currency manipulation / currency intervention

Capitalism 4.0: The Birth of a New Economy in the Aftermath of Crisis
by Anatole Kaletsky
Published 22 Jun 2010

Instead, the years ahead are likely to see increasingly explicit negotiations over trade imbalances and concerted currency interventions. There will be no return, however, to the government’s futile efforts in the 1960s and 1970s to take full control over international financial flows. Instead, currency interventions and global macroeconomic coordination in the future are likely to represent a pragmatic compromise between the precrisis period’s exaggerated faith in efficient markets and the overly prescriptive policies of the Keynesian Golden Age. Given that the U.S. and British governments were willing to engage in the massive currency interventions of the Plaza Agreement and the Louvre Accord in the mid-1980s, during the heyday of Thatcherism and Reaganomics, it is hard to see why governments of the future should consider any interference with market forces in foreign exchanges to be ideologically out of bounds.

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That governments must set parameters for global financial markets if economic stability is to be maintained, was recognized in the early phase of the free-market period, when Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were responsible for some of the biggest currency interventions and trade management decisions of all time.23 Many specific plans to influence currency movements and reduce imbalances have been proposed by prominent economists and politicians over the years. These plans have involved setting bands for acceptable exchange rate movements, automatic currency intervention under agreed conditions, integration of monetary and exchange rate policy, agreed ceilings on trade imbalances, and similar ideas.24 But none of the ideas for managing currencies, or international capital flows, or reconciling free trade with domestic macroeconomic objectives, could receive any serious attention in the ideological environment of the precrisis years.

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But with health care spending excluded, the United States spends just 57 percent of GDP on private consumption, in line with the spending, excluding health care, in other advanced economies such as Germany, Britain, and France.11 In short, the growth of America’s consumption in relation to its income has been due entirely to the cost of health care—and the gap has been steadily increasing for thirty years. It could be argued from these figures that U.S. health spending, even more than Chinese currency manipulation, Alan Greenspan’s monetary policy, lax regulation, or bankers’ greed, was the true cause of the credit crunch, the subprime crisis, and the collapse of Capitalism 3.3. Had President Obama focused more attention in the health care debate on costs and less on coverage of the uninsured, he might have managed to convince Americans that their present health care system was unsustainable and threatened bankruptcy not only for the government and individual businesses but for the entire nation.

Open: The Progressive Case for Free Trade, Immigration, and Global Capital
by Kimberly Clausing
Published 4 Mar 2019

This is likely for the best, since monetary policy (the actions of the central bank) can then be devoted to more useful ends, like working to counter recessions. The fact that other countries, including China and Switzerland, have managed exchange rate systems causes some observers to suggest that the US government take more active measures to deter foreign currency manipulation. To be sure, there are arguments for discouraging foreign currency manipulation. Interestingly, however, China’s latest currency interventions have actually been aimed at keeping the Chinese currency’s value higher, not lower—and have thus reduced the competitiveness of Chinese exports!4 Figure 6.4: Protection Doesn’t Help the Trade Balance Note: The correlation between the two variables is –0.34.

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(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015), 164–194. 3. See, as one example, the meta-analysis by Ross Levine and David Renelt. “A Sensitivity Analysis of Cross-Country Growth Regressions,” American Economic Review 82:4 (1992): 942–963. 4. See “China and Currency Manipulation,” Economist. March 2, 2017; and Eduardo Porter, “Trump Isn’t Wrong on China Currency Manipulation, Just Late,” New York Times, April 11, 2017. 5. 529 plans are so called because they are authorized by Section 529 of the Internal Revenue Code; likewise, 401K plans are named for the subsection that describes them. 6. Governments, like individuals, would be wiser to finance investments with their borrowings than to spend on greater consumption.

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By the time they formally join the agreement, that action itself has little effect on their behavior, and thus, on their trade patterns.10 In other words, foreign countries’ domestic policy decisions are likely the dominant factor increasing trade flows in recent decades—on top of the facilitating factors of reduced transportation costs, and even more important, dramatically lower communication costs. Trade agreements play a relatively minor role. For better or worse, many aspects of trade agreements actually have comparatively little to do with trade. For example, the TPP devoted much attention to intellectual property rights, labor standards, environmental standards, and currency manipulation. Whether these issues belong in trade agreements is an open question. In theory, there is no reason why issues outside trade cannot be included in trade agreements, but in practice, which issues should be included is often controversial. What Should Trade Agreements Do? Most agree that trade agreements are meant to liberalize trade among participant countries.

Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Gobal Crisis
by James Rickards
Published 10 Nov 2011

Brazil’s exports suffered not only at the high end against U.S. technology but also at the low end against Chinese assembly and textiles. Brazil fought back with currency intervention by its central bank, increases in reserve requirements on any local banks taking short positions in dollars, and other forms of capital controls. In late 2010, Lula’s successor as president, Dilma Rousseff, vowed to press the G20 and the IMF for rules that would identify currency manipulators—presumably both China and the United States—in order to relieve the upward pressure on the real. Brazil’s efforts to restrain the appreciation of the real met with some short-term success in late 2010 but immediately gave rise to another problem—inflation.

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As the export sector grew, China engaged in a series of six devaluations over ten years so that, by 1993, the yuan had been cheapened to a level of 5.32 yuan to the dollar. Then, on January 1, 1994, China announced a reformed system of foreign exchange and massively devalued the yuan to 8.7 to the dollar. That shock caused the U.S. Treasury to label China a currency “manipulator” pursuant to the 1988 Trade Act, which requires the Treasury to single out countries that are using exchange rates to gain unfair advantage in international trade. That was the last time Treasury used the manipulator label against China despite veiled threats to do so ever since. A series of mild revaluations followed in response so that, by 1997, the yuan was pegged at 8.28 to the dollar, where it remained practically unchanged until 2004.

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For a while, this human tragedy was masked by the easy money policies of Greenspan and Bernanke and the resulting euphoria of credit card spending, rising home prices, rising stock prices and large no-down-payment mortgages for all comers. Although there were some complaints about Chinese currency manipulation and lost American jobs in 2004 and 2005, these complaints were muted by the highly visible but ultimately nonsustainable prosperity of those years resulting from the easy money. When the music stopped abruptly in 2007 and the United States careened into the Panic of 2008, there was no longer a place for Chinese policy makers to hide.

Fed Up!: Success, Excess and Crisis Through the Eyes of a Hedge Fund Macro Trader
by Colin Lancaster
Published 3 May 2021

We are now down 30% from the peak. This has all happened so fast, in ten or so trading days. The VIX is back to the 2008 highs. For fuck’s sake, the VIX is at seventy-four. Central banks are trying to fight back. The ECB was a disaster, but globally, we are seeing more activity: interest-rate cuts, asset purchases, currency interventions, and liquidity injections. But they need to do even more. People are losing too much fucking money. Central banks need to fight back. The Fed is punching wildly to ease policy and lubricate the funding markets. It just turned the repo and T-bill purchasing program into full-blown QE. The Fed is taking it to $5.5 trillion, one of the largest amounts ever announced, $5.5 trillion to add grease to the system.

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China set a reference rate for the yuan at its weakest point in over a decade. Beijing wants a weaker currency; it helps foreign buyers purchase their goods and keeps them competitive. The PBOC set a daily midpoint for the yuan at 7.1293 per dollar, the lowest level since February 2008. Last year, the USA labelled the bank a currency manipulator when it hit a similar level. And Sleepy Joe Biden was on CNBC this morning, his first major appearance on the network. He’s entering the ramp to the November election, bringing it back into focus. In a rambling speech, he promised higher corporate taxes. I wonder why he has made that his opening salvo on CNBC of all places, particularly when most companies have been shut down and are struggling.

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All of this is like an extra period of recess in elementary school. There’s money to be made on all of these issues, a whole new array of investment themes. Idea generation is in high gear. This is what makes macro great. You get to learn about epidemiology, crude oil, Hong Kong Basic Law Article 23, currency manipulation, and US elections. I’m having fun again. I want to close out the month strong. I want to see some more PnL in these final days. Futures are up big as I wake up. Germany just sold more two-year bonds at auction. It was the strongest demand they’ve seen in nearly fifteen years. And the demand was there even though the bonds have a negative yield of −0.66%.

The Asian Financial Crisis 1995–98: Birth of the Age of Debt
by Russell Napier
Published 19 Jul 2021

Investors may find the return journey rather less enjoyable but can expect its duration to be limited. However, it may be particularly alarming if you jumped believing you were attached to elastic; beware – it’s a chain. With the dollar staying at current levels and Greenspan cutting interest rates, the outlook for Asian equity markets is excellent. The Asian economies operating currency intervention policies will be forced to adopt a loose monetary policy when they need a tight monetary policy. Asset prices will benefit. However, when the US dollar begins its rally, investors should be on notice that liquidity is tightening and growth is slowing. There is pain at the end of the chain.

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Greenspan is at least partially constrained in providing easier money due to the tightness in his domestic labour markets and the Bundesbank is concentrated on the political goal of creating a single currency within 12 months. Sadly, we are particularly reliant upon the most incompetent G7 monetary authority to fight the powers of deflation. So in the short term, the best that can be hoped for is that the events of Friday and the ensuing storms of today may persuade the G7 or the G3 to provide some currency intervention in Asia and thus some short-term relief. Then it is to be hoped that the Japanese can come up with the measures which finally turn the Japanese economy into a major source of consumption growth. Then will the fiat money system have fulfilled its role as a tool for alleviating the worst impacts of deflation.

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The oft-repeated mantra of the US secretary to the Treasury had long been that the United States favoured a strong US dollar policy. Now this same secretary to the Treasury was intervening in the market by selling US$2bn to buy yen in an attempt to depress the US dollar exchange rate: I felt that the conditions that can make a currency intervention effective might well be present. The first was that the yen-dollar exchange rate, now at 147 yen to the dollar, seemed to have gone to a real extreme – the yen was approaching free fall. American manufacturers, who were always worried about the level of the dollar, were becoming truly alarmed.

The Road to Ruin: The Global Elites' Secret Plan for the Next Financial Crisis
by James Rickards
Published 15 Nov 2016

Japanese insurance companies began to sell dollars for yen in order to have enough yen liquidity to pay property and casualty claims. Initially the yen rallied from ¥81.89 to one dollar on March 11, to ¥80.59 to the dollar by March 18, a 1.6 percent move in one week—huge by currency market standards. Then came the policy truncation. Christine Lagarde, French finance minister at the time, coordinated a G7 currency intervention to weaken the yen. This was considered necessary to boost the Japanese economy after the devastation. The intervention worked. By April 8, the yen had sunk to ¥84.70 to one dollar, a 5 percent drop from the post-Fukushima high. Lagarde’s finesse was another example of policy putting a lid on the Pandora’s box of complex state system dynamics.

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Since the 1970s, the United States has been on the receiving end of protectionism from Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and China. Today the high-value jobs of the future are created in Asia. This is not due to an initial comparative advantage in Asia, but rather a created comparative advantage through the use of protectionism and currency manipulation. Other defects in the theory of comparative advantage involve what are called externalities. These are hidden costs that do not enter into direct cost comparisons. China seems more efficient at mining than the United States because China dumps cyanide (used to extract metal from ore) into rivers.

American Made: Why Making Things Will Return Us to Greatness
by Dan Dimicco
Published 3 Mar 2015

A lot of times the answer to a question about currency manipulation or dumping or countervailing duties tended to be “You need to talk to somebody else about that.” I remember one meeting with Commerce Department officials where one of my fellow CEOs argued how one of the biggest impediments to the revival of U.S.-based manufacturing is Chinese currency manipulation. The response: “Well, that’s a Treasury Department issue. We don’t get into that.” I wasn’t too happy with that answer. But that’s the answer we get all the time. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t do us any good to say 50 percent of the problem is currency manipulation, and the other 50 percent is lax enforcement of international trade agreements, if nobody is on the same page and everyone guards their own little fiefdoms.

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All of those problems occurred in their overseas factories. We’ve tried quiet diplomacy. It’s failed miserably. We’ve tried to publicly shame China into stopping its illegal currency manipulation. President Obama appealed directly to Chinese leaders. China’s leaders flatly denied they’re doing anything wrong. And in the face of all evidence, the U.S. Treasury Department and the Commerce Department still refuse to label China as a currency manipulator. Where is the World Trade Organization in all of this? The WTO in 1995 replaced the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade with the idea of creating a formal process of resolving global trade disputes.

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We shouldn’t be shy about using bilateral and multilateral negotiations, either. What Good Can Institutions Do? You need accountability. That said, private enterprise cannot effectively fight foreign governments on trade disputes. Nucor, for example, cannot file an illegal steel dumping complaint with the WTO based on currency manipulation. We’ve tried to get the federal government to recognize currency manipulation as a subsidy, but we haven’t been successful. We’ll keep trying to persuade our political leaders that we’re right, because the truth is, any answer to our foreign-trade imbalance requires a government-to-government solution. I had the honor of serving on the U.S.

Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science (Fully Revised and Updated)
by Charles Wheelan
Published 18 Apr 2010

Countries can also enter the foreign exchange market directly, buying or selling their currencies in an effort to change their relative value, as the British government tried to do while fighting off the 1992 devaluation. Given the enormous size of the foreign exchange market—with literally trillions of dollars in currencies changing hands every day—most governments don’t have deep enough pockets to make much of a difference. As the British government and many others have learned, a currency intervention can feel like trying to warm up a cold bathtub with one spoonful of hot water at a time, particularly while speculators are doing the opposite. As the British government was buying pounds, Soros and others were selling them—effectively dumping cold water in the same tub. We still haven’t really answered the basic question at the beginning of the chapter: How many yen should a dollar be worth?

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(Ironically, a weak currency can also harm exporters by making any imported inputs more expensive.) A government that deliberately keeps its currency undervalued is essentially taxing consumers of imports and subsidizing producers of exports. An overvalued currency does the opposite—making imports artificially cheap and exports less competitive with the rest of the world. Currency manipulation is like any other kind of government intervention: It may serve some constructive economic purpose—or it may divert an economy’s resources from their most efficient use. Would you support a tax that collected a significant fee on every imported good you bought and used the revenue to mail checks to firms that produce exports?

The New Depression: The Breakdown of the Paper Money Economy
by Richard Duncan
Published 2 Apr 2012

Gradually, it became apparent that a country could gain an export advantage if its central bank created fiat money and used it to buy the currencies of its trading partners. Such intervention served to push up the value of the other currencies and depress the value of the currency being created, making the products of the currency-manipulating country more price competitive in the international marketplace. Central banks accumulated approximately $6.7 trillion worth of foreign exchange between 1971 and 2007, when the global economic crisis began to take hold. (See Exhibit 2.1.) To do so, they created the equivalent of $6.7 trillion worth of their own fiat money.

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The reason the dollar does not depreciate enough to correct the U.S. trade deficit is because many of the countries that the United States trades with are manipulating the currency’s value by creating fiat money and buying dollars. The extent to which a country acts in this manner can be seen in the amount of foreign exchange that country’s central bank holds. Thus the U.S. trade deficit and its financial account surplus are both the result of fiat money creation and currency manipulation by many of the United States’ trading partners. While fiat money created for this purpose is not solely responsible for bringing about the global economic crisis, it has been one of the leading culprits. What Percentage of Total Foreign Exchange Reserves Are Dollars? Most countries disclose the breakdown of their foreign exchange reserves by currency.

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And, Investment > (Savings + Fiat money creation) = Current account deficit Thus, it has not been a savings imbalance so much as an imbalance in the amount of paper money being created by the world’s central banks that is responsible for the global imbalances that destabilized the world. Seen in this light, it is clear that the paper money creation by the PBOC and other currency manipulating central banks, which amounted to nearly $5 trillion between 1999 and 2007 alone, is responsible for destabilizing the world economy, and not differences in the rate of real “savings,” as Bernanke contends. China’s economy has been growing at roughly 10 percent a year for two decades. It has the highest level of investment relative to GDP any country has ever experienced (46 percent in 2009).

The Scandal of Money
by George Gilder
Published 23 Feb 2016

As the economist John Mauldin points out, “The simple fact is that [before this recent minor devaluation] the Chinese currency rose by 20 percent over the last five years.” Measured by the vigor of intervention, he says, “the Federal Reserve has been the most egregious currency manipulator in the world” during this same period. “Trump and all those who prattle on about Chinese currency manipulation have the economic comprehension of a parakeet.” Stockman’s charge is more interesting because it is based on an array of astonishing figures. It is indeed stunning that China produced ten times more steel over the last twenty years than did the United States and Japan together and “used more cement in the last three years than the U.S. used in the entire twentieth century.”

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For refusing to float and defending the dollar against Washington’s devaluers, China has been rewarded with a huge increase in trade with the United States. It is for muting currency changes and supporting the dollar that China incurs continual charges of “currency manipulation” from American politicians and government officials who advocate constant currency manipulation by the Federal Reserve. Nonetheless, while attempting to appease a long list of utterly unappeasable foes—Iran, North Korea, Hamas, Hezbollah, Cuba, and even the fractious followers of Hugo Chávez—the United States all too often treats China, perhaps our most important economic partner, as an adversary because it defies us on global warming, dollar devaluation, and Internet policy.

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Reinforced with arachnoid webs of government regulation and control, these combinations of economic and political power are the primary cause of economic stagnation in the world. Since the economic crisis of 2008, Washington has used monetary policy to effectively nationalize the Wall Street banks and subsidize their borrowing. Enormous sums of investment money are diverted from the real work of learning that builds wealth into currency manipulations and “investments” in government debt. The once-great Wall Street banks in turn subsidize the political campaigns of their Washington benefactors. If Friedman had lived to see what monetarism has begotten, he would disown it. Refuting this rare error of Friedman’s is therefore essential to saving the very freedoms that he dauntlessly championed throughout his career.

Trade Wars Are Class Wars: How Rising Inequality Distorts the Global Economy and Threatens International Peace
by Matthew C. Klein
Published 18 May 2020

Regardless of intent, the combination of large and persistent trade surpluses, sustained state-sponsored purchases of foreign financial assets, and managed exchange rates has been economically equivalent to mercantilism through currency manipulation. Instead of tariffs or quotas to discourage imports, governments simply hold down the value of their currencies, suppress interest rates, and otherwise subsidize exporters, gaining export market share while keeping out foreign goods.29 The single most consequential practitioner of self-insurance (or currency manipulation) has been the Chinese government, which has accumulated more reserves than any other country in history. By the eve of the Asian crisis, China’s State Administration for Foreign Exchange (SAFE), the entity charged with managing the reserves of the People’s Bank of China, owned about $100 billion of reserve assets.

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Some estimates show that he would have lost the general election had it not been for the trade-induced radicalization of voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.1 As president, Trump has followed through by levying punitive tariffs on most Chinese imports, by officially designating the country a “currency manipulator,” and by blocking Chinese investments into U.S. companies. Unlike most of Trump’s other policies, confronting China over trade has been popular across the American political spectrum. Charles Schumer, the lead Democrat in the Senate, praised the punitive tariffs in 2018 because “China is our real trade enemy” and “threatens millions of future American jobs.”2 This political consensus is based on an important truth: Chinese government policies before 2008 destroyed millions of U.S. jobs and inflated the housing debt bubble.

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Sources: Bank for International Settlements; Matthew Klein’s calculations Inflation, of course, is a measure of consumer prices, and the Chinese government was already committed to suppressing consumption to support additional investment and exports. Those other measures were even more important than currency manipulation at generating the massive trade surpluses during this period. Many of these measures are regulatory. Property rights are often ignored, which allows local governments to seize valuable land from Chinese households to sell to developers. Expropriations were encouraged by the central government’s incentive system for local party officials.

