the biggest numbers,
DEFLATION (which will cause the budget deficit to mushroom) and
DWELLINGS (as in Real Estate boom).

These problems have been dealt with exhaustively elsewhere, so I will not comment further. Suffice to say that the financial stresses that they will give rise to will be "solved" by "throwing money at the problems" by resorting to the electronic money creation process. The size of these problems guarantees that the creation of new US$ will rapidly accelerate, causing the decline in purchasing power to become exponential.

It is not a question of IF the dollar is doomed but rather WHEN sufficient people understand what is happening and panic out of their US Dollars. In my opinion, this should be within 10 years and possibly within 5 years, maybe much sooner.

The following is from a recent article by Robert Kirby:

Murray Rothbard, the brilliant student of Mises, explained the genesis of the boom. "Why do booms, historically, continue for several years? The answer is that as the boom begins to peter out from an injection of credit expansion, the banks inject a further dose. In short, the only way to avert the onset of the depression is to continue inflating money and credit. For only continual doses of new money on the credit market will keep the boom going and the new stages profitable. Furthermore, only ever increasing doses can step up the boom, can lower interest rates further, and expand the production structure, for as the prices rise, more and more money will be needed to perform the same amount of work. Once the credit expansion stops, the market ratios are re-established, and the seemingly glorious new investments turn out to be malinvestments, built on a foundation of sand.

"It is clear that prolonging the boom by ever larger doses of credit expansion will have only one result: to make the inevitably ensuing depression longer and more gruelling."

Mises continues, "It is true, the banks (or the governments) are in a position to prolong the boom for some time by injecting progressively increasing quantities of bank notes and deposits into the market. But the artificially created prosperity cannot last forever. Sooner or later it must come to an end. There are only two alternatives: 1. The banks do not stop and go on expanding credit at a progressively accelerated pace. But the spell of inflation breaks once the public has the conviction that the banks and the authorities are resolved not to stop. If no limit of the inflation and, consequently, of the general rise of prices can be foreseen, a general flight into real values starts. Everybody becomes aware of the fact that to hold cash and deposit balances with the banks involves loss, and that he does better to buy and store goods. Everybody is anxious to get rid of money and to exchange it for some other commodities, no matter how much he must pay for them. Prices are running away, and the purchasing power of the monetary unit drops to zero. The national currency system cracks up. 2. As a rule, the banks do not let things go so far. They stop sooner by restricting credit. Then the day of reckoning dawns. The illusions disappear, people begin again to see reality as it is. The blunders committed in the boom become visible."

The fact is that IT IS TOO LATE FOR OPTION 2.

We have been told in no uncertain terms by Federal Reserve Governors that there will be no deflation. Whatever funds are needed to avoid deflation will be made available. The electronic printing press will be resorted to.

That simply means that the US Dollar is doomed to extinction.

The bell is tolling for the US Dollar but the bell is also tolling for us. We need to make some important investment decisions in the months and years ahead.

Gold is the only commodity that has always been produced for ACCUMULATION and not for CONSUMPTION. Silver used to be in the same category, but has recently become more of an industrial metal.

The reason that gold has been accumulated over the millennia is because IT RETAINS ITS PURCHASING POWER OVER TIME. It is a haven where wealth can be stored during times when existing Government money is being rapidly debased and losing its purchasing power - exactly the situation we are facing over the next few years.

Currently the price of gold is at bargain basement levels. Not only has the price been manipulated downwards, but investors have to re-learn the benefits of holding gold. This they will do rapidly as the events relating to the US Dollar become obvious to everyone. We need to acquire some additional gold holdings while the bargain prices remain. I suspect that, like all bargains, this situation will not last much longer.

1 September, 2005
Alf Field

Comments may be directed to the author at: [e-mail]

Disclosure and Disclaimer Statement: In the interest of full disclosure, the author advises that he is not a disinterested party in that he has personal investments gold and silver bullion, gold and silver mining shares as well as in base metal and energy companies. The author`s objective in writing this article is to interest potential investors in this subject to the point where they are encouraged to conduct their own further diligent research. Neither the information nor the opinions expressed should be construed as a solicitation to buy or sell any stock, currency or commodity. Investors are recommended to obtain the advice of a qualified investment advisor before entering into any transactions. The author has neither been paid nor received any other inducement to write this article.

