(source)
ElectoralVote.com has a lovely scenario of what can happen if China wants to cash in on the American nightmare:
Asian countries, especially China, own hundreds of billions of dollars worth of treasury bills. Now suppose the Chinese government decides it wants to get into the car manufacturing business so it makes a deal with Toyota, now the world’s largest car manufacturer, to buy GM outright for a song and move its factories to China to be operated by Toyota but employing Chinese workers. All they keep is the U.S. dealer network and millions of American jobs are lost. If the next President nixes the purchase of GM, the Chinese sell their treasury bills and the dollar collapses.
Could it be that the US administration is going about nationalising most of it financial market to drive out Mid-East and Chinese capital? And could it be that it is actively twidling its thumbs while stocks tumble, to get a better price on the companies it intends to nationalise?
Just a thought….
But the way things are going, you’re soon liable to go out to buy a toaster and it’ll come with a bank….(more here)
In other news:
Outgoing PM Janez Janša filed a suit against against three people because of the Patria affair: The Finnish YLE reporter Magnus Berglund, the author of the programme which claims Janša took a bribe and two people who appeared in the programme: Bojan Potočnik, former Chief of Police (under Janša’s tenure) and former Advisor to the President, last seen running for MP on LDS ticket and Milan Švajger, CEO of Sistemska tehnika, the company that lost the tender for APCs.
About effing time, he did. Just too bad he’s probably aiming at case being dropped as soon as he leaves the office. Janša filed a suit as PM, and since he will cease being one soon enough, he will probably lose legal interest and the case will be dropped.
While he will rant on about how he was denied justice…
In which country did he file suite? In finland? Doubt that would work, since there is a freedom of press there..
cool, I need a toaster!
Similar China scenarios have been bandied about in recent years. Not sure how quickly they want to “destroy” the US economy given how much they sell there.
Meant to add a thought about that electoralvote.com link re: polling info. The key there, more important than the “Bradley Effect” ie whites lying in polls about voting for a black candidate is that pollsters never reach those whose primary phone is a mobile phone. I’m sure that’s been written about somewhere by someone; curious how it comes into play in Europe. Have you seen any studies/anecdotes on this?
@gandalf: he filed a suit in Slovenia. No other option, since he filed criminal charges.
@pirano:
Point about Chinese interests. However, what if the administration is trying to squeeze them out?
Elevtoralvote.com covers the “mobile phone” issue in that very same post. However, I’ve never heard of that being an issue in Europe. I will keep my eyes open, though 🙂
Do we know who really owns those treasury bills? I haven’t the foggiest about the ways of global economy (and I really should learn more about it!) but seem to remember reading in dr. Arhar’s article that part of the reason for the current prevalent mistrust rampaging through financial markets is that nobody really knows who owes how much to whom. With the IOUs having been sold and resold and sold again without keeping record of their current holders. I could of course have this completely wrong as my memory has a reputation for being somewhat swisscheesish.
Actually, Arhar was talking about derivatives (i.e.: mortgages being sliced up, repackaged and resold) which were sold among various investment banks.
The US (the Fed, if you will), however, has borrowed a lot of money from China by selling them treasury bonds.