China

Last September (when bitcoin was trading at $230) we said that "As China Scrambles To Enforce Capital Controls, This Is Great News For Bitcoin" and that it is only a matter of time before Chinese buyers figure out that in a world in which the freeflow of capital out of China is increasingly more suppressed and where physical gold is actively being stored in China but is next to impossible to get it out of the country, it is only a matter of time before bitcoin explodes as China's bubble berserk population scrambles to buy.

As Our Past Wars Are Glorified This Memorial Day Weekend, Give Some Thought To Our Prospects Against The Russians And Chinese In World War III

Paul Craig Roberts

It is no secret that the relationship between the United States and China has been strained for quite some time. Earlier this month when the US sailed its guided missile destroyer the USS William P. Lawrence within 12 nautical miles of Chinese-occupied Fiery Cross Reef, it ended in China scrambling of two fighter jets and three warships to shadow the destroyer and convince it to leave the area.

Over the past few years, we have written many strange stories about China's often-ridiculous, perpetually-bubbly, always on the precipice financial system. The story about China's literal "cash cows", however, is by far the strangest.

As everyone knows by now, the primary reason the global equity market, taking its cues from the US, is where it is now is due to a relentless stream of debt-funded stock buybacks. Earlier this year Bloomberg stumbled on the same thing we have written since 2013, namely that "there is only one buyer keeping the bull market alive."

China is about to send submarines armed with nuclear missiles into the Pacific Ocean for the first time, arguing that new US weapons systems have undermined Beijing’s existing deterrent force leaving them with no choice. Beijing points out that the US plans to station the Thaad anti-ballistic system in South Korea and develop of hypersonic glide missiles potentially capable of hitting China less than an hour after being launched.