Re: [Marxism] China's holdings of US Debt

["Lüko Willms" <lueko.willms@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 3 Mar 2009 09:28:50 -0500, S. Artesian wrote:

> but I do not believe that the 
> potential for howling gives China economic leverage over the US. 

  well, the big danger is if China would try and sell as much US government 
bonds as they can -- but since that would result in a fall of the value of the 
USD in relationship to other currencies, it would hurt the Chinese themselves. 
The USA are the only state which can really create money by printing it, and 
thus force the whole world to back up her debts. 

> My point is NOT that the US is in great shape, just as it has never been 
> that China will replace the US-- but rather that the shape the US is in is 
> indicative, more than indicative, determining, of the shape of the whole 
> network of international capitalism, and if the money is the universal 
> equivalent, then the US and its monetary instruments represent the black 
> hole in this universe, quite capable of sucking everything and everyone 
> into its deadstar gravity. 

  That's empire. The fall of the exchange rate of USD per Euro from around 
1.50 USD/EUR last summer to now around 1.26 USD/EUR is an indication of 
the capital flows. "Investors" prefer to buy US government bonds instead of 
German ones or even Latvian...

  And that happens not only in the relationships of the USA to the 
semi-colonial nations, like e.g. Argentina, but also between the various 
countries of the European Union. Just the other day there was a EU 
conference in Brussels called by the Czech EU president. The richer nations 
again rejected any common plan and even to raise funds by a common EU 
bond; no each and everyone by itself. Especially the German government is 
said to have opposed a common EU approach. This makes life quite miserable 
for especially the East European countries, who find it much more difficult to 
raise funds to bail out their economy. And this hits not only the former 
"socialist" countries, but also Austria which with its proclaimed neutrality 
had 
traditionally been the bridge into the Comecon countries, and whose banks 
have lent heavily into East Europe. 


Comradely yours, 


Lüko Willms
Frankfurt, Germany
--------------------------------
visit http://www.mlwerke.de Marx, Engels, Luxemburg, Lenin, Trotzki in Ge
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