[smarttrader1]

Hallo

ein paar Gedanken zum Bufu.

mir scheint es, als wenn der Bufu gekornert ist. Kontraktwechsel ist der 08.09.2005. Spätestens danach wird der Spuk/Squeeze vorbei sein. Ich vermute jedoch diesmal schon vorher. Man sollte sich diesbezüglich auch mal das Geschehen im Bufu um den letzten Kontraktwechsel ansehen. 2 Tage nach dem Kontraktwechsel brach der Bufu bei riesigen Umsätzen um 2,5 ganze Punkte ein

Wg. Katrina wird auf die USA einen ungeheurer, zusätzlicher Finanzbedarf zukommen. Das gestrige Treffen von Bush und Easy Al spricht hierfür Bände. Der Druck auf Easy Al, die Zinserhöhungspolitik wg. dieser nationalen Katastrophe zu beenden, wird immer größer. In den USA sind seit gestern `Steepening Plays` im Markt, nachdem in den Monaten zuvor nur `Flattening Trades` gemacht wurden.

Für Aktien, speziell zyklische Aktien und Rohstoffe dürfte die Tragödie In New Orleans sehr positive Effekte haben. Auf Bondmärkte und Inflationsrate sehr negative.

Zahlreiche Grüße
ST



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[smarttrader1]

nach meinen Infos ist durch Katrina ein Gebiet verwüstet, dass der Größe Westdeutschlands entspricht. Wie bei der deutschen Vereinigung auch erfordert der Wiederaufbau eine Unmenge an Kapital.

Die Realzinsen werden steigen. Schon am Wochenende wird dies einigen Herrschaften klar werden. Bei der Wiedervereinigung konnte man noch morgens um 9.00 Zinsputs zu unveränderten Preisen kaufen, bevor der Markt dann zusammenbrach.

Bei der dt.dt. Wiedervereinigung hat man desweiteren sehen können, dass hierdurch stark die Kapitalnachfrage angekurbelt wurde, die wiederum die DM-Nachfrage stark erhöhte. Parallelen zu Katrina würde ich nicht ausschließen.

Grüße
ST

[peter.wedemeier1]

Alan Greenspan: The One-Eyed King
by William Greider

from the September 19, 2005 issue

What He Leaves Behind

Which brings us to current circumstances. The Greenspan era, unfortunately, will not end when he departs. The instabilities and ruptures he sowed will still be with us, and he would be wise to get out of town before people recognize the full depth of his destructive legacy. The US economy is not strong and self-confident or even especially efficient. It is stumbling along under subnormal conditions, losing ground and taking on enormous debt from abroad. Nor is the United States free of the follies and risks generated during Greenspan`s reign, including financial delusions and the threat of deflation. His successor will presumably be a right-winger too, but one hopes for a more supple, flexible intellect.

The weak-willed economy is an apt illustration of where Greenspan`s lopsided policies have led. Four years after the 2001 recession ended, the economy is still struggling to overcome its "jobless" recovery (or "job-loss" recovery, as manufacturing unions call it). Corporate profits have rebounded to extraordinary levels, but companies are reluctant to invest the capital. Wages, meanwhile, remain flat or falling, especially for working-class occupations. Forty-six months into this expansion cycle, the total hours worked in nonsupervisory jobs have risen only 2 percent since the recession ended--compared with rebounds of 9-16 percent after the four previous recessions. Manufacturing, once the vital core of US prosperity, is still losing jobs every month. Its total working hours are down 9 percent since 2001.

This is the most sluggish recovery on record, which seems to puzzle the Fed chairman. But it reflects the Greenspan style of running things; he presided over a similarly tepid recovery in the early 1990s. Tom Schlesinger, director of the Financial Markets Center, a monetary-policy watchdog, thinks the lopsided economy is the most disturbing hallmark of Greenspan`s governance. "The Fed has said almost nothing about this, except [vice chairman] Roger Ferguson says there`s nothing the Fed can do particularly," Schlesinger complains. "The jobless recovery appears to be a new feature of the US business cycle. Yet the principal agent of economic management says nothing."

