Europe’s central banks are starting to replace dollar reserves with the yuan • Hacker News Board

Re: Europe’s central banks are starting to replace dollar reserves with the yuan

#161

Post by pbhjpbhj » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 2:48 PM UTC

kiliantics wrote: post #147

Noos wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

oh FFS, compare that to the cultural revolution, which ended in 1976. the whataboutism here is annoying; while we were debating and agonizing over the impact of the vietnam war, China was busy imprisoning, torturing, and relocating its own citizens over ideology. It created a culture of children informing on their own parents. I wish people would realize how much they have dodged a bullet by growing up in western nat…

The US has done this to plenty of its own citizens too, typically the non-white ones. And it didn't stop in the 70s when civil rights were supposedly won.

Do I have you right here, what you seen to be saying is that the well-known images of rows of USA police/soldiers protecting citizens from racists is false? That there was no rule of law, and that the USA government was the force behind racially directed violence? And that still, the government ignored the rule of law and exacts widescale violent action against its citizens motivated by politics/race?

Or is China actually different, and you're talking crap?

Re: Europe’s central banks are starting to replace dollar reserves with the yuan

#162

Post by dogma1138 » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 2:49 PM UTC

dmichulke wrote: post #133

dogma1138 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe can buy all the yuan in the world and it won’t have any effect. The exchange rate between the dollar and the yuan is set by the rate at which China is buying US debt not by the global markets. China prints money to buy US debt it allows China to devalue its own currency without devaluing its assets and this deal allowed the US to pretty much generate as much currency as they want through cheap debt without dev…

> Europe can buy all the yuan in the world and it won’t have any effect. That is entirely wrong. There is only a limited amount of Yuan, so by definition the supply of Yuan is affected, no matter in which currency it is bought. Therefore, the price is affected as well. Will wheat in USD get more expensive if I buy all your wheat with Ruble? You bet it will.

The supply of the Yuan is controlled by China, but In this case the limit isn't the available supply of the Yuan at all.

For Europe to buy Yuan it needs to exchange something for it, usually another currency likely in this case the dollar rather than EUR.

The hard limit is more on how much EUR does China wants to hold and how much USD Europe is willing to spend on buying Yuan.

Beyond that you also go into the realm of would China allow Europe to hold large amounts of Yuan, countries tend to be protective of their currency and restrict any single entity from holding amounts large enough to do substantial damage if dumped. Basically they would allow you to buy enough currency for them to benefit but not enough for you to hold it over their head.

Re: Europe’s central banks are starting to replace dollar reserves with the yuan

#163

Post by mieseratte » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 2:50 PM UTC

jazzyk wrote: post #150

mieseratte wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The west only has freedom on paper. Let me know when they start black-bagging dissidents for speaking up a bit too much. There are festering problems regarding surveillance in the West, and the prison system is a bit much here in the US, but "freedom on paper" is a load of BS.

>"freedom on paper" is a load of BS “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum....” - Noam Chomsky

Right, we don't have absolute freedom in an absolutist sense. You're technically correct, the best kind, but I wasn't suggesting we had it either.

Re: Europe’s central banks are starting to replace dollar reserves with the yuan

#164

Post by Guillaume86 » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 2:53 PM UTC

mattmanser wrote: post #102

endisukaj wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the end, the EU needs to do what it must to survive and that IMO means federalize. A united EU would not need an anchor for safety.

Which is a political goal at odds with the population. Even Macron admitted that if the French were given the same vote as the British, they'd probably leave the EU[1]. Their tactic? Just avoid a vote. A small elite closing ranks and ignoring that EU citizens simply want trade union, not political union. There's only so many times politicians can say "it's more complicated than you peasants understand, we must federa…

To quote the article:

> Asked if the French would vote to leave the EU in the same way, he said: “Yes. Probably, in a similar context. But our context was very different, so I don’t want to take any bets. I would have definitely fought to win.

Which is quite different that what the title implies.

Re: Europe’s central banks are starting to replace dollar reserves with the yuan

#165

Post by linkmotif » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 2:55 PM UTC

jazzyk wrote: post #150

mieseratte wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The west only has freedom on paper. Let me know when they start black-bagging dissidents for speaking up a bit too much. There are festering problems regarding surveillance in the West, and the prison system is a bit much here in the US, but "freedom on paper" is a load of BS.

>"freedom on paper" is a load of BS “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum....” - Noam Chomsky

Says Noam Chomsky, who in China, Russia or the Arab world would have disappeared.

Re: Europe’s central banks are starting to replace dollar reserves with the yuan

#166

Post by mieseratte » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 2:55 PM UTC

kiliantics wrote: post #154

mieseratte wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The west only has freedom on paper. Let me know when they start black-bagging dissidents for speaking up a bit too much. There are festering problems regarding surveillance in the West, and the prison system is a bit much here in the US, but "freedom on paper" is a load of BS.

You can only truly believe this if you have never been an open and active supporter of non-conforming (and threatening to status quo) beliefs or are not black/brown. McCarthyism and antiblackness are still very much built into the functioning system of western nation states.

> You can only truly believe this if you have never been an open and active supporter of non-conforming (and threatening to status quo) beliefs or are not black/brown.

I've been rail-roaded by vindictive government officials who abused their power. Been arrested for it, even. I know what it means to have my first amendment rights violated at a fundamental level.

> McCarthyism and antiblackness are still very much built into the functioning system of western nation states.

That's, like, your opinion man.

Highlighting select abuses of power doesn't negate the fact that I can openly criticize our government, advocate for change, run for office, and store enough small arms to organize an insurrection without fear of reprisal. We may not have absolute freedom, but no one does and no one ever will. In the context of the conversation, we have a helluva lot of freedom. Much more than the comment I responded to appeared to suggest - that we're no better than China.

