Authored by Nick Giambruno via InternationalMan.com,
I recently spoke with my friend and colleague Chris Lowe about China’s new alternative financial system - and how it could mortally wound the US dollar. It was such an important discussion that I had to pass it along.
Chris is the editor of Bonner & Partners’ Inner Circle. His publication shares insights from Bill Bonner’s personal global network of analysts and investment experts.
Amid all the chatter of Venezuela and Russia potentially creating oil-backed cryptocurrencies, the "huge news" of China's launch of the Petro-Yuan has fallen off the front page... until now.
This week saw the Shanghai Futures Exchange complete its fifth yuan-back oil futures contract trading drill successfully...
First it was the Chinese, now it’s the Europeans, as the rest of the world is suddenly very unhappy with the prospect of US tax reform (or maybe it is an unexpectedly strong US economy). As we discussed yesterday, with the historic Trump tax reforms on the verge of passage and the Fed’s dot plot signalling another 7-8 rate hikes (soon to be revised much lower), China is nervous that the capital outflows, which it thought it had bottled up, might be about to return.
In November, we discussed how the post-Party Congress measures to deleverage and crackdown on the worst abuses in China’s credit bubble took an important step forward with the announcement of a new era of regulation for China’s $15 trillion shadow banking and asset management industry. See "A New Era In Chinese Regulation Means Turmoil For $15 Trillion In China's Shadows". In particular, the authorities turned their sights on wealth management products (WMPs).
With Donald Trump's historic tax reform on the verge of passage, and with the Fed continuing its rate hiking cycle so far undeterred, and according to the Fed's own dot plot still having another 7-8 rate hikes to go, China is getting nervous because, as the WSJ reports, it fears "a double whammy sapping money out of China by making the U.S. a more attractive place to invest." In other words, those capital outflows which China was confident it had finally bottled up, are about to return. And that's even as the U.S.