Bush: China Dollar Attack Would be ‘Foolhardy’
August 9th, 2007The guy is totally out of it. I don’t think he knows what planet he’s on.
Via: Breitbart / AFP:
President George W. Bush on Wednesday said China would be “foolhardy” to attempt to push down the dollar in retaliation for US pressure over Beijing’s alleged currency manipulation.
Bush said he had not seen the report that Beijing was hinting at such a move, in Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper, but warned against any attempt by China to hit back at Washington using vast foreign currency reserves.
“That would be foolhardy of them to do that,” Bush said in an interview with Fox News, adding he doubted the report was based on sources from the office of Chinese President Hu Jintao.
“If that’s the … position of the government, it would be foolhardy for them to do this.”
US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson meanwhile said on CNBC that suggestions that China was considering selling off dollar denominated assets to hammer the already weakened US dollar were “absurd.”
“We have tensions and we have to deal with tensions on both sides … but overall, both of our countries are committed to a constructive economic relationships,” said Paulson, who returned from talks with top leaders in China last week.
China said on Friday it would not be pressured into currency reform as Washington and the US Congress renewed calls for it to speed up changes to make the yuan more market-oriented.
The Telegraph reported that two officials at leading Communist Party bodies had given interviews in recent days warning that Beijing might use more than a trillion dollars in foreign reserves as a political weapon in the event of US sanctions designed to punish Beijing for yuan manipulation.
Described as China’s “nuclear option” in the state media, such a move could trigger a crash of the already-falling greenback and a spike in the US bond yields, which could then dampen the beleaguered housing market and put the world’s richest economy into a recession.
When asked whether such an option would hurt China more than the United States, Bush said, “Absolutely. I think so.”
“When asked whether such an option would hurt China more than the United States, Bush said, “Absolutely. I think so.—
“Absolutely………. I think so”. Now there’s some comforting words from The Leader Of The Free World. That statement positively reeks of expertise, eh?
None of the articles I’ve read have spoken of the Third Option: the US backs off on sanctions, the dollar continues to fall, China dumps dollars anyway.
Jim Cramer’s meltdown was so very telling: he knows how fucked we are, but is still marginally delusional enough to believe that an interest rate cut is the thing to do.
“The guy is totally out of it. I don’t think he knows what planet he’s on.”
come on kevin you know better than this. his comments wreak of pr to me.
Well, I don’t think he’s 100% wrong. China needs the US to keep buying the cheap crap they produce. China would be acting prematurely if they cut off one of their chief buyers in the near future. Likewise, I’d bet money that they won’t play that card until they’re ready to invade Taiwan.
“When asked whether such an option would hurt China more than the United States, Bush said, ‘Absolutely. I think so.’â€
-might be totally false, but what else do you expect a US president to say? “omigod! We’re doomed!” . . . why scare people when it makes no difference this late in the game?
Go ahead, call an Asian a fool on national TV.
You are such an idiot GWB – I cannot even fathom how oblivious you are to traditional Chinese culture.
Comments I’ve read on this thread and others–from people who have done business with the Chinese–say that a bald threat, coming from the Chinese, is a very serious matter indeed. It suggests that the PTB in the US have deeply insulted them, and/or that subtle warnings have gone unheeded.
My guess is that trying to unload the “toxic waste” of the CDOs on the Chinese–at a time when these instruments were sinking fast or already sunk–would have been one such insult.
Bush’s posturing and name-calling (“foolhardy”) might well be taken as a further insult.
I await with interest the Chinese response to the accellerants Bush has added to the fire. It appears to me that you would have to be an utter idiot to further antagonize the Chinese, who are clearly already highly pissed–and in a position to literally nuke the US economy.
I’ve lived in Japan a good number of years, my wife is Japanese even, and one of the first things you should “learn” to do is simply shut your mouth! There is a proverb that says even a fool can appear wise when he keeps quiet. Loud and obnoxious people are simply looked down upon for the fools they are. Tactful, diplomacy is something the Decider Guy has never, and will never acquire.
Sharon, you are right on track, they will warn you once and if you don’t listen they will beat you down, and will not stop until it is their advantage to do so. I’ve worked in China I know how they think, it was serious school of hard knocks I went through. It is important to understand that they DO NOT CARE if they lose money, it is all long term strategic for them. They already got what they wanted, the western technology, the western skills, and while Bush spent 8 year pissing off the rest of the world, they sent their diplomats all over the planet signing new contracts, establishing cordial relations. I can not emphasize enough how much Bush has fucked up America, and how the Chinese used his every mistake to their advantage to the hilt. Bush should just keep his mouth SHUT and apologize if he has to. The Chinese don’t need America anymore.
