a little transformer humour
Q. What happened when the Autobots (from Transformers the movie) defaulted on their loans?
A. Their leader became Optimus Sub-Prime.
the dollar is dead
My article on SeekingAlpha … comments solicited
real heroes
Usually I just add interesting websites to my blogroll with much fuss, but Heroes Are Here is different and deserves every bit of attention it can get.
http://heroesarehere.blogspot.com/
The website profiles some of the bravest soldiers and officers of the Indian Armed Forces who gave up their lives in various operations since independence.
Hats off to the author (Sammy Dhaliwal) for doing a fantastic job and taking up the responsibilities that the government and armed forces of India have disgracefully abdicated.
bye bye bretton woods II
The US Fed has finally begun acting on its threat of purchasing US Treasuries (basically, printing money – monetising its debt). A press release by the FOMC yesterday says, among a whole lot of other things …
Moreover, to help improve conditions in private credit markets, the Committee decided to purchase up to $300 billion of longer-term Treasury securities over the next six months.
So the US Fed is embarking on a scheme meant to drive down yields on US Treasuries while increasing the supply of USD. It is also a scheme of currency debasement (Debasement is the practice of lowering the value of currency.)
US Dollars are only valuable so long as they are limited in supply. With Ben Bernanke embarking on a printing spree, that supply is going to shoot up with obviously negative consequences on the dollar.
The Chinese are going to be pissed off! Look for China to retaliate, perhaps by offloading part of its own holdings of US Treasuries or by slowing down even further its purchase of fresh ones (with the obvious caveat that I don’t quite have unrestricted access to the minds of China’s rulers).