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0902-28.htm

[peter.wedemeier1]

Petrodollars Could Turn Out To be Bush` Achilles Heel
Angelique van Engelen - 9/2/2005

"It is common knowledge that world oil is traded in US dollars, under an agreement signed by all OPEC countries. All countries that trade the black gold must first go to the foreign exchange markets to purchase dollars and do their trading. The US is very happy with this arrangement, simply because it can pay for its current account deficit in dollars. This means that the deficit can rise without all that much negative effect on the country`s finances. Why? All the oil that is traded is far bigger than the country`s current accounts deficit (which this year will rise to the tune of USD700 billion.)"

"The impact that a move to the Euro would have would be most detrimental to the US economy. "American economic dominance would be over. Not only would Europe not need as many dollars anymore, but Japan which imports over 80% of its oil from the Middle East would think it wise to convert a large portion of its dollar assets to euro assets (Japan is the major subsidiser of the US because it holds so many dollar investments)", says Cóilín Nunan of the Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability. The rest of the world would stop financing the US` trade gap, the dollar would plummet and the trade deficit would rise beyond proportions ever seen as the country would be forced to purchase very expensive euros to keep their SUV`s guzzling."

http://globalpolitician.com/articledes.asp?ID=1159&cid=1&sid…

[peter.wedemeier1]

"In conclusion, three statements of ascending breadth can be made about the importance of official financing of US external deficits in 2004. Strictly speaking, the official sector, in purchasing US liabilities onshore, financed 59% of the US current account deficit in 2004 ($395 billion out of $668 billion; Table 5). Including offshore holdings, however, foreign officials bought enough dollars to have financed three quarters of that deficit ($498 billion). Note that the gap between these shares was narrower in 2004 than in 2003, when 53% contrasted with 81%. This narrowing reflects both the deceleration of reserve growth in 2004 compared to 2003 and the working-out of the stock adjustment process evident in Graph 4. Recall, however, that these offshore holdings do not immediately finance US deficits, since they involve the liabilities of residents of other countries. But certainly the official increase in global official dollar reserves, whether placed on shore or offshore, supports the dollar.
The extent of that support might be most appropriately compared with the US economy’s overall dollar financing requirements, ie the US net issuance of dollar liabilities, rather than the size of the current account deficit. This net issuance by the United States exceeds the (absolute size of the) current account deficit by the US acquisition of foreign currency assets in any year. In effect, the US economy is going short the dollar, once to finance an excess of imports of goods and services over exports, and twice to finance the acquisition of foreign equities, corporate assets and foreign currency denominated bonds. On this showing, increases in global official dollar reserves did less of the work, serving as counterpart to 51% of the increase in the US short dollar position in 2004 (comparing the second and last rows of Table 5). A still broader view, taking in offshore dollar borrowing and lending, remains to be reached through further investigation.
Thus, it is both easy to understate and possible to overstate the role of foreign official support for the dollar. While global reserve managers have lost their strongest reason to place dollars outside the United States, they continue to place large sums offshore. The dollar is supported wherever officials place their dollars. The increase in global official dollar reserves is most sensibly compared not to the US current account deficit, but to a wider notion of the US financing requirement in dollars.

BIS Quarterly Review : International banking and financial market developments
http://www.bis.org/publ/qtrpdf/r_qt0509.pdf

[peter.wedemeier1]

Malcolm Knight: Challenges to financial stability in the current global macroeconomic environment

Speech by Malcolm Knight, General Manager of the BIS, at the International Monetary Fund in Washington DC, 6 September 2005

"As to external financial imbalances, the current account deficit of the United States has been trending upwards as a percentage of GDP for over 20 years, and now stands at nearly 6% of GDP. Moreover, the net service account has finally shifted into negative territory, partly reflecting the fact that the United States, the world’s richest country, is now also its biggest international debtor."