SNARK- Bush, the man of high honors in business FAILURES utters such nonense and the stock market goes into a tailspin that will “bring it on” – the collapse.
If memory serves me (and it doesn’t often these days) didn’t someone once tell Bush to stay away from making pronouncements re the economy and Wall Street, because every time he opened his fly filled mouth the Dow dropped like a stone?
The Chinese are not our enemies. The FED is our enemy. They have been trashing the USA dollar for the last 90+ years, and now need a scapegoat. We have been sending the Chinese our paper for their junk and now when they want to spend it on something real instead of more papr TPTB want to cry foul and treat thekm like thieves. NO, our elitist banksters and the tools are the thieves and liars. But they will make a lotta dough getting us into another war with China or Russia or Iran. Any one will serve as a diversion for what is really happening.
Better trade off those FRNs on food, seeds and potable water, and some real money {silver}promptly, this is going to take a while.
Oh, and I forgot – Sharon – I don’t think Bush has a clue whether or not he has ABSOLUTELY and POSITIVELY insulted the Chinese with his utterly inane PROCLAMATION that called them all idiots as to what they can or cannot do with U.S. debt. Yeaah, you don’t tell the person holding the pocketbook on most if not all, MOST of everything the US holds dear, what they can or cannot do with THEIR MONEY. China owns the U.S. They fund the U.S. on the cheap: our War games, labor goods. etc. I for one love the solar and renewable energy stuff produced in China. I also rely on their vitamin C. But I’m looking into growing roses for rose hips. No matter how you look at it, Bush will drive us to relying on our on resources for what we need to survive as he DESTROYS everything.
I’ve had this feeling for quite a while now that Bush and his merry band of psychos are doing everything they can to provoke the Chinese (and the Russians), and this kinda confirms it.
In the next 3 to 5 years (perhaps much sooner) if Bush has way, we may very well witness the consummation of theft on a grand scale. By forcing the Chinese to dump the dollar, Bush is ensuring that all savings invested in US debt – by central banks worldwide, by the Social Security “trust fund”, by retirees, etc. – will get wiped out. Repudiation of debt would be a huge win for the PTB, having already funneled all that debt-driven government spending into their pockets. China is of course doing everything in their power to prevent or at least delay it: it’s no fun losing $1.3 trillion of hard-earned savings.
Either way, the average US citizen is screwed: hyperinflationary depression if Bush succeeds, and a deflationary depression (like in the 30’s) if China wins (in which case the US may simply devalue the dollar, like they did in 1933 with respect to gold).
With the citizenry and their government essentially bankrupt, the corporations can step in and take complete control. US infrastructure will be up for grabs at fire-sale prices. We’ll have private everything: highways, electricity, water, education.
When at last his work is done, Bush can hightail it to Paraguay where he now owns 99000 acres of land:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0610/S00308.htm
And Cheney has his money invested to protect against economic collapse (including a large chunk in European bonds):
http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney07052006.html
I’m a little alarmed by some of these comments. Some give a general impression of welcoming the Chinese taking action against the US. I don’t approve of Bush, but being ruled by Chinese authority (skip to the June 05 update) is scary as hell. They don’t even pretend they aren’t trying to strip people of their freedom. . . at least the US government lets people hold on to their delusions.
Plus, historically, when power changes hands, it almost always goes from bad to worse.
Just like when imperialist Athens finally ran out of money to fight the Peloponnesian War, they found that the new Spartan rulers were even more corrupt and tyrannical. I can’t think of a better analogy.
I’m going to escape into some sweet, mind numbing entertainment while I still can.
Jim, I believe you may be saying you think this is not a screw-up, but a deliberate strategy.
None of the events of the past few years were accidental: the spiraling debt, the hollowing out of the manufacturing sector, the outsourcing of jobs, the preparation for a police state–none of it. The purpose was to engineer the theft by the central banks and power elites of the entire wealth of the US. PLUS–so impoverish its people as to make them into a pliant slave-labor force.