What's Next?: Unconventional Wisdom on the Future of the World Economy
by David Hale and Lyric Hughes Hale
Published 23 May 2011

The Fed’s policy will also force other countries to pursue expansionary monetary policies in order to prevent their own currencies from appreciating excessively. Japan has engaged in currency market intervention and announced its own quantitative easing program to stem the appreciation of the yen. Developing countries in both East Asia and Latin America are engaging in currency intervention that could nurture more domestic monetary growth. The European currency has suffered from investor concerns about the debt servicing problems of peripheral countries such as Greece, Ireland, and Portugal. The European Union intervened to rescue Greece in May 2010 and created a special fund to help other countries, which helped Ireland in November.

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See credit default swaps (CDSs) Central Africa, 126 central banks, Asia, 82–83; asset buying by, 81; demand for gold by, 169–170, 174–175; money supply and, 246–248; selling public debt to, 259 Chile, 8, 33, 48, 49, 51 China, xv, xx; Australian exports to, 145–146; climate change and, xxvi, 225; consumption in, 89–90; currency intervention by, 10; economic growth in, 10, 52; economy of, xxiii, 24; equity markets, 83–84, 85; excess of thrift in, 88–89; as financial capital, 245–246; financial sector in, xxvii; fiscal deficit, 257; gold market in, 170–171; gold reserves, xxv, 168–169, 170, 174; household incomes in, 89; influence of, in Africa, 122–123; labor costs in, 86–87, 89–90; monetary policy, 10; savings rate in, 245–246; structural shift in, 84–85 Citigroup, 272 Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), 225 climate change, adaptation to, 227–229; Canada and, xviii, 27–28; future outcomes for, 224–225; international agreements on, 220–223; oil industry and, xxv, 189–191; public policy and, xxvi–xxvii, 219–230; South Africa and, xxii coal, 125 Coates, John, 290 cognitive abilities, 293–294 cognitive biases, 287, 288–289 collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), 275 Colombia, 33, 48, 49 commodity prices, xv, xxii, 50, 52–54, 117, 195 Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), 122 compensation plans, 277 composite currencies, 161–163 Conference of the Parties to the Convention (COP), 222 confirmatory evidence, 288 conflicts, in Sub-Saharan Africa, 123–124 Congdon, Tim, xxvii Constitutionalist Revolution (1906), 206 consumer debt, 18–19 Consumer Protection Financial Bureau, 267, 269 consumer spending, 8, 18 consumption-based taxes, 261–263 Copenhagen Accord, 222, 225 Cordero, Ernesto, 45 corporate compliance, xxviii–xxix, 271–282 corporate governance, 267, 268 corporate profits, 8 corporate sector: Canada, 20; US, xvi, 4, 8 corporate taxes, 260 cortisol, 290 Costa Rica, 48 Côte D’Ivoire, 127 credit default swaps (CDSs), 275 creditor status, 156 Creel, Santiago, 37, 45 crime, in Mexico, 43 culture of ethics, 276–280 currencies: African, 122; composite, 161–163; domestic, 155; international, 155–156; synthetic, 161–163.

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See credit default swaps (CDSs) Central Africa, 126 central banks, Asia, 82–83; asset buying by, 81; demand for gold by, 169–170, 174–175; money supply and, 246–248; selling public debt to, 259 Chile, 8, 33, 48, 49, 51 China, xv, xx; Australian exports to, 145–146; climate change and, xxvi, 225; consumption in, 89–90; currency intervention by, 10; economic growth in, 10, 52; economy of, xxiii, 24; equity markets, 83–84, 85; excess of thrift in, 88–89; as financial capital, 245–246; financial sector in, xxvii; fiscal deficit, 257; gold market in, 170–171; gold reserves, xxv, 168–169, 170, 174; household incomes in, 89; influence of, in Africa, 122–123; labor costs in, 86–87, 89–90; monetary policy, 10; savings rate in, 245–246; structural shift in, 84–85 Citigroup, 272 Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), 225 climate change, adaptation to, 227–229; Canada and, xviii, 27–28; future outcomes for, 224–225; international agreements on, 220–223; oil industry and, xxv, 189–191; public policy and, xxvi–xxvii, 219–230; South Africa and, xxii coal, 125 Coates, John, 290 cognitive abilities, 293–294 cognitive biases, 287, 288–289 collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), 275 Colombia, 33, 48, 49 commodity prices, xv, xxii, 50, 52–54, 117, 195 Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), 122 compensation plans, 277 composite currencies, 161–163 Conference of the Parties to the Convention (COP), 222 confirmatory evidence, 288 conflicts, in Sub-Saharan Africa, 123–124 Congdon, Tim, xxvii Constitutionalist Revolution (1906), 206 consumer debt, 18–19 Consumer Protection Financial Bureau, 267, 269 consumer spending, 8, 18 consumption-based taxes, 261–263 Copenhagen Accord, 222, 225 Cordero, Ernesto, 45 corporate compliance, xxviii–xxix, 271–282 corporate governance, 267, 268 corporate profits, 8 corporate sector: Canada, 20; US, xvi, 4, 8 corporate taxes, 260 cortisol, 290 Costa Rica, 48 Côte D’Ivoire, 127 credit default swaps (CDSs), 275 creditor status, 156 Creel, Santiago, 37, 45 crime, in Mexico, 43 culture of ethics, 276–280 currencies: African, 122; composite, 161–163; domestic, 155; international, 155–156; synthetic, 161–163. See also dollar; reserve currency currency intervention, 9–10 currency speculation, 250–255 Daragahi, Borzou, 209 Davos consensus, 285–286 debt deflation, 80–81 Decalogue, 39–44 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, 41, 185–186 deficit reduction, xvii, 5, 10–11 deflation, xxi, 96–97, 100, 173, 247 Democratic Party, 6, 12–13 Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), xxi, 102–104, 106, 109–111, 113–114 Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), xxii, 126 Demographics: in Canada, 25–26; fiscal imbalances and, 258; in Latin America, xx, 51 Denmark, 113 derivatives, 267, 268 developing countries, climate change and, 225, 226 Dodd, Christopher, 264 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, xxviii, 264–270 Dollar: Australian, 146; Canadian, 23; devaluation of US, xvii, 7, 25; US, as reserve currency, xxiv, 153–165; weakening of US, and commodity prices, 53 domestic currency, 155 DPJ.

Broken Markets: A User's Guide to the Post-Finance Economy
by Kevin Mellyn
Published 18 Jun 2012

Otherwise, the money China earned making and selling Broken Markets the TVs would simply melt away as the dollar lost value and the RMB gained value in the currency markets.This is always the case, because when a country runs a trade surplus, its currency becomes stronger relative to the promises to pay being pumped out the deficit ­country in exchange for goods. Absent the Chinese authorities’ actions to keep the RMB from appreciating too much relative to the dollar, Chinese internal costs would be much higher. Currency Manipulation or Fair Dealing? This is why China regularly stands accused of currency manipulation—an unfair trade policy in the eyes of American politicians. The “problem” of the Chinese trade surplus with the United States is simplistically attributed to artificially low Chinese costs in dollar terms. The truth cuts both ways: if China did not carefully restrict the use of its currency in international markets—in banker-speak, if the RMB was freely convertible at market prices—its currency would no doubt be substantially higher in dollar terms.

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One of the ironies of the whole drama is that although many Germans would like to return to their beloved Deutsche Mark and leave the euro to the profligate, the German business community knows better.The German exporters sell on quality and innovation, but there is a point at which an expensive Broken Markets currency just prices you out of whole markets.The euro makes German goods more affordable to other Europeans than if they had retained their previous, weaker national currencies. Equally, although the euro has been expensive in dollar terms for several years, overall it has probably been cheaper than the old Deutsche Mark would have been given the same German export success. In this sense, it has had some of the same benefits as the currency manipulation that China (and before that Japan) has been pilloried for over the years. Nobody can be certain of the costs for any country of leaving the euro—or, if a major country defaults, the costs staying in. The Maastricht Treaty—the treaty that launched the European Union—left no line of retreat; joining the euro was specifically intended to be an irreversible decision with no escape hatches allowed.

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eBook <www.wowebook.com> 170 Index Global whirlwinds (continued) economic primacy, 113 European banking crisis ECB, 102–103 federal funds market, 102 Federal Reserve, 103 global money market, 102 interbank market, 101 interbank-lending market, 102 interest rate and currency risks, 101 investment-banking industry, 101 recession, 103 short-and medium-term credit, 101 short-term funding and liquidity, 101 sovereign risk, 102 steroids, 103 globalization, 113 global money pump, 103–105 global trade, zero-sum game ants and grasshoppers, 96 cheap TV deal, 94–95 Chinese Central Bank, 94 currency manipulation, 95–96 multilateral trade, 94 political demagoguery, 94 hegemon, 113–116 sustainable development, 112 technology vs. friction, 105–106 US global economic leadership, 112 US losing clout, 111–112 war, settlement risk, 108–109 Western decline acceleration, 113 Government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), 17 Graham-Leach-Bliley Act, 36 Great Depression, 5, 44, 61 Great Moderation, 16–18, 21, 61 “Green” economy, 85 Growth-killing austerity, 111 H Home equity lines of credit (HELOCs), 16 I Industrial Revolution, 77 Infinite customization, 68 J Joint-stock banking, 63, 76 L Laissez-faire economy, 84–86 Liberal arts, 132 Life after finance, 75 credit-driven economy, 76–77 death knell, consumer credit American optimism, 90 big data, 90 entrepreneurs starvation, 91–92 loan factories, 90 per-account/per-transaction, 90 securitization, 90 unbanking, 91 financial repression Bretton Woods system, 79 capital exports and foreignexchange transactions, 79 captive domestic audience, 79 debt restructuring, 78 GDP, 79 government banks ownership, 79 industrial policy, 86 monopolies, 86 negative real interest rates, 78, 79 prudential regulation, 79 rules, 80 subsidized green energy, 86 tax raising and lowering, 81–82 World War II, 79 Government expenditure, 75–76 low interest rates, 77–78 political direction, credit and investment formal taxation, 82 government-run utility, 83 Japanese banks, 83 laissez-faire economy myth, 84–86 Index market-driven banking system, 83 winners and losers, 83–84 risky business amalgamation, 88 coincidence, 88 competition, 89–90 joint-stock banks, 87 often-contradictory rules and requirements, 88 private partnerships, 87 separation of functions, 87 shareholder-owned banks, 87 small-town banks, 87 Life-line banking, 70 R Liquidity trap, 72 Ring fencing, 88 London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR), 102 Rules-based regulation, 59, 61 M S “Market-centric” financial system, 110 Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS), 108 Regulation process “Anglo-Saxon” world, 36 balance sheets and trading desks, 35 definition, 36 finance deregulation, 35–36 Graham-Leach-Bliley Act, 36 Triple A–rated bonds, 37 “ultra-safe” money market mutual fund, 37 Regulatory arbitrage, 61 Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC), 31 Savings-and-loan (S&L) industry, 28, 30 Mass-market retail banking, 66 Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rules, 33 McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), 110 S&L industry.See Savings-and-loan industry Micro-regulation, 92 Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), 83 Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT), 107 Moral hazard, 18 Straight-through procession, 107 N National Bank Act, 49 National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), 78 O Outsourcing, 13 P Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE), 90 Price discovery, 104 Principles-based regulation, 59 Printing money, 78 Professional/proprietary trading, 12 Subprime mortgage market, 66 T The Dodd-Frank Act, 49 Trillion-pound banking groups, 60 Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), 39 U US Federal Reserve, 6 V Volcker rule, 88 W Working capital, 11 171 Broken Markets A User’s Guide to the Post-Finance Economy Kevin Mellyn Broken Markets: A User’s Guide to the Post-Finance Economy Copyright © 2012 by Kevin Mellyn All rights reserved.

Why It's Still Kicking Off Everywhere: The New Global Revolutions
by Paul Mason
Published 30 Sep 2013

For if the state can’t contain the crisis, the crisis will move on to relationships between states and classes. Brazil’s finance minister has already fired the warning shots. At the World Trade Organization in January 2011, exasperated by the impact of QEII, he threatened to sanction the USA for currency manipulation: ‘This’, he affirmed, ‘is a currency war that is turning into a trade war.’22 As monetary stimulus becomes currency manipulation and G20 summit agreements give way to summits that end inconclusively (as in Seoul in 2010), the possibility looms of trade wars, outright competitive devaluations and the nuclear option of debt default. As one bond market participant put it to me, we are no longer dealing with market forces: ‘all market risk is now political risk’.

…

Saudi Arabia stood exactly where England had stood as Europe raged 150 years ago: with food price stability and minimal unrest.21 Commodity price inflation, as all global agencies agree, hammers the poor. It turns the ‘acceptable’ poverty of $2 a day into utter destitution. And the problem is that it has become endemic. Every economic recovery now sparks a commodity boom, mainly because of structural factors which currency manipulation by rich countries only exacerbates: population growth, rising demand in India and China, resource scarcity and the impact of climate change. As the experts bicker over the precise role of poverty and food inflation in the Arab Spring, they do so to the sound of unrest across the developing world.

…

P. 127 cellphones 75–76, 133–34 Central Security (Egypt) 9, 11, 17 Challenge of Slums, The (UN) 198–99 Charles, Prince 51–52 Chávez, Hugo 33 China 38, 78, 108, 112, 121, 125; consumption 109; foreign currency reserves 107; monetary policy 123 Chomsky, N. 28–29 Chris (student demonstrator) 48 Cinco, Mena 196–98, 206, 206–9 Citigroup 67 civil disobedience 56 class struggles 131 Clegg, Nick 44 Climate Camp movement 1, 55 Clinton, Hillary 26 collaborative production 139–41 Coming Insurrection, The 189–91 commodity price inflation 120–22, 195 communes 189, 190 Communiqué from an Absent Future 38–39 Communist Manifesto, The (Marx and Engels) 174, 188–89 communists 80 computer gamers 136 Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition 44 consumption, and self-esteem 80–81 control 148 co-operatives 84 corruption, threat of 177–78, 205 creative destruction 106 credit crisis 106, 109 credit default swaps 99, 107 Critical Legal Thinking website 54 cross-border links 69–70 Cruz, Gloria 204 cultural stereotypes 27 culture: mass 29–30; popular 65, 176; transnational 69; working-class 72; youth 70 culture wars 178–84 currency manipulation 121–22 currency war 122–24 cyber-repression 78 Czechoslovakia 173 Darkness at Noon (Koestler) 128–29 Davies, Nick 148 Davos 17, 111 Dawkins, Richard 75, 150 Day X, 24 November 2010, London 41–42, 46–48 Debord, Guy 42, 46–17, 51 debt, toxic 110–11 default theory 111 deflationary slump 123 Deleuze, Gilles 46, 85 Delius, Frederick 127, 132, 152, 176 democratic counter-revolution 177, 188 demographics of revolt 66, 66–73; Athens, December 2008 uprising 73; students 66–71; the urban poor 70–72 Deptford 57 Detrick, Terry 154, 155–56, 156 devaluation 91, 122–23 @digitalmaverick 1–2 discontent, three tribes 68–69 disillusionment 68–69 disinformation, counteracting 146 disposable income 67 Dodd–Frank Act (USA) 167 @dougald 1 Dubstep Rebellion 48–52; blog 52; the Book Bloc 50–51; casualties 51; Fleet Street photographers 51; graffiti 51; marchers 49; police–student confrontation 50–51 durable authoritarianism 27, 30, 191 Durkheim, Emile 103–4 Dworkin, Ronald 46 eBay 74 e-commerce 81 economic crisis 3; revolutions, 1848 173 economic stagnation 191–92 economic theory 111 Economist, the 25 egoism 132 Egypt: bread prices 11; democratic counter-revolution 177; economic growth 119; economic indicators 119–20; elections, November 2011 177; Gini Index 119; inflation 120–21; opposition movement 10; organized workforce 72; police corruption 11; privatizations 17–18; unemployment 119–120; urban poor 71; working class 19–20 Egyptian revolution, the: the Army and 178; balance sheet 5; bread prices 11; casualties 17; chants 191, 211; counter-revolution 18; Day of Rage, 28 May 15–17; and Facebook 6, 10, 11, 12, 14; freedom 5; immolations 11, 71; Internet switched off 14; medical professions 20–22; military coup 17–19; numbers involved 13; outbreak, 25 January 10–14, 83; police violence 15; questions facing 23–24; Twitter blocked 14; Twitter feeds 13, 14; ultras 16–17; working class 20; on YouTube 11, 14, 15–16; zabbaleen riots 6–10 email 10 emancipated life 143–44 Engels, Friedrich 174, 188–89, 190 @eponymousthing 184 equity withdrawal 114 Estero de San Miguel, Manila 196–99, 205–6, 206–9 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The (film) 29 Eurobonds 113 Eurocrisis, the 111–13 European Central Bank 92, 98, 104, 112 European Financial Stability Facility 92, 104 European Financial Stabilization Facility 113 European monetary union 112, 113 European Union: response to Greek debt crisis 91–92, 96, 98–99, 104; sovereign debt crisis 104 Europe, revolutions, 1848 172 Eurozone 104; debt crisis 91–92, 99, 111–13 Execution of Maximilian (Manet) 53 exploitation 85 Facebook 74; Arab world growth of 135; and the Egyptian revolution 6, 10, 11, 12, 14; establishing connections with 75; ‘We are all Khaled Said’ page 11; and the Iranian revolution 34; and London trade-union demonstration, March 2011 57–58; Middle East usage 135; reciprocity 77; user numbers 135 Farewell to the Working Class (Gorz) 79–80 fatalism 30, 31 feedback loops 187 Feldstein–Horioka paradox 107 Feldstein, Martin 107 Fennimore and Gerda (Delius) 127, 132 First World War 128 Fisher, Mark 30 Flaubert, Gustave 171, 192 Flickr 10, 75 Food Price Index 121 Fordist era 28 Foucault, Michel 46, 84–85 fragmentation 80–81, 82 fragmented power 17 ‘Fragment on Machines’ (Marx) 143–44 France 173; Languedoc, 1848 174, 187; socialism 188; see also Paris freedom 27, 124; of expression 127; individual 127–30; Marx on 141–42; suppression of 131–33 Freeman, Richard 108 free-market economics 92, 188 Friedman, Milton 111 Fukuyama, Francis 30 G20 Summit, 2009 48, 122 Gaddafi, Muammar 25, 31 Gapan City, Philippines 193–96 Gates, Bill 23, 110 gay rights 132 Gaza 37; Israeli invasion of 33 Gaza City 31 Gaza Flotilla, May 2010 55 general intellect, the 144, 145–47 General Motors 39 Germany 113, 191; revolution of 1848 172; wages 108, 112 @Ghonim 13 Giddens, Anthony 31 Gide, André 127 Giffords, Gabrielle 182 Gini Index 119 Gladwell, Malcolm 81–82, 83 global capital flows 107–8 global financial crisis 31, 39, 66–67, 85, 110–11, 115, 191 globalization 69,72, 105, 108, 109, 122, 124, 149, 191 Golkar, Saeid 78 Googlebombs 78 Gorz, André 79–80, 143 graduate with no future, the 66–73, 96–97; disposable income 67; as international sub-class 69; life-arc 67; numbers 70; revolutionary role 72–73; and the urban poor 70–71 Grapes of Wrath, The (Steinbeck) 153, 155, 159, 163, 164 Great Britain: anti-road movement 56; benefit system 113–14; changing forms of protest 54–57; collapse of Labour 113–15; devaluation 123; Education Maintenance Allowance 47; end of winter of discontent 61–62; equity withdrawal 114; European elections, 2009 115; general election, 2010 43; the graduate with no future 96–97; Millbank riot 42–44; non-UK born workers 115; police failures 61; public spending cuts 54–55; radical tactics 54–57; spontaneous horizontalists 44–46; Strategic Security and Defence Review 124; student population 70; UK Uncut actions 54–55; university fees 44, 47, 50, 54; youth 41–42, 44, 53–54; youth unemployment 66 Great Depression, lessons of 123–25 Great Doubling 108 Great Unrest, 1914 175–76 Greece 37, 188; anomic breakdown 103–4; austerity programme 92–93, 102; bailouts 92, 96, 98, 113; cabinet reshuffle 96, 97–98; debt crisis 90, 91–92, 98–99, 112; GDP 91; general election, 2009 91; general strike 99; the left 100; media ownership 87; Medium Term Fiscal Strategy 91; model of capitalism 102; MP resignations 89; Papandreou government falls 96; political legitimacy lost 104; the salariat 101; tax evasion 97; tax revenues 92; tax system 91; see also Athens Greek Communist Party (KKE) 88, 90 Grigoropoulos, Alexandras 32 grime (music) 52 Grossman, Vasily 129 @GSquare86 69 Guindi, Ezzat 9 hackers 35 el-Hamalawy, Hossam, @3arabawy 10, 22, 71 Hardy, Simon 69 Hayek, Friedrich 111, 209 Henderson, Maurice 161–62 Hennawy, Abd El Rahman, @Hennawy89 12–13 Here Comes Everybody (Shirky) 138 Herman, Edward S. 28–29 hidemyass.com 14 hierarchy: erosion of 80–81; informal 83; predictability of 77 higher education market 67 Hill, Joe 176 historical materialism 131 Hogge, Becky 140 homelessness 159–63 Hoon, Geoff 114 Horioka, Charles 107 horizontalism 45, 55, 56, 62, 100 Huffington Post blog 184 human rights 143 Hungary 172 Ian’s Pizza, Madison, Wisconsin 184 Ibrahim, Gigi, @GSquare86 69 ideology 29, 149 immolations 11, 32, 71 impotence, zeitgeist of 29–30 impoverishment 209 Inception (film) 29 India 120–21 Indiana 116–17, 125 indignados, the 88, 100–1, 104 individual: freedom of 127–30; power of the 65, 79; rise of the 127–30 Indorama group 22 industrialization 192 Indymedia 74 inequality 209 inflation 109, 120–21 info-capitalism 148, 211 info-hierarchies 147–52 info-revolution, the 146, 149–50 informal hierarchies 83 information capitalism 145 information management 147 information networks 77 information tools 75 Inkster, Nigel 65 institutional loyalty 68 interest rates 67 International Labour Organization 19–20, 120 International Monetary Fund 92 Internet consciousness 136–38 Internet, the: access in slums 207; Arab world growth 135; and behaviour changes 131; and the Iranian revolution 35; out of reach for some 152; power of 29; shutdowns 14, 78; and the spread of ideas 150–51 investment, and savings 107 Invisible Committee, the 189–91 Iran 25; causes of failure of revolution 36–37; election, 2009 33–34; and the Internet 35; and the Middle East balance of power 178; rooftop poems 36; Twitter Revolution 33–37, 78, 178; on YouTube 34, 35 Iraq 25, 55 Ireland 92, 111, 112, 188 Islam 30, 37 Israel 26, 33, 179–80 Italy 104 Jakarta 33 James, C.