Re: Europe’s central banks are starting to replace dollar reserves with the yuan

#167

Post by dogma1138 » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 2:57 PM UTC

freeflight wrote: post #146

dogma1138 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe can buy all the yuan in the world and it won’t have any effect. The exchange rate between the dollar and the yuan is set by the rate at which China is buying US debt not by the global markets. China prints money to buy US debt it allows China to devalue its own currency without devaluing its assets and this deal allowed the US to pretty much generate as much currency as they want through cheap debt without dev…

> China prints money to buy US debt it allows China to devalue its own currency without devaluing its assets and this deal allowed the US to pretty much generate as much currency as they want through cheap debt without devaluing it. So China is printing money to buy up the debt generated by the US printing money? I'm not an economist, but that does not sound like a reasonable way for a world economy to run on.

Things are much more complicated than this, but essentially China as a primary exporter wants to keep the value of it's currency as low as possible since the exporters then benefit on exchange rates.

It also wants stability so it basically pegs the Yuan to the dollar, historically directly and more recently in directly (the Chinese central bank sets more or less of a fixed exchange rate but it does allow it to deviate somewhat these days).

Now to prevent the Chinese economy from being effectively run on and by foreign currency China heavily restricts the ownership and settlement in foreign currency internally. It basically forces the exporters/manufactures to exchange the foreign currency they paid in (usually USD) back to Yuan for any internal use (or alternatively if you want to do business in china you basically have to exchange your currency in Yuan it's the same thing).

It then uses that surplus of foreign currency to buy other assets, primarily dollar bonds such as US treasury bonds which basically brings back all those dollars that came from the US and everywhere else in the world back to the US.

And even this is like very very basic overview of things.

On some level the US economy or at least the dollar economy is basically based on the fact that the dollars used in international trade have to come back to the US.

Basically you buy dollars from the US, you use those dollars to buy something e.g. goods from China then those dollars go straight back to the US in exchange usually for "cheaper" dollar bonds. The debt economy a side the scheme is when viewed on a global scale is almost like you never actually own a dollar you simply rent it out.

Re: Europe’s central banks are starting to replace dollar reserves with the yuan

#168

Post by wu-ikkyu » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 3:04 PM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #161

kiliantics wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has done this to plenty of its own citizens too, typically the non-white ones. And it didn't stop in the 70s when civil rights were supposedly won.

Do I have you right here, what you seen to be saying is that the well-known images of rows of USA police/soldiers protecting citizens from racists is false? That there was no rule of law, and that the USA government was the force behind racially directed violence? And that still, the government ignored the rule of law and exacts widescale violent action against its citizens motivated by politics/race? Or is China act…

>what you seen to be saying is that the well-known images of rows of USA police/soldiers protecting citizens from racists is false

China is of course different --apples to oranges--, but the images you mention are cherry picked. The images that were hidden from the front pages were of the secret police agencies subverting, blackmailing, and assassinating leaders of the civil rights movement.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hampton#1969_raid_and_dea...

"We've got to face the fact that some people say you fight fire best with fire, but we say you put fire out best with water. We say you don't fight racism with racism. We're gonna fight racism with solidarity" -Fred Hampton

Re: Europe’s central banks are starting to replace dollar reserves with the yuan

#169

Post by dogma1138 » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 3:05 PM UTC

Symmetry wrote: post #158

dogma1138 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe can buy all the yuan in the world and it won’t have any effect. The exchange rate between the dollar and the yuan is set by the rate at which China is buying US debt not by the global markets. China prints money to buy US debt it allows China to devalue its own currency without devaluing its assets and this deal allowed the US to pretty much generate as much currency as they want through cheap debt without dev…

You could make the claim that China was devaluing its currency in 1995 but since then the Yuan has been gaining in value relative to the dollar.[1] I think that became a talking point back when it was true and people have just been repeating it ever since without reexamining. [1] http://www.macrotrends.net/2575/us-dollar-yuan-exchange-rate...

Those aren't mutually exclusive, this isn't as bad as the "currency wars" of the mid 90's where the US wen't crying all the time to the WTO about China at least publicly.

But China very much still controls the exchange rate of the Yuan to the dollar and still devalues it's currency in order to boost exports.

Re: Europe’s central banks are starting to replace dollar reserves with the yuan

#170

Post by DoveBrown » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 3:06 PM UTC

richardknop wrote: post #144

kuschku wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Start with informing the public, until a ballot would succeed? Most of the people being against the EU are against it because they only ever hear the bad sides? They never realize that most of the bad things "the EU" did were actually things the council did. Which actually just means that the heads of states of all EU nations agreed on it. If you end the EU, all power goes to these negotiations, and you'll only see t…

So you’d repeat the Irish and Dutch fiascos where you would have every nation vote until they vote yes? Seems undemocratic.

If you're talking about the Irish referendum's on Lisbon, it wasn't a vote until you said yes. The Irish initially voted no for many reasons but I can tell you that my parents voted no on the first one because they felt they didn't understand why it was needed and weren't sure what the implications of it were.

After the No vote, the government made a much larger effort to explain to the public what Lisbon did and they got guarantees from the EU as to interpretation of wording.

I think you could kuschku's suggestion that you need to get the population of each state on board before progressing. The turnout for the 2nd vote on Lisbon (which was a yes) went up to 59% from 53%. Looking at the vote from outside, it definitely seemed like people were much more engaged in the second vote than they were in the first.

I don't know why repeated votes would be undemocratic. There is absolutely no suggestion that the second vote was fraudulent. You're allowed to ask the same question of the population again once more information is available.