"What harm might be done should any or all of these imbalances unwind? One possibility could be a sudden crisis in the financial system, though where and when an overextended system might fail is impossible to predict. I think another possibility is much more likely. If the overseas demand for US dollar assets were to slow markedly, for whatever reason, the US dollar would depreciate, world interest rates would rise, and the prices of a number of classes of financial and real assets would weaken. All these adjustments would likely be highly deflationary at the global level. In this case, an extended period of slow global growth could ensue, reinforced and lengthened by an erosion of the capital of financial institutions and other market participants that would sharply curtail their willingness to supply credit. We have observed such “headwinds” so many times in the past that even an economist would have to admit they are possible."

http://www.bis.org/speeches/sp050906.htm

[peter.wedemeier1]

Global: Last Hurrah for Bonds

Stephen Roach (New York)

"I am increasingly a limp-wristed bond bull. Since I threw in the towel on my long-standing bearishness on bonds at the end of May, yields on 10-year US Treasuries have fluctuated in a 3.88% to 4.42% range -- lower than most were looking for but falling short of the 3.5% target I had thought was achievable over the next year (see Rethinking Bonds, May 31, 2005). While I still think there is a trade or two that could push long rates lower over the next few months, I must confess that my newfound bullish conviction is starting to waver. The bond market’s bearish stars are now coming back into increasingly worrisome alignment."

http://www.morganstanley.com/GEFdata/digests/20050912-mon.ht…

[peter.wedemeier1]

Foreign cenbanks net sellers of US debt - Fed
Thu Sep 15, 2005 04:30 PM ET

NEW YORK, Sept 15 (Reuters) - Foreign central banks were again sellers of U.S. government debt in the latest week, but sold U.S. Treasuries while buying U.S. agency securities, Federal Reserve data showed on Thursday.

The Fed said its overall holdings of Treasury and agency debt kept for overseas central banks fell by $5.943 billion in the week ended Sept. 14 to stand at $1.460 trillion.

The breakdown of custody holdings showed overseas central banks sold $10.731 billion in Treasury debt but bought $4.789 billion in agency debt, in the latest addition of this class of debt.

http://yahoo.reuters.com/financeQuoteCompanyNewsArticle.jhtm…

[peter.wedemeier1]

The Debt To the Penny

Year Debt Growth
9/13/2005 7,954,180,965,625.52 7.79%
9/30/2004 7,379,052,696,330.32 8.78%
9/30/2003 6,783,231,062,743.62 8.91%
9/30/2002 6,228,235,965,597.16 7.25%
9/28/2001 5,807,463,412,200.06 2.35%
9/29/2000 5,674,178,209,886.86 0.32%
9/30/1999 5,656,270,901,615.43 2.35%
9/30/1998 5,526,193,008,897.62 2.09%
9/30/1997 5,413,146,011,397.34 3.60%
9/30/1996 5,224,810,939,135.73 5.04%
9/29/1995 4,973,982,900,709.39 5.99%
9/30/1994 4,692,749,910,013.32 6.38%
9/30/1993 4,411,488,883,139.38 8.53%
9/30/1992 4,064,620,655,521.66 10.89%
9/30/1991 3,665,303,351,697.03 13.36%
9/28/1990 3,233,313,451,777.25 13.15%
9/29/1989 2,857,430,960,187.32 9.80%
9/30/1988 2,602,337,712,041.16 10.72%
9/30/1987 2,350,276,890,953.00

http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpenny.htm

Die USA befinden sich auf Ihrem Weg in den Bankrott!

[peter.wedemeier1]

AMERICA`S SHARECROPPERS
by Jennifer Barry
www.discountsilverclub.com
September 15, 2005

"Unfortunately, the latest TIC has some ominous undertones. Foreign purchases of Treasuries dropped to their lowest level since September 2003, and private overseas investors actually sold 3.3 billion more Treasury Bonds and Notes than they bought. The divestment of Treasuries was compensated for by a huge surge in hedge fund purchases of corporate bonds, a result not likely to repeat."

http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/2005/0915.html

[peter.wedemeier1]

Current Account Deficit

Want to become an international economist is 30 seconds? Ask what was the increase in the value of U.S. holdings overseas in the report (+$250.8 billion) versus the increase in foreign ownership in the United States (+$393.1 billion) in the report. Subtract one from the other and you get a number that I regret to advise you is a net increase in foreign ownership of U.S. assets of $142.3 billion, something that I look at as though it were an assets minus liabilities equals owner`s equity kind of equation. We don`t own as much of our own country as we used to - or put another way, globalism is selling our country out from under us.