The Shifts and the Shocks: What We've Learned--And Have Still to Learn--From the Financial Crisis
by Martin Wolf
Published 24 Nov 2015

Professor Lin emphasizes, among these, the virtually non-existent taxation of profits, low royalties on natural resources, the use of the monopolistic state-owned financial sector as a way of taxing savers via low interest rates on deposits, and the monopoly power of financial and telecommunications industries. Yet, as Professor Pettis argues, currency intervention also increases corporate profitability, by keeping the real exchange rate undervalued.22 A crucial element in the story was massive intervention in currency markets by governments, mainly of emerging countries. It is possible to distinguish four reasons for this. The first, particularly relevant to the oil exporters, was accumulation of supposedly high-quality foreign assets, often government bonds.

…

This is a role it has played, for better or worse, since the First World War.32 Meanwhile, the countries intervening in foreign-exchange markets and exporting savings had to stabilize their own economies. Among other things, this meant ensuring that the consequences of export surpluses, including the monetary results of the currency interventions, were offset or sterilized, to avoid chronic excess demand. Thus, when a foreign central bank buys dollars at a pre-determined exchange rate, it creates domestic currency, which it hands over in return for the holdings of foreign currency. This newly created domestic-base money is deposited in domestic banks, which then hold a claim on the central bank and a liability to their domestic customer.

…

Such a ‘balance-sheet recession’ is the biggest danger consequent upon a huge credit boom.40 The second aspect concerns the structure of balance sheets. Overall demand for high-grade assets – particularly investment-grade bonds – exceeded the supply in the years preceding the crisis, driving prices up and yields down. This was partly because of those huge current-account surpluses, foreign-currency interventions and consequent demands for safe assets. Many investors – particularly those concerned with providing incomes in retirement, such as pension funds – needed higher returns than government bonds provided, while stocks looked less attractive after the collapse of the market in 2000. The market’s response was to mass-produce higher-yielding, pseudo-high-grade assets.

War and Gold: A Five-Hundred-Year History of Empires, Adventures, and Debt
by Kwasi Kwarteng
Published 12 May 2014

In a paper entitled ‘Caliban: The Future of Sterling’, written in June 1949, Hall applied his formidable powers of analysis to the problem of the British currency. He started his memorandum in a defensive way: ‘It is often felt that there is something disreputable in changing the gold or other parity of a country.’ This was the ‘19th century view’, based on the ‘quite proper reason that currency manipulation was usually disastrous in practice, and partly on the feeling that gold was the nearest thing to a fixed standard of value’. In Hall’s lucid and delightfully jargon-free account, the view in the nineteenth century had been that ‘to write down deliberately the gold content of paper money was in effect cheating all those who had been persuaded to take the money’.

…

They also ‘reintroduced tax rebates for exports’ to aid their exporters who might otherwise be expected to lobby the government to devalue the currency. The Chinese leaders also ‘noted with shock the ability of a convertible currency to take a country’s ropy banking system to the point of collapse’.28 The stance of China’s leaders is ironic, given that the same Americans who intermittently criticized China for being a currency manipulator applauded its stability in 1997. The Chinese were praised by US officials during the crisis for ‘holding the line’, even though in Beijing they just thought they were being consistent. In the summer of 1999, the Economist of London stated that a devaluation of the yuan was ‘now increasingly likely’.29 In February 1998, the magazine Business China confidently expected that ‘the present RMB: dollar exchange rate can last until the last quarter of 1998 or the first quarter of 1999’.

…

In the summer of 1999, the Economist of London stated that a devaluation of the yuan was ‘now increasingly likely’.29 In February 1998, the magazine Business China confidently expected that ‘the present RMB: dollar exchange rate can last until the last quarter of 1998 or the first quarter of 1999’. Then, the magazine believed, the rate would ‘be adjusted down about 11% to RMB 9.3: US$1’.30 The Chinese leaders themselves would have found the comments of the Western press amusing. On the one hand, they were accused of being currency manipulators and keeping their currency undervalued. On the other, when most foreign commentators widely expected the Chinese to devalue their currency even further during the crisis, they did not in fact do so. The Chinese, however, had always maintained that their policy of pegging the yuan to the dollar was not ‘meant to favour exports over imports, but instead to foster economic stability by tying its currency to the US dollar at a constant level’.

The Dollar Meltdown: Surviving the Coming Currency Crisis With Gold, Oil, and Other Unconventional Investments
by Charles Goyette
Published 29 Oct 2009

By seven o’clock in the evening, the secretary and the chairman were meeting with congressional leaders to discuss what eventually became the $700 billion taxpayer-funded bailout. The next morning, Friday, September 19, Paulson announced the establishment of a U.S. guarantee program for the money market fund industry, funded with $50 billion from the Exchange Stabilization Fund, a government fund used for currency manipulation. On Saturday, September 20, an overnighted bailout bill was in the hands of lawmakers. It was a simple, three-page, $700 billion package which raised the debt ceiling to $11.315 trillion. And it included a little self-referential, Constitution-upending twist that maintained that decisions by the secretary under that act “may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.”

…

Preeminently, the enumerated powers granted the federal government do not include the establishment of a central or national bank. In addition, federal revenue must only be raised by means of bills originating in the House of Representatives, not in the marbled halls of the Federal Reserve. Federal Reserve activities that fund the government’s debt by currency manipulation are not without cost; trillions of dollars have been embezzled from Americans by this device. By debt monetization, government acquires money to spend without debate, legislation, or vote, by commensurately devaluing the currency held by the people. No wonder critics say this amounts to nothing less than taxation without representation.

…

I began to wonder exactly how events would unfold and vowed to follow them carefully. I had a lot to learn, but every day for the next few years was like a class in the conditions described in this book: shortages, unemployment, dollar destruction, strains on the middle class and business, inflation, deficits and debt, the costs of war, taxes, currency manipulation, recessions, and stagflation. Why did prices suddenly rise dramatically? And why were we subjected to a continuous series of booms and busts? Was Karl Marx right? Was it somehow endemic to capitalism, that we were consigned to these destructive episodes of systemic distortions and painful corrections?

Who Stole the American Dream?
by Hedrick Smith
Published 10 Sep 2012

The United States would gain another 2.1 million full-time jobs if the Chinese stopped violating international copyright laws and intellectual property protection, according to the U.S. International Trade Commission. Congress is ready to take a tougher line toward China. “China’s currency manipulation is like a boot on the throat of our economic recovery,” asserted New York Democratic senator Charles Schumer. “There is no bigger step we can take to promote U.S. job creation, particularly in the manufacturing sector, than to confront China’s currency manipulation.” Republicans such as Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina have shown a willingness to co-sponsor legislation with Democrats to impose stiff tariffs on Chinese goods unless China raises its currency value.

…

Scott, “The Benefits of Revaluation,” EPI Briefing Paper, June 17, 2011, Economic Policy Institute, http://​www.​epi.​org. 80 Gain another 2.1 million full-time jobs “China: Effects of Intellectual Property Infringement and Indigenous Innovation Policies on the U.S. Economy,” U.S. International Trade Commission, May 2011, http://​www.​usitc.​gov. 81 “China’s currency manipulation” Office of Senator Robert B. Casey, Jr., press release, “China’s Currency Manipulation Undermines U.S. Manufacturing Base by Making U.S.-Made Goods More Expensive Relative to Foreign Goods,” January 17, 2011. 82 Accused China of violating free trade rules Keith Bradsher, “In Victory for the West, W.T.O. Orders China to Stop Export Taxes on Minerals,” The New York Times, January 30, 2012. 83 $450 billion in projected defense cuts President Barack Obama, remarks, U.S.

…

Forbes, “Watch What I Do, Not What I Say: The Unintended Consequences of the Homeland Investment Act,” Journal of Finance, April 27, 2010, http://​www.​nber.​org. 73 Want tax reform to require proof Hindery and Gerard, “Vision for Economic Renewal.” 74 Jobs advocates want ironclad provisions Kocieniewski, “Companies Push for Tax Break”; Dan Eggen, “The Influence Industry: Companies Lobbying for Tax Holiday on Overseas Money,” The Washington Post, April 27, 2011; Mike Zapler, “Big Biz: How About a Tax Holiday?” Politico, March 4, 2011, http://​www.​politico.​com. 75 China manipulates the value Currency data from Peterson Institute for International Economics, in press release, Alliance for American Manufacturing, “Ending China’s Currency Manipulation Would Create Over 2 Million Jobs,” June 17, 2011. 76 Widespread intellectual piracy “Ballmer Bares China Travails,” The Wall Street Journal, May 26, 2011; “Piracy: China Still in the Game,” ABC News, November 16, 2010; “Special Report: Warren Buffett’s China Car Deal Could Backfire,” Reuters, March 9, 2011. 77 A major national intelligence report “Foreign Spies Stealing U.S.

Destined for War: America, China, and Thucydides's Trap
by Graham Allison
Published 29 May 2017

pagewanted=all. [back] 64. Susan Heavey, “Romney: Obama Going in ‘Wrong Direction’ on China,” Reuters, February 16, 2012, http://www.reuters.com/article/usa-campaign-china-idUSL2E8DG26A20120216. [back] 65. Michael Warren, “Romney on China’s Currency Manipulation,” Weekly Standard, October 12, 2011, http://www.weeklystandard.com/romney-on-chinas-currency-manipulation/article/595779. [back] 66. Nick Gass, “Trump: ‘We Can’t Continue to Allow China to Rape Our Country,’” Politico, May 2, 2016, http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-gop-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/05/trump-china-rape-america-222689.

…

The new president’s economic team presents him an analysis that identifies a clear culprit: Chinese cheating—on trade agreements, currency, intellectual property, industrial subsidies, and artificially cheap exports. To begin leveling the playing field, the president orders his Treasury secretary to label China a “currency manipulator,” which requires Washington to initiate talks with China. As negotiations open, the president tweets that the bilateral trade deficit has grown by more than 250 percent since China first joined the WTO in 2001 and stands at more than $345 billion today.34 At a press conference later that day, he releases a report from his Council of Economic Advisers that finds that over the past fifteen years, aided and abetted by concessions China won when joining the WTO, Beijing has run a $3.86 trillion trade surplus with the US.

…

In order to preserve vital interests and values, therefore, leaders must be willing to choose paths that risk destruction. An analogous, but fortunately less deadly, dynamic can be seen in the economic and cyber-competition between the US and China. During the 2012 presidential campaign, Republican candidate Mitt Romney announced, “On day one of my presidency I will designate China a currency manipulator and take appropriate counteraction.”64 The political and economic establishment rejected his threat as reckless rhetoric that risked a catastrophic trade war. The establishment likewise rejected similar threats by President Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign. But if there are no circumstances in which Washington is willing to risk a trade confrontation with China, why would Chinese leaders stop “playing the US like a fiddle and smiling all the way to the bank” (to use Romney’s mixed metaphor)65 or “raping our country” (as Trump put it)66 by undervaluing their currency, subsidizing domestic producers, protecting their own market, and stealing intellectual property?

Unfinished Business
by Tamim Bayoumi

The idea was to relaunch the snake but with a more symmetric system involving the creation of a European Monetary Fund modeled after the International Monetary Fund. The new European Monetary Fund would pool part of the reserves of member countries and would be responsible for a European unit of account which would help to ensure European currency intervention was more symmetric.15 The ERM proposal reflected two powerful political forces: German Chancellor Schmidt’s desire to bring the French into the European exchange rate system and French President Giscard d’Estaing’s desire that more of the burden of staying in such a system be taken on by the countries with stronger currencies (in other words Germany) rather than being borne almost entirely by countries with weaker currencies (such as France).

…

It was a long way away from the initial vision, with marginal decisions almost always favoring the preferences of the German bureaucrats to maintain the existing system. For example, while the system included a new unit of account—the European Currency Unit (ECU) which was officially stated to be “at the center of the system”—in practice, currency intervention and debt settlement rules remained asymmetric and favored stronger currencies. There was also little progress on reserves. The agreement made some concessions to French desires by allowing more borrowing across central banks within the system, but the creation of the proposed European Monetary Fund was delayed for two years and with it plans to pool reserves, provide loans, and potentially issue ECUs.

Zero-Sum Future: American Power in an Age of Anxiety
by Gideon Rachman
Published 1 Feb 2011

The Chinese had then recycled their dollar surpluses into the United States by buying American assets. This had depressed U.S. interest rates and so fed the credit boom that had popped in 2008. Meanwhile American and European workers lost their jobs because Chinese goods were kept artificially cheap by currency manipulation. China angrily rejected this line of argument. Desperate to maintain growth in the wake of a collapse in demand in the months after the fall of Lehman Brothers, the last thing the Chinese wanted to do was to raise the cost of their exports by letting their currency rise. But Chinese resistance was more than a knee-jerk reaction to an emergency.

…

His solution was simple and brutal: “a uniform tariff of 10% on all Chinese imports.”11 Over the following year, protectionist sentiment made headway in the U.S. Congress. Shortly before the midterm elections of 2010, the House of Representatives passed a law that would allow the U.S. to raise tariffs in response to Chinese currency manipulation. The bill enjoyed strong bipartisan support. Mike Rogers, a Republican from Michigan, put academic economists’ arguments into blunt political language, when he complained of the Chinese: “They cheat to steal our jobs.”12 It is likely that China will attempt to head off some of these pressures by allowing a modest appreciation of its currency.

…

Seen as Less Important, China as More Powerful: Isolationist Sentiment Surges to Four-Decade High,” Pew Research Center, Washington, D.C., December 3, 2009. Available from http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1428/america-seen- less-important-china-more-powerful-isolationist-sentiment-surges. 7. Malcolm Moore, “Timothy Geithner currency manipulation accusation angers China,” Daily Telegraph, London, January 23, 2009. 8. Alan Beattie, “The perception in China is that revaluation ended the Japanese miracle,” Financial Times, December 1, 2009. 9. Paul Krugman, “The Chinese Disconnect,” New York Times, October 23, 2009. 10. Paul Krugman, “Chinese New Year,” New York Times, January 1, 2010. 11.

Postcapitalism: A Guide to Our Future
by Paul Mason
Published 29 Jul 2015

In the late 1960s the future Federal Reserve boss Alan Greenspan had denounced the proposed move away from gold as a plot by ‘welfare statists’ to finance government spending by confiscating people’s money.17 But then, like the rest of America’s elite, he realized that it would first allow the USA, effectively, to confiscate other countries’ money – setting the scene for Washington to indulge in three decades of currency manipulation. The result enabled America to accumulate, at the time of writing, a $6 trillion debt with the rest of the world.18 This move to a pure paper currency was the precondition for every other phase of the neoliberal project. So it took the American right a long time to figure out they didn’t like it.

…

The Middle East is on fire, from Islamabad to Istanbul, while military rivalries between China and Japan are more intense than at any time since 1945 and underpinned by an intense currency war. All that would be needed to blow the whole thing apart is for one or more country to ‘head for the exit’, using protectionism, currency manipulation or debt default. Since the most important nation, the USA, now has a Republican Party rhetorically committed to all three of these things, the chances of this are high. The imbalances were fundamental to the very nature of globalization and were thrown into reverse only by financial collapse.

…

If things do not change, says the OECD, it is realistic to expect stagnation in the West, a slowing pace of growth in emerging markets and the likely bankruptcy of many states. So what’s more likely is that at some point one or more countries will quit globalization, via protectionism, debt write-offs and currency manipulation. Or that a de-globalization crisis originating in diplomatic and military conflict spills over into the world economy and produces the same results. The lesson from the OECD’s report is that we need a complete system redesign. The most highly educated generation in the history of the human race, and the best connected, will not accept a future of high inequality and stagnant growth.

The Economists' Hour: How the False Prophets of Free Markets Fractured Our Society
by Binyamin Appelbaum
Published 4 Sep 2019

But this process of equilibration did not affect the dollar-yuan exchange rate, nor the dollar’s exchange rate with other Asian currencies effectively fixed against the dollar. 93. Other factors have of course contributed to the decline of manufacturing employment, including automation and globalization. But a 2012 study estimated that currency manipulation by twenty countries, China by far the largest, had cost the United States between 1 million and 5 million jobs. See C. Fred Bergsten and Joseph E. Gagnon, “Currency Manipulation, the U.S. Economy and the Global Economic Order,” December 2012, Peterson Institute for International Economics. 94. Huffy is still based in Dayton, about two hours from Celina, where it employs about 120 managers and white-collar workers in areas like marketing and product development.

…

U.S. investment in China sharply increased, as did imports from China.91 Other Asian nations, seeking to maintain their shares of the lucrative American market, responded by suppressing their currencies against the dollar, too. Federal debt held by foreigners rose from $1 trillion in 2000 to $2.5 trillion in 2008.92 The United States once again embraced the willingness of other nations to finance American consumption. And once again, America sacrificed its factories. Currency manipulation by China and other nations — and U.S. borrowing — cost up to 5 million American jobs.93 The pressure also shaped and distorted the growth of the American economy. A 2011 study found almost all of the increase in net employment in the United States between 1990 and 2008, some 27.3 million jobs, was in sectors sheltered from foreign competition — notably, health care and retail.

