China To "Gradually" Sell 20% Of Its US Treasury Holdings, May Dump It All In Case Of "Military Conflict": State Media

Ever since the early stages of the US-China trade/tech/virus/cold war four years ago, there were frequent rumors — which eventually gave way to increasingly legitimate chatter — that China was looking to go full “nuclear option” by selling some or all of its $1+ trillion of US Treasury securities, which incidentally has not been too far off the mark: as the chart below shows, after peaking in 2013, Chinese holdings of US debt have been steadily declining (and not so steadily in the aftermath of the Chinese devaluation), and are currently near the lowest level in 8 years.

In any case, while Beijing has been gradually reducing its Treasury holdings it has never shocked the market with a major liquidation; and yet this ultimate threat has now found its way into China’s premier state-run English language news source Global Times.

Almost All of America’s Failed Cities are Democrat Cities

That includes 42 of the top 43 centers of violent crime.

As Marxist and anarchist radicals continue to turn Democrat-run American cities into war zones, Democrats assure us that they alone understand how the current crisis can be resolved. White House hopeful Joe Biden, for example, vows that “as President,” he “will help lead” a national “conversation” about racial justice, “and more importantly,” he “will listen” to the “anguish” of the long-forgotten “little guy.”

Biden’s “little guy” narrative blends seamlessly with one of the most widely accepted claims in American political discourse today: the notion that the Democratic Party is the party that fights on behalf of the common man. We are told that Democrats in public office advocate for a wide range of policies that would improve the lives of the poorest and most powerless among us.

Trump Eviction Ban Lacks Crucial Cash for Tenants, Landlords

President Donald Trump’s expansive new eviction ban will help some tenants delay the inevitable. But it’s missing a key ingredient that only lawmakers can supply: money.

“Ultimately, it creates new urgent pressure on Congress to get back to work and pass a final Covid 19 relief bill,” said Diane Yentel, president and chief executive officer of the National Low Income Housