China

Russia is now the top crude oil exporter to China. It appears that Russia is reaping the rewards of dumping the dollar. At the the beginning of the decade the Saudi share of Chinese crude imports was around 20%, while Russia’s was below 7%… But that has changed and as the Russians creep in, the Saudis are starting to get nervous. Russia Insider reports: Now the Saudis find themselves neck and neck with Moscow for the lead in Chinese market share, with both performing in the 13-16% range. But Russia’s share continues to rise, as The Kingdom struggles to maintain a foothold. Why?

With just one more day of trading before China's lunar new year and Sping Festival Golden Week holiday, it appears The PBOC wants to flex its intervention muscles. By strengthening the Yuan fix by 0.16% (the most in 2 months) to 1-month highs, it seems China is trying to send a message before it practically closes for a week...

Of course today's USD collapse is not going to help their 'devaluation' case...

We previously covered the recently burst mega-Ponzi scheme fraud, Ezubao, the biggest in Chinese history which conned more than 900,000 investors out of $7.6 billion in less than two years under the guise of being a P2P lending platform, in this is what happens when "Chinese Investors Find Out They Got Fleeced By A $7 Billion Ponzi Scheme" and in "We Need To Rise Up": Bilked Chinese Investors Call For Nationwide Uprising After Massive Ponzi Uncovered." 

Downside risks to China’s economy are “relatively big” National Development and Reform Commission Chairman Xu Shaoshi admitted on Wednesday, but that’s not going to stop Beijing from swearing that China is growing at a near 7% clip.

Submitted by Hugo Salinas Price via Plata.com.mx,

The current melt-down of the world's debt bubble is likely to continue in the course of the next months. The secular trend to expansion of credit has morphed into contraction and liquidation. It is my opinion that the new trend is now established and no action by any of the Central Banks (CB) that issue reserve currencies will do anything at all to reverse that trend.