…

“Well, let’s not be fools, let’s take it.” He also maintained that floating rates would prevent sustained manipulation of exchange rates. “Are you afraid that we’re going to import a lot from abroad? We can’t,” Friedman said. Any trading partner would spend the money it earned, causing exchange rates to adjust. The fear of currency manipulation, he said, was a nightmare “dreamed up to scare children with.”95 Friedman was wrong and there were consequences. The center of global manufacturing, which had moved from the English Midlands to the American Midwest, moved again, to southeast China. Trade helped to lift hundreds of millions of Chinese from abject poverty, and it increased the size of the American economy, too.

End This Depression Now!
by Paul Krugman
Published 30 Apr 2012

The point, however, is that in both cases the changes in the economic situation over the past three years have opened up opportunities for some technically easy yet surprisingly major actions to boost our economy. And More The list of policies above isn’t meant to be exhaustive. There are other fronts on which policy could and should move, notably foreign trade: it’s long past time to take a tougher line on China and other currency manipulators, and sanction them if necessary. Even environmental regulation could play a positive role: by announcing targets for much-needed curbs on particulate emissions and greenhouse gases, with the rules to phase in gradually over time, the government could provide an incentive for businesses to spend on environmental upgrades now, helping accelerate economic recovery.

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Congressional Budget Office (CBO): income inequality estimate of, 76–77 real GDP estimates of, 13–14 Conservative Party, U.K., 200 conservatives: anti-government ideology of, 66 anti-Keynesianism of, 93–96, 106–8, 110–11 Big Lie of 2008 financial crisis espoused by, 64–66, 100 free market ideology of, 66 Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 84 Consumer Price Index (CPI), 156–57, 159, 160 consumer spending, 24, 26, 30, 32, 33, 39, 41, 113, 136 effect of government spending on, 39 household debt and, 45, 47, 126, 146 income inequality and, 83 in 2008 financial crisis, 117 conventional wisdom, lessons of Great Depression ignored in, xi corporations, 30 see also business investment, slump in; executive compensation correlation, causation vs., 83, 198, 232–33, 237 Cowen, Brian, 88 credit booms, 65 credit crunches: of 2008, 41, 110, 113, 117 Great Depression and, 110 credit default swaps, 54, 55 credit expansion, 154 currency, manipulation of, 221 currency, national: devaluation of, 169 disadvantages of, 168–69, 170–71 flexibility of, 169–73, 179 optimum currency area and, 171–72 see also euro Dakotas, high employment in, 37 debt, 4, 34, 131 deregulation and, 50 high levels of, 34, 45, 46, 49–50, 51 self-reinforcing downward spiral in, 46, 48, 49–50 usefulness of, 43 see also deficits; government debt; household debt; private debt “Debt-Deflation Theory of Great Depressions, The” (Fisher), 45 debt relief, 147 defense industry, 236 defense spending, 35, 38–39, 148, 234–35, 235, 236 deficits, 130–49, 151, 202, 238 Alesina/Ardagna study of, 196–99 depressions and, 135–36, 137 exaggerated fear of, 131–32, 212 job creation vs., 131, 143, 149, 206–7, 238 monetary policy and, 135 see also debt deflation, 152, 188 debt and, 45, 49, 163 De Grauwe, Paul, 182–83 deleveraging, 41, 147 paradox of, 45–46, 52 demand, 24–34 in babysitting co-op example, 29–30 inadequate levels of, 25, 29–30, 34, 38, 47, 93, 101–2, 118, 136, 148 spending and, 24–26, 29, 47, 118 unemployment and, 33, 47 see also supply and demand Democracy Corps, 8 Democrats, Democratic Party, 2012 election and, 226, 227–28 Denmark, 184 EEC joined by, 167 depression of 2008–, ix–xii, 209–11 business investment and, 16, 33 debt levels and, 4, 34, 47 democratic values at risk in, 19 economists’ role in, 100–101, 108 education and, 16 in Europe, see Europe, debt crisis in housing sector and, 33, 47 income inequality and, 85, 89–90 inflation rate in, 151–52, 156–57, 159–61, 189, 227 infrastructure investment and, 16–17 lack of demand in, 47 liquidity trap in, 32–34, 38, 51, 136, 155, 163 long-term effects of, 15–17 manufacturing capacity loss in, 16 as morality play, 23, 207, 219 private sector spending and, 33, 47, 211–12 unemployment in, x, 5–12, 24, 110, 117, 119, 210, 212 see also financial crisis of 2008–09; recovery, from depression of 2008– depressions, 27 disproportion between cause and effect in, 22–23, 30–31 government spending and, 135–36, 137, 231 Keynes’s definition of, x Schumpeter on, 204–5 see also Great Depression; recessions deregulation, financial, 54, 56, 67, 85, 114 under Carter, 61 under Clinton, 62 income inequality and, 72–75, 74, 81, 82, 89 under Reagan, 50, 60–61, 62, 67–68 rightward political shift and, 83 supposed benefits of, 69–70, 72–73, 86 derivatives, 98 see also specific financial instruments devaluation, 169, 180–81 disinflation, 159 dot-com bubble, 14, 198 Draghi, Mario, 186 earned-income tax credit, 120 econometrics, 233 economic output, see gross domestic product Economics (Samuelson), 93 economics, economists: academic sociology and, 92, 96, 103 Austrian school of, 151 complacency of, 55 disproportion between cause and effect in, 22–23, 30–31 ignorance of, 106–8 influence of financial elite on, 96 Keynesian, see Keynesian economics laissez-faire, 94, 101 lessons of Great Depression ignored by, xi, 92, 108 liquidationist school of, 204–5 monetarist, 101 as morality play, 23, 207, 219 renewed appreciation of past thinking in, 42 research in, see research, economic Ricardian, 205–6 see also macroeconomics “Economics of Happiness, The” (Bernanke), 5 economy, U.S.: effect of austerity programs on, 51, 213 election outcomes and, 225–26 postwar boom in, 50, 70, 149 size of, 121, 122 supposed structural defects in, 35–36 see also global economy education: austerity policies and, 143, 213–14 depression of 2008– and, 16 income inequality and, 75–76, 89 inequality in, 84 teachers’ salaries in, 72, 76, 148 efficient-markets hypothesis, 97–99, 100, 101, 103–4 Eggertsson, Gauti, 52 Eichengreen, Barry, 236 elections, U.S.: economic growth and, 225–26 of 2012, 226 emergency aid, 119–20, 120, 144, 216 environmental regulation, 221 Essays in Positive Economics (Friedman), 170 euro, 166 benefits of, 168–69, 170–71 creation of, 174 economic flexibility constrained by, 18, 169–73, 179, 184 fixing problems of, 184–87 investor confidence and, 174 liquidity and, 182–84, 185 trade imbalances and, 175, 175 as vulnerable to panics, 182–84, 186 wages and, 174–75 Europe: capital flow in, 169, 174, 180 common currency of, see euro creditor nations of, 46 debtor nations of, 4, 45, 46, 139 democracy and unity in, 184–85 fiscal integration lacking in, 171, 172–73, 176, 179 GDP in, 17 health care in, 18 inflation and, 185, 186 labor mobility lacking in, 171–72, 173, 179 1930s arms race in, 236 social safety nets in, 18 unemployment in, 4, 17, 18, 176, 229, 236 Europe, debt crisis in, x, 4, 40, 45, 46, 138, 140–41, 166–87 austerity programs in, 46, 144, 185, 186, 188, 190 budget deficits and, 177 fiscal irresponsibility as supposed cause of (Big Delusion), 177–79, 187 housing bubbles and, 65, 169, 172, 174, 176 interest rates in, 174, 176, 182–84, 190 liquidity fears and, 182–84 recovery from, 184–87 unequal impact of, 17–18 wages in, 164–65, 169–70, 174–75 European Central Bank, 46, 183 Big Delusion and, 179 inflation and, 161, 180 interest rates and, 190, 202–3 monetary policy of, 180, 185, 186 European Coal and Steel Community, 167 European Economic Community (EEC), 167–68 European Union, 172 exchange rates, fixed vs. flexible, 169–73 executive compensation, 78–79 “outrage constraint” on, 81–82, 83 expansionary austerity, 144, 196–99 expenditure cascades, 84 Fama, Eugene, 69–70, 73, 97, 100, 106 Fannie Mae, 64, 65–66, 100, 172, 220–21 Farrell, Henry, 100, 192 Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), 59, 172 Federal Housing Finance Agency, 221 Federal Reserve, 42, 103 aggressive action needed from, 216–19 creation of, 59 foreign exchange intervention and, 217 inflation and, 161, 217, 219, 227 interest rates and, 33–34, 93, 105, 117, 134, 135, 143, 151, 189–90, 193, 215, 216–17 as lender of last resort, 59 LTCM crisis and, 69 money supply controlled by, 31, 32, 33, 105, 151, 153, 155, 157, 183 recessions and, 105 recovery and, 216–19 in 2008 financial crisis, 104, 106, 116 unconventional asset purchases by, 217 Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, 47–48 Feinberg, Larry, 72 Ferguson, Niall, 135–36, 139, 160 Fianna Fáil, 88 filibusters, 123 financial crisis of 2008–09, ix, x, 40, 41, 69, 72, 99, 104, 111–16 Bernanke on, 3–4 Big Lie of, 64–66, 100, 177 capital ratios and, 59 credit crunch in, 41, 110, 113, 117 deleveraging in, 147 Federal Reserve and, 104, 106 income inequality and, 82, 83 leverage in, 44–46, 63 panics in, 4, 63, 111, 155 real GDP in, 13 see also depression of 2008–; Europe, debt crisis in financial elite: political influence of, 63, 77–78, 85–90 Republican ideology and, 88–89 top 0.01 percent in, 75, 76 top 0.1 percent in, 75, 76, 77, 96 top 1 percent in, 74–75, 74, 76–77, 96 see also income inequality financial industry, see banks, banking industry financial instability hypothesis, 43–44 Financial Times, 95, 100, 203–4 Finland, 184 fiscal integration, 171, 172–73, 176 Fisher, Irving, 22, 42, 44–46, 48, 49, 52, 163 flexibility: currency and, 18, 169–73 paradox of, 52–53 Flip This House (TV show), 112 Florida, 111 food stamps, 120, 144 Ford, John, 56 foreclosures, 45, 127–28 foreign exchange markets, 217 foreign trade, 221 Fox News, 134 Frank, Robert, 84 Freddie Mac, 64, 65–66, 100, 172, 220–21 free trade, 167 Friedman, Milton, 96, 101, 181, 205 on causes of Great Depression, 105–6 Gabriel, Peter, 20 Gagnon, Joseph, 219, 221 Gardiner, Chance (char.), 3 Garn–St.

Car Guys vs. Bean Counters: The Battle for the Soul of American Business
by Bob Lutz
Published 31 May 2011

Presumably at Japanese urging, it was determined that the best way to achieve this goal was for the United States to tacitly permit Japan to manipulate the yen to a le vel below that justified by the country’s costs, wages, balance of payments, and general economic might. Administrations of both parties, while occasionally joining the chorus of protest against “blatant currency manipulation” by the Japanese, did precisely nothing to stop it. Subsequently, under the most airtight protectionist umbrella ever witnessed in the era of alleged “free trade,” the Japanese industrial machine cranked up and soon became a powerful force in cars, consumer electronics, watches, cameras—in short, just about anything that could be manufactured and exported.

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Davis,Tom Delphi Dennis, Lyle Devine, John diesel engines Dodge Trucks Durant, Billy Earl, Harley economic value electric vehicles aerodynamics and EV1 Nissan Leaf see also hybrid vehicles End of Detroit, The: How the Big Three Lost Their Grip on the American Car Market (Maynard) Estes, Pete EV1 excellence Exide Technologies Federico, Jim Ferrari Fiat Fields, Mark financial crisis of auto industry bailout congressional automotive hearings Ford and GM’s bankruptcy stimulus and subprime mortgage disaster Ford Escape Explorer financial crisis and Flex fuel rules and Lincoln media and Mercury trucks and SUVs of Ford of Europe camshaft problem and Escort Sierra Franz, Klaus Friedman,Thomas fuel cells fuel economy regulations fuel prices Fuji Heavy Industries gasoline prices Gates, Bill GCG General Motors (GM): advertising by alliance strategy of APEX process at apologetic ad produced by Asia-Pacific operations of Australian operations of, see Holden automation at Automotive Task Force and bankruptcy of best practices at brand management at brand pyramids at brands shed by brand studios at culture of excellence at decline of design department of European operations of; see also Opel; Saab;Vauxhall exaggerated respect for authority at federal “ownership” of financial offices of fuel economy regulations and global integration of health care costs of history of Jobs Bank and Latin American operations of Lutz’s departure from Lutz’s hypothetical tenure as CEO of Lutz’s memo circulated in Lutz’s return to manufacturing standards at media and meetings at North American division of Perceptual Quality Program Review at Performance Management Process at product clinics at product development at product portfolio of rebirth of regional “companies” of strategy board meetings at Tech Center of vehicle line executives at General Motors vehicles: ashtrays in body fit of body paint on electric front-wheel drive in Global Epsilon architecture in interiors of prototypes of trucks wheels and tires of German automakers fuel rules and Gettelfinger, Ron global warming GMAC (General Motors Acceptance Corporation) GMC Terrain XUV Gonko, Betty Gore,Al grade-point averages Guts (Lutz) Harbour Report Hazen, Jack health care Henderson, Fritz “hider” design techniques Holden Honda Accord Acura CR-V Horn, Art Hudson Hummer hybrid vehicles Chevrolet Volt parallel vs. sequential Toyota Prius hydrogen fuel cells Iacocca, Lee federal loan guarantees and media and Inconvenient Truth, An Insolent Chariots, The (Keats) Isuzu Jaguar Japanese automakers alliances with CEOs of currency manipulation and fuel rules and health care and quality surveys and standardized work and truck and SUV market and voluntary restraint agreement and Jeep jets, corporate Jobs, Steve Jobs Bank Kady,Wayne Keats, John Korthoff, Douglas Land Rover LaSalle Lauckner, Jon leadership styles Lexus LG Chem Limbaugh, Rush lithium-ion batteries Lutz, Robert A.: departure from GM Guts hypothetical tenure as CEO of GM media and memo of motto of return to GM strongly held beliefs of Magna Corporation Mair,Alex management by objective management styles Marine Attack Squadron Mavroleon, Mano Maynard, Micheline Mazur, Dave McDonald, Jim McNamara, Robert media global warming and GM and Lutz and Saab and SUVs and Mercedes-Benz metal finishing military strategy Miller, Steve mission statement Mitchell, Bill Mitsubishi mortgages Mulally, Alan Nader, Ralph Nardelli, Bob Nash Nesbitt, Bryan New York Times Niedermeyer, Edward Nissan Armada Leaf Titan North American International Auto Show Norton, Andy NUMMI (New United Motorcar Manufacturing Company) Obama, Barack Oldsmobile Opel Antara Astra cost-cutting at Dudenhofen Proving Ground of Insignia metal finishing and midsize car program of selling of Vectra Zafira Packard Packard,Vance Paine, Chris Palmer, Jerry Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance Piëch, Ferdinand PMP (Performance Management Process) Pontiac, Aztek Firebird G6 G8 V6 and V8, Grand Prix GTO Solstice Vibe PQPR (Perceptual Quality Program Review) Prechter, Heinz process religion product development at GM product portfolio creation Queen, Jim Range Rover Rattner, Steven Reilly, Nick ResCap Reuss, Mark Roche, Jim Rybicki, Irv Saab Saturn Aura Ion Vue science, business as Shelby, Richard Sloan, Alfred P.

Trumpocalypse: Restoring American Democracy
by David Frum
Published 25 May 2020

The courts cannot be trusted. The tax system is arbitrary. As much as capital is sucked into the United States, it is repelled from China. And by the same accounting rules as apply to the United States, the bigger the investment deficit, the bigger the trade surplus. The third deformity is Chinese currency manipulation. All those dollars earned by exports? Sooner or later, somebody in China should want to do something with them: buy American products maybe or else American real estate and other assets. When the dollars were released into the global marketplace, their abundance should cause the value of the dollar to fall relative to China’s currency.

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Gore, 72–73 Buttigieg, Pete, 107 Caldwell, Christopher, 64 California, 75–76, 118, 136–37, 143–44, 184 campaign finance, 119, 126–27, 186 Camp David, 89 Canada, 36, 40–41, 44–45, 144, 162, 177–79 healthcare system, 133, 135, 140, 144 NAFTA/USMCA and, 178 Cantor, Eric, 183 capitalism, 152–53 carbon (greenhouse gas) emissions, 151–52, 154–55, 161–67, 177 carbon tax and, 161–66 sequestration and, 164–67 Carlson, Tucker, 63–64 Carter, Jimmy, 39, 46, 105, 106 Castro, Fidel, 64 Catholics, 182 Census, 141 of 2010, 79 of 2020, 124 Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 126 Central America, 22, 88, 139, 143, 145, 166 Central Command, 94, 97 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 45, 99 Chait, Jonathan, 18 chaos trading, 25–26 Charles II, King of England, 98 Charlottesville rally, 57–58, 91–93 Cheney, Dick, 112, 151 Chicago, 83 children, 167 decision whether to have, 147–48 family separation and, 22 China, 44–45, 49, 51, 127, 132, 169–70, 177–80, 193 agricultural imports and, 161 carbon tariffs and, 162, 166 climate change and, 153, 155–59, 164, 166 cyberattacks and, 166 financial system and, 160–61 Ivanka’s trademarks and, 26 Japan and, 44 jobs and, 161 Kushner and, 27 military spending and, 167 recycling and, 159–60 South Korea and, 44 tariffs and, 112 TPP and, 41 trade and, 161, 166, 177–78 Christianity, 3, 16 Churchill, Winston, 137 cities, 12–13 Citizenship, 141, 144 civil rights movement, 61, 79–80 civil society, 193 Civil War, 186–87 Clapper, James, 57 Clarke, David, 64 Clemens, Roger, 37 climate change, 14, 66–67, 149–68, 179 carbon sequestration and, 164 carbon tax and, 161–64 early history of, 156–57 nuclear energy and, 164–65 Clinton, Bill, 41, 130–31, 140, 143 impeachment and, 85, 183 Clinton, Hillary, 14, 34 elections of 2016 and, 46, 73–74, 87, 92, 113, 182, 185, 196 emails and, 1, 34 FBI and, 87 health-care reform and, 131 immigration and, 106 Trump’s attacks on, 66 CNN, 109 coal, 118 Coast Guard, 91 Cohen, Michael, 26, 90 Cohn, Gary, 92 Cohn, Nate, 111 Cohn, Roy, 100 Cold War, 99, 127 colleges and universities, 13, 101, 132–33 Colombia, 108 Comey, James, 1, 68, 87–88 communism, 67, 70, 144–45, 196 commuting, 163 Congo, Democratic Republic of, 108 Congressional Research Service, 37 Connecticut, 118 conservatives, 2, 61–62, 110, 136, 144, 146 climate change and, 149–51 impact of Trump on, 188–91, 196–99 consumers, 3, 102, 112 Conway, Kellyanne, 35–36, 190 Cook, Charlie, 85 Coolidge, Calvin, 185–86 Coronavirus, 1–3 corporations, 92, 101–3 corruption, 4, 6, 25–26, 51, 99, 118, 173–74, 189 Cotton, Tom, 63 Cowie, Jefferson, 142 Crenshaw, Dan, 74 cruelty, 6, 24–25, 118 “Cruelty Is the Point, The” (Serwer), 20 Crusius, Patrick, 56 Cruz, Ted, 86, 182 Cuba, 46 culture war, 5, 15–16, 19–20, 150–51, 186 currency manipulation, 160–61 cyberattacks, 166 Daily Wire, 15, 149 Dallas, Texas, 185 Dead Right (Frum), 196 deep state, 88–91, 100–101 Defense Department (Pentagon), 91, 95, 133, 165 Delaware, 117, 118 democracy anti-majoritarianism and, 71–86 China and, 161 climate change and, 152 concept of nation and, 146 conservatives and, 2–3 dysfunctional, 103 Electoral College vs. popular vote and, 74–78, 187 state and local level and, 78 FDR and, 69–70 global insurgency vs., 51 GOP and, 189 reform and, 119 restoring, 12 Trump and, 5, 38, 77, 196 Democratic National Committee, 45, 99, 124–25 Democrats DC statehood and, 123 elections and, 105–13, 139, 153, 183–84, 186–87 immigration and, 107 reforms recommended for, 118–22, 144–45 state elections and, 81 top voting concerns, 129 Depression, 127, 132, 144, 186 deregulation, 127 Descartes, René, 157 Diamond and Silk, 64 disbility insurance, 13 disinformation, 11, 14–16, 66–67 Domingo, Placido, 117 Dowd, Maureen, 46 D’Souza, Dinesh, 64, 196 Du Bois, W.E.B., 150 Earned Income Tax Credit, 130 economic growth, 12–13, 16–17, 101–2, 129 economic inequality, 86, 154 Ecuador, 108 Edwon, Gary, 151 Eisenhower, Dwight, 41 elections, 6, 16.

Losing Control: The Emerging Threats to Western Prosperity
by Stephen D. King
Published 14 Jun 2010

All players would, therefore, have to accept the prevailing price: they would all be ‘price takers’. Those people investing funds would be doing so purely on the basis of risk and reward, with no consideration given to alternative rent-seeking or political aims. With one currency, there would be no debate over currency manipulation through the accumulation of foreign-exchange reserves. Meanwhile, those choosing to borrow would do so knowing the money would have to be repaid in full, with interest, and that failure to do so would result in the ignominy of default, possible loss of access to capital markets for years to come and, perhaps, the threat of incarceration in the nearest prison.

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The sub-prime crisis and credit crunch that followed ten years later suggests this was not solely an issue for Asia specifically or, indeed, for emerging economies more generally. 5. In its semi-annual Report to Congress on International Economic and Exchange Rate Policies, the US Treasury typically berates China for its exchange-rate policies, even though at the time of writing it had yet to make the charge that China was a ‘currency manipulator’. The October 2009 version of the report can be found at http://www.treasury.gov/offices/international-affairs/economic-exchange-rates/ pdf/FX%20Report%20FINAL%20October%2015%202009.pdf. 6. Source: HSBC global currency research. 7. The yield on Ukrainian debt had dropped back to around 14.3 per cent by the summer of 2009, but this still implied a big loss in relation to the halcyon pre-credit crunch days.

Grave New World: The End of Globalization, the Return of History
by Stephen D. King
Published 22 May 2017

Second, with the abandonment of the fixed currency regime, the IMF’s ‘surveillance’ role was bolstered: most major industrialized countries were understandably fearful that a world of floating currencies could lead to a series of ‘beggar-thy-neighbour’ outcomes, particularly given the heightened opportunity for currency manipulation. With a newly enhanced surveillance role thanks to a Second Amendment agreed to by its Interim Committee in 1976 (whose members decided that Jamaica would be a nice place to meet), the IMF was fast becoming the world’s financial policeman. Third, the quadrupling of oil prices at the end of 1973 – triggered by an oil embargo imposed by Arab nations on Western nations regarded as being overly sympathetic to Israel following the Yom Kippur War of that year – had left the world facing a huge ‘petrodollar’ problem.

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Establishment politicians and lawmakers who remain in favour of globalization – Morgenthau’s ‘enlightened statesmen’ – may find themselves increasingly out of touch with the voters who, in turn, will either force the statesmen to change their ways or replace them with populist – and nationalist – politicians at either end of the political spectrum. This is one reason why Hillary Clinton, the Democrats’ nominee in the 2016 US presidential election, made clear – reluctantly, no doubt – her rejection of the Trans-Pacific Partnership ‘as drafted’: she felt she had to bundle up the proposed trade deal with provisions regarding both currency manipulation and intellectual property, which only served to make any ultimate deal a lot less likely. And the ‘spirit of inequality’ – in its broadest possible sense – is most certainly on the rise. Post-war international institutions worked well for a cosy club of like-minded industrialized democracies.

The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium
by Martin Gurri
Published 13 Nov 2018

Manuel Castells, a sympathetic observer, perused the online records of the Occupy sites’ general assemblies, and compiled a roster of changes the participants expected to work on the world. It made exhausting reading. …controlling financial speculation, particularly high frequency trading; auditing the Federal Reserve; addressing the housing crisis; regulating overdraft fees; controlling currency manipulation; opposing the outsourcing of jobs; defending collective bargaining and union rights; reducing income inequality; reforming tax law; reforming political campaign finance; reversing the Supreme Court’s decision allowing unlimited campaign contributions from corporations; banning bailouts of companies; controlling the military-industrial complex; improving the care of veterans; limiting terms for elected politicians; defending freedom on the Internet; assuring privacy on the Internet and in the media; combating economic exploitation; reforming the prison system; reforming health care; combating racism, sexism, and xenophobia; improving student loans; opposing the Keystone pipeline and other environmentally predatory projects; enacting policies against global warming; fining and controlling BP and similar oil spillers; enforcing animal rights; supporting alternative energy sources; critiquing personal leadership and vertical authority, beginning with a new democratic culture in the camps; and watching out for cooptation in the political system…[72] The action words used for these improvements of the status quo connoted negation and elimination: “reform,” “control,” “reverse,” “limit,” “combat,” “fine,” “critique.”

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Ormerod’s endless list of parliamentary claims of competence can find a mirror image in the equally endless expectations of government culled by Manuel Castells from Occupier statements: …controlling financial speculation, particularly high frequency trading; auditing the Federal Reserve; addressing the housing crisis; regulating overdraft fees; controlling currency manipulation; opposing the outsourcing of jobs; defending collective bargaining and union rights; reducing income inequality; reforming tax law; reforming political campaign finance; reversing the Supreme Court’s decision allowing unlimited campaign contributions from corporations; banning bailouts of companies; controlling the military-industrial complex; improving the care of veterans; limiting terms for elected politicians; defending freedom on the Internet…[185] The public has judged government on government’s own terms, but added bad intentions.

Stress Test: Reflections on Financial Crises
by Timothy F. Geithner
Published 11 May 2014

I left at 2 a.m., and Patterson asked me to come back at 5 a.m. to review the draft answers; when I returned, we couldn’t buy coffee because nothing was open yet. And we did mangle one answer. Several senators asked if I would label China a “currency manipulator,” so I wrote an equivocating reply stating only that we would encourage China to let the yuan appreciate. I believed that using the manipulator label, especially before I was even confirmed, would be counterproductive, offending the Chinese and making them less likely to strengthen the yuan. But Obama had described China as a currency manipulator during the campaign, so in the early-morning confusion, my diplomatic dodge got replaced with his campaign rhetoric.

…

I ended up developing very good relationships with the Chinese. It probably helped that I spoke some Mandarin, and that many top government officials—including Wang Qishan, my primary counterpart—had met my father during his time in Beijing for the Ford Foundation. I would help bury a bill by Senator Schumer to punish China for currency manipulation; I asked him if he wanted to call his legislation “Schumer-Hawley,” after the protectionist Smoot-Hawley bill that deepened the Great Depression. But behind the scenes, the President and I would put relentless pressure on the Chinese to let their currency rise. And over time, we helped persuade them that a stronger yuan served their own interests, improving the purchasing power of their growing middle class.

More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite
by Sebastian Mallaby
Published 9 Jun 2010

This presented Europe’s governments with two options. Germany could cut its rates in order to attract less capital, while the Italians and British did the opposite. Or central banks could intervene in the currency markets, selling marks and buying lire and pounds. If both interest-rate adjustment and currency intervention failed, Italy and Britain would be forced into devaluation. In the summer of 1992, Druckenmiller began to ponder these tensions. He was particularly focused on Britain, where a young Quantum portfolio manager, Scott Bessent, had studied the volatile housing sector and shorted several of the stocks in it.

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Commentators in the Economist and the Financial Times noted that the central banks’ failure raised doubts about the efficacy of intervention, but they presented these doubts as a novel factor in global finance. “Yesterday’s action raises questions about the credibility of internationally co-ordinated exchange rate policy,” the FT’s Lex Column noted (“D-Day for the Dollar,” Lex Column, Financial Times, August 22, 1992); the failed intervention “has reinforced the lesson that currency intervention works only if it is allowed to affect domestic monetary policy; it cannot do the job on its own,” the Economist noted (“Forever Falling?” Economist, August 29, 1992, p. 65). Writing with the benefit of hindsight, Norman Lamont, the British finance minister, was more definitive in describing the August failure as a telling portent of a changed world.

Big Debt Crises
by Ray Dalio
Published 9 Sep 2018

Unemployment continued to climb, consumer confidence and borrowing continued to fall, housing delinquencies and foreclosures continued to rise, and manufacturing and services activity continued to contract. Simultaneously, fresh rounds of write-downs were announced at UBS ($19 billion), Deutsche Bank ($4 billion), MBIA ($2.4 billion), and AIG ($7.8 billion). Reflecting on the market action in the months following the Fed’s rescue, we likened it to a “currency intervention that temporarily reverses the markets but doesn’t change the underlying conditions that necessitated the action.” Simultaneously oil prices continued to climb (hitting $130 in late May) and the dollar continued to fall. These moves added to the Fed’s dilemma, as it would have to balance keeping its policy accommodative to ward off an economic contraction and a further deterioration in financial conditions with concerns over price stability.

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–Associated Press April 30, 2008 Fed Cuts Rates by a Quarter Point, and It Signals a Pause “The Federal Reserve...reduced short-term interest rates Wednesday for the seventh time in seven months, and signaled a likely pause from any additional cuts for now.” –New York Times April 30, 2008 On Wednesday the Fed eased for what is priced in to be the last time in this easing cycle –BDO May 1, 2008 Market Bounces on Bear Rescue “The Bear rescue was the equivalent of a currency intervention that temporarily reverses the markets but doesn’t change the underlying conditions that necessitated the action.” –BDO May 2, 2008 Fed Moves to Ease Strains in Credit Markets “The Fed said it was stepping up the amounts offered in its Term Auction Facility auctions...to $75 billion from $50 billion.”

The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World
by Niall Ferguson
Published 13 Nov 2007

For some time, concern has been mounting in the US Congress about what is seen as unfair competition and currency manipulation by China, and the worse the recession gets in the United States, the louder the complaints are likely to grow. Yet US monetary loosening since August 2007 - the steep cuts in the federal funds and discount rates, the various auction and lending ‘facilities’ that have directed $150 billion to the banking system, the underwriting of JP Morgan’s acquisition of Bear Stearns - has amounted to an American version of currency manipulation.112 Since the onset of the American crisis, the dollar has depreciated roughly 25 per cent against the currencies of its major trading partners, including 9 per cent against the renminbi.

Factory Man: How One Furniture Maker Battled Offshoring, Stayed Local - and Helped Save an American Town
by Beth Macy
Published 14 Jul 2014

The petition was filed late in the game, she offered, the housing recession added more stress to an already struggling industry, and it’s hard for Americans to compete with countries where companies don’t have stringent environmental regulations or health-care costs to maintain—to say nothing of the labor-cost differential or claims of currency manipulation. “One of the things I heard over and over from all the domestic industries—and I was there eight years—was that American companies can compete against anybody as long as the playing field is level,” Lane said. Among the most egregious dumpers put forth for review was Dalian Huafeng, which received a whopping 41.75 percent duty, applied retroactively to its 2009 shipments, Greenwald said.

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For his three-hundred-plus phone calls at all hours of the day and night—and for that inimitable, booming voice that never once began with “Hello, this is John”—thank you, John Bassett III. You weren’t the easiest person to talk to, but you were always interesting and you were often fun. And not just anyone can explain the intricacies of grouse hunting and Chinese currency manipulation, and tell a dirty joke—all in the same breath. To all the unemployed and underemployed former factory workers who poured out their hearts—especially Wanda Perdue—consider this book yours. Lastly, to the updraft beneath my armpits and for every single thing, thanks to my husband, Tom Landon.

The End of Loser Liberalism: Making Markets Progressive
by Dean Baker
Published 1 Jan 2011

In addition to understanding the economic impact of an overvalued dollar, the public should also recognize how interests divide on this issue. It is standard practice for politicians to treat dollar policy as something outside of the control of the U.S. government. Consider, for example, what we have read about the need for the U.S. to confront China over its currency “manipulation,” that is, its practice of deliberately depressing the value of its currency against the dollar. There are several aspects of this framing of the issue that are inaccurate. First, China has an explicit policy of pegging its currency to the dollar. This is not something it is doing in the dark when no one is looking, so the use of the term “manipulation” is not really appropriate.

End the Fed
by Ron Paul
Published 5 Feb 2011

There was a belief that serious economic downturns could be prevented by wise monetary policy. But their “wise monetary policy” had nothing to do with sound money or interest rates and credit being determined by the market. The economic planners literally believed that there would never be a price to pay for inflating a currency, manipulating interest rates, and monetizing debt. In reality, this “sophistication” in managing the economy was merely postponing the inevitable consequences, and it guaranteed they would be much worse. One of the wonderful products of the Gold Commission was our minority report, which remains in print today. 1 Only three members of the Gold Commission signed it, but the full committee recommended to Congress to mint a gold coin.

The Price of Tomorrow: Why Deflation Is the Key to an Abundant Future
by Jeff Booth
Published 14 Jan 2020

Many of the chess moves by governments around the world could be thought of in this context, including the current escalation of North Korea’s military in response to a feeling that if a dictator could be removed in Iraq, it could happen in North Korea. Game theory and its implications apply to many of our most contentious societal debates, all arising from the same core issue: in group dynamics, what might be better for one person often is worse for the group. This is why gun control, global warming, currency manipulation, global trade and tariffs, or the race for artificial intelligence superiority become such thorny issues. Fortunately, as I’ve said, we rarely play a game just once. If a game is played over and over, and you realize how your opponent plays the game, you are likely to change your strategy.

How to Change the World: Reflections on Marx and Marxism
by Eric Hobsbawm
Published 5 Sep 2011

Yet if we can pass briefly over what he approved or developed in the left-wing economics of his day, we must also briefly consider what he rejected. He rejected what he saw as ‘bourgeois’ ( Communist Manifesto) and later ‘petty-bourgeois’ or otherwise misguided attempts to deal with the problems of capitalism by such means as credit reform, currency manipulation, rent reform, measures to inhibit capitalist concentration by the abolition of inheritance or other means, even if they were intended to benefit not small individual proprietors but associations of workers operating within, and eventually designed to replace, capitalism. Such proposals were widespread on the left, including parts of the socialist movement.

…

I., 13, 63, 82, 92, 200, 223, 252, 284, 320, 371, 403 306, 338, 340, 360, 411 Kepler, Johannes, 293 and the avant-garde, 257 Keynes, John Maynard, 221, 297, 413 and corpus of Marxist works, Khnopff, Fernand, 251 182–3, 186, 190, 192, 262, Khrushchev, Nikita, 5, 126, 406 289–90, 378–9 Kim Il-sung, 345 and electrification, 9, 285 Kirkup, Thomas, 202 Imperialism, 378 Klimt, Gustav, 230 and labour movement, 403 Korolenko, Vladimir, 248 and Marxism, 80, 119, 344–5, 388, Korsch, Karl, 290, 337, 371 394 Kovalevsky, M.M., 140, 164, 169 Materialism and Empiriocriticism, 291, Kraus, Karl, 230, 253 293 Kugelmann, Dr, 182, 193 opposition to Kant, 236 Kulemann, W., 399 and the party, 324–5, 328 Kuznets, Simon, 389 and the state, 51–4 The Teachings of Karl Marx, 182–3, 380 La Pensée, 218 Leninism, 5, 287, 346, 349, 378, 411 labour Leontief, Wassily, 9, 389 reserve army of, 93–4, 203, 212 Lethaby, W.R., 250 social division of, 130–3, 142–5, Lévi-Strauss, Claude, 372 147, 150, 203 Levy, H., 295 Labour Parties, 115, 404 libraries, miners’, 360–1 Labriola, Antonio, 231, 243, 245 Lichtheim, George, 36, 116, 125, 341, Lacan, Jacques, 372 363, 366 463 How to Change the World Liebermann, Max, 247 Marx, Eleanor, 180, 246 Liebknecht, Wilhelm, 71, 103, 188 Marx, Karl Liszt, Franz, 28 biographies, 191–2 Lithuania, 234 and Communist Manifesto, 101–20 Llewellyn-Smith, Hubert, 206–7 contempt for capitalist society, Locke, John, 19 162–3 Lombroso, Cesare, 231 corpus of works, 176–96, 385 London, 98 correspondence, 187–8, 192–3, London School of Economics, 280 378 Loos, Adolf, 230 and early socialism, 16–47, 85 Loria, Achille, 242 and Grundrisse, 121–6 Louis Napoleon, 64 his historical knowledge, 137–42 Loutchisky, Ivan, 244 meeting with Engels, 90 Low Countries, 81, 226, 248 and pre-capitalist formations, Ludwig Feuerbach, 179, 193, 284 127–75 Lukacs, Georg, 229, 257, 263, 265, and the state, 48–88 299, 338, 366, 371 theory of revolution, 54–8, 61–2 Lunacharski, Anatoly, 257 Marx-Engels Archiv, 184, 238 Luppol, Ivan, 288 Marx-Engels Institute, 122, 183–5, 188, Luxemburg, Rosa, 223, 225, 227, 234, 190 255, 320, 345, 371 Marxism Lycurgus, 19 and anti-fascist era, 261–313 Lyons, 40 appeal to intellectuals, 349, 360, Lysenko affair, 296 363–9, 372–4, 382 and the arts, 245–60, 265–6 Mably, Gabriel Bonnot de, 21–2, 41 ‘crisis’ in, 213, 215, 252, 289 Macedonia, 236 and economics, 237, 239–41, Mach, Ernst, 230 372–5, 380, 384, 389 Machado, Antonio, 223 and educated culture, 236–45 Machajski, Jan Wacław, 234 and ‘fellow-travellers’, 297–8 Machiavelli, Niccolò, 316, 318, 321, and history, 242–5 324, 331, 339 influence 1880–1914, 211–60 machine-wrecking, 95 influence 1929–45, 261–313 MacLeish, Archibald, 276 influence 1945–83, 344–84 Maclean, Donald, 279 influence 1983–2000, 385–98 Macmillan, Harold, 406 and labour movements, 399–416 Maeterlinck, Maurice, 251 and natural sciences, 238 Maeztu, Ramiro de, 223 rethinking of, 375–84 Mahler, Gustav, 230, 252 and scientists, 290–6, 381 Malraux, André, 265, 282 and social sciences, 241–3, 349, 365, Manchester, 40, 44, 89, 98–9 380, 390–3 Mann, Heinrich, 298–9 and Soviet orthodoxy, 284–90, 296 Mao Zedong, 14, 125, 338, 345, 351, Western, 288, 291, 300, 337, 339 370 Marxism Today, 174 Maoism and Maoists, 320, 359, 386 ‘Marxists, legal’, 13, 405, 220 Marcuse, Herbert, 338, 366, 371 Masaryk, Tomáš, 228, 401 Mariátegui, José Carlos, 371 Matisse, Henri, 265 Maritain, Jacques, 282 Maupassant, Guy de, 248 Mark, The, 139–40, 167 Maurer, Georg von, 138–40, 162, 167, Marks, Louis, 340 169 Marshall, Alfred, 208–10 May Day, 215 Martov, Julius, 320 Mayer, Gustav, 184, 287 464 Index Mehring, Franz, 182–3, 192, 248, 319, Narodniks, 162–3, 217, 219–20, 228, 400 235, 244, 358, 360, 365 Meillassoux, Claude, 358 national liberation movements, 75 Meitzen, August, 138 ‘national question’, 75, 237, 258, 289, Menger, Carl, 207–8, 229, 239 320, 360 Mensheviks, 234 national separatism, 360 mercantilism, 146 nationalisation, 9–10, 40 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 372 nationalism, 7, 73–4, 217, 228, 234–5, Metternich, Klemens von, 107 370, 412, 417 Meunier, Constantin, 249 nations, 54, 73–5 Mexico, 270, 359, 411 nation-states, 11, 111, 413 Micheles, Vera, 319 and labour movements, 409, Michels, Robert, 213, 224, 243 413–14 Middle Ages, 139–40, 142, 150, 152, Natural Law, 18 168 ‘natural philosophy’, 39 Middle East, 137, 142, 272 natural sciences, 238, 264, 284–5, Milan, 232, 279 290–6, 380–1, 389 Mill, John Stuart, 28, 138, 268 naturalism, 247–8, 258–9 Millerand, Alexandre, 400–2 Needham, Joseph, 293 Milner, Alfred, 202 Negri, Antonio, 125 Mises brothers, 229, 240 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 272 Mitterrand, François, 389, 410 Netherlands, 13, 218, 226–7, 271, 287 modernism, 265 Neue Rheinische Zeitung, 50, 60, 102–3 Mommsen, Theodor, 137 New Labour, 415 monasteries, 166 New Left Books, 384 money New Left Review, 124 bullion, 141, 146 New Poor Law, 94 currency manipulations, 36, 47 ‘New Woman’, 223 invention of, 131 New York Daily Tribune, 138, 178 and wages, 170 New Zealand, 221 Mongolia, 357 Newton, Isaac, 263, 294, 347 Montesquieu, 351 Nicaragua, 357 Montherlant, Henry de, 282 Nicolaus, Martin, 124 Moore, G.E., 221 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 254 More, Thomas, 17 Nigeria, 173 Morelly, 21–2, 41 ‘noble savage’, 19, 351 Morgan, Lewis, 140–1, 162, 164 North Korea, 371 Morocco, 412 Northern Ireland, 403 Morozov, Ivan, 257 Norway, 407, 409, 415 Morris, William, 224, 246, 249–50, nuclear weapons, 9, 296, 301–2 258–9 Mosca, Gaetano, 243, 318 October Revolution, 104–5, 194–5, Mouffe, Chantal, 337 305, 319, 329, 336, 387, 394, Munich agreement, 269 406 Munich soviet, 254 Olivier, Sydney, 209 Musil, Robert, 230 Oppenheimer, J.

Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China
by Evan Osnos
Published 12 May 2014

The crisis posed a conundrum for Lin: Officials from the United States, Europe, and the IMF called on China to raise the value of its currency, to boost the buying power of Chinese consumers and make products from other countries relatively cheaper. Sen. Charles Schumer, Democrat from New York, told reporters, “China’s currency manipulation is like a boot to the throat of our recovery.” But Lin saw the issue very differently. Forcing China to raise its currency “won’t help this imbalance and can deter the global recovery,” he told an audience in Hong Kong, arguing that such a move would only depress U.S. consumer demand, because raising the value of the currency would make Chinese exports more expensive, and it would not help the U.S. economy, because Americans don’t produce many of the things they buy from China.

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Cafferty, Jack Caijing; government approval required for; growth of; investors in; management buyout plan of Cao, Henry Cao, Leo Caochangdi Cao family Cao Haili Cao Qifeng Carrefour Carter, Jimmy Catholicism Célestin Monga cell phones censorship Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Central Japan Railway Central Publicity (Propaganda) Department; Caijing and; on train crash century of national humiliation Charter 08 Charter 77 Chen Chen Danqing Chen Guangcheng; escape of; house arrest of; in prison; release of Chen Guangfu Chen Guojun Cheng Yizhong Chen Jieren Chen Kegui Chen Xianmei Chen Yun Chen Yunying Cheung Chi-tai Cheung Yan Chicago Tribune Chim Pui-chung China: alleged currency manipulation of; anti-Japanese protests in; average income in; billionaires in; bloggers in; capitalist reforms in; censorship in; central bank of; civil war in; constitution of; creative class in; economic growth in; food in; happiness in; history studies in; housing prices in; inequality in; intergenerational mobility in; Internet use in; investment in; Japanese occupation of; Japan’s Diaoyu Islands dispute with; Jasmine protests in; labor migration in; land reform in; life expectancy in; literacy rates in; luxury goods in; popular approval of; press in; real estate boom in; revolution in; special economic zones in; spiritual awakening in; stereotypes of; stimulus plan in; stock markets in; tax system in; Tibet protests in; travel from; Uighur-Han riot in; urban growth in; Western culture as perceived by China, U.S. relationship with; Belgrade embassy bombing and; and Chinese crackdown on Internet; Mao’s establishment of; U.S. recognition of ChinaAid China Business Times China Can Say No China Center for Economic Research China Central Television China Daily China eCapital China Entrepeneur ChinaGeeks China Miracle, The (Lin, Cai and Li) China Mobile China Newsweek China Railway Signal and Communication Corporation China Stand Up!

How Asia Works
by Joe Studwell
Published 1 Jul 2013

The cheap currency, however, was unable to change the fact that by the 1980s the quality and value-added of Korean exports were exceeding Taiwan’s, while Korea caught up with and surpassed Taiwan in GNI per capita in the next decade.37 In the late 1980s and 1990s Taiwan succumbed to intense international pressure over its currency manipulation and began to deregulate its financial system. As in Korea, the state lost a good part of its capacity to impose industrial policy via the banks. Fifteen new private banks were licensed in 1991, compared with a total of twenty banks in existence to that point. The new owners of private institutions were not responsive to state direction on lending and the central bank did not seek to influence them through rediscounting and overloaning, while the market share of government-linked banks declined steadily from a peak of around 95 per cent in 1980.

…

The Chinese central bank pays interest on the renminbi bonds it issues, and reserves it sequesters, in order to reduce the inflationary impact of China’s foreign exchange surplus.66 In the 1980s, many people said Taiwan’s extraordinary reserves were a symbol of its success as a developing economy. Still more is said of China’s foreign exchange pile today. But if Taiwan is a guide, China will come to be seen as further proof that acute and chronic currency manipulation is not a useful long-term addition to the industrial policy tool cupboard.67 In fairness to China, however, it should be said that the country’s undervaluation of its currency has not been as rigid as Taiwan’s was and the renminbi has been allowed to appreciate modestly since 2007. Good dragon, bad dragon Overall, China’s government has lined up most of the ducks necessary to enable rapid economic development.

The Retreat of Western Liberalism
by Edward Luce
Published 20 Apr 2017

After taking office, Trump publicly enquired which European country would be the next to make an exit. Trump has also continued to cast doubt on the future of Nato. Finally Germany is rising, but Trump wants to cut it down. He described Angela Merkel’s decision to allow in Syrian refugees as a disaster. Peter Navarro declared Germany a currency manipulator and an unfair trader.21 Merkel is now the only European leader with any serious presence on the global stage. The spirit of Western internationalism rests on her shoulders. It is asking a lot of a fourth-term German leader to carry such a torch. As Russia steps up its interference in Europe, Germany will be tempted to re-emerge as a military power.

A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America
by Bruce Cannon Gibney
Published 7 Mar 2017

It was not in the 1950s, when Europe and Japan were in ruins, that America stalled, but much later, even as competitors’ wages, regulations, and currencies converged to American levels. That counters the convenient narrative of America skinned alive by the cunning manufacturers of Nagoya and Munich, protected by currency manipulators in Tokyo and Bonn. (Nor have Europe and Japan’s demographically driven slowdowns resulted in any sudden uptick in American growth, showing again that America does best when everyone does well.) Finally, there is something not merely untrue, but wholly depressing, even un-American, about the idea that the nation can only compete when the rest of the world is in ruins.

…

Perhaps so, but this logic more or less guaranteed that the one place monopoly profits would not flow was to employees. After all, part of the justification for size was to compete against cunning foreigners. As the wages of overseas labor are alleged to be unduly low, thanks to backwardness and currency manipulation (though of course, it’s not as if General Motors and Ford sputtered because Mercedes or Honda pay slave wages), the one thing monopolists can’t and don’t want to do is raise wages. That would contradict the whole competitive argument in the first place. If any benefits were realized, they would flow to the menagerie of Boomer shareholders and executives.

A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America's Last Years in Vietnam
by Lewis Sorley
Published 2 Jun 1999

And these are the times we’re living in, and it does no good to sit around and piss about the good old days, because they aren’t here—if they ever were.” When Vice President Agnew visited in August 1970, Abrams told him that the soldier drug problem was “a big and serious problem, and is, in fact, the biggest among all those we have, including black marketeering and currency manipulation.” Abrams added that many commanders believed that in forward areas of real danger there was significant self-policing by the men, but that in rear areas the problem was more difficult. Nevertheless, Abrams said, his outlook at that time was that, “while we regard drugs to be a serious problem, and that our major effort here is to solve it, I did not feel the drug problem, in any significant way, interfered with the performance of the tasks of the men in South Vietnam.”5 Statistical evidence of the size of the drug abuse problem, and of its rapid increase, was only just beginning to become available.

…

Maples, “the IG Section consisted of four officers and four enlisted men. A year later it consisted of 96 officers and about 170 enlisted men.”21 With that staff, which eventually grew to 400 people, including thirteen full colonels, Cook was able to conduct 458 major investigations and some 5,000 inspections of all kinds, turning up everything from currency manipulation and theft to fraud and murder. His opinion is that “the drug thing was exaggerated, in a negative sense, in many cases.”22 The performance of soldiers and their units also gave evidence that there was still much good in the command. Successive increments of soldiers did their duty until stand-down and were redeployed in good order.

Red Flags: Why Xi's China Is in Jeopardy
by George Magnus
Published 10 Sep 2018

All quiet on the Eastern front, then, but we should wonder for how long. Can the Renminbi’s stability last? The government certainly has tools available to manage the Renminbi and keep the market orderly, but as we have seen in the not too distant past, these are not fool-proof. In any event, they may not always be so readily usable in future. Currency intervention is possible but limited to the extent that China’s foreign exchange reserves are not infinite, and it would be imprudent to allow them to fall below some sensible level. Higher interest rates may at some point be incompatible with the government’s objectives for economic growth and financial stability.

China's Disruptors: How Alibaba, Xiaomi, Tencent, and Other Companies Are Changing the Rules of Business
by Edward Tse
Published 13 Jul 2015

These include politicians, among them members of the Obama administration and other key figures in both the Republican and Democratic parties; leading economists such as Nobel prize winner Paul Krugman and Peter Navarro of the University of California, Irvine; and analysts such as Gordon Chang, author of the 2001 book The Coming Collapse of China. These critics argue that China’s economic success is due, in good part, to unfair practices by the Chinese government: its mercantilist trade regime, its currency manipulation that keeps the value of the yuan artificially low, its high-pressure efforts to open external markets to its businesses, its subsidies for manufacturers, and its widespread pirating of foreign goods and technology. The main beneficiaries of these policies, they say, have been Chinese export manufacturers—those who produce inexpensive smartphones, computers, toys, clothes, and other consumer goods, sucking in jobs from the rest of the world and dumping their products into Europe and America to drive competitors out of business.

The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality
by Richard Heinberg
Published 1 Jun 2011

Italy’s, particularly southern Italy’s, ability to export successfully is dubious.23 If the US dollar tumbles, that hurts China and other countries with fixed exchange rates; they feel pressured to drop their peg or revalue their currencies higher. Countries whose currencies are pegged to the dollar have had to resort to currency interventions and a massive buildup of foreign reserves to stop their currencies from appreciating. This is inflationary for those countries, and is one reason for the housing and equities boom in Asia.24 China’s way of pushing back against a lowering of the dollar’s value is its threat of ceasing to purchase US Treasury debt (which it has in fact partly done).

Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy
by Raghuram Rajan
Published 24 May 2010

Accusations of unfair trade are being heard in Washington corridors, and with U.S. unemployment touching 10 percent and Chinese growth also touching 10 percent, the disparity seems obvious. The momentum for Congress to impose some form of trade barrier is increasing, and even a renewed appreciation of the renminbi may not quell it. Is Chinese currency intervention unfair? And if so, to whom? In one sense, the answer is obvious. Chinese exporters already enjoy subsidies such as cheap capital, land, and energy. With their goods made even cheaper by an undervalued currency, Chinese exporters can outcompete firms in industrial countries. This situation seems blatantly unfair.

Paper Promises
by Philip Coggan
Published 1 Dec 2011

A modern agreement would have to get consensus from America, China, the EU, India, Brazil and so on. This would be tricky. But there could be a less formal arrangement than the Bretton Woods regime. In November 2010, Robert Zoellick, a former US Treasury official who runs the World Bank, wrote of a scheme that would see countries agree on structural reforms to boost growth, forswear currency intervention and build a ‘co-operative monetary system’.6 This system ‘should also consider employing gold as an international reference point of market expectations about inflation, deflation and future currency values’. Some saw this mild suggestion as a call for a return to the gold standard. It is hard to see the standard returning, save in the desperate circumstances of Weimar-style hyperinflation.

What Went Wrong: How the 1% Hijacked the American Middle Class . . . And What Other Countries Got Right
by George R. Tyler
Published 15 Jul 2013

They certainly have a target-rich environment. For example, Chinese currency undervaluation has become a chronic irritant, equivalent to a tax on GE or Daimler imports being sold there as well as a hidden subsidy to Chinese exports, such as giant wind generators. The Obama administration hopes to include prohibitions on currency manipulation in trade agreements, beginning with the Trans-Pacific talks in spring 2013. And aggressive steps are needed to neutralize other illegal trade practices, a difficult challenge as Beattie notes. A poster child for the ineffectiveness of policies to neutralize such illegal trade practices is the predicament dramatized by Maurice Taylor, CEO of the US tire firm Titan International.

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(former Council of Economic Advisors), 186 Nixon, Richard (President) enlarged social safety net, 98 gold standard, abandoned the, 42, 200, 219–20 subprime mortgages, 221 increased tax rates on capital above wages 98 Nocera, Joe (reporter) 56, 104 Nohria, Nitin (Harvard Dean), 104, 445 Norris, Floyd, 185 (chart), 185, 409, 411 (chart), 421 (chart) North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), 345–46 Norton, Michael, 433 Notten, Geranda, 403–06 O Obama, Barack (President), 32-3, 235–6, “budget, spending” 185–6, 207 2009–11, 338 Bush administration’s monopoly guidelines, scrapped, 87 Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation, 35 inherited economic challenges, 41, 184, 211 Labor Department standards, 115–16 minimum wage proposal, 337, 447 offshore wealth, pursuing Americans with, 456 prohibitions on currency manipulation in trade agreements, 452 stimulus bill (2009), 222 unemployment compensation, 332–33 Varney, Christine (antitrust chief), 87–8 Offshoring, 235, 319, 345–9, 351–3, 358, 362, 374, 394–7, The Apple Problem and, 344–53, 397 European vs. US firms, 362 Ok, Wooseok (economist), 331 Okun, Arthur M.

Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency
by Joshua Green
Published 17 Jul 2017

“It’s such a false narrative,” he complained in 2016. He added, less convincingly, “I had a phenomenal time. I had a great evening.” Trump also could have pointed out that he had long ago developed many of the themes that became hallmarks of his eventual campaign—everything from the evils of Chinese currency manipulation to the economic damage that NAFTA inflicted on a broad swath of U.S. workers. What is clear in hindsight, however, is that Trump’s interest in politics intensified right after the dinner, instead of quickly melting away, as it had after each of his presidential flirtations in the past.

A World in Disarray: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Old Order
by Richard Haass
Published 10 Jan 2017

Trade agreements are by definition pacts of reciprocal sovereign obligation regarding tariff and nontariff barriers and the like. When one party believes that the obligations are not being met, it has recourse; indeed, the principal breakthrough of the World Trade Organization is to provide a standing mechanism for challenges and for settlements. One area of obligation that has not been adequately dealt with is currency manipulation by a government to advantage its exports by lowering their effective price and to disadvantage imports from elsewhere by raising theirs. Another is government subsidy that again can make it possible to make exports more competitive than they would otherwise be. The challenge here will be to devise future trade pacts so that sovereign obligations in these specific areas (as well as in such areas as agriculture and services, which have received scant coverage in many trade pacts, along with labor and environmental practices) are spelled out and to design the accords so that a mechanism exists to hold governments accountable.

Red Roulette: An Insider's Story of Wealth, Power, Corruption, and Vengeance in Today's China
by Desmond Shum
Published 6 Sep 2021

Wang also shared some of the paranoid delusions particular to China’s ruling elite. He was, for example, a huge fan of a 2007 best seller, Currency Wars, written by a financial pundit named Song Hongbing. Song claimed that international, and particularly American, financial markets were controlled by a clique of Jewish bankers who used currency manipulation to enrich themselves by first lending money in US dollars to developing nations and then shorting those countries’ currencies. Song’s book mixed the disdain, suspicion, and awe of the United States held by many of China’s leaders. Wang Qishan, at least, should’ve known better; he’d worked closely with Westerners for decades.

The Post-American World: Release 2.0
by Fareed Zakaria
Published 1 Jan 2008

Yale University’s Stephen Roach points out that since 2002 the U.S. dollar has fallen in value by 23 percent against all our trading partners, and yet American exports are not booming. The United States imports more than it exports from ninety countries around the world. Is this because of currency manipulation by those countries, or is it more likely a result of fundamental choices we have made as a country to favor consumption over investment and manufacturing? Our fears extend well beyond terrorism and economics. Lou Dobbs, the former CNN commentator, became the spokesman of a paranoid and angry segment of the country, railing against the sinister forces that are overwhelming us.

Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age
by Manuel Castells
Published 19 Aug 2012

The list of most frequently mentioned demands debated in various occupations hints at the extraordinary diversity of the movement’s targets: controlling financial speculation, particularly high frequency trading; auditing the Federal Reserve; addressing the housing crisis; regulating overdraft fees; controlling currency manipulation; opposing the outsourcing of jobs; defending collective bargaining and union rights; reducing income inequality; reforming tax law; reforming political campaign finance; reversing the Supreme Court’s decision allowing unlimited campaign contributions from corporations; banning bailouts of companies; controlling the military-industrial complex; improving the care of veterans; limiting terms for elected politicians; defending freedom on the Internet; assuring privacy on the Internet and in the media; combating economic exploitation; reforming the prison system; reforming health care; combating racism, sexism, and xenophobia; improving student loans; opposing the Keystone pipeline and other environmentally predatory projects; enacting policies against global warming; fining and controlling BP and similar oil spillers; enforcing animal rights; supporting alternative energy sources; critiquing personal leadership and vertical authority, beginning with a new democratic culture in the camps; and watching out for co-optation in the political system (as happened with the Tea Party).

The Age of Stagnation: Why Perpetual Growth Is Unattainable and the Global Economy Is in Peril
by Satyajit Das
Published 9 Feb 2016

With 40 percent of sales and around a quarter of profits coming from abroad, US exporters were affected, issuing warnings of lower revenues and earnings. US legislators now complained about the effect of overseas central bank actions on the currency, threatening to classify Europe, Japan, and China as currency manipulators. The Fed indicated that the increase in the value of the dollar and its effects on the American economy were now impinging on their policies. The difference between legitimate policies of low or negative interest rates and unfair devaluation depends on one's point of view. Despite the evidence, European Central Bank president Mario Draghi has repeatedly stated that talk of a currency war was “really excessive,” favoring denial: “I urge all parties to exercise very, very strong verbal discipline.

