On Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 12:43 AM Georgi Guninski
On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 10:50:10PM +0000, Sean Lynch wrote:
The Chinese are pro-China, but they recognize that the US is a very large market for Chinese goods, and for now their economy is built on exports.
I think this is only partial explanation. China is _very big_ exporter.
The problem is not that the US has too much debt. The problem is that the US is running out of credit. And by "credit" I mean generically *trust.* No
Not according to the financial rating charlatans. USA rating varies between AAA/Aaa/AA+ (AAA is best possible AFAICT) .
Exactly. These are the same people who gave mortgage-backed securities the same rating. And we saw what happened the last time a ratings agency tried to downgrade US government debt: they got "investigated." All the ratings agencies have privileged standing in US law; many entities, in particular government pension plans, are only allowed to invest in "investment grade" instruments, with "investment grade" being determined by one of a specific set of corporations. Given that they're paid by the people selling the instruments rather than by investors, they'd just evaporate if they lost their special standing under US law. And this is after they were discussing default in congress and candidate
president wants to pay only 85% of the debt... Pretty much the definition of Ponzi scheme.
Yup. The Ponzi scheme most of the world's financial system is built on (is, really). So the question is, what form will its collapse take, and how long will it take? I'm not sure if I'd prefer that it be quick and extremely painful or slow to give people who have a clue what's going on time to insulate themselves.