Posted on 06/01/2009 10:50:52 AM PDT by balls
BEIJING -- U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Monday reassured the Chinese government that its huge holdings of dollar assets are safe and reaffirmed his faith in a strong U.S. currency.
A major goal of Geithner's maiden visit to China as Treasury chief is to allay concerns that Washington's bulging budget deficit and ultra-loose monetary policy will fan inflation, undermining both the dollar and U.S. bonds.
China is the biggest foreign owner of U.S. Treasury bonds. U.S. data shows that it held $768 billion in Treasuries as of March, but some analysts believe China's total U.S. dollar-denominated investments could be twice as high.
"Chinese assets are very safe," Geithner said in response to a question after a speech at Peking University, where he studied Chinese as a student in the 1980s.
His answer drew loud laughter from his student audience, reflecting scepticism in China about the wisdom of a developing country accumulating a vast stockpile of foreign reserves instead of spending the money to raise living standards at home.
The Beijing-based Global Times greeted Geithner by publishing a survey of Chinese economists who called big holdings of U.S. debt "risky."
Geithner renewed pledges that the Obama administration would cut its huge fiscal deficits and promised "very disciplined" future spending, possibly including reintroduction of pay-as-you-go budget rules instead of nonstop borrowing.
"We have the deepest and most liquid markets for risk-free assets in the world. We're committed to bring our fiscal deficits down over time to a sustainable level.
"We believe in a strong dollar ... and we're going to make sure that we repair and reform the financial system so that we sustain confidence," he said.
Geithner also offered strong backing for a bigger Chinese role in international policymaking.
(Excerpt) Read more at gold-speculator.com ...
Obama has faild now the long wait for his term to end going to be a lot of blood lost.
Timmy just isn’t believable...not in China...not in the US.
The Chinese students were laughing, but I'll bet the Chicom leaders aren't.
Anyone have video of the laughter?
The Chinese aren’t stupid.
And I’m sure the joke was lost on the tax cheat ...
I would have laughed too. "Your money is safe around obama" is as absurd as "your daughter is safe around Bill Clinton". If the Chinese are sensible, and I hope they are, they will dump American dollars and refuse to hold our currency or buy our bonds. It will hurt our country, but not as much as giving obama free access to more funding would hurt us.
According to what I’ve read (NOT confirmable by my own personal experiences) being laughed at in public by Asians is equivalent to having things thrown at you by westerners. They consider public mockery far more insulting than we do (not that we enjoy it, but anyway...). The books and articles I read which make this claim are mostly from the 1970s and 1980s, so perhaps that’s changed with “globalization”...maybe some FReepers living in Asian countries can confirm/deny...But if this is true, this incident is far more serious than the article’s writer is aware (or letting on).
You and I will pay for that as we see our money devalued from the inflation that will result.
How humiliating.
“His answer drew loud laughter from his student audience,”
Oh man. I hope so. How great would that be?
I almost like the Chicoms now.
They know that we have a band of half-wits in the White House. They know better than 52% of American voters.
So basically it’s the equivalent of having a shoe thrown at him.
They're now more capitalist than we are, that's for sure.
Meanwhile the vllage idiots - aka members of Congress, believe every word he says.
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