Economic Ramblings during the Holiday Season (Original Content within)

Now things are really getting interesting in the world and I'm sure the currency markets. "China invites South Africa to join BRIC: Xinhua"

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China invites South Africa to join BRIC: Xinhua

(Reuters) - China has invited Africa's largest economy, South Africa, to join the four-member "BRIC" grouping of fast-growing emerging markets, its state news agency reported on Friday.

Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said BRIC has accepted South Africa as a full member of the group, which currently includes Brazil,

China, South Africa's largest trading partner, will invite South African President Jacob Zuma to attend a summit of BRIC leaders that Beijing will host next year, it said.

South Africa is the world's 31st-largest economy, according to World Bank data for 2009 and is less than a quarter the size of the smallest BRIC economy, Russia.

The BRIC countries have sought greater clout for their grouping, holding a summit in Russian in 2009. "BRIC" is a term invented in 2001 by Jim O'Neill, the chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

South Africa applied to join BRIC at the G20 meeting of the world's leading economies in Seoul in November, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said at the meeting.

Its economy is projected by its government to grow about 3.0 percent this year, hardly the blistering pace seen in other BRIC countries.

Some investors make asset allocations based on the BRIC classification and all of the countries that currently make up the grouping have seen their global financial clout increase substantially in recent years.

South Africa's foreign minister was scheduled to speak on Friday on the BRIC listing, the ministry said. (Reporting by

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It seems as though China has a plan to strip the dollar of its role as reserve currency and claim it for itself?? (Or what I think, purely speculation, speculation in the sense that I have no definitive proof to back why I think this; but, in lieu of the recent privately held G8, G20 meetings, or the Central Bank governors meetings, etc., I would assume that much of this is systematically planned. An unwinding of dollar hegemony and a "new age"...perhaps the "golden age?" as the Mayans and Hindu prophecies predict.) Precluding the onset of WWII those within the governments at that time began implementing protectionist policies which had adverse effects on the economies of many countries due to their interdependence with one another. Fast forward to NOW...and the convolutedness of our corporate system (companies owning other companies; this is some pretty perverse stuff we are talking about here!!) along with the emergence of global stock markets, commodities futures markets, the digitized casinos that are our stock markets, and the bond speculators who did the same $*&t leading up to WWII that many of the PIIGS countries (PORTUGAL, IRELAND, ITALY, GERMANY, and SPAIN) have been experiencing already. Just yesterday Finch's lowered Portugal's rating:

"Portugal’s long-term and local currency ratings were lowered by one notch to A-plus late on Thursday by Fitch, taking its rating to the same held by Moody’s, but two notches above the A-minus held by Standard and Poor’s." http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6f175e80-0f4a-11e0-b336-00144feabdc0.html#axzz194FyboF7

Moody's is considering downgrading Spain's as well, even after downgrading Spain earlier this year. The credit rating agencies seem to be used in tandem with the bond speculators to exacerbate an already tough economic situation within the country of "choice." The inevitable outcome is always the same: You can have this money; only if you do , this, this and this. "This , this and this" from now, forward, we will call "austerity" measures. These "austerity" measures will be painful and in some instances outright theft (raiding the pension cookie jars similar to what Roosevelt did when he ordered the confiscation of Americans' gold!) With these new economic agreements between the BRICSA and Russia/China (the recent currency swap deal: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/85424/20101124/china-russia-drop-dollar.htm )

it seems the financial battle lines are being established for the lead up to a possible 3^rd World War!

Due to the “Dual Alliance” (Germany/ Austro-Hungary) and then “Triple Alliance” when they added Italy. Due to the alliance Germany had with the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Russia’s perceived sphere of influence in the Baltic region(sound familiar?) WWI began small, but eventually, encompassed most of Europe and Asia.

Some believe Iran could be the next powder keg like Serbia, which I do not deny. However, I believe Pakistan is nearing the boiling point already. It’s vicinity to China, its neighbor India, and former ex Soviet controlled nation states; along with the historically-violent ethnic/sectarian divisions; 6^th most populated country in the world, 8^th largest active military, and roughly 50% literacy rate; and owner of several nuclear bombs, all adds up to a powder keg waiting to explode. Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari is nothing more than an American hand-puppet who just so happened to replace his wife, Benazir Bhutto who had been exiled in Dubai for roughly 10 years before coming back to Pakistan in 2007, only to be assassinated, almost three years to the date. (December 27^th 2007)

By the way, do you remember what happened to our last puppet? What was his name? Saddam Hussein or something like that?! I’m sure Zardari remembers his name.

The recent wikileaks data shows Zardari’s allegiance, (for now) until the pressure from his own people becomes too much?: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/12/02/104662/leaked-us-cables-a-stain-on-pakistani.html

Regardless if any of this pans out, I believe we can all agree that the next few years of this decade are going to play a large role in the direction society will take. Perhaps some sort of social rebirth coinciding with the move out of the Age of Pisces into the Age of Aquarius will occur? Countless possibilities abound. These cosmic underpinnings, in my humble opinion, cannot be underemphasized when attempting to understand the social, political, and military actions of those running the governments and multi-national corporations of the world. I suppose time will tell! IN the mean time I hope that we remember the significance of family and friends this holiday season.

