currency - What We're Reading - StockBuz2024-03-29T15:42:36Zhttp://stockbuz.ning.com/articles/feed/tag/currencyTrump Comes Out On China And Russiahttp://stockbuz.ning.com/articles/trump-comes-out-on-china-and-russia2017-01-15T21:24:14.000Z2017-01-15T21:24:14.000ZStockBuzhttp://stockbuz.ning.com/members/1t2xbcvddkrir<div><p><a href="https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-RQ265_TRUMPW_GR_20170113205623.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-RQ265_TRUMPW_GR_20170113205623.jpg?width=400" style="padding: 10px;" class="align-left" width="400" /></a>President-elect Donald Trump suggested he would be open to lifting sanctions on Russia and wasn’t committed to a longstanding agreement with China over Taiwan—two signs that he would use any available leverage to realign the U.S.’s relationship with its two biggest global strategic rivals.</p>
<p>In an hourlong interview, Mr. Trump said that, “at least for a period of time,” he would keep intact <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-punishes-russia-over-election-hacking-with-sanctions-1483039178" class="icon none">sanctions against Russia</a> imposed by the Obama administration in late December in response to Moscow’s alleged cyberattacks to influence November’s election. But he suggested he might do away with those penalties if Russia proved helpful in battling terrorists and reaching other goals important to the U.S.</p>
<p>“If you get along and if Russia is really helping us, why would anybody have sanctions if somebody’s doing some really great things?” he said.</p>
<p>He also said he wouldn’t commit to America’s agreement with China that Taiwan wasn’t to be recognized diplomatically, a policy known as “One China,” until he saw what he considered progress from Beijing in its currency and trade practices.</p>
<div class="content-carousel">
<div id="olympics-carousel-THE-TRUMP-TRANSITION" class="olympics-carousel" data-carousel-status="ON">
<div class="carousel-label">
<p><span class="font-size-4">THE TRUMP TRANSITION</span></p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p>The desire to change relations with Moscow in particular has been a goal of American presidents since tensions began rising under President Vladimir Putin’s leadership. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sought the same goal early in the Obama administration, as did President George W. Bush, who met Mr. Putin early in his first term.</p>
<p>But Mr. Trump’s diplomatic efforts will have to compete with those in Congress, including many Republicans, who want to see the administration take a tough line with Russia after U.S. intelligence concluded that the government of Mr. Putin sought to influence the November presidential election <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/obama-orders-review-of-email-hacking-during-election-2016-1481304076" class="icon none">with a campaign of cyberhacking</a>.</p>
<p>Additionally, <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/spy-agencies-investigating-claims-trump-advisers-worked-with-russian-agents-1484101731" class="icon none">an unsubstantiated dossier of political opposition research</a> suggesting ties between Mr. Trump and Russia was published this past week—drawing condemnation from Mr. Trump and his team but keeping Russian espionage in the spotlight. The allegations haven’t been validated by the U.S. intelligence agencies.</p>
<p>Mr. Trump in the interview suggested he might do away with the Obama administration’s Russian sanctions, and he said he is prepared to meet with Mr. Putin some time after he is sworn in.</p>
<p>“I understand that they would like to meet, and that’s absolutely fine with me,” he said.</p>
<p>Asked if he supported the One China policy on Taiwan, Mr. Trump said: “Everything is under negotiation including One China.”</p>
<p>China has considered Taiwan a breakaway province since Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists set up a government there in 1949, after years of civil war. Washington’s agreement to rescind diplomatic recognition of the government in Taiwan and uphold a One China policy was a precondition for the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between U.S. and China in 1979. Any suggestion in the past that the U.S. may change its stance has been met with alarm in Beijing.</p>
<p>On Saturday, <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/beijing-says-u-s-china-policy-isnt-negotiable-1484418841?tesla=y" class="icon none">a statement posted on the Chinese foreign ministry’s website</a> said, “There is but one China in the world, and Taiwan is an inalienable part of China.”</p>
<p>It added, “we urge relevant parties in the U.S. to fully recognize the high sensitivity of the Taiwan question, approach Taiwan-related issues with prudence and honor the commitment made by all previous U.S. administrations.”</p>
