China Bond Default Gives US Leverage in any Economic War

Blue Collar Muse Blog ^ | 8-17-11 | Ken Marrero

[Blue Collar Muse]

Recently the US Congress voted, seemingly without regard to easily foreseen consequences, to increase the amount of debt it may issue by trillions of dollars. The amount of the increase in debt this vote permits is almost equal to the total US debt from just a few years ago.

The vote did not go unnoticed.

Here in Tennessee, the same voters who just months ago sent Republican Diane Black to the US House, were protesting in front of her office.

Abroad, it was not unnoticed by the People’s Republic of China (PRC), currently the largest holder of US debt. As of June of 2011, the PRC held $1.165 Trillion in US debt. From that position it has been rattling its economic saber.

Three times in the last two years, the PRC has downgraded its US credit rating, including twice since November. The last time was less than two weeks ago when Dagong Global Credit Rating Company, China’s top credit rating agency, dropped the US from an A+ to an A.

Two days ago, the PRC called for punishing the US for its foreign policy by means of a “financial weapon”. Xinhua, the press organ for the Communist government of China, called US lawmakers “arrogant and disrespectful” of China, calling for them to be taught a lesson from their place as the main US creditor.

[Brilliant]

The Chinese remind me of the muslims. They are incensed by people who don’t respect them or their god.

[Beaten Valve]

Well Obama’s sending Biden over there to straighten them out.

“Rotsa Ruck!”

(I’d love to be a fly on the wall at that meeting...)

[Brilliant]

Actually, the most humorous comment I heard was that Biden is going their to sell some treasury bills.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

.. PAST DUE. Red China is refusing to make payments on the goods and intellectual property they've stolen and extorted over the past couple of decades. What gives?

United States Free Enterprise, INC.

INVOICE

Capital, Goods and Services stolen and extorted by the Peoples Republic of China
FDI, Intellectual Property, technology, know how . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$ 2,500,000,000,000.00

Current payments due from the Peoples Republic of China . . . . . . . . $ 1,000,000,000,000.00
Remaining amount due . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $ 1,500,000,000,000.00

Your Treasury certificates are your payment receipts. Thank you.

[MeganC]

Middle Kingdom Syndrome.

The Chinese think that since they were once a force to be reckoned with (600 years ago) that the world owes them something. The problem is that India and Japan think the same thing and so do the Arabs.

[Dem Guard]

Note the article went on to say China owes U.S. citizens
750B from 1900-1939.

[cranked]

That’s a nice twist but it ignores the fact that they are the one’s holding our balls being when we need money, we turn to them to loan it to us. I know, an ironic thought, huh? Be glad you don’t owe me $1.165 trillion cause I’d be on you like white on rice while talking mad crap about you, bet. =.=

[MarMema]

So what is the financial weapon?

[Blue Collar Muse]

WC -

“Your Treasury certificates are your payment receipts. Thank you.”

I like your idea as a foreign policy and economic policy strategy. They’d be hard pressed to fuss since it’s the one they advocate ...

[Blue Collar Muse]

It would be the threat of refusing to buy even more debt which limits our ability to borrow more regardless of where we arbitrarily set our debt ceiling.

It would also be the threat of dumping the debt it holds which would have serious impact on our Economy here in the US.

These are the same tactics the US has used in the past to “encourage” nations to move toward a more democratic and capitalist position. However unsavory the manipulation the US brought to the table, nations like Japan and Germany can arguably said to have benefited from it. The bottom line is we were forcing change that had their best interests in mind. But China would not be doing the same thing. They would be manipulating us to take a position that is in their long term interest and not ours.

Or so it seems from here ...

[WilliamofCarmichael]

Anyone who thinks we owe them is NUTS!

They set the rules. We should play by their rules. IMO.

You know it's really bad if the Nytimese see a problem with commies.

Here

They owe us a hell of lot more than we owe them.. IMO.

For the United States, the No. 1 problem with China’s economy is probably intellectual property theft. . . Still, China’s leaders have reason to be nervous about all the [trade] barriers they have built. China’s elite, in government and business, are deeply concerned that their companies remain unable to create truly innovative products. The obsession with the fact that no Chinese citizen has won a scientific Nobel Prize stems partly from this worry.

They'll be stealing forever.

It's not just stealing software, music, and movies. It's all technology stolen outright or extorted as a condition of getting at all the cheap labor.

Red China will do something like seize all U.S. corporation property?

They plan to do it anyway. It's part of the Dengist version of Lenin's New Economic Plan (NEP). The Soviets pulled this trick 90 years ago the problem for them was that they acted too quickly and abandoned it when Stalin took over after Lenin died.