The Great Depression: A Diary
by Benjamin Roth , James Ledbetter and Daniel B. Roth
Published 21 Jul 2009

Now it has assumed more definite proportions and even European nations have been affected so that it is becoming international in scope. The recognized economists believe that real prosperity cannot return until Roosevelt stops trying to reform and lets business alone under fair restrictions but with a reasonable chance to earn a profit—and also no more currency manipulation and no more “white rabbits.” Roosevelt does not seem the kind of a man to admit that he is wrong—especially with election coming next fall. There may be a slight spring upturn but there seems little hope of more permanent improvement until after the fall elections. 1938 will be the 9th year of bad business for me.

Straight Talk on Trade: Ideas for a Sane World Economy
by Dani Rodrik
Published 8 Oct 2017

It may have been possible then to distinguish cases where low wages in poor countries reflect low productivity from cases of genuine rights violations. And the bulk of trade that does not raise such concerns may have been better insulated from charges of “unfair trade.” Likewise, if economists had listened to their critics who warned about currency manipulation, trade imbalances, and job losses, instead of sticking to models that assumed away unemployment and other macroeconomic problems, they might have been in a better position to counter excessive claims about the adverse impact of trade deals on employment. In short, had economists gone public with the caveats, uncertainties, and skepticism of the seminar room, they might have become better defenders of the world economy.

How I Became a Quant: Insights From 25 of Wall Street's Elite
by Richard R. Lindsey and Barry Schachter
Published 30 Jun 2007

I continued to meet my new objectives of acquainting myself with modern finance and my old one of procrastinating on my dissertation. A new opportunity for delay arose in the New York Fed’s foreign exchange department, which had decided that economists might make good foreign exchange traders. The New York Fed’s FX desk is responsible for carrying out currency intervention operations on behalf of the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve System; the Treasury owns the policy, the Fed the machinery. Most of the Fed’s FX transactions are essentially commercial, executed on behalf of central banks that deposit reserves with it. By volume, however, the sporadic but large policy-driven FX market interventions predominate. 

Servant Economy: Where America's Elite Is Sending the Middle Class
by Jeff Faux
Published 16 May 2012

The phenomenon of exchange-rate protectionism was well known to the Republican and Democratic negotiators of the rules of the World Trade Organization and the other free-trade adjustments of the past twenty years. Nevertheless, pressured by their multinational “American” corporate financiers who were eager to partner with the Chinese, they deliberately excluded from the agreements any prohibition on currency manipulation. This was no oversight. It was repeated in agreement after agreement. And like most political folly, the reason for it lies in the special interests of the rich and powerful. Both Wall Street and the Pentagon favor a highly valued dollar because it enables them to buy assets around the world more cheaply.

The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and the Future of the World Economy
by Dani Rodrik
Published 23 Dec 2010

The country stands as the premier example of how the global economy can be leveraged for economic growth and poverty reduction—by combining exports with a domestically tailored strategy of economic diversification and institutional innovation. But the picture is not all pretty. China and its trade partners have become embroiled in a growing number of trade disputes in recent years on product safety, patent and copyright infringement, government subsidies, dumping, currency manipulation, and market-access restrictions of various kinds. Imports from China have become a leading scapegoat for the stagnant median wages in the United States. China’s huge trade surplus has led even sober economists such as Paul Krugman to complain that the country’s “mercantilist” policies are costing the U.S. economy more than a million jobs.28 And China is widely blamed for running roughshod over human rights and good governance in Africa in its quest for natural resources.

Better, Stronger, Faster: The Myth of American Decline . . . And the Rise of a New Economy
by Daniel Gross
Published 7 May 2012

In recent years China’s economic mandarins have realized that the best way to fight inflation and improve the lot of your people isn’t to pay them a little more to make cheap junk that they can send elsewhere. Rather it’s a good idea to let your currency appreciate so that the cost of things people and companies need to import, like food and oil and coal, doesn’t gobble up such a huge chunk of disposable income. Despite all the complaints about China’s currency manipulation, the renminbi has appreciated in value against the dollar in recent years, rising from 8.27 per dollar in October 2005 to 6.38 per dollar in October 2011, a 23 percent increase. In 2011 a dollar simply bought much less of a Chinese worker’s time than it did in 2006, but more than it will buy in 2016.

Why We're Polarized
by Ezra Klein
Published 28 Jan 2020

Each of us can have firsthand knowledge of just a small number of topics: our jobs, our studies, our personal experiences. But as citizens—and as elected officials—we are routinely asked to make judgments on issues as diverse and as complex as the Iranian nuclear program, the environmental impact of an international oil pipeline, and the likely outcomes of branding China a currency manipulator. One of the roles that political parties play is helping us navigate these decisions. In theory, we join parties because they share our values and our goals—values and goals that may have been passed on to us by the most important groups in our lives, such as our families and our communities—and we trust that their policy judgments will match the ones we would come up with if we had unlimited time to study the issues.

MegaThreats: Ten Dangerous Trends That Imperil Our Future, and How to Survive Them
by Nouriel Roubini
Published 17 Oct 2022

In less than the span of a generation, China vaulted from an impoverished, third-world nation to the world’s second largest economy. Besides shrewd planning and hard work, unfair trade practices aided China’s rapid progress. They led to resentment and eventually trade restrictions. The Trump administration listed a litany of alleged Chinese trade violations. The litany includes currency manipulation that kept China’s currency weak, a ploy that bestowed a competitive advantage on exports as trade surpluses mounted: “For many years, China has pursued industrial policies and unfair trade practices—including dumping, discriminatory non-tariff barriers, forced technology transfer, overcapacity, and industrial subsidies—that champion Chinese firms and make it impossible for many United States firms to compete on a level playing field.”18 Overall, trade flourished from 1945 until the start of this century, fostering a world of relative peace and prosperity.

Wall Street: How It Works And for Whom
by Doug Henwood
Published 30 Aug 1998

(Freddie Mac), 91-92 Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), 91-92 Federal Reserve, 92-98 beige book, 131-132 Board of Governors, 96 chair's dominance, 96 concern with strength of labor, 219 Congressional posturing over, 132 democratizing, 307-309 dollar activities during trading week, 130 and dollar policy, 44 Federal Open Market Committee, 97, 132 minutes, 218 Fed-watching, 97 flow of funds accounts, 56-58; see also specific sectors history, 92-96 monetary policy, 25-26 deliberations, 97 policy, and endogenous money, 220 profits on currency intervention, 44, 54, 136 protection of bondholder interests, 123 secretiveness, 97 self-financing, 96 structure, 95-96 Survey of Consumer Finances, 64,69,79,114,115 Wall Street pressures on, 308-309 Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 96 Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corp., 87 Federal Trade Commission, 279 fees, investment banking, for M&A, 273, 281, 299 bad structure in LBOs, 284 high even in failed deals, 299 Rohatyn's inspiration to Perella, 285 Ferenczi, Sandor, 226 feudalism, usury as killer of, 237 fictitious capital, 13 finance blending with industry, 135, 262 how it matters, 153-161 vs. money, 183 finance capital. 5ee Hilferding, Rudolf finance-industry split, absence of, 95, 123-124 financial capacity (Gurley and Shaw), 153, 158 financial engineering, 52 financial reform, difficulty of, 302 financial slack, 298 financial structures, social aspects institutional differences between debt and equity, 247 stockholder-bondholder conflicts, 248 financial system costs of, 76-77 employees, demographics, 78 institutional overview, 76-86 borders, 56 "output", 76 profits and taxes, 78 salaries, 78-79 systemic risk, 40-41, 85, 86 see also flow of funds accounts financial theory, assumptions, 138 Finland, 235 firm.

Endless Money: The Moral Hazards of Socialism
by William Baker and Addison Wiggin
Published 2 Nov 2009

They all clustered at the edge of employing extraordinary leverage, both on and off their balance sheets, and they exposed themselves to nearly unquantifiable counterparty risk. They did so because government stepped in to insure deposits, and it preempted the role of safekeeping. The elastic nature of fiat currency intervention at the bottom of economic cycles transmitted a message that systemic risk did not exist any longer. Yet at exactly this moment, government became least able to provide a backstop to deposits and counterparty failure, because it had leveraged its own balance sheet, whose debts are those of the people (the upper-middle class to be specific—since they are nearly exclusively called upon to fund government).

The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People's Economy
by Stephanie Kelton
Published 8 Jun 2020

As MMT economist Pavlina Tcherneva has documented, unemployment resembles an epidemic: like a virus, it affects other people nearby, resulting not only in lost income but higher mortality and suicide rates and a permanent decline in well-being.13 But it’s easier to blame immigrant workers, foreign currency manipulators, or even global technology than to come to terms with the fact that joblessness is an official policy in the United States. I have argued that one of the best answers to, “They took our jobs!” is, “Everyone gets a job!” The MMT solution to involuntary unemployment is to introduce a federal job guarantee that establishes a legal right to a good job at good wages with good benefits.

The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking
by Saifedean Ammous
Published 23 Mar 2018

As the major economies of the world went off the gold standard, global trade was soon to be shipwrecked on the shores of oscillating fiat money. With no standard of value to allow an international price mechanism to exist, and with governments increasingly captured by statist and isolationist impulses, currency manipulation emerged as a tool of trade policy, with countries seeking to devalue their currencies in order to give their exporters an advantage. More trade barriers were erected, and economic nationalism became the ethos of that era, with predictably disastrous consequences. The nations that had prospered together 40 years earlier, trading under one universal gold standard, now had large monetary and trade barriers between them, loud populist leaders who blamed all their failures on other nations, and a rising tide of hateful nationalism that was soon to fulfill Otto Mallery's prophecy: “If soldiers are not to cross international boundaries, goods must do so.

Making It in America: The Almost Impossible Quest to Manufacture in the U.S.A. (And How It Got That Way)
by Rachel Slade
Published 9 Jan 2024

W., 15 Bush, George W., 52, 62, 63, 91 Butler, Dave, 180, 221 Buy American Act of 1933, 129n Berry Amendment, 129n, 232n C Cambodia, 25, 38, 257 Cameron, David, 138 Campbellsville, Kentucky, 257–58 Amazon and, 268–69 Fruit of the Loom closure, 268 Carhartt, 27, 139 Carleton Woolen Mill, Winthrop, Maine, 45–48 Carnegie, Andrew, 180 Cartwright, Edmund, 8 Cascade Woolen Mill, Oakland, Maine, 40–41 Casco Bay Wool Works, Portland, Maine, 39–49, 100 closing of, 49 founding of, 40 income growth and employees, 44–45 loss of suppliers, 48–49 Maine Maid Outerwear, 39–40, 44 NAFTA and closing of, 45–46 CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission), 156 Champion Mills, 135 bought out by Sara Lee (1989), 139 factory moved to China, 168 factory moved to North Carolina, 139 NAFTA and move to Mexico, 139 sweatshirt produced by, 135–36 Charney, Dov, 252, 264 Child Labor Amendment of 1924, 134 Chile, 72–73 China American apparel, percentage produced by, 231 American manufacturing sent to, 18 American mills that offshored to, 168–69 Biden administration and, 275 as biggest cotton buyer, 156 British East India Company and, 13–14 Champion Mills moved to, 168 as competitor for American-made goods, 143, 231 currency manipulation and, 212 development of Suzhou, 85–86 global manufacturing domination, 68 global cotton market and, 231–34, 235 hourly rate for labor in, 169 as market for western goods, 46–47 sanctions on, and retaliation, 233 subsidizing manufacturers, 68, 212 sweatshirt production, 29 textile and clothing production domination, 129, 257 as a threat to the U.S., 68 unfair trade practices, 68 U.S. tariffs and, 68 U.S. trade deficit to, 68 Uyghur oppression, 233–34 WHO and, 18, 68, 143 workforce in, 86 CHIPS-Plus Act of 2022, 296 Chouinard, Yvon, 110 CIA, 13, 15 in Chile, 72 in China, 246 in the Congo Republic, 246 Contras and, 15 in the DRC, 246 right-wing coups and, 15, 71 Operation Condor, 15 Cinderella Man (film), 100 Cleaves, Adam, 279 Coal Industry Retiree Health Benefit Act of 1992, 195–96 Coastal Enterprises, Inc., 119 Colbert, Stephen, 140 Cold War, 71–72 Common Threads, Portland, Maine, 122–23, 123n, 128 Congo, Democratic Republic of (DRC), 123–24 Congo Republic, 245–47 Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), 64 Conway, Thomas, 217 Coolidge, Calvin, 204, 205 Corbyn, Jeremy, 73 Cornered: The New Monopoly of Capitalism and the Economics of Destruction (Lynn), 259, 261 Corson, Holland, 293 cotton China and, 156, 231–34, 235 cotton gin and, 8–9, 155 environmental issues, 154 futures market and, 156 ginning co-ops, 155 Indian cotton, 154–55 Monsanto’s seed monopoly, 154 Noxubee harvest, 154–55 Pilchman’s American Fabrics and, 168, 231–32 price increases, 231–32 quality monitored by the USDA, 156 U.S. exports, 155–56 U.S. as major grower, 132, 152–56 Covid-19 pandemic, 200–201, 211–13, 227, 234, 242–43, 276, 285 American Roots and, 200–201, 209, 210, 213–19, 223–26, 239, 242–43, 276, 285 brands cancelling orders and, 24 companies closed by, 193, 276 dependency on imports and, 211 drug shortage during, 299, 300n hoarding and, 213–14 market uncertainty and, 232, 276 masks and PPE shortage, 211, 214 national divisiveness and, 222 raw goods shortages, 231 Sintex Industries bankruptcy, 156 vaccines, 231 Waxmans’ Washington Post op-ed, 218, 220 Crawford, Lucy, 5–6, 7 Crown family, 78, 79 Obama and, 78 Whirlpool plant shutdown, 78–80 cryptocurrencies, 14n CSIS (Center for Strategic and International Studies), 297 D Daitch, Mike, 239–40 Dana, Woodbury, 174–75 Dana Warp Mill, Westbrook, Maine, 172, 174–75 Dartmouth College, 102 Davis, Isaac, 201–2 Dawes Act of 1887, 203 de Kooning, Willem, 59n Dell, Michelle, 88–89 Delphi Automotive, Dayton, Ohio, 77 Delta Air Lines, 153 Democratic Party AFL-CIO and, 52–53, 70, 74 free trade, offshoring, and, 70 neoliberalism and, 70, 195 Department of Defense (DOD) prison labor used by, 129–30n required to purchase American-made goods, 129n, 130, 232 spending on textiles and apparel (2021), 129n Depp, Johnny, 119 Devlin, Patti, 193–97, 211, 274 American Roots investment, 196, 227 on bringing back American manufacturing, 196–98 Dexter, Maine, 189–90 Dexter Shoe Co. in, 189, 190, 191–93 Dickens, Charles, 9 Du Pont family, Winterthur museum, Delaware, 34 E Eastman Kodak, 83–85 Japan’s Fujifilm imports and, 84, 85 Eban, Katherine, Bottle of Lies: The Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom, 299n Eddie Bauer, 110 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 63, 207 Enter the Wu-Tang (album), 137 environmental issues agricultural monoculture, 152–54 cotton and, 154 fabric dye disposal and, 22 GDP not inclusive of, 17 textile manufacturing and, 21–22 used clothing disposal, 22–23 WTO’s detrimental effects, 16 Esquire, 146 Trumka profile, 78–79 Evans, Walker, 59n Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America (Andersen), 11 F Factory Man (Macy), 68–69 Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, 134 Fairness Doctrine, 191 Fall River, Massachusetts, 217, 243, 279 Merrow company in, 40, 244–45, 247 Fanatics, 289 Farley, William, 258–59, 260 Farmstead Magazine, 33 FDRA (Footwear Distributors & Retailers of America), xii Federal Prison Industries, 129–30n Feinbloom brothers, 135–36 Fetterman, John, 139, 139n Feuerstein, Aaron, 105–6, 109–11, 129, 130 Feuerstein, Raphael, 110 Feuerstein, Samuel, 105–6 Flowfold company, Maine, 213 Floyd, George, 220, 241 Ford, Henry, 203, 256 Frazier, Joe, 137n free trade/free market theory, 4–5, 11–15, 24, 33, 63, 71 American economy and, 19, 235 Chile and, 72–73 devastating effects of, 19, 20, 91 ethical or social agenda absent, 23 first American victims of, 18 IMF and, 71 NAFTA and, 15–16, 18–19 Reagan and, 185 USMCA and, 19 WTO and, 16, 22, 84 See also NAFTA Friedman, Milton and Rose, 11–12, 14, 72, 111 Friedman, Vanessa, 139 Frost, Robert, 106 Fruit of the Loom, 234, 252, 257–60, 268 bankruptcy of, 263, 264 Farley takeover, 258–59, 263–64 offshore production of, 262–63 stock buyback at, 263–64, 263n G General Dynamics, 79 George, Billy, 53, 59 Gildan Activewear SRL, 232 Gingrich, Newt, “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control,” 192 Glass-Steagall Act, 94 globalization, 18, 70 Buffett’s miscalculation about, 192 NAFTA, WTO, and, 192 U.N.

Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World
by Adam Tooze
Published 31 Jul 2018

He was profoundly critical of China’s currency policy.48 But relations among central bankers are polite. It was not for the Fed to lecture the Chinese on currency policy. The same rules did not apply to the US Treasury or to Congress. In the early 2000s dozens of bills began to move through Congress accusing China of being a currency manipulator in violation of WTO norms and demanding sanctions. It was those initiatives that raised fears in circles like the Hamilton Project about “populist protectionism.” In July 2005, to relieve pressure on the US economy, China began to allow a slow currency appreciation. In due course this would bring about a 23 percent revaluation.

…

But that would be to view the situation with Western eyes. China had fixed its exchange rate in 1994 as a defensive measure at a time when the United States was running a responsible fiscal policy. If since 2000 gigantic imbalances had begun to appear, that, in Beijing’s view, had more to do with America’s fiscal recklessness than with China’s currency manipulation. China’s export surplus was far from being an unmitigated blessing. As far as Beijing was concerned, the surplus reinforced China’s excessively investment-driven growth path and led it deeper into a lopsided entanglement with the United States. A more balanced trade account was a natural concomitant of the effort to shift the focus of economic growth toward domestic consumption.36 In the meantime, the PBoC’s currency proposal was a shot across the bows of the new administration and a sign that Beijing was running out of patience with America.

Siege: Trump Under Fire
by Michael Wolff
Published 3 Jun 2019

This was the most fundamental Trump battle, one that could also be won—but that, right then, might be lost. For Bannon, China remained everything. It was the key, and the devil was in the details. And Trump got it: “China bad.” Here was a totalitarian state with a government-run economy that through currency manipulation and public subsidies had reoriented the world’s supply chain, and, in just half a generation, turned its 1.4 billion citizens into the world’s fastest-growing market, bending the West’s capital markets and political class to its will. A dominant China, in Bannon’s world schematic, meant a declining United States, ever losing its manufacturing base.

Alpha Trader
by Brent Donnelly
Published 11 May 2021

Bonds typically perform this role, though with interest rates approaching zero in most countries by the year 2020, that role is likely to be questioned going forward. The Japanese yen and Swiss franc are traditionally viewed as safe havens though their role as safe havens has diminished in recent years due to central bank and semi-official currency intervention (perceived or actual). Many prognosticators and journalists talk about gold as if it is a safe haven. When you see a headline like: “Gold rallies as US stock market sell-off accelerates”, ignore it. Gold is just as likely to go down on days or during weeks that stocks go down. Gold’s behavior during periods of risk aversion depends mostly on positioning and overall financial market and USD liquidity.

Collision Course: Carlos Ghosn and the Culture Wars That Upended an Auto Empire
by Hans Gremeil and William Sposato
Published 15 Dec 2021

The litany of potential risks was laid out in Chief Executive Magazine by Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor at the Yale School of Management:11 Setting aside the cinematic drama of Ghosn’s escape, the saga of his legal perils are filled with worrisome trends for global executives. Amid a surge of nationalism around the world, trade battles over tariffs, taxes, forced tech transfer, intellectual property, data privacy, government subsidization, currency manipulation, labor conditions and sustainability goals are exploding. Sen. Wicker of Mississippi, one of the three senators who came to Kelly’s aid, was more direct: he took to the floor of the Senate in October 2020 to condemn the arrest and trial of Kelly. “This needless ordeal sends an unmistakable message to the American business community.