Again . . . Bush et al always hide behind the incompetence label, none of this is incompetence, a very well laid out plan is slowly drawing a genocidal noose around the throats of the peons who still believe that their “leaders” give a flying fuck about them (- – Nancy Pelosi, Feinstein, Clinton, Cheney – – different only in degree and approach, the Hegelian Dialectic/Straussian aipac masterplan at work, but in the end it’s all about them and their masters and don’t “get in the way” or you will be “Wellstoned”, “Fostered” or find yourself dropping off a tall building CIA manual style, I think they call it being “Forrestaled”, to be historically accurate – – who was the asshole “liberal” African American congressman (Rangel?) who, when Hugo Chavez told the truth about Bush at the UN, said he should shut up and called Bush “my President” – – this gives you some idea of the turds we have on the supposed “opposition” side to the evil empire, they are all “in on it” hoping to get whatever crumbs they can by selling the rest of us out . . . .)
The Bush/Rockefeller/Bilderberger etc. plan to reintroduce a completely feudal society may prove out not just to be lethal to the peons but to be foolhardy even for them, but make no mistake, all of this is the completion of a very long term plan that included Kennedy’s murder and all the machinations in the energy sector for the last century including the destruction of organized labor as well as the incredible arms build up, nuclear arsenal, and unbelievable seeding of bio weapons facilities worldwide and “accidental” leakage of same weapons into the populations of the world to be deleted who have already been successfully dumbed down.
To make sense of things you just have to understand that Bush, unlike what most Amerikans believe, is not on their “team”, he plays for an opposition team that is actively at war with the “normal” working class morons who are clueless and who so blithely elected him b/c he was a “born again jesus lover” (an historical figure from over 2000 years ago who the best evidence now shows probably never even existed . . . ) w/absolutely no credentials to be President of the United States other than the fact that he has one of the most scheming/murderous fathers and families in world history that is well networked with a generations planning group of fascists that includes elements of what was/is left of Hitler’s Reich, the Vatican, and every other corrupt inbred anti-democratic wealthy criminal “elite” element in the world.
It won’t be that “guns” will be illegal in the US, but ammunition, after the next few “crises” will be non-existent except for those stocked with it or reloaders . . . and as we all know, food will be off the shelves for the kill off and blackwater will be on the roads ala the New Orleans preview/trial run . . . the whole thing has almost a cartoonish quality about it and would be nearly funny in its blunt execution (cheering Mossad agents at a mass murder site, during the event, barely commented upon by the media or citizenry . . . ) if it all wasn’t happening at such an incredibly fast pace with an outcome that will be extremely horrific for most of the planet’s inhabitants . . . Bush/Cheney and their supporters and enablers, “dual citizenship” holders and otherwise, are some of the most evil, greedy “humans” to ever walk the planet, but to fail to see that is to be in a very deep state of denial . . . and most everyone I know is either there or just barely starting to wake up, a little late unfortunately . . . time to watch a re-run of “Friends” or is it “Will and Grace” mirrors to the mentality of the population that our “elites” want and have implanted, effeminate, weak, non-political losers . . . .
TMB,
Although your analysis is a bit crude, it is essentially correct. Modern society is being manipulated very skillfully by people who have made it their business to achieve a long term goal. The Elites don’t care about America’s future because their wealth is no longer tied to the health of this economy. They have spread their wealth across the global economy. This has been the true goal of NeoCon globalization. Americans exist to continue to consume, pay taxes, and work until the economy collapses by one of many possible ways.
History does, and is, repeating itself. Although the Founding Fathers attempted to create a document that would prevent a small segment of our civilization from taking control, the “great experiment” has failed. Human beings are not yet socially mature enough to prevent themselves from handing overwhelming power to just a few.
It may be consoling that we came close, for a while. The next modern society that rises from the ruin of this one may be the society that actually succeeds.
I just wonder if we will be around to see it.
Sharon, you summed it up perfectly – there are never any “accidents” in politics.
I think the elites in the US looked around the world and saw how good the elites in the third world countries have it (no troublesome middle class, no social safety net to pay for, governments looking the other way while they pillage, etc.) and figured they have to get some of that action.
Until recently I thought the Vietnam war was one of the few mistakes the PTB had made. And then I watched the movie Zeitgeist (http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/) which Kevin had posted a week or two ago. Turns out that prolonging the war was exactly what they wanted in order to maximize their profits. Our hapless soldiers were sent to fight a war that was never intended to be won. Just like the war on terror.
One more thing I might add: ordinary Americans can prevent this descent into third world existence if they band together and throw out the thugs in power, restore fiscal responsibility, regulate the corporations, shore up the dollar and establish a sane (progressive) tax structure to pay off accumulated debt. I’m thinking this would be the ultimate nightmare for the PTB – people taking back control of government and forcing the super-rich to ante up their fair share of taxes.
