The Coming Collapse Of The International Monetary System + The Chinese Are Acquiring Large Chunks Of Land All Over America

By Callum Newman: Here’s a World War D scenario for you, dear reader: as a retaliation for US sanctions on Russia in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine, Russia responds like this: hackers attack the New York Stock Exchange and force it to close indefinitely; the Russian government dumps its billions of US Treasuries in the open market, causing interest rates to rise and crashing the US economy. The banks go into turmoil as people panic and withdraw their money. It would be a Russian strike on the US, without firing a shot. 
That’s just one scenario hedge fund manager, economist and author Jim Rickards painted on the new era of financial warfare in his speech this morning at World War D. Rickards had the unenviable task of following on from Marc Faber’s opening act. But any man that’s war-gamed at the Pentagon is going to have a lot to say when it comes to financial warfare. And in a world of interconnected currencies, derivatives, hedge funds, and bond and stock markets, your money is right in the middle of it. We’re all hostage without even really thinking about it.
And if you think the Russian scenario above is far-fetched, Rickards pointed out that the US effectively did something similar for real in Iran.
It was only a few years ago that the US government shut Iran out of the US dollar payments system. This was in response to Iran’s nuclear program. Iran responded to this and wanted to    sell their oil  in euros (Saddam Hussein threatened to do the same thing once). The Iranians quickly found themselves shut out of SWIFT, the European payment systems as well.  Within a year, Iranian oil exports fell over, the currency collapsed, inflation ran riot in the Iranian economy and the Iranians banks almost went broke. Rickards argued that the Iranian regime only survived because Obama eventually backed off the sanctions.
But the thrust of Rickards speech was whether the US dollar will survive in its role as the reserve currency of the world and hold the current system in place. It doesn’t take too much guesswork from the subtitle of his new book The Death of Money: the Coming Collapse of the International Monetary System to see where he stands on that front.
Rickards made the point that a major pillar of support for the US dollar is on wonky foundations: the Saudi-US alliance. The deal’s been simple for over forty years. The Saudis sell oil in US dollars only. The US provides protection and security to the House of Saud. This deal was brokered between Henry Kissinger and the Saudi royalty in the 1970′s.
But Rickards argues that the Obama administration has moved to appoint Iran as the regional hegemon, and this is regarded as a stab in the back by the Saudis, who may now move to align with Russia and China. Watch this space.
But the major destabilisation of the US dollar system is of course the huge inflation of the money supply of the US Federal Reserve since 2008. According to Rickards, this has killed the ‘King Dollar’ period of about 1985 to 2010. So the world financial system has no anchor while a massive tug of war goes on between  inflation and deflation. The world depression  -  and he used the word depression deliberately  – is naturally deflationary. Central banks cannot have deflation. So they’re trying to offset this by printing money and generating inflation.
So where is the inflation? That brings us to the topic of velocity of money.  Rickards is one of the few commentators who talks about this. At its basic, it’s the speed with which money circulates in the economy. And right now the velocity chart is in free fall in the United States. The US Federal Reserve cannot generate the outcome it wants while this is happening. The catch for Fed Chair Janet Yellen is the Fed has no power to turn this around. Velocity is what Rickards called psycho-behavioural. 
The US Federal Reserve Bank can print money. But if no one spends it, the money has little effect on the US economy. So the question is: if the Fed finds a way to get velocity to rise, you’ll get inflation. If velocity really rises, you’ll get a huge uptick in prices. If velocity doesn’t rise, the world will be mired in a deflationary trap that scares the hell out of the central banks. Why? Debt burdens go up in real terms. Tax revenue falls over. Banks fail.
But the key point Rickards wanted to get across was the Fed and the other central banks see no limit to the amount of money they can create to generate inflation. But he says they ignore the role of complexity and are putting the system at risk of collapse. He used a familiar analogy to make his point. Imagine sitting in a crowded theatre. Two or three people leave. You don’t think anything of it. You stay where you’re seated. But if 100 people stand up and run out you’re  going to think about running out with them  – even if you don’t know why. Make it 200 people and you’re out the door in a flash. This is the critical state of the financial system according to Rickards. And if another crisis hits, everyone just might head for the door, There are four likely scenarios after that  – a return to gold, an IMF currency, a basket of currencies or complete collapse of the monetary system.As above, you know where Rickards is betting. 
Callum Newman,

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The Chinese Are Acquiring Large Chunks Of Land In Communities All Over America
By Michael Snyder: Has the United States ever experienced a time when a foreign nation has attempted to buy up so much of our land all at once?  As you will read about in this article, the Chinese are on a real estate buying spree all over America.  In fact, in some cases large chunks of land are actually being given to them.  Yes, you read that correctly.  China is on the way to becoming the dominant land owner in the entire country, and that is starting to alarm a lot of people.  Do we really want a foreign superpower to physically own so much of our territory?
There are some that are playing down this threat by making a distinction between the Chinese government and Chinese corporations, but things work differently over in China than they do here.  In China, the government is involved in everything.  In fact, 43 percent of all corporate profits in China are produced by companies that the Chinese government controls.  And all of the rest of the companies are very careful to follow the lead and direction of the Chinese government.
That is why what is going on in places such as Thomasville, Alabama is so alarming.  Small communities such as Thomasville are so starved for jobs that they are willing to give land away for free to Chinese companies in order to entice them to build factories…

Gov. Robert Bentley said Friday that he will announce an economic development project in Thomasville, Ala., Monday morning.
That project is likely a copper tube plant to be built by Golden Dragon Precise Copper Tube Group. A legal notice published Thursday indicates that the city of Thomasville and others intend to give land and other incentives to GD Copper USA, which state corporation records identify as a Florida-based subsidiary of Golden Dragon.

