Pepe Escobar – Welcome to the trade deal wars

BANGKOK — China continues to grow at a not too shabby 7%. And yet, because of the yuan devaluation and the sharp drop in the stock market, in most Western capitals the narrative switched to Armageddon descended over an economic model that generated, over the years, six-fold growth in Chinese GDP. Few are aware that Beijing, simultaneously, is engaged in …

Why The Great Petrodollar Unwind Could Be $2.5 Trillion Larger Than Anyone Thinks

Last weekend, we explained why it really all comes down to the death of the petrodollar. China’s transition to a new currency regime was supposed to represent a move towards a greater role for the market in determining the exchange rate for the yuan. That’s not exactly what happened. As BNP’s Mole Hau hilariously described it last week, “whereas the daily fix …

ZERO HEDGE – It’s Official: China Confirms It Has Begun Liquidating Treasuries, Warns Washington

On Tuesday evening, we asked what would happen if emerging markets joined China in dumping US Treasurys. For months we’ve documented the PBoC’s liquidation of its vast stack of US paper. Back in July for instance, we noted that China had dumpeda record $143 billion in US Treasurys in three months via Belgium, leaving Goldman speechless for once. We followed all of this up this …

Mike Bird – The Fed is at risk of repeating one of the biggest mistakes in the history of the US economy

Everything seems to be going wrong in the global economy right now. Chinese growth is slowing, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng is officially in a bear market, Greece is heading into elections, and emerging markets around the world are feeling the strain of the strong US dollar. In the advanced world, the United States and United Kingdom are seeing some decent growth, …

Alternative Visions – Is the Global Economy Heading for Another Financial Crisis? – 08.08.15

Jack Rasmus follows up the previous show on the global economy with an assessment of financial instability that appears to be growing globally as well. Jack briefly discusses how excess debt and income decline and stagnation basically cause financial instability, and explains how the new 200,000 or so global finance capital elite continue to create financial asset bubbles worldwide and how those bubbles appear to be converging. Financial bubbles that appear most unstable include China’s stock markets (Shanghai and Schenzhen), but also global oil and commodity futures, emerging market equity and bond markets, US and global bond ETFs sold by mutual funds, the US and Euro corporate junk bond markets, tech stocks, Eurozone banks, and currency exchange markets that are becoming much more volatile. Also noted are potential serious secondary effects of a lack of liquidity in bond markets in general and effects on US repo markets in turn. The show concludes with a in-depth look at causes behind the current China stock market collapse which, Jack argues, has yet to run its full course and could destabilize financial markets worldwide in the near future. The role of China government policies in causing a runup of 120% in China stocks in just one year is explained, as well as government measures introduced since June 12 of this year to stop the stock slide.

Andre Damon – How to make $7 billion in 45 minutes

On Thursday, Amazon, the online retail giant, announced that, contrary to analysts’ predictions and after months of financial losses, it had turned a profit in the second quarter. The stock market responded with euphoria. Amazon’s share price surged by 18 percent in a single day, adding $40 billion to the company’s market capitalization. With 154,000 employees, Amazon overnight became the …

OECD report: Global social inequality hits new record – Gabriel Black

Income inequality in many developed countries has reached an all-time high, according to a report released Thursday by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The report also notes that growth of social inequality has been accompanied by the growth of part-time and contingent labor, particularly for younger workers. The wealthiest tenth of the population in OECD member countries now earn …

Russia to ratify BRICS currency pool deal soon — envoy

Russia intends to become the first country among the BRICS group of the world’s five leading emerging economies to ratify an agreement on the group’s foreign currency reserve pool, Russian Foreign Ministry Ambassador-at-Large Vadim Lukov said on Friday. “An agreement will be ratified soon on establishing a pool of foreign currency reserves. Russia will most likely be the first country …

Why a Stronger Dollar will Lead to Deflation, Recession and Crisis

“There are no nations…. no peoples…. no Russians.. no Arabs…no third worlds…no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multi-variate, multi-national dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the …