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China can teach us about finance.
ReplyDeleteIgnoring the advice of our financial people they focused on ways to avoid instability and protect the work of the Chinese people from financial tricks.
Rather then allow the creation of hot money for financial gambling they steered the money to patient capital. (Only direct investment in the real economy such as infrastructure,new businesses and research for new products. They allowed foreign investment but only for these purposes no financial gimmicks were allowed.
The money entering China was directed to actual ways to create and grow the economy. Chinas GDP 306 million 1980 and 4.9 trillion in 2009!
Investment in the creation of business and manufacture is the goal. There is a stock market but only 1/4 of its GDP. The USA has a trading market that is 145% of GDP. 2010 US had a trading market of 585 Trillion (GDP 14 Trillion). This does not include other trading in the bonds,commodities etc. The fact that you can become a millionaire by trading has attracted more and more day traders and the idea of starting and building a business is thought to be old fashioned. One serious financial disaster and our over leveraged and debt ridden financial system would again fail.
If China had followed the financial plan of the US it would have failed.
By pegging its exchange rate it assured the markets in China would be protected from financial manipulation. Its business could depend on a steady Yuan value and exports could increase. The western nations had the same protection before and after after WWI with exchange tied to gold. After WWII 44 nations had a steady exchange rate to allow growth. By tying the exchange rate to a known quantity the financial world cannot manipulate and control the growth of a nation. Keeping exchange rates steady is a precursor to grow the economy.
Hello Richard,
DeleteYour comment would have made a terrific post! All it needs is an appropriate graphic. Please consider becoming a Liar! Liar! associate editor. So far all authors have decided to use pseudonyms, but that would be up to you. Give it some serious thought. You obviously have some interesting insights. Please consider sharing them on Liar! Liar!
Panderbear
Thanks for the Interest. I do have a number of discussions on many current subjects on my blog at
ReplyDeletehttp://letusbeaware.blogspot.com/
These are well researched and I try to stay with facts and numbers not opinions. I would love to share these with you and your readers.
As an example I submit a review of an important idea-government (State) Banks.
ReplyDeleteGovernment owning and running a bank. Why it would surely fail with the politicians and government employees running it.
This is something worth checking on. A recent article by S.Andrianova at VoxEU.org and books by Ellen Brown have evaluated these government banks.
Ou of the 6 billion people in the world about 3 billion (50%) live in countries which have mostly government banks. 3/4 of the total worlds currency reserves are in these banks. Between 2000 and 2010 the countries with government banks had a growth of GDP of 93%. The Western countries with mainly private banks had a growth of about 15%. Government owned banks have a higher long term growth rates then private ones. Government banks grow at a faster rate then private.
Almost none of these banks were affected by the 2008 financial crisis. (Including the government owned bank of North Dakota). The research shows it was due to the conservative banking policies of government banks. They did not take on risky investments since their mission was to be a bank. The mortgages and all loans had been carefully evaluated by conservative banking standards, They had equity in reserve, They used reasonable leverage. All things not done by the private system.
75% of the banks in India are government. 45% in Brazil, 60% in Russia,70% in China and the bank of Japan has more depositors then any other bank.
These banks are willing to take on long term projects that no private bank would. Building of ports,large alternate energy projects,a new energy grid,high speed rails,large bridges. The projects are chosen for what they offer to the country for potential economic growth not short term gain. A recent high speed train in China is only running a 1/2 capacity but the government predicts in the next 10 years it will be overcrowded. They plan 5 and 10 years ahead, not by the quarter.
Remember a government bank is owned by the people and funded by tax money. Most of these banks make a good return that goes into the bank for more loans and development. Why should a big private bank get 5 or 6% interest for loaning on a huge project? Why not borrow from the state ban, have lower interest and return the profit to the tax payers ? Why should the treasury department print money, the Fed then loans it to private banks at 0-1% interest and then loan it back to the governments at 4%? Why should the government guarantee student loans and loan the money to banks at 1% and the banks charge the students 6%?
All of the above can be done with a government bank. A 50 Billion dollar start allows the bank to loan 500 billion for many needed projects, make profits and this goes back to the public as the owners of the bank.
So, with all of this good information why don't we see more public government banks?
First,the banking industry lobbies full time to stop this. They would huge profits if this happened. Billions would be saved and not go to them. They pay the politicians well to avoid this.
Second,there is the myth that private banks are good and Public Banks are bad. As the research shows the opposite is true. Politicians are much more controlled by private banks, They write special regulations and offer special tax breaks and in turn accept millions in dollar donations. This is money that is hidden and hard to trace.
Every politician wants to be on the banking committees since this is the source of huge payoffs. With public banks this payoff would be stopped. The banks would be under close observation and the investments would be well chosen. It would be difficult to get any profit with passing special laws.