Watch the spin on this: The current account deficit hasn`t decreased - it has merely slowed a bit. If you were bailing water from a boat, the boat would still have more water coming in than you were bailing, but the rate at which the water is being shipped aboard is a bit slower. When you think about it, you can see that the ship will still sink - but it will take a few extra minutes as the water is coming in slower. Big effing whoop. But watch the market rally on this stuff - such is the "art" of spin - something that during World War II would have been called propaganda.

http://www.urbansurvival.com

[peter.wedemeier1]

UPDATE 1-Greenspan to French finmin:US lost deficit control
Sat Sep 24, 2005 08:59 PM ET



http://yahoo.reuters.com/financeQuoteCompanyNewsArticle.jhtm…

[peter.wedemeier1]

Credit-card delinquencies hit record
By Greg Morcroft, MarketWatch
Last Update: 12:19 PM ET Sept. 28, 2005


The ABA report says rising gasoline prices contributed to a record rate of credit-card delinquencies in
the second quarter of 2005. `The last two quarters have not been pretty.` James Chessen, American Bankers
Association


Credit-card-loan delinquencies reached a record high of 4.81% percent of accounts in the second quarter of
this year, according to the association`s Consumer Credit Delinquency Bulletin.

[peter.wedemeier1]

The United States as a Debtor Nation

The United States has swung from being the world`s largest creditor to the largest debtor nation. At the end of 2004, it had net external liabilities of $2.5 trillion, or 22 percent of GDP. The current account (goods and services, transfers, and capital income) is massively in deficit-about $670 billion in 2004, or about 6 percent of GDP.

If corrective measures (US fiscal adjustment and a further decline of the dollar) are not taken, the current account deficit will reach about 7 to 8 percent of GDP by 2010, and net international liabilities will reach about 50 percent of GDP.

The rising imbalance will increasingly put the US economy-and hence the world economy and especially developing countries-at risk of a major crisis, as foreign investors lose confidence and US protectionist pressures mount. The longer the needed adjustment is delayed, the more wrenching it will be, triggering high interest rates, US recession, a greater decline in US households` living standards, and more damage to the global economy.

The United States has had three major episodes of external imbalances and downward pressures on the dollar during recent decades. The first, in the early 1970s, led to the breakdown of the Bretton Woods regime of fixed exchange rates, which proved unsustainable because the rigidity of global pegging of exchange rates to the dollar imposed a straitjacket that prevented the United States from correcting balance of payments problems.

The second episode was dollar overvaluation in the early 1980s followed by large deficits and the need for coordinated action to correct the dollar through the Plaza Accord of 1985.

The United States is now squarely in a third episode, which so far has been marked by a large rise an then major decline of the dollar against the euro and several other industrial-country currencies, and by the large external deficit.

Chapter 4 examines the fiscal imbalance that is part of the underlying problem of the US external imbalance. The discussion considers the long-term fiscal problems posed by Social Security and, far worse, Medicare and Medicaid. ... The central message is that further depreciation of the dollar will have to be accompanied by a large fiscal correction if major external adjustment is to be achieved.

Chapter 5 examines the risks posed by the external deficit, first looking at whether foreign holdings of US assets have risen so fast that there is a risk of portfolio satiation, and hence reduced willingness of foreigners to accumulate even more assets by financing ongoing (and widening) deficits.

This chapter gives special attention to the explosion of official foreign reserve holdings of US dollar assets, particularly by the central banks of Japan, China, and several other East Asian economies.

Also noted are the signs that central banks want to diversify away from the dollar.

In additon, the chapter examines the possibility of the surge in interest rates in the event that further accumulation of dollar reserves by foreign central banks comes to an end.

The chapter looks at the classic "hard landing" scenario of recession cause by higher interest rates provoked by a cutoff in foreign capital inflows... and cites the international disagreement on the dollar and interest rates in 1987 that contributed to a run-up in US interest rates and a severe correction in the US stock market.

Chapter 6 discussion rejects th argument made by some that the developing countries have been forced against their will by an inadequate international financial system to build up excessive and costly reserves. On the contrary, the large accumulations of reserves by such countries and regions as China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, and even India have on balance been a part of the problem of international imbalances.

Instead of building up excessive [dollar] reserves, these economies should have been allowing their currencies to appreciate against the dollar, thereby participating in the global adjustment process that is needed to curb US external deficits.