<p>Though he has long been critical of China, Mr. Trump on Friday also made a point of showing a holiday greeting card he received from China’s leader, Xi Jinping.</p>
<div data-layout="wrap" data-layout-mobile="" class="media-object wrap scope-web|mobileapps wrap">
<div class="media-object-interactiveLink renoImageFormat-P">
<div class="image-container">
<div class="wsj-media-summary clearfix">
<div class="strap-container"></div>
</div>
<a href="http://www.wsj.com/graphics/trump-promises/" target="_blank"><img src="https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-RP140_TRUMPG_P_20170111141129.jpg?width=467" style="padding: 10px;" class="align-left" width="467" /></a></div>
<div class="wsj-article-caption">President-elect Donald Trump made many promises in his first post-election news conference. Here is a look at the proposed timing for some of his pledges: <span class="wsj-article-credit">lucas jackson/Reuters</span></div>
</div>
</div>
<p>“I have a beautiful card from the chairman,” he said.</p>
<p>Mr. Trump seemed impatient with diplomatic protocols involving China and Taiwan. After his victory he took a <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-phone-call-with-taiwan-president-sparks-china-complaint-1480762723" class="icon none">congratulatory phone call from Taiwan’s leader</a>, triggering objections from Beijing and stoking concerns among some U.S. foreign policy experts who questioned whether he understood the implications of such a conversation.</p>
<p>Speaking of Taiwan, he said: “We sold them $2 billion of military equipment last year. We can sell them $2 billion of the latest and greatest military equipment but we’re not allowed to accept a phone call. First of all it would have been very rude not to accept the phone call.”</p>
<p>Mr. Trump has said in the past he would label China a currency manipulator after he takes office. In the interview, he said he wouldn’t take that step on his first day in the White House. “I would talk to them first,” he said.</p>
<p>He added: “Certainly they are manipulators. But I’m not looking to do that.”</p>
<p>But he made plain his displeasure with China’s currency practices. “Instead of saying, ‘We’re devaluating our currency,’ they say, ‘Oh, our currency is dropping.’ It’s not dropping. They’re doing it on purpose.</p>
<p>“Our companies can’t compete with them now because our currency is strong and it’s killing us.”</p>
<p>The interview came at the end of the week in which Mr. Trump saw much of his national-security team get closer to their appointments but had to push back against the Russia allegations and against criticism from ethics experts of his <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-to-place-business-holdings-in-a-trust-run-by-adult-sons-1484152201" class="icon none">plan to maintain ownership of his business interests.</a></p>
<p>Six of his cabinet choices had confirmation hearings, and a number look likely to sail through. Many Democrats offered eager support for his pick for defense secretary, retired Gen. James Mattis.</p>
<p>Mr. Trump also brought his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-names-son-in-law-jared-kushner-as-senior-adviser-1483990270" class="icon none">on as a senior White House adviser</a>, although the appointment could be challenged under antinepotism laws. And he got closer to fulfilling a campaign promise <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/senate-takes-first-step-toward-repeal-of-affordable-care-act-1484202859" class="icon none">as the Senate</a> and <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/house-takes-first-step-toward-ending-affordable-care-act-1484339948" class="icon none">then the House</a> took procedural steps that begin rolling back or repealing the Affordable Care Act.</p>
<p>“He got elected as a fighter and he’s going to be president as a fighter,” said Ed Brookover, a former Trump campaign adviser. He added that Mr. Trump “is going to be a very active president and push a lot of buttons along the way.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-look-inside-president-elect-donald-trumps-first-news-conference-since-election-day-1484180918" class="icon none">At a jam-packed news conference</a> on Wednesday morning, Mr. Trump was both combative and flattering, shouting down one journalist but praising news outlets who he said covered him fairly. During the session, he accused intelligence agencies of allowing the dossier information to be leaked, and on Twitter he said they were employing the tactics of Nazi Germany. <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/national-intelligence-director-james-clapper-says-agencies-didnt-leak-trump-dossier-1484201755" class="icon none">James Clapper, the director of national intelligence</a>, said he doesn’t believe intelligence officials leaked the information.</p>
