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China Has $3T of ‘Hidden’ Currency Reserves, Setser Says

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Re: China Has $3T of ‘Hidden’ Currency Reserves, Setser Says

#151
post #136
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conclusion?

That if one is trying to reverse offshoring of manufacturing, one needs to make it in companies' best economic interests. Make it more profitable (or at least net neutral) to manufacture onshore or nearshore. A key start to it would probably be to (a) implement a carbon tax on all goods that enter the US via international maritime trade, according to the footprint of their transportation, (b) use the proceeds exclusi…

Why would corporations hire politicians to do that?

Re: China Has $3T of ‘Hidden’ Currency Reserves, Setser Says

#152
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You fail to see a difference between a country run by an autocratic cult of personality and a country run by a democracy? That’s troubling. The US commitment to human rights is flawed, but it’s nothing compared to the dystopia that is China. Values matter.

China has one party. The US has two and it's hard for other countries to discern any difference between them.

Interesting. This was upvoted when the US was asleep, and downvoted as the US woke up.

Re: China Has $3T of ‘Hidden’ Currency Reserves, Setser Says

#153
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You fail to see a difference between a country run by an autocratic cult of personality and a country run by a democracy? That’s troubling. The US commitment to human rights is flawed, but it’s nothing compared to the dystopia that is China. Values matter.

China has one party. The US has two and it's hard for other countries to discern any difference between them.

the most significant difference is that one has blue paint and the other red.

otherwise, they are seemingly the same in terms of outcomes for average workers.

Re: China Has $3T of ‘Hidden’ Currency Reserves, Setser Says

#154
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re saying that building roads and bridges is not beneficial to countries which deeply lack roads and bridges?

The book "the undercover economist" talks about this alot, but how the USA and the world bank did it. Essentially US contractors go to a developing country and say: you need to build infrastructure for your economy to grow and so take out a huge loan to do that, and paying back will be easy because of all the resulting growth. But there are two catches, the first is that it will be US companies doing the work (or at…

This is also the topic of the book Confessions of an Economic Hitman.

Re: China Has $3T of ‘Hidden’ Currency Reserves, Setser Says

#155
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love this condescending and infantilising tone of yours, regarding African governments as some gullible, uneducated bunches of toddlers that anyone can just walk in and take advantage of - as if they weren’t perfectly capable of signing their own deals. Fitting such casual “Africa dumb” and “China evil” sentiments in one nonchalant comment seems like such a weird specialty of this brainwashing and propaganda that w…

> regarding African governments as some gullible, uneducated bunches of toddlers They’re not stupid, they’re corrupt. The elites get a slice of the pie. It’s how development finance has been done for centuries. “Stakeholders” are bought off. The country is left with the bill.

> corrupt

To quantify the statement,

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Corruption_Barometer

Re: China Has $3T of ‘Hidden’ Currency Reserves, Setser Says

#156
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The book "the undercover economist" talks about this alot, but how the USA and the world bank did it. Essentially US contractors go to a developing country and say: you need to build infrastructure for your economy to grow and so take out a huge loan to do that, and paying back will be easy because of all the resulting growth. But there are two catches, the first is that it will be US companies doing the work (or at…

This is also the topic of the book Confessions of an Economic Hitman.

Yes, that's the one I actually meant, thank you. I can't edit my original now but this is book I was referring to.

Re: China Has $3T of ‘Hidden’ Currency Reserves, Setser Says

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. The US (and other western countries) have let themselves fall victim to all sorts of corrupt ideologies; this has created short term 'limited liability' reward structures which have encouraged a short term mindset. Instead of focusing on fixing internal issues, the US decided to run their economy on the misery of others by starting wars in faraway lands, manipulating foreign governments, saddling them with d…

> The smartest thing the west can do from now on is dump fiat currencies, switch to crypto Seriously? WTF?

Crypto isn't possible with todays tech, because it's an ever increasing bug bounty program that's super slow and has no undo button for fraud (which the elderly are extremely susceptible to).

Re: China Has $3T of ‘Hidden’ Currency Reserves, Setser Says

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean it's the gigantic elephant in the room. The reported narratives have aligned over the years as if they were our enemy. Here are some: Economically, they're an adversary; they undercut western manufacturing and all our manufacturing went there. They manipulate their currency. They interfere with foreign owned businesses. They steal IP. They're seeking to upset the global money standard. They entrap other nation…

> Economically, they're an adversary; they undercut western manufacturing and all our manufacturing went there. Wow, you make it sound like it was some devious Chinese plan where they intentionally made their people work for American manufacturers and lured them in with bribes. The reality was that American corporations willingly went over to China because number must go up and paying their own people living factory…

We weren't smart enough to solve the tragedy of the commons situation because we believed a wealthy China would drop the true-believer Mao ideology.

Re: China Has $3T of ‘Hidden’ Currency Reserves, Setser Says

#159
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the CCP were so concerned with COVID why did they have a victory concert in August 2020[1]? Obviously the virus is still deadly, but it seems at least inconsistent for CCP COVID policy to be “we did it!” in August 2020, then lock downs in 2022. Regarding “lifting people out of poverty”, did hundreds of millions of people’s hard work have anything to do with lifting _themselves_ out of poverty or does the CCP get a…

I can understand this being hard to comprehend, but if China actually effectively deployed a zero covid policy initially - it's up to you whether you think the reports to this effect are true or not - then a mask-less concert is in fact pretty safe as long as you're not allowing foreigners to bring COVID into the country. Of course the moment you let Americans in to your country, you've given up your battle against C…

'Let it rip' is 'flatten the curve' for someone who unscientifically thinks zero Covid is practically possible.

China made the wrong decision and almost sparked an internal collapse. They lost the youth and the hopelessness in the country is palpable.

Re: China Has $3T of ‘Hidden’ Currency Reserves, Setser Says

#160
post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China has one party. The US has two and it's hard for other countries to discern any difference between them.

the most significant difference is that one has blue paint and the other red. otherwise, they are seemingly the same in terms of outcomes for average workers.

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