It is found that whereas the euro and some other industrial-country currencies had already accomplished most of the needed appreciation by end-2004 (some of which was eroded by the dollar`s subsequent rally through mid-2005), the Japanese yen had not done so, and the Chinese renminbi and several other Asian currencies in particular had carried out almost none of the needed real appreciation.

In trade-weighted terms these needed adjustments would seem much smaller than the individual real appreciation against the dollar would suggest because a wide array of competing economies would be appreciation against the dollar at the same time and hence not losing competitiveness against each other.

This chapter suggests that there is a "prisoners` dilemma" problem that discourages each country individually from being the first to allow its exchange rate to rise against the dollar, so that some form of international coordination may be required to facilitate the adjustments.

This discussion suggests some sort of agreement along the lines of the Plaza Accord or, more aptly, the Smithsonian Agreement of 1971, to coordinate such a realignment of exchange rates.

Part of the problem is that today`s monetary regime has in meaningful ways regressed to the fixed-rate regime of Bretton Woods. Not only are there the outright pegs of the Chinese renminbi, Hong Kong dollar, and Malaysian ringgit to the US dollar, but, in addition, the "fear of floating" in effect pegs numerous other developing-country currencies to the dollar (albeit this time through numerous bindings by smaller economies) similar to that at the end of the Bretton Woods system.

http://bookstore.iie.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Co…

[peter.wedemeier1]

Press Release Source: Investment U

Treasury Rates Set to Rise as Foreigners Stop Buying Our Debt
Tuesday October 4, 6:17 am ET

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/051004/phtu004.html?.v=29

[peter.wedemeier1]

Country`s first gold fund due

TMB Asset stresses diversification of risk

NUNTAWUN POLKUAMDEE

Bangkok Post) BUSINESS NEWS - Wednesday 05 October 2005

..."Investing in gold is a good alternative investment as gold is a lasting asset with inherent value although its prices could possibly fluctuate from time to time," managing director Jotika Savanananda said yesterday.

Gold helps diversify risks from fluctuations in other asset classes during economic uncertainty. At the same time, it provides investors with an opportunity to make profits when gold prices go up.

Kampol Chanthawiboom, equity fund manager at TMBAM, said gold prices would likely rise further as demand would increase in light of the weak US dollar.

"India and China will need to invest more in gold while the global supply will not increase from 3,200 tonnes per year over the next three years," he said.

Meanwhile, the US dollar is expected to slide further due to the country`s huge budget deficit and sensitivities over a change at the top of the Federal Reserve.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/Business/05Oct2005_biz41.php

[peter.wedemeier1]

Lithuania likely to adopt euro in 2007; Estonia in 2008, Latvia in 2009 - SEB
10.05.2005, 09:52 AM

VILNIUS (AFX) - Lithuania is the most likely Baltic country to adopt the euro in 2007, but Estonia and Latvia may have to postpone plans to introduce the single currency because of high inflation, Baltic News Service (BNS) reported citing SEB Vilniaus Bankas.

Slovenia, which has reported a drastic decline in average inflation in last six months, is a solid candidate to introduce the euro in 2007, too...

Latvia will retain its title of the fastest growing economy in Europe, with GDP rising by 8.7 pct in 2005 and slowing down to 7.5 pct in 2006 and to 7 pct in 2007, SEB has forecast.

http://story.irishsun.com/p.x/ct/9/id/edf2be20d8f0daf9/cid/b…

[peter.wedemeier1]

Euro Comes Action Packed With Optimism

http://www.dailyfx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=vie…

Heute steht die Zinsentscheidung von der EZB an!

mfg

[peter.wedemeier1]

6 October 2005 - Monetary policy decisions

http://www.ecb.int/press/pr/date/2005/html/pr051006.en.html

[peter.wedemeier1]

Venezuela has sold $20 bln in U.S. Treasuries -FT
Thu Oct 6, 2005 01:38 AM ET

TOKYO, Oct 6 (Reuters) - Venezuela liquidated $20 billion of foreign reserves, largely in U.S. Treasuries, in the past four months and deposited the funds at the Basel-based Bank for International Settlements, the Financial Times reported on Thursday. The newspaper report, quoting Venezuelan central bank director Domingo Maza Zavala, contributed to a slip in the dollar against the euro and other major currencies, traders said.

