Monday, December 22, 2014

Is this the way the dollar fails?

China is lending money; and when I say lending money, I mean tens of billions of dollars worth.  From Bloomberg:
China and Russia signed a three-year currency-swap line of 150 billion yuan ($24 billion) in October, a contract that allows Russia to borrow the yuan and lend the ruble. While the offer won’t relieve the main sources of pressure on the ruble -- which has lost 41 percent this year amid plunging oil prices and sanctions linked to Russia’s annexation of Crimea -- it could bolster investors confidence in the country and help stem capital outflows.  
Funding from China has helped raise Argentina’s foreign reserves to a 13-month high of $30.9 billion, a boost for a country that has been kept out of the international capital market since defaulting on foreign obligations in 2001.
Argentina received $1 billion worth of yuan earlier this month as part of the three-year currency-swap agreement with China, a central bank official in the South American country, who asked not to be identified because he isn’t authorized to speak publicly, said Dec. 11. That extended the funds transfered to Argentina to $2.3 billion since October. The swap is for a maximum of $11 billion over three years.

In Venezuela, President Nicolas Maduro last month added $4 billion he borrowed from China to the country’s reserves after they fell to an 11-year low. The country now has about $21 billion in its coffers, equal to the amount of debt it has coming due in 2015 and 2016.
China is clearly positioning to take over as the lender of last resort. With the US mint printing presses running at full steam and with China the only real winner with crashing oil prices, perhaps they will soon be offering up their Yuan to replace the US dollar as the reserve currency of the world. The Captain is prescient, as always.


I would also store cigarettes and fuel in your bunker.

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