The Powerful and the Damned: Private Diaries in Turbulent Times
by Lionel Barber
Published 5 Nov 2020

His sentences are dotted with references to martial history, especially the Civil War. On opposite walls: a whiteboard chock-a-block with policies and a six-column list of campaign pledges under the words ‘Make America Great Again’. Among the most eye-catching: repeal of Obamacare, branding China a currency manipulator, hiring Americans and changing the accounting rules for US companies. Bannon wants to overturn the global economic system which has benefited Wall Street, Hollywood and Silicon Valley as well as Milan and Chelsea. Globalisation has ‘gutted’ the American economy, he bellows. A new succession of strongmen – Modi of India, Xi of China, Duterte in the Philippines, Putin of Russia – and populists like Marine Le Pen and Nigel Farage are on the rise.

Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century
by Geoffrey Parker
Published 29 Apr 2013

Apart from imposing excise duties and increasing direct taxes, early modern governments at war frequently exploited and extended state monopolies (often known as ‘regalian rights’), such as extracting minerals obtained from the sea or under the ground (including salt and coal, silver and copper), or maximizing the profits from minting coins. Currency manipulation became particularly common in the seventeenth century, with governments from Spain, through Russia, to China either adulterating silver coins with base metals, or issuing copper or paper money with little or no intrinsic value. Forcible devaluation could ruin whole societies. In 1634 in exile Pavel Stránský recalled the devaluation in Bohemia a decade earlier as the most traumatic experience of his life: ‘Neither plague, nor war, nor hostile foreign incursions into our land, neither pillage nor fire however atrocious, could do so much harm to good people as frequent changes and reductions in the value of money’.

…

Many went bankrupt, some fled and a few committed suicide in order to escape their creditors.38 Everyone involved in the Sino-Japanese silk trade thus experienced serious losses, some of it terminal, because of a political decision over which they had no control and against which they had no defence.39 Those living in the macro-regions were also defenceless against other government initiatives. For example, since they normally used cash to settle commercial transactions, currency manipulation affected them far more than communities which continued to rely on barter. Currency in the early modern world came in two forms. One, used by merchants, monarchs and others who engaged in high-value transactions, consisted of silver and gold coins that had an intrinsic value like any other commodity.

…

Walford discerned six natural precipitants of harvest failure, including excessive rain, frosts, droughts, ‘plagues of insects and vermin’ and sunspot cycles, and seven more ‘artificial’ (read: human) precipitants, including war, ‘defective agriculture’, insufficient transport, legislative interference, currency manipulation, hoarding, and diverting grain from making bread to other purposes (such as brewing or distilling).19 Nevertheless although Walford relied mostly on nineteenth-century data from England and British India, the same combination of ‘natural’ and ‘artificial causes’ he identified also prevailed in the seventeenth century.

Life Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It Back
by Douglas Rushkoff
Published 1 Jun 2009

Philip’s new, more opaque tactic, made possible by his centralization of money, was to debase his own currency—removing some portion of the gold and recoining it with less precious metal. Philip forced his people to use and value money from which he could extract worth at any time. For these repeated debasements, Dante later pictured Philip in Hell. Philip’s wanton currency manipulation led to attacks on royal officials and widespread rioting. By 1306, violence got so bad in Paris that Philip had to take refuge in the house of the Knights Templar and temporarily restore “good money” for his people to use. Philip had done far worse than simply debase a currency. Taken alone, all that would have done is made it harder for him to purchase foreign goods.

Making Globalization Work
by Joseph E. Stiglitz
Published 16 Sep 2006

Today, prudence requires countries to maintain reserves at least equal to their short-term dollar debts or debts denominated in other hard currencies, such as the yen or euro.3 Reserves can also be used to manage the exchange rate; without reserves, the exchange rate can fall, often quite dramatically, as fickle investors or profit-seeking speculators or currency manipulators sell a country’s currency. Instability in exchange rates can lead to enormous economic instability. By countervailing these moves—buying the country’s currency when others are selling or selling the country’s currency when others are buying—governments can stabilize the exchange rate, and thereby stabilize the economy.

Shutdown: How COVID Shook the World's Economy
by Adam Tooze
Published 15 Nov 2021

If countries wanted to resist the appreciation of their currencies against the dollar, as several emerging market competitors did in 2020, they were forced to adopt countermeasures. They could, for instance, buy dollars and accumulate foreign exchange reserves.20 The risk was that it would trigger a hostile reaction on the part of the United States. At the end of 2020 the odd couple of Switzerland and Vietnam were singled out by Washington as currency manipulators.21 Two very different scenarios both for the United States and the world economy hinged on the balance of power in Congress, which was finally settled on January 6 with the announcement of the result of the Georgia runoffs. This statewide election was one of the most expensive contests in history.

The Dying Citizen: How Progressive Elites, Tribalism, and Globalization Are Destroying the Idea of America
by Victor Davis Hanson
Published 15 Nov 2021

Yet the film industry did not disclose that its own producers and directors had previously curtailed the presence of dark-skinned actors to ensure greater profitability by accommodating the on-screen aesthetic preferences of Chinese moviegoers.44 If we wonder why the United States by 2017 found itself a deer-in-the-headlights victim of long-standing Chinese patent and copyright infringements, technological appropriation, dumping, currency manipulation, and huge surpluses—topped off by systematic Chinese deceit in spreading the coronavirus—it may have been because so many celebrities, academics, and corporate interests were not just heavily invested in Chinese profiteering but quite willing to abide by Beijing’s own requirements of censorship and obeisance.

The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time
by Karl Polanyi
Published 27 Mar 2001

With money, the threat was to productive enterprise, the existence of which was imperiled by any fall in the price level caused by use of commodity money. Here also protective measures had to be taken, with the result that the self-steering mechanism of the market was put out of action. Central banking reduced the automatism of the gold standard to a mere pretense. It meant a centrally managed currency; manipulation was substituted for the self-regulating mechanism of supplying credit, even though the device was not always deliberate and conscious. More and more it was recognized that the international gold standard could be made self-regulating only if the single countries relinquished central banking.

European Spring: Why Our Economies and Politics Are in a Mess - and How to Put Them Right
by Philippe Legrain
Published 22 Apr 2014

It is in Germans’ own interest to pay themselves wages commensurate with their productivity, invest more in future growth (not least in their often dilapidated infrastructure) and stop squandering their savings on bad loans abroad.345 But if Germany’s mercantilist policymakers refuse to do what’s right for Germans, the European Commission must use its new powers to tackle dangerously excessive imbalances to force Berlin to act.346 If the EU is a community of equals, not an instrument for imposing the writ of powerful creditor countries on debtors, its rules must apply to Germany too. American pressure could also make a difference. The US Treasury has criticised Germany’s surplus, which could also become an issue in ongoing talks on an EU-US trade and investment deal. Since there are demands in the US Congress to tackle currency manipulation in future US trade deals, it is only a small step to requiring that Germany address its current-account surplus. After all, artificially holding wages below productivity is a manipulation of Germany’s real exchange rate. Promote competition, not competitiveness Provided they are combined with bank restructuring to restore credit to businesses and investment to support demand, the right reforms can unblock hidebound economies and open up future growth.

The Forgotten Man
by Amity Shlaes
Published 25 Jun 2007

Roosevelt was satisfied, writing to Joe Kennedy, “With you I think Monday, February eighteenth was a historic day. As a lawyer, it seems to me that the Supreme Court has at last definitely put human values ahead of the ‘pound of flesh’ called for by a contract.” But Justice James McReynolds delivered a soliloquy: the New Deal’s “flippant approach to currency manipulation” was dangerous. Congress had no power to destroy the gold-clause commitment. Roosevelt was like a tyrant. “This is Nero at his worst. As for the Constitution, it does not seem too much to say that it is gone.” The meaning of the news was something the country found hard to grasp. Clearly it affected all private contracts.

Killing Hope: Us Military and Cia Interventions Since World War 2
by William Blum
Published 15 Jan 2003

The left was now altogether excluded from the government, and the elections scheduled for December were canceled.8 If this wasn't enough to disenchant the Pathet Lao or anyone else with the Laotian political process, there was, in the late 1950s and eariy 1960s, the spectacle of a continuous parade of coups and counter-coups, of men overthrown winding up in the new government, and regimes headed by men who had sided with the French in their war against Indochinese independence, while the Pathet Lao had fought against the colonialists.9 There were as well government-rigged elections, with the CIA stuffing ballot boxes;10 different regimes-cum-warlords governing simultaneously from different "capitals", their armies fighting each other, switching allies and enemies when it suited them; hundreds of millions of US dollars pouring into a tiny kingdom which was 99 percent agricultural, with an economy based more on barter than money, the result being "unimaginable bribery, graft, currency manipulation and waste".11 The CIA and the State Department alone could take credit for engineering coups, through force, bribery or other pressures, at least once in each of the years 1958, 1959 and 1960, if not in others.12 "By merely withholding the monthly payment to the troops," wrote Roger Hilsman (whose career encompassed both agencies, perhaps covertly simultaneously), "the United States could create the conditions for toppling any Lao government whose policies it opposed.

Tailspin: The People and Forces Behind America's Fifty-Year Fall--And Those Fighting to Reverse It
by Steven Brill
Published 28 May 2018

Much of the gap stemmed not just from China’s low-wage competition but also from the country’s failure to live up to promises to liberalize regulations on foreign imports, ownership, and investment, and to curtail state subsidies of industries (such as solar power) that had enabled them to compete unfairly abroad. Continuing regulations on the use of foreign-owned technology and, for many years, currency manipulation also put the country’s thumb on the scale of fair free trade. As already noted, one side effect of the enormous Chinese trade deficit was its role in the debt crisis and financial collapse of 2008–9. Because the Chinese were accumulating so much cash and needed a safe place to invest it, they dramatically increased demand for U.S.

New World, Inc.
by John Butman
Published 20 Mar 2018

“Every man finds himself grieved” by the rising prices, he wrote.14 Smith blamed the inflationary spiral on Henry VIII, who spent recklessly on foreign wars and an extravagant lifestyle and plunged the crown into debt. When Henry could no longer raise sufficient money from taxes, loans, and the sale of monastic land, he turned to financial chicanery: currency manipulation. This involved debasing the coinage by reducing the amount of silver in every coin. Although the crown could spend less on silver, the value of the coins plunged and prices were driven even higher. This was a disaster for everyone. In his Discourse, Smith called for an end to this abuse. Also, Smith identified another factor that he saw as deleterious to the realm: the practice of “land enclosure.”

The Future of War
by Lawrence Freedman
Published 9 Oct 2017

Compared with the scenarios from the early 1990s, Cohn’s forward look was dominated by fragmentation—old NATO allies coming to blows, the collapse of the Eurozone and a Belgian civil war, Russia attempting to reverse its post-1990 losses, including a move into the Baltic states, China becoming expansionist or succumbing to its own civil war, and then conflicts developing because of a rush to colonise the polar regions or even the moon, or gain access to fresh water, as well as more familiar concerns related to nuclear terrorism, currency manipulation and cyberwar. The theme of all these books was that the improbable could always happen and so, in effect, it was essential to be prepared for everything. This was Cohn’s conclusion. National defence could not be ‘predicated upon easily defined threats’ and so the United States must be prepared ‘for the whole gamut of possibilities’.

The Battle of Bretton Woods: John Maynard Keynes, Harry Dexter White, and the Making of a New World Order
by Benn Steil
Published 14 May 2013

In the here and now, the United States insists that the fault lies with its largest creditor, China, which continues to fix its exchange rate at an artificially low level. A practice praised by the U.S. Treasury Secretary in 1998, when the Chinese government was resisting downward market pressure on the renminbi, is now widely condemned as currency manipulation—as it was by Treasury Secretary nominee Timothy Geithner in 2009, when the Chinese government was resisting upward market pressure on its currency. Senators Charles Schumer and Lindsey Graham attacked the Chinese practice, declaring that “one of the fundamental tenets of free trade is that currencies should float.”

The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley
by Jimmy Soni
Published 22 Feb 2022

“What I really was worried about,” Chestnut remembered, “was what would be the reaction of the seller community if we shut them down.” 19 WORLD DOMINATION When he took over as CEO, Thiel had named growth abroad as one of his strategic imperatives, but the idea predated his late 2000 message. In its original pitch documents, Confinity cast Mobile Wallet as a means of liberating the masses from currency-manipulating governments and reserve banks. While those ideas eventually gave way to liberating eBay users from Billpoint, the team continued to plan for PayPal’s global growth. When the team chose a product name, for instance, ease of international use was a key factor. Even the team’s casual internal parlance—“The World Domination Index,” for example, or the “New World Currency”—spoke to the aim of making PayPal a border-busting universal payments system.

Disrupt and Deny: Spies, Special Forces, and the Secret Pursuit of British Foreign Policy
by Rory Cormac
Published 14 Jun 2018

Instead, British propagandists tried to challenge the competence and sincerity of particular leaders such as the Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, certain Communist Party officials, and named terrorist leaders.18 Occasionally though, Britain crossed the line, especially during colonial counter-insurgency campaigns, attacking entire groups such as the Mau Mau in Kenya. Operational covert action encompassed political, economic, and special operations. The first includes bribery, encouraging resistance, funding ­political parties, and rigging elections. Economic operations involve forging currencies, manipulating trade prices, or denying competitors access to goods. Special operations are more militaristic and might comprise sabotage, training rebel groups, and even assassination. In the British tradition, they tend to take place during some form of conflict such as in Libya and OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 06/02/18, SPi I n t roduct ion: Cov e rt Act ion7 Syria recently.

The Third Pillar: How Markets and the State Leave the Community Behind
by Raghuram Rajan
Published 26 Feb 2019

For instance, as I write this, there is considerable ire in Washington that Japanese monetary efforts in recent years have been primarily transmitted through a depreciated yen. Washington believes Tokyo is playing unfair by stealing growth from other countries, including the United States. Concerns about currency manipulation are part of the reason why Washington has recently slapped tariffs on Japanese aluminum and steel. The reality is that with the world becoming more interconnected, more hitherto domestic policies will have international effects. While no country has a duty to undertake policies that help the world more than it helps the country, it does have a responsibility to avoid policies that do significant harm to others.

Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World
by Liaquat Ahamed
Published 22 Jan 2009

It sounded simple, but to most of Roosevelt’s economic advisers, talk of devaluation was plain blasphemy, smacking of the worst forms of repudiation. How was this different from the practice of clipping and debasing coins adopted by insolvent monarchs in the Middle Ages? Given its vast gold reserves, the United States had little reason to resort to this currency manipulation, which might threaten confidence in the credit standing of the U.S. government and even endanger rather than promote recovery. During the first few weeks of the administration, following the proclamation suspending gold exports on Roosevelt’s first day in office, the currency situation remained in limbo.

The Making of Global Capitalism
by Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin
Published 8 Oct 2012

Above all, it contributed not just to the geographical but also to the technological and organizational restructuring of US industry discussed in the previous chapter. Meanwhile, US exports resumed a rate of growth even more impressive than in the 1970s: in the decade after 1985 they grew at an average of over 10 percent a year. The fact that US trade deficits persisted after Plaza only showed the futility of trying to correct them through currency manipulations, and this reinforced the case for instead promoting US exports through a “free trade” offensive (see Chapter 9), which was consistent with the making of global capitalism. During the 1980s, urban land prices in Japan almost tripled, while the value of the stock market quadrupled. The bubble that developed was further inflated with the aid of US derivatives traders who had been welcomed to Japan throughout the decade.

The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution
by Francis Fukuyama
Published 11 Apr 2011

The Russian state was stronger than its French or Spanish counterparts in several respects. The latter felt bound by respect for a rule of law, at least with regard to elites, which simply didn’t exist in Russia. The French and Spanish governments nibbled away at property rights through debt defaults, currency manipulation, and trumped-up charges through court proceedings designed to extort money from their target. But at least they felt compelled to work through the existing legal system. The Russian government, by contrast, expropriated private property outright with no pretense of legality, forced the entire nobility into government service, and did away with enemies and traitors without attention to due process.

The Marshall Plan: Dawn of the Cold War
by Benn Steil
Published 13 Feb 2018

It was they who had distorted it, he said, by demanding financial commission powers “over the whole activity of the German Bank” and repudiating an earlier 1945 air corridor accord.99 The directive being ambiguous on the commission’s powers, the Allies had depended on a measure of Soviet goodwill in hewing to Stalin’s oral assurances. Soviet literature, however, had extolled the use of currency manipulation during the Russian Revolution; and Douglas, for one, was not surprised that Stalin wanted to retain that weapon in Berlin. His backtracking on currency cooperation, together with new air traffic restrictions, convinced Marshall the Soviets were yet again negotiating in bad faith.100 Looking back on events months hence, Foy Kohler, the American chargé in Moscow, would conclude that the Kremlin had fashioned the impasse “to spin out negotiations indefinitely, maintaining [the] blockade meanwhile.”101 Indeed, Stalin had shifted his chips.

Escape From Rome: The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity
by Walter Scheidel
Published 14 Oct 2019

The empire did not issue public debt until the mid-nineteenth century. There had generally been little demand: either taxes were sufficient to cover expenses, or potential lenders would have been reluctant to provide funds to a monopolist in times of crisis. During crises, the government would fall back on currency manipulation and predation on the wealthy. These options in turn exposed merchants to bullying and made them less inclined to trust the authorities. Moreover, the sheer physical scale of the empire helped substitute movements of resources across regions (i.e., transfers in space) for credit (i.e., transfer in time).

Wanderers: A Novel
by Chuck Wendig
Published 1 Jul 2019

“They aren’t good. Not as good as I want ’em to be, Vic.” “Berlin went well.” “And Chengdu didn’t.” “The Chinese market is a tough one. We’re strangers in a strange land there—they’ll come around. Tensions are strained right now between them and us, too.” China said the US was a currency manipulator. The US said China was the manipulator. More talk of tariffs and trade wars. “It’s a tiff, but it’ll end.” “Yeah, I guess.” He grunted again as he strained to find a position that didn’t cause pain to shoot up from his broken ankle—the misery was like lightning striking from the heel of his foot all the way up to his hip.

Stigum's Money Market, 4E
by Marcia Stigum and Anthony Crescenzi
Published 9 Feb 2007

Both factors are folded into the desk’s morning estimate of the imbalance in the reserves market and would routinely be offset by the desk through open market operations. Thus, the distinction that some economists draw between sterilized and unsterilized foreign-exchange intervention is fallacious. Foreign currency intervention has been rare in the United States especially compared to the Bank of Japan, which conducted over 300 intervention operations between 1991 and 2004, most of which were meant to strengthen the U.S. dollar. In contrast, the Fed hasn’t intervened in the foreign-exchange market since 1998 when it coordinated with the Bank of Japan to help stop a slide in the Japanese yen.

Central America
by Carolyn McCarthy , Greg Benchwick , Joshua Samuel Brown , Alex Egerton , Matthew Firestone , Kevin Raub , Tom Spurling and Lucas Vidgen
Published 2 Jan 2001

El Quetzalteco (www.elquetzalteco.com.gt) is Quetzaltenango’s thrice-weekly newspaper. Some of the best investigative journalism in the country can be found in the magazine Revista…Y Qué? (www.revistayque.com). MONEY Guatemala’s currency, the quetzal (ket-sahl, abbreviated to Q), was fairly stable at around Q7.5=US$1 for years, but currency manipulation by the Guatemalan central bank has seen it hovering around Q8 at the time of writing. The quetzal is divided into 100 centavos. You’ll find ATMs (cash machines, cajeros automáticos) for Visa/Plus System cards in all but the smallest towns, and there are MasterCard/Cirrus ATMs in many places too, so one of these cards is the best basis for your supplies of cash in Guatemala.