hello haim, am still in beijing, meeting folks, teaching erita, going around town checking out unusual restaurants and interesting shops, and will return to hk on own monday afternoon. rest of family will return to good rock hong kong in perhaps a weeks time, before fall semester of geewhizbangohwhoawee kindergarten gets underway.
on the currencies, thank you for the validation, even as we both may be wrong about what would be, as opposed to should be.
i had retreated from positions of currency convictions Message 25820850 july 29th, not because i calculated anything, and certainly not because i know anything, but because i was and remain afraid. going forward, i believe it is prudent to remain afraid.
in my last few days of meetings with folks in commerce (credit guarantee, electronics, steel, energy, power generation, solar investment, pe investment, and real estate) i start off with the only question that matters to me, "is china's 8% gdp growth real?"
the answer is unanimous, if i can paraphrase, "real enough".
the pervasive feeling seems to be that while a bunch of stimulus money got diverted to real estate, share market, and automobile consumption and such, it is biz as usual for rest of society less any fear, no panic, and given that the infrastructure programs engaged with are of such huge geo-transformation dimensions (rail roads, southern water northern transport) and to be engaged with over such a long span of time (decades) that even if 50% of the 8% growth is fluff, the fluff will turn real sooner rather than later.
under the circumstances, the death of the usd cannot yet be, because china wishes to use the dollar, as it wishes to also leverage the euro. so, the currencies should continue to rub against each other, the grinding may produce some sparks, but not full conflagration, at least not yet, but off of the frictional heat we may make goodness and solidify such to gold for many more years.
we can, imo, count our blessings for at least 5 years by way of the usd zig zags with all other fiat paper bits of paper.
curtains for usd and maybe all other fiat papers should be soon enough after that, and imo, not outside of 2025.
cheers, tj |
