China

Submitted by Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk via Bawerk.net,

In China, announcing new (and ever more ineffective) capital controls has become a daily thing.

Last week, Beijing unveiled its latest set of capital controls according to which Chinese banks would be required to report all yuan-denominated cash transactions exceeding 50,000 yuan (around 7,100 US dollars) to the People's Bank of China (PBOC), down from the current level of 200,000 yuan. Cross-border transfers more than 200,000 yuan by individuals would also be subject to the report process.

Rumors of the Trumpflation rally's death have been greatly exagerated, and not only is the Dow 20,000 back on the radar, following a 124 point surge in Dow futures, bringing the "key psychological level" back within 100 points, but European stocks rose for a third day and entered a bull market, rising 20% from theor lows set last February, following strong Chinese manufacturing and services PMI data, both of which ended 2016 on robust notes well inside expansion territory.

The following dramatic time-lapse video, shows a wall of toxic smog rolling into Beijing over a 20-minute period collapsed into a 10 second video; it gives a glimpse of the pollution problem in China's capital city. Chas Pope, a British engineering consultant working in Beijing, shot the video.

http://abcnews.go.com/video/embed

As we have detailed numerous times recently, the recent move in Bitcoin has been strongly suggesting increasing fears of capital controls and/or expectations of a looming (and quite notable) devaluation of the Yuan against the US Dollar. Tonight saw China's largest nationalist tabloid suggesting that China should consider one-off yuan devaluation to keep the currency stable at equilibrium level. Offshore Yuan is tumbling - to new record lows.