We should listen to our president, and so should the Chinese, because president Bush is a “fool” expert.
I’m sorry tmb, there is a general tendency of our rulers to hide behind incompetency, true enough, but Bush really is incompetent.
We have to judge by the evidence. Nothing in his past points to competence of any kind. He had substandard SAT scores for an Ivy League school. He was a drunken frat boy with a C average (and even that is probably a fraud, bought and paid for), an all around substance abuser, and probably a half-assed drug dealer. He had one of the lowest flight candidate scores of anyone ever admitted to pilot training. He’s been arrested for drunk driving. He’s never succeeded at anything in business except lining his pockets as a political front man –entirely due to the exploits of his father and grandfather. He was a clown governor. He sounds like an idiot when he is allowed to speak on his own. And he subscribes to an infantile brand of fundamentalist religion –or at least pretends to.
Well, a little late, but this rural-remote survivalist person just has to weigh in here. What I love about you all is that most of you know exactly what’s going on and it is a pleasure to know a group of people who are not fooled by appearances. It is good to know so many here know what Bush is doing is deliberate. I just hope all of you are PREPARED to deal with it! I just hope all of you come out the other side as FREE PEOPLE relatively untrammeled by the possibility (as Jim says) that even our roads and (let me take this a step farther) even the air we breathe will be taken over by corporations. It has almost come to the point where I say let the “70%” (the masses who know something is wrong but, because they refuse to stop living in fear, will latch onto the next megalomaniac who promises to save them) become slaves (heck, they already are…to their mortgages and other debt). These are the folks who will be rounded up. I hope and pray that those of us who make up the 22% remnant (with the other 3% being the oligarchs and their lackeys along with the 5% who will pick them off one by one, i.e. the insurgents) will live long and prosper despite it all. And thank you, Kevin, for this site.
@ hermesten:
I don’t believe Bush is any genius or anything, it’s just I don’t believe he really is running anything of any significant nature – – he is a figure head “cowboy” in the Reagan mold, only a little more overtly fascist, he receives his instructions, is handed his speeches, and does meet and greets but he is not formulating policy or running anything, we have a shadow government doing that – – look who recently went to Russia to talk to Putin, Kissinger et al – – all unelected but who are the true representatives of the people who do in fact run things (CFR, Bilderberg types etc.), not the joke we currently call our Congress, either side of the aisle . . . look to real Texas oil money, Bechtel, Wall Street etc. to see who really runs things and who they have as their hired guns
I’m not sure how much better Bush could have done than he did….it’s not like if he would have said it was ridiculous the government’s fix-up job would have been circling the drain any more slowly.
tmb–yes, while Bush IS incompetent, he is just a wind-up toy who says what he’s told to say.
snorky, I think we should all make the best plans and judgments we can for what will doubtless be a difficult time ahead.
The main trouble is, I don’t think any of us can really foresee how things will shake out.
Will the power elite bring off the worldwide absolutist slave state they have planned? Maybe–though there are always imponderables. They believe in their own omnipotent power–and when people fall into this way of thinking it is usually a sure sign they’re about to be badly trounced.
Will the people in the US rise up against tyranny? Fat chance!
Timothy Gatto is involved in trying to organize a general strike for September 11, 2007. (This is posted over at smirkingchimp.com.) The response, to me, seems lukewarm. Apparently Americans have reached the point where they are too apathetic to make a plan to STAY HOME from work or the malls–or too desperate for money to sacrifice a day’s pay, and too desperate for the mind-numbing drug of shopping to take a break from spending. (Come ON! You can’t hardly get any poorer than me, and I think I can do it.)
I think most Americans may also be too frightened. I emailed the guy who hosts lifeaftertheoilcrash.com, and he emailed back that participation in a general strike would end with me being tortured and raped in an internment camp.
Now, correct me if I’m wrong here, but I hardly think any of us will be “disappeared” because we called in sick to work, and decided to forgo our customary Tuesday-night shopping and revelry in consumer land. Or because, by omitting the trip to the grocery store, we were forced to have waffles and eggs for dinner.
But, getting back to snorky–I’d have to ask just exactly what kind of scenario you are preparing for. It seems to me that there are too many possible scenarios.
Certainly, a person should be have plenty of stored food on hand–that sure can’t hurt anything, regardless. A person should perhaps be prepared to flee to some isolated location, if possible. While this seems virtually impossible for me–and might involve unforeseen problems for anyone–circumstances might force me to do it, whether it seemed possible or not.