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Comment by Locutus on April 26, 2011 at 3:45pm

Comment by Locutus on April 26, 2011 at 3:44pm: I might have been wrong with who would be the powder keg. Me being wrong wouldn't be the first time. However, perhaps Libya is the powder keg. The NATO countries are lining up against the BRICS countries. Very interesting prelude to WWIII

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw5Ij_RFJ1Q&feature=feedu

Comment by Locutus on April 23, 2011 at 8:52pm: Here is an update from Wayne Madsen in regards to my ramblings about the BRICS countries and the progression from currency wars into physical wars.

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BRICS poised to pick up the pieces from the rubble of America’s collapsed empire

The American empire is faltering from within and abroad. In an attempt to preserve its empire, the United States has adopted an aggressive military posture, starting a war in Libya and continuing its military occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq. Washington’s military planners are stepping up drone attacks in Pakistan and using NATO forces to extend America’s hegemony over resource-rich Africa, not only in Libya but also in Cote d’Ivoire. U.S. Special Operations forces are engaged in military adventures from Colombia and Honduras to Yemen and the Philippines.

American military proconsuls, in the guise of regional combatant commands like Africa Command, Pacific Command, and Southern Command, are attempting to prop up American imperial borders at their periphery. But just as the Roman legions in the extremities of the Roman Empire discovered long ago, such attempts on behalf of a broken and corrupt society are doomed to failure.

Meanwhile, the United States has flooded the global economy with cheap dollars using a U.S. Federal Reserve Bank contrivance known as quantitative easing. The operation has resulted in high unemployment and inflation in nations around the world, resulting in draconian austerity measures and political and economic chaos.

Domestically, American states, counties, and cities are collapsing economically with massive demonstrations seen in state capitals and political discourse reduced to name-calling and extremist measures by Republican governors and state legislatures.

The alliance of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, also known as BRICS, has been watching the death throes of the American empire and is reacting by creating the groundwork for a post-American global construct.

Following the recent BRICS summit on Hainan island in China, Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega told the International Monetary Fund in Washington that the United States and other western countries were attempting to “export their way out of difficult economic situations” by printing money and driving down interest rates – which is the core principle of quantitative easing. It was clear that Mantega was speaking for the other BRICS nations in warning Washington that business as usual is approaching an end.

Mantega let U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Khan know that nations like Brazil would not be dictated to by those who brought about the worst economic collapse of the world economy since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Such rhetoric will become more commonplace as the BRICS nations assert their power and peel other countries away from Washington’s economic and political orbit.

South African Trade Minister Rod Davies weighed into the debate, cautioning the IMF that its destructive controls on national economies around the world are harmful to not only the BRICS bloc, but other nations as well. The collusion between the financial gnomes of Washington and Brussels has seen drastic measures being taken by governments from Greece and Spain to Portugal and Ireland and Egypt to Tunisia. The result has been general strikes, rebellions, and general hatred by large sectors of the populace of banks, bankers, and capitalism in general.

BRICS understand that the post-World War II global diktats of the IMF and World Bank, located within blocks of the White House, are coming to and end – whether Washington likes it or not.Brazilhas also become a de facto leader of progressive Latin American nations that see U.S. dominance of the Western hemisphere, exercised through the Organization of American States, located across 17^th Street from the White House, is also approaching its final days.

BRICS will also act as a counterweight to the IMF-linked G-8 and G-20, which have operated under the virtual tutelage of the Western central bankers and the governments of the United States, Canada, France, Britain, Germany, and Japan. The BRICS countries concluded an agreement that their respective development banks will provide credit to one another in BRICS currencies of yuan, rubles, rupees, reals, and rand and not in U.S. dollars. The decision drove another nail in the concept of the “almighty American dollar,” which has been driven into “bongo bucks” status by the greedy and secretive financial alchemists of Wall Street.

There was symbolism by China in holding the BRICS summit in Sanya on the southern island of Hainan. Hainan is not only the home to China’s major nuclear submarine base but it was also the center of U.S.-Chinese rivalry after an incident in 2001 between a U.S. Navy spy plane and a Chinese MiG fighter jet. Chinaquietly signaled that it is willing to back up BRICS’ economic might with military force.

It was from Hainan where the leaders of the BRICS nations, all rising economic powers, issued a stark challenge to the powerbrokers in Washington, London, Brussels, Paris, and Berlin. And in an added warning to the hegemonic proponents of the fanciful “New American Century” and neo-conservatives in the Bilderberg and Trilateral Commission world, Chinese President Hu Jintao addressed a meeting of the Boao Forum for Asia on Hainan. The Boao forum, patterned after the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, is a direct challenge to the ultra-wealthy corporate vultures and shysters who gather annually in Switzerland and devise plots to secure their control of the world financial system. The message from Boao: the era of an elite group of Western tycoons dictating international economic policy is going to soon be a thing of the past.