<p>Amid a flurry of questions about the dossier, Mr. Trump avoided most direct answers and made just one admission. For the first time, he said he agrees that <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-to-give-first-post-election-news-conference-1484151189" class="icon none">Russia was behind the cyberattack</a> on the Democratic National Committee and a top aide to campaign rival Mrs. Clinton during the election.</p>
<p>He also tossed in the announcement of his pick to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs, said he would sign executive orders beginning on Jan. 23, and promised to begin negotiating drug prices with pharmaceutical companies to drive costs down.</p>
<p>Questions about his refusal to divest himself of business holdings lingered, though. A few hours after his press conference, U.S. Office of Government Ethics Director Walter Shaub <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2017/01/11/government-ethics-chief-says-trumps-conflict-of-interest-plan-isnt-good-enough/" class="icon none">criticized Mr. Trump’s new business arrangement</a>, saying his actions were insufficient to remove potential conflicts.</p>
<p>“Every president in modern times has taken the strong medicine of divestiture,” Mr. Shaub said. “Officials in an administration need their president to show that ethics matter, not only through words but through deeds. This is vitally important if we’re going to have any kind of ethics program.”</p>
<p>On Thursday, Gen. Mattis, testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, appeared to buck Mr. Trump numerous times, questioning the motives of Mr. Putin, lauding the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and saying the U.S. should closely monitor Iran’s compliance with a nuclear agreement, but he stopped short of rejecting the deal, as Mr. Trump has.</p>
<p>Gen. Mattis also suggested that some national security discussions could be contentious, which he said would lead to the best outcomes.</p>
<p>“It’s not tidy,” he said of the process he is expecting. “It’ll anticipate that anything but the best ideas will win.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-nominee-rex-tillerson-to-face-questions-about-russia-climate-rights-1484142027" class="icon none">A day earlier, Rex Tillerson</a> , the pick for secretary of state, had told lawmakers he supported arming Ukraine against Russia and said he was supportive of a trade deal Mr. Obama struck with Asian countries, two statements that conflict with Mr. Trump’s platform.</p>
<p>Later that night, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) said during a CNN town hall that he was working closely with the president-elect to repeal the health-care law but shot down the idea that there would be a “deportation force” to remove illegal immigrants from the U.S. Mr. Trump had said during the campaign that there would be such a force.</p>
<p>Later in the week, Mr. Trump weighed in on the latest development of the issue that dominated the end of the campaign.</p>
<p>He has spent weeks trying to deflect criticism about his election victory, as Democrats argued that Mrs. Clinton had been sandbagged by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s handling of a probe into whether her private email server had been hacked and whether classified material was improperly moved on it.</p>
<p>The FBI ultimately brought no charges, and on Thursday, the Justice Department’s inspector general confirmed it had opened an investigation into decisions by FBI Director James Comey to make public, days before the election, that agents were scouring a new batch of emails for possible examples of misdeeds by Mrs. Clinton while she was at the State Department. Such a revelation shortly before an election was very unusual.</p>
<p>Mr. Trump on Friday tweeted that the FBI was “VERY nice to her,” adding she “should never…have been allowed to run – guilty as hell.”</p>
<p>In another matter, Mr. Trump during Friday’s interview described a special council, made up of 15 to 20 builders and engineers, that would monitor spending on his $1 trillion plan to improve the nation’s roads, bridges and other public works.</p>
<p>“Some of the projects they’ll throw out, some of the projects they’ll expand, but all of the projects they’ll make sure we get a tremendous bang for the buck,” Mr. Trump said.</p>
<p>Courtesy of <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-sets-a-bar-for-russia-and-china-1484360380" target="_blank">WSJ</a></p>
</div>We're Shifting Fast To A Cashless Societyhttp://stockbuz.ning.com/articles/were-shifting-fast-to-a-cashless-society2016-05-18T02:53:56.000Z2016-05-18T02:53:56.000ZStockBuzhttp://stockbuz.ning.com/members/1t2xbcvddkrir<div><div style="clear: both;"><a href="http://www.visualcapitalist.com/shift-cashless-society-snowballing/"><img src="http://2oqz471sa19h3vbwa53m33yj.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/war-on-cash.jpg" border="0" /></a></div>
