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U.S. Designates China as Currency Manipulator

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51–60 of 356 posts

Re: U.S. Designates China as Currency Manipulator

#51
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not even days. I lost $24k today, and $60k since last week. The thing that keeps you calm though is that sometimes it’s amazing how much money you can actually make in a matter of days, or a single day.

This means you have about a million dollars in stock investments alone, which you put you in a different class.

That would keep me calm!

I'm pleased to report though that I lost nothing, since that's about how much I have.

Re: U.S. Designates China as Currency Manipulator

#54
post #36
post #21

Stock futures down another 2%. Amazing how much money one can lose in a matter of days. Stomach churning.

Not even days. I lost $24k today, and $60k since last week. The thing that keeps you calm though is that sometimes it’s amazing how much money you can actually make in a matter of days, or a single day.

The last couple months I’d been wondering whether I’d rebalanced way too early (in the spring) into defensive stocks and bonds, so this drop has been rather pleasant to me. I know one can’t time the market perfectly but I’d rather not miss out on a prolonged period of gains.

Re: U.S. Designates China as Currency Manipulator

#55
post #42

Yes considering the US prints hand over fists amounts of money to deal with its economic woes, it's sort of a joke where the emperor wears no clothes, but no one says anything because he's the emperor. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/090915/quant... > "In theory, currency manipulation and a monetary policy like quantitative easing aren't the same thing. One is interest rate policy based and the other…

[deleted]

Re: U.S. Designates China as Currency Manipulator

#56
post #42

Yes considering the US prints hand over fists amounts of money to deal with its economic woes, it's sort of a joke where the emperor wears no clothes, but no one says anything because he's the emperor. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/090915/quant... > "In theory, currency manipulation and a monetary policy like quantitative easing aren't the same thing. One is interest rate policy based and the other…

That's the funny part to me. Currencies don't exist in a vacuum. There's no way NOT to manipulate your own currency. Even in countries that don't directly control monetary policy can still change the value of their currencies indirectly (via taxes for example).

Re: U.S. Designates China as Currency Manipulator

#57
post #2

Kettle calling the pot black.

Do you really think that the US Federal Reserve System, which sets monetary policy based on very reasonable inflation and unemployment targets, is equivalent to a full-blown nationalist-controlled central bank, that is devaluing its currency to support a mercantilist agenda? I think it's pretty clear that China is able and willing to devalue far more than would be possible or palatable for the Fed.

Not the OP but I personally do think that, yes. I personally do not find that much of a difference between Draghi's 2012 "whatever it takes" message (and ECB's subsequent actions) and currency moves like the ones carried out lately by the Chinese.

Granted, the Fed has not yet hired any helicopter for its boss to throw money out of but some of its post-2009 actions (like the well-known QE) were pretty much the same thing. I personally find no big difference between QEs involving trillions of dollars or euros and controlling one's currency like China just did.

Re: U.S. Designates China as Currency Manipulator

#59

China can outlast the US on this one. Next up, let's crash the price of oil and flip off the Iran sanctions: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/05/brent-and-wti-price-could-cr...

> China can outlast the US on this one.

So let's get the story so far. The US put tariffs on China. People complain about this because it's "hurting US importers" and "costing more to American consumers" etc. But it also puts the hurt on China because now their goods are less competitive, and paying 5% more than China to buy manufactured goods from Latin America or some other part of Asia hurts the US a little but hurts China a lot.

So China responds by devaluing their currency. Now their prices are competitive again, even with the tariffs, but the result is that now the thing you used to buy from China for $100 that was momentarily $110 (so that you bought it from Mexico for $105) is now back to $100. That gets people buying from China again, and paying the original prices, only now of the $100 China used to get, they only get $90 and the US treasury gets $10.

Meanwhile this allows the US to raise the tariffs even more for the same cost to the American consumer. Or just leave them where they are forever and enjoy the 10% China has effectively volunteered to discount its goods by.

> Next up, let's crash the price of oil and flip off the Iran sanctions

Then OPEC cuts production because they're a cartel and all they need is to keep oil competitive with renewables, not have it cost significantly less than that. But it may come down some and then Trump gets voter support from lower gas prices. And the lower oil prices allow oil to better compete with the batteries and solar panels that are manufactured in China, causing China to lose business. And China is on the "climate change is especially bad for this country" list, so that's not great for them either. Meanwhile it gives more cover for Trump to escalate the trade war in retaliation for violating the Iran sanctions. Not really the biggest win for China.

Re: U.S. Designates China as Currency Manipulator

#60

China can outlast the US on this one. Next up, let's crash the price of oil and flip off the Iran sanctions: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/05/brent-and-wti-price-could-cr...

China would have a lot more room to move were the Hong Kong protests were not going on. The big problem they face is putting down the protests violently could lead towards pronouncements of them violating the agreement for it being held over. Which will lead toward countries people openly selling heavy weapons to Taiwan and maybe even building bases.

No one is going to build a base in Taiwan. This is not 1985. China is way too powerful and advanced militarily now for the US to provoke them so directly.
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