17 June 2009

US Dollar Continues to Blow

One Pack of Marlboros, Please

More great economic news: The Chinese are refusing to buy US bonds like they were old VHS tapes of Night Court. From Breitbart:
A decision by China to reduce its US Treasury holdings suggests concern about the US attitude towards its economic woes, Chinese economists were quoted as saying in state media Wednesday.

The remarks, coming after US data showed a modest decline in Chinese investments in US government bonds, were in contrast to an earlier statement in Beijing which had said the recent sell-off was a routine transaction.

"China is implying to the US, more or less, that it should adopt a more pragmatic and responsible attitude to maintain the stability of the dollar," He Maochun, a political scientist at Tsinghua University, told the Global Times.

According to US Treasury data issued Monday, Beijing owned 763.5 billion dollars in US securities in April, down from 767.9 billion dollars in March.

It was the first month since June 2008 that Beijing failed to purchase more US T-bills.
You really can't appreciate how much it sucks to have a crappy dollar until you're in a foreign country, where a coup could spring up at any time, and you see your dollars dropping more and more every goddamn day. But, hey, at least the President is "losing sleep" over this whole reckless spending thing.

3 comments:

Lisa said...

The "losing sleep" bit -- comforting, no?

Nixon said...

At least he's paying lip service...but that's about it.

Anonymous said...

I spent 58 days in Amsterdam back in 2005. Every day the euro-$$ exchange rate was different, and never for the good. It SUCKED because I had to use the ATM to get Euro's.