<div><em>We talk about this subject at great length in my neck of the woods and oh boy, is it coming..........fast.  Now let's be honest here and let me ask a few questions.  How much cash are you carrying right now in your wallet? The last time you saw eight year olds selling Girl Scout cookies, did you have to pass them by with no bills in your pocket?  No thin mints for you!  How many purchases do you make per day in cash and how many times do you simply swiping your debit or credit card?  Do your bills come in the mail and get paid via the same method, or are they paid on the internet? </em></div>
<p>Love it or hate it, cash is playing an increasingly less important role in society.</p>
<p>In some ways this is great news for consumers. The rise of <a href="http://www.visualcapitalist.com/tap-into-the-mobile-payments-revolution/">mobile and electronic payments</a> means faster, convenient, and more efficient purchases in most instances. New technologies are being built and improved to facilitate these transactions, and improving security is also a priority for many payment providers.</p>
<p>However, there is also a darker side in the shift to a cashless society. Governments and central banks have a different rationale behind the elimination of cash transactions, and as a result, the so-called “war on cash” is on.</p>
<h2 style="margin-top: 0;">On the Path to a Cashless Society</h2>
<p>The Federal Reserve estimates that there will be <a href="https://www.credit-suisse.com/us/en/articles/articles/news-and-expertise/2015/07/en/will-we-soon-live-in-a-cashless-society.html">$616.9 billion in cashless transactions</a> in 2016. That’s up from around $60 billion in 2010.</p>
<p>Despite the magnitude of this overall shift, what is happening from country to country varies quite considerably. Consider the contradicting evidence between Sweden and Germany.</p>
<p>In Sweden, about 59% of all consumer transactions are cashless, and hard currency makes up just <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/27/business/international/in-sweden-a-cash-free-future-nears.html?_r=0">2% of the economy</a>. Yet, across the Baltic Sea, Germans are far bigger proponents of modern cash. This should not be too surprising, considering that the German words for “debt” and “guilt” are the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/business-31369185">exact same</a>.</p>
<p>Within Germany, only 33% of consumer transactions are cashless, and there are only 0.06 credit cards in existence per person.</p>
<h2 style="margin-top: 0;">The Dark Side of Cashless</h2>
<p>The shift to a cashless society is even gaining momentum in Germany, but it is not because of the willing adoption from the general public. According to <a href="https://global.handelsblatt.com/edition/354/ressort/finance/article/the-death-of-cash">Handelsblatt</a>, a leading German business newspaper, a proposal to eliminate the €500 note while capping all cash transactions at €5,000 was made in February by the junior partner of the coalition government.</p>
<p>Governments have been increasingly pushing for a cashless society. Ostensibly, by having a paper trail for all transactions, such a move would decrease crime, money laundering, and tax evasion. France’s finance minister <a href="http://wolfstreet.com/2015/04/25/don-quijones-war-on-cash-quotes-to-cashless-society/">recently stated</a> that he would “fight against the use of cash and anonymity in the French economy” in order to prevent terrorism and other threats. Meanwhile, former Secretary of the Treasury and economist Larry Summers has called for <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2016/02/17/larry-summers-time-to-scrap-100-bill.html">scrapping the U.S. $100 bill</a> – the most widely used currency note in the world.</p>
<h2 style="margin-top: 0;">“Smoother” Aggregate Demand?</h2>
<p>It’s not simply an argument of the above government rationale versus that of privacy and anonymity. Perhaps the least talked-about implication of a cashless society is the way that it could potentially empower central banking to have more ammunition in “smoothing” out the way people save and spend money.</p>
<p>By eliminating the prospect of cash savings, monetary policy options like negative interest rates would be much more effective if implemented. All money would presumably be stored under the same banking system umbrella, and even the most prudent savers could be taxed with negative rates to encourage consumer spending.</p>
<p>While there are certainly benefits to using digital payments, our view is that going digital should be an individual consumer choice that can be based on personal benefits and drawbacks. People should have the voluntary choice of going plastic or using apps for payment, but they shouldn’t be pushed into either option unwillingly.</p>
<p>Forced banishment of cash is a completely different thing, and we should be increasingly wary and suspicious of the real rationale behind such a scheme.</p>
<p>Courtesy of <a href="http://www.visualcapitalist.com/shift-cashless-society-snowballing/" target="_blank">VisualCapitalist</a></p>
</div>