嚣张的特权

• 目送飞鸿

  2022-05-24
  When at the end of the 1920s new money to service old debts stopped flowing, the Ponzi-like nature of the scheme was revealed. The majority of the foreign bonds underwritten by American banks lapsed into default. But these were problems for later. For now the main impact of these flows was to enhance the international role of the dollar. Before the war, the dollar exchange rate had been quoted in fewer financial centers than minor currencies like the Italian lira and the Austrian shilling. Now it was quoted more frequently than all rivals. By the second half of the 1920s, foreign acceptances in dollars exceeded foreign acceptances in sterling by a factor of two to one. By 1924 the dollar accounted for a larger share than the pound of the foreign exchange reserves of central banks and gov...
• 目送飞鸿

  2022-05-24
  All through the 1920s capital flowed from the United States, where it was abundant, to Europe, where it was scarce. American banks arranged bond issues for European governments and corporations, denominating them in dollars so they could be marketed to American investors. They opened storefronts to pitch them to retail customers.
• 目送飞鸿

  2022-05-24
  The growth of this market in trade acceptances finally allowed the dollar to assume a meaningful international role. By the second half of the 1920s more than half of all U.S. imports and exports were financed by bank acceptances denominated in dollars. The attractiveness of doing business in New York reflected the fact that the interest rate that importers and exporters had to pay was now as much as a full percentage point lower than in London. Not just those buying and selling goods to the United States but also merchants engaged in trade with other countries flocked to New York. By the end of the 1920s the value of dollar acceptances issued to finance trade between third countries, together with those backed by goods warehoused in foreign countries, approached that of acceptances issued...
• 目送飞鸿

  2022-05-24
  Like Warburg, who had helped recruit him to the governorship of the New York Fed, Strong saw the need for a trade acceptance market to stabilize America’s finances. Fostering a market in actual merchandise transactions, as opposed to financial speculation, would help to prevent a recurrence of 1907-style financial excesses, he believed. As governor of the New York Fed, Strong also appreciated that the existence of a market in trade acceptances gave the Bank of England a handle with which to manage credit conditions. He saw development of this market as enhancing the competitiveness of American industry and expanding the country’s foreign trade. He saw all this as a project that the Federal Reserve System should support.
• 目送飞鸿

  2022-05-25
  Something analogous happened with Japanese trade in the 1980s. As Japanese firms acquired more bargaining power, they insisted that more of their exports be invoiced and settled in yen. Still, the share of Japanese exports invoiced and settled in yen never rose above 40 percent, the yen lacking the other attributes of an international currency.
• 目送飞鸿

  2022-05-25
  China permits the currency to be used in cross-border trade only with its immediate neighbors, countries like Mongolia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Nepal, and North Korea and the special administrative zones of Hong Kong and Macau. Even there only “select” trustworthy companies are permitted to settle their transactions in renminbi.These limitations are designed to prevent the value of merchandise imports and exports from being misstated as a way of circumventing China’s capital controls. ... These restrictions insulate the Chinese economy from capital flow volatility. They allow Chinese officialdom to manipulate financial markets as they choose. But they also limit the renminbi’s international use.
• 目送飞鸿

  2022-05-24
  Germany was not a big supplier of the financial securities that were attractive to central banks and other foreign investors in any case, because its government budget was balanced and its financial system was bank based.
• 目送飞鸿

  2022-05-26
  The historical rule of thumb is that reducing the current account deficit by 1 percent of GDP requires the dollar to depreciate by 10 percent. Cutting the external deficit from 6 to 3 percent of GDP, which is what is required, would thus mean a 30 percent fall in the dollar against other currencies.