If the military starts rounding people up, it will be time to “get out of Dodge”–whether you have a destination and a plan or not.
Or we could have economic collapse and/or collapse of the power grids–which would probably be in combination with martial law and mass round-ups–or which might be just a re-play of the Great Depression, along with a highly unpleasant, but survivable, police state.
Or the US might just go into receivership to the Chinese. Which would be the same as some of the above.
Or we could have an IMF bailout, leading to the same as some of the above.
Or the government could actually collapse, as did the former Soviet Union. (See Dmitry Orlov on this.) This normally leads to a robber-baron class seizing power–and seizing all the assets, while they’re at it.
The long and short of it is, who knows what we should be planning and preparing for? Who knows what our realistic options will be?
Honestly, if a person is going to run from a police state, now is as good a time as any. Life has already become un-free and unpleasant. Our economic options have been pretty much limited to wage slavery as far back as I can remember.
My guess is that what we’ll see in the future is more and more unpleasant versions of the “same old same old”: More despotism, longer hours at work (and possibly a system of forced labor), and deteriorating material circumstances.
So what I’m essentially saying is: The dire future is already here.
Its a hollow threat to start with :
http://blog.twowolves.co.uk/2007/08/11/the-china-ultimatum/
This is in reply to Sharon, who wanted to know what scenario I am preparing for:
On my site (click on my name “snorky” and you will come to it) Somethinghappeninghere.net I pose the view of “prepare for the worst and hope for the best”. The worst I am preparing for is total hard core fascism, roundups, mortgage and other debtors being either sent into some sort of involuntary servitude (being indentured), as Warren Buffet has said, some sort of “sharecropping” or something like that, or, as a blowback, fundamentalist Christian “Dominionism” (BTW, I am a member of the Body of Christ, not a “Churchian”) or some sort of demagogue leadership. The very worst is, being 80 miles from Mexico, having to walk there to freedom (and I am 54 with intermintent nerve spasms in my left foot), with or without my husband. The best is Americans en masse wake up and elect Ron Paul President, and, should the MSM and oligarchs prevent him from being so or assassinate him, begin serious civil disobedience (not violent “insurrection” which as Kevin says would be led by infiltrators). I also say that “the truth is usually somewhere in the middle,” so that basically what I am planning for is something similar to the Great Depression or a huge recession. I don’t want to go into the details on what we are doing, but suffice it to say I believe we are reasonably well prepared for it out here in the mountains.
As for the 9-11-07 general strike, I’ll check it out…and it actually sounds like a great idea, and I will post a link to it on my site.
Sharon Wrote:
“I think most Americans may also be too frightened. I emailed the guy who hosts lifeaftertheoilcrash.com, and he emailed back that participation in a general strike would end with me being tortured and raped in an internment camp.”
Derrick Jensen pointed out once that in Poland during WW2 the people who actively opposed the Nazis had a statistically greater chnace of survival than those who tried to keep their head down.
I know LATOC is a big noise in peak oil but a lot of these questions revolve around issues of human nature and we need to go elsewhere for those kind of answers. If there really was a general strike, there’s no way the PTB could counter it and they know that – it’s why they have TV and schools to make us apathetic and afraid and judging by the response you got it’s worked really well!
snorky, in my rather confused view, I see some sort of synthetic “event” leading to martial law as a first step.
I think this will happen only after the country is plunged into a deep recession, or even a depression.
Clearly, there is not enough man-power at present to make martial law highly effective and “round-ups” possible. Instituting martial law will mean that there are suddenly lots of “job opportunities” in the field of “criminal justice”–thus recruiting thousands of people to do the dirty work of rounding up their fellow citizens. That’s why a deep recession or depression will be engineered: lots of desperate people will be willing to sell themselves into an emergency police force for the round-ups.
There’s some question in my mind as to who will be targeted to be rounded up and sent to detention camps. Initially, I think it will be mainly the rioters and protestors who cause the most civil disturbance–due to very bad economic conditions.
The debtors will be next–but I’ll bet the initial focus on debtors will be primarily among minorities. The people who default on their McMansions, the real estate developers, and the high-rolling “flippers” will be offered some kind of out–perhaps in the form of offering their services to the round-up efforts at an administrative level.
If I were trying to pull something like this off, this would be my strategy.
Can they pull it off? I have no idea. It seems enormously risky to me.
And I find that I’m still puzzled as to what is likely to happen in my little backwater rural town.