The BRICS nations, which, by 2015, will represent 43 percent of the world’s population and 23 percent of the world’s gross domestic product, are flexing their economic and political weight. BRICS called for the end to NATO’s attacks on Libya. In fact, BRICS will soon be in a position to disassemble NATO and decouple many of its members from Washington’s control.Germany’s abstention in the UN Security Council on a no-fly zone over Libya was the first sign that Germany may be the first nation to bolt from NATO. The rise of the German Green Party will drive a wedge between Berlin and Washington, a schism that may result in Germany’s demand for the withdrawal of American military bases from German soil and removal of U.S. nuclear weapons. A neutralist Germany would see an alignment with the BRICS bloc as an advantageous step for Germany’s economy, especially if the euro collapses and there is a return of the Deutsche mark

Turkeyis another emerging economic power that could align with BRICS.With a more independent foreign policy, Turkey has launched initiatives with partners that have not been to the liking of Washington. Turkey and BRIC member Brazil independently tried to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran, much to the chagrin of the Obama administration and the Israeli government. Turkey’s opposition to America’s military attack on Libya and Israel’s inhumane siege of Gaza has also set it apart from NATO. Turkey’s close relationship with Turkic-speaking central Asian nations of the former Soviet Union makes it an emerging Eurasian power ripe for alignment with the BRICS alliance.

With the collapse of America’s imperial global empire, there will be a new “multi-polar” world order.The term “multi-polar” and “economic independence” was on the lips of every BRICS leader and their advisers in Sanya. And Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Wu Hailong said in Sanya that many other countries have signaled an interest in joining BRICS. Nations around the world want to get as far away from the sinking United States lest they get pulled down by the drowning empire.

http://http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2011/04/18/brics-poise...

Comment by Locutus on December 29, 2010 at 3:12pm: Thank you Dee, I appreciate it.

Here is another article I found that is relevant to my rant above.

http://www.kitco.com/ind/West/dec272010.html

"But that’s the point, as the crooks who run the Fed and the Treasury well know. Devalue the dollar by printing more of them, then accumulate assets for will become pennies on the dollar, default on the dollar, and base the next fraudulent currency on the asset base you have now essentially stolen from everyone else....

To commit a crime against another country, or against one’s own citizens, is an act of war. The United States financial system, as it exists, is making war on its own citizens, and on the citizens of other countries, by foisting the decrepit system on the rest of the world. As the clearing house for the world’s main trade medium, the ostensibly ‘private’ fed provides the very public service of prime banker to the world, and the ineptitude, or deliberate fraud, with which they execute this office, will be identified by future historians as such, and their names will forever be synonymous with the era of government positioning itself as public enemy number 1.

That this accurate characterization of the U.S. government has not become zeitgeist is due to the huge and well oiled propaganda machine that is the mainstream press. The complexity of legislative language, and its sheer volume, prevent most citizens from forming their own opinions about the state of their country. Why read the Health Care bill when you can get Glen Beck’s take on it in slickly prepackaged sentences loaded with selected power phrases and words designed to form your impression. Reconfigured semantically and redistributed through Fox Business, Squawk Box, CNBC and CNN, it permeates the public psyche in the metaphysical layer identified as truth. Dissenting and original voices, lacking the officially sanctioned language of the cartel, are labeled crackpots and freaks, and the expert production skills of the networks can make them look like incredible idiots..."

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It appears China will usher in the Golden Age as the dominant economic power of the 21st century?!

Comment by Dee on December 27, 2010 at 1:08am: Great info Locutus, thank you for sharing!

Comment by Locutus on December 24, 2010 at 7:42pm: Just read this on Yahoo news.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Surge-of-money-from-bonds-apf-4101830...

Sounds like the beginning of the end for the bond bubble?!

Americans are leaving bond mutual funds at the fastest rate in more than two years.

"U.S. investors pulled $8.6 billion out of bond funds in the week ended Dec. 15, the largest withdrawal since October 2008 when financial markets were in free-fall. They pulled an average of almost $3 billion every week since Nov. 23, according to the Investment Company Institute. Prior to November, money had been flowing into bond funds every week for nearly two years....If she's right, the end of cheap credit is near. Interest rates would rise, which would ripple through the economy. It would become more expensive for cities, states and companies to borrow money to build schools, roads and expand their businesses. It would also cause the value of bond funds to fall, blindsiding Americans who thought they'd stashed their retirement savings in an investment that wouldn't sink.

Bond funds are creditors. They take cash from savers and lend it to corporations and governments in exchange for interest payments and promises that the cash will be returned at a certain date. If there's less money to lend, borrowers need to pay higher rates to coax funds to buy their bonds..."

Can anyone say safehaven "commodities?" ...we should see a real upshoot in the commodities markets as people try to protect their wealth. In doing this, the prices of wholesale foods and gasoline will continue to rise while access to credit and wages will continue to decline! The worst of both worlds! Deflation and Inflation