And in this particular case, we are not just talking about a small plot of land.  We are talking about a 40 acre chunk of land worth 1.5 million dollars…

The legal notice indicated the city plans to give Golden Dragon a 40-acre site. Thomasville Mayor Sheldon Day has said that land is in a city industrial park south of Thomasville High School. It includes a $1.5 million, 50,000-square-foot building that the city constructed in 2009 to attract businesses.

But in most cases, the Chinese actually have to spend money to acquire our real estate.  And they are starting to make some really high profile acquisitions in some of our most expensive cities…

China Vanke and Tishman Speyer signed a deal for a $620 million luxury condo project in San Francisco this winter. In April, another deal for a cool $1.5 billion was inked in Oakland between Zarsion and Signature Development Group.
In June, several big deals in New York City went down. Zhang Xin, CEO of Soho China , joined forces with the wealthy Safra family (of Banco Safra fame) of Brazil to buy a stake in the General Motors Building in Midtown, The New York Times reported on June 25. Dalian Wanda Group, another Chinese developer, is planning to build a greenfield luxury hotel in Manhattan.

In other cases, the Chinese are gaining control over vast tracts of U.S. territory by buying up our large corporations.
For example, when the Chinese purchased Smithfield Foods, they suddenly owned 460 large farms and became the top employer in dozens of communities all over the United States…

Smithfield Foods is the largest pork producer and processor in the world.  It has facilities in 26 U.S. states and it employs tens of thousands of Americans.  It directly owns 460 farms and has contracts with approximately 2,100 others.  But now a Chinese company has bought it for $4.7 billion, and that means that the Chinese will now be the most important employer in dozens of rural communities all over America.

And the Chinese seem to have a particular interest in economically-depressed areas of the country.  Perhaps they feel that now is the time to gobble up companies and properties in such areas for bargain-basement prices.  For instance, the following is from a CNBC article that detailed how the Chinese are aggressively “putting down roots in Detroit”…

Dozens of companies from China are putting down roots in Detroit, part of the country’s steady push into the American auto industry.
Chinese-owned companies are investing in American businesses and new vehicle technology, selling everything from seat belts to shock absorbers in retail stores, and hiring experienced engineers and designers in an effort to soak up the talent and expertise of domestic automakers and their suppliers.

Speaking of Michigan, one company known as “Sino-Michigan Properties LLC” actually had plans to buy up 200 acres of land near the town of Milan, Michigan.  The goal was to build an entire “China City” with artificial lakes, a Chinese cultural center and hundreds of housing units for Chinese citizens.
But that is nothing compared to the “China City” that was being planned for New York state.  The following is a short excerpt from one of my previous articles…

The Chinese have made trillions of dollars flooding our shores with super cheap products, and now they are using some of that money to buy land and property all over America.  For example, there is now a proposal to construct a multibillion dollar “China City” that would span approximately 600 acres in a remote area of New York state.  This “China City” (that is actually what it would be called) would be located on Yankee Lake in Sullivan County, New York.  The plans anticipate large numbers of Chinese businesses, plenty of homes for Chinese immigrants, a Chinese high school, a college, a casino and even a theme park.  And the first 600 acres is only for “phase one” of the plan.  Ultimately, the goal is for “China City” to cover more than 2,000 acres.  Those promoting this plan say that it will be a great way for New Yorkers to learn to appreciate Chinese culture.

But of much greater concern is the huge wave of real estate purchases that are quietly happening all around us every single day.
The following is from a recent CNBC article entitled “Chinese buying up California housing“…

At a brand new housing development in Irvine, Calif., some of America’s largest home builders are back at work after a crippling housing crash. Lennar, Pulte, K Hovnanian, Ryland to name a few. It’s a rebirth for U.S. construction, but the customers are largely Chinese.
“They see the market here still has room for appreciation,” said Irvine-area real estate agent Kinney Yong, of RE/MAX Premier Realty. “What’s driving them over here is that they have this cash, and they want to park it somewhere or invest somewhere.”

So what happens when we get to the point when the Chinese government and/or Chinese citizens own 10 percent of all the real estate in the entire country?
Will it be a problem then?
What about if we get to 20 percent or 30 percent?
At what point will we be forced to admit that we have a major problem on our hands?
Many of our leaders seem resigned to the fact that the future will be dominated by communist China.
For example, the President of the St. Louis Federal Reserve recently stated that “attitudes in the U.S. are going to have to change” because America “will not permanently be the global leader”…

That’s according to Federal Reserve Board of St. Louis President James Bullard, who spoke to the Wall Street Journal on the sidelines of a conference during a recent visit to Hong Kong.
“Attitudes in the U.S. are going to have to change, because the U.S. will not permanently be the global leader,” Mr. Bullard said.

In fact, Bullard insists that it is inevitable that the U.S. will end up playing second fiddle to communist China…

In that case, “the U.S. would be playing a role to China similar to the role the U.K. plays to the U.S. today,” Mr. Bullard said. “People think it’s 50-75 years away but it’s probably only 25 or 20 years away, something like that.”

And this is one of the guys that is running the U.S. economy?
There is more than one way to dominate your enemy, and the Chinese understand this.
Sadly, most Americans have absolutely no idea what is happening.
What about you?
What do you think about all this?

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