The FT said the transfer, a big chunk of Venezuela`s $30 billion reserves, appeared to have been done for political reasons and that reports from other bank sources had put the amount transferred at only about $10 billion.

It did not say which currencies the BIS deposits were denominated in.

http://yahoo.reuters.com/financeQuoteCompanyNewsArticle.jhtm…

[peter.wedemeier1]

FACTBOX-FX reserves, US deficits and global imbalances

WASHINGTON, Oct 7 (Reuters) - Massive accumulation of foreign currency reserves in recent years, mainly by Asian central banks, slowed in recent months -- with only China still adding substantial amounts of new reserves through August.

The build-up of reserves is one manifestation of the global imbalances in international accounts about which world economic policy-makers continually fret.

These imbalances in international trade accounts and in savings and investments flows are illustrated most clearly in a U.S. current account deficit now in excess of 6 percent of national income.

Following are a series of facts on official dollar holdings worldwide, ranking reserve totals by country and size and compared to the size of U.S. fiscal deficits and bond markets.

* World foreign currency reserves, excluding gold, totaled $3.832 trillion in March 2005, according to the International Monetary Fund. That was up 3 percent from the end of 2004, up about 25 percent from 2003 and almost double 1999 levels.

* IMF data shows 65.9 percent of world FX reserves were denominated in U.S. dollars in 2004 ... down from about 71 percent in 2000

* United States` current account deficit for 2004 was a record $666 billion, or 5.7 percent of GDP, up $135 billion or 25 percent compared with 2003. The c/a deficit was $195.7 billion in the second quarter of 2005 alone -- 6.3 percent of quarterly GDP and down from a record 6.5 percent in the first quarter. IMF expects the gap to rise to $759 billion in 2005 and $805 billion in 2006 - 6.1 percent of GDP in both years.

* U.S. Net International Investment Position, which measures country`s total stock of IoUs to foreign investors and governments, was in the red to the tune of $2.484 trillion at end of 2004 -- or 21.3 percent of GDP.

* U.S. budget deficit for the fiscal year ended Sept 30, 2005 is estimated to have dropped to $317 billion, less than 3 percent of GDP, from fiscal 2004`s $412 billion, or 3.8 percent of GDP, according the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. Booming tax revenues were the main reason even as interest payments on the national debt jumped 14 pct, the CBO said. Huge federal spending on post-hurricane relief and reconstruction is expected to inflate fiscal 2006 deficit.

* Total outstanding marketable Treasury securities in Sept 2005 was $4.066 trillion

* Foreign holdings of Treasury securities, both private and public, amounted to $2.035 trillion, or 50 percent, in July 2005

* Marketable debt securities held in custody by Federal Reserve for foreign official and international accounts (mostly foreign central banks) was $1.464 trillion last week

http://yahoo.reuters.com/financeQuoteCompanyNewsArticle.jhtm…

[peter.wedemeier1]

INVESTING
Why Gold Is on the Go
Metals Watch
By Corey Hajim

http://www.fortune.com/fortune/investing/articles/0,15114,11…

[peter.wedemeier1]

Oil costs fuel US trade deficit

(BBC) Oct 13 -- The increased cost of importing oil has further swelled the US trade deficit.

The deficit rose 1.8% to $59bn in August -- its third highest monthly sum -- as the US spent a record $17.2bn on buying crude oil supplies.

Experts said Katrina - which struck New Orleans on August 29 - had had no discernible impact on August`s trade figures.

The deficit is expected to rise more substantially in September as Hurricane Katrina`s economic impact is reflected in trade data for the first time.

US oil production hit a 50-year low in September as Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit output in the Gulf of Mexico.

The average cost of an barrel of imported oil rose to an all-time high of $52.65 in August, pushing the overall US deficit with members of oil producers cartel Opec to a record high.

World oil prices remained above $60 a barrel throughout August, breaking through the $70 barrier after Hurricane Katrina struck land.

The politically-sensitive US deficit with China increased a further 4.6% ....... "that`s going to raise protectionist rhetoric in Congress," said Rebecca Patterson, currency strategist with JP Morgan in New York.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4338778.stm

[peter.wedemeier1]

FOREX-Dollar hits 2-year high vs yen, aided by US data

NEW YORK, Oct 13 (Reuters) - The dollar on Thursday climbed to its highest against the yen in more than two years after the U.S. trade deficit for August came in a bit narrower than forecast and did nothing to shake expectations that interest rates would keep rising.

The dollar rose to 115.09 yen, its highest since September 2003, according to Reuters data.

TJ Marta, senior currency strategist at RBC Capital Markets in Toronto said "Right now, global imbalances aren`t the issue. It`s not that they haven`t gone away. Everyone is just concerned about the inflation virus."

http://yahoo.reuters.com/financeQuoteCompanyNewsArticle.jhtm…

----------------------------------------------------------

in eiem anderen Reuters Artikel:

The last time the dollar was above 115.00 yen was around
the time of the Group of Seven meeting in Dubai in September
2003. The G7`s statement at that meeting called for "more
flexibility in exchange rates ... based on market mechanisms"
and was widely seen as an implicit call for reduced
dollar-buying intervention from Asian central banks and
therefore a weaker dollar.

[peter.wedemeier1]

Trade deficit soars – and it`s bound to go higher

(AP) October 13, 2005, WASHINGTON -- The nation`s oil bill surged to a record in August and so did goods imported from China, pushing the U.S. trade deficit to the third-highest level ever. And it is bound to get worse because hurricane-related increases for oil are still ahead.

"Record crude prices usually mean record trade gaps. Nobody sees relief on the energy front any time soon," said Oscar Gonzalez, senior economist at John Hancock Financial Services in Boston.

Economists said this year`s trade deficit could exceed $700 billion, far above last year`s imbalance of $617.6 billion.

The U.S. deficit with China hit a monthly record of $18.5 billion in August ... 28 percent ahead of last year`s pace when it hit $162 billion, the highest level ever with any country.

Political pressure is increasing on the Bush administration to act. In Congress, there is wide support for legislation that would impose 27.5 percent penalty tariffs on all Chinese products unless Beijing allows its currency to rise further in value against the American dollar.

U.S. textile manufacturers announced they were filing a petition with the administration that seeks limits on imports of towels from China.

In the absence of comprehensive caps, the U.S. industry has filed -- and the administration has granted -- limits on a category-by-category basis, a process that U.S. retailers contend drives up clothing prices for American consumers.

[Inducing higher prices per article, and yet they wonder why the dollar size of the imbalance grows??? Apparently the curative is for people to "go commando".]

The overall August imbalance was driven higher by a 12.2 percent jump in crude oil imports...

The price for a barrel of crude the foreign oil bill rose to a record average price of $52.65 in August, compared with $49.03 in July.

Analysts said there will be a further jump in the September oil bill, reflecting the rise in crude prices since the hurricanes. This month, the barrel price briefly topped $70.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/business/20051013-1453-ec…

[peter.wedemeier1]

China Insists on Gradual Currency Reforms

(AP) October 14, 2005

...The currency issue is on the agenda of the summit of finance officials of the Group of Twenty industrial and developing nations, hosted by China for the first time.

During the G-20 meeting, Snow and other U.S. officials may well face criticism of the United States` massive trade and budget deficits.

The G-20 nations account for 90 percent of global gross domestic product, 80 percent of global trade and two-thirds of the world`s population.

They include the Group of Seven industrialized nations as well as the European Union, China, Argentina, Brazil, Russia, India, Australia, Mexico, the Republic of Korea, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Turkey. Top representatives of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank will also attend the meeting, being held at a resort outside Beijing.

The aim of the meeting is to discuss imbalances in development, limits to the international economic system and other broad issues, the official Xinhua News Agency cited Chinese Finance Minister Jin Renqing as saying.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051014/ap_on_bi_ge/china_curren…

[Stagflati]

Soeben hat die amerikanische Staatsverschuldung die Marke von 8 Billionen Dollar überschritten. Und der Dollar ist trotz des Doppeldefizites (Handelsbilanz- und Haushaltsdefizit) super stark !? Kann sich das einer erklären ? Im Geldcrash-Forum habe ich hierzu einen interessanten Link gefunden: http://www.f27.parsimony.net/forum67659/messages/16320.htm