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Diamond Rated - Best Financial Markets Analysis ArticleIn the midst of the longest and deepest, post World-War II recession, America’s financial position with the rest of the world has deteriorated sharply. Three decades of massive trade deficits have turned the United States from the world’s top lender to the world’s largest debtor, - and dependent upon the whims of the so-called emerging nations, laden with huge foreign currency reserves, to finance the bailout of Wall Street Oligarchs, and President Barack Obama’s social programs.Foreigners own roughly half of the US-government’s publicly traded debt, or $3.47-trillion, representing nearly 25% of the size of the US-economy, the highest level in history. If foreign lenders were to significantly reduce their purchases of US-Treasury notes, without even dumping their current holdings, US long-term interest rates could zoom higher, and the US-dollar could crumble.
That would deal a double whammy to the US-economy. Higher yields on Treasury debt could translate into higher mortgage borrowing rates for homebuyers, - weighing on the housing market, while a weaker US-dollar could lift the price of crude oil to above $70 per barrel, inducing an “Oil Shock” to the world economy. This nightmare scenario has been relegated to the den of doomsayers and fear mongrels, yet is starting to become an increasingly realistic proposition. Increasingly, some of the biggest foreign lenders to the US Treasury, such as Brazil, China, India, Russia, and Qatar, are grumbling aloud, about the endless string of trillion dollar US-budget deficits projected in the years ahead. Lenders are crying foul over the Federal Reserve’s radical experiment with “Quantitative Easing” (QE) - the printing vast quantities of US-dollars, and monetizing the US-government’s debt.
“America, through this financial crisis, is accumulating a huge amount of debt. It’s a heavy burden on the US-dollar,” warned Jassem al-Mannai, chief of the Abu Dhabi-based Arab Monetary Fund on June 28th. “You have China and Russia proposing an international reserve currency other than the US-dollar. These developments could affect negatively the dollar, and you cannot just ignore them,” he warned. “We have lent a massive amount of capital to the United States, and of course we are concerned about the security of our assets,” warned Chinese PM Wen Jiaboa on March 13th. To speak truthfully, I do indeed have some worries. So I call on the United States to maintain its creditworthiness, and abide by its commitments and insure the security of China’s assets. We have already adopted a management policy of diversifying our ($2-trillion) foreign exchange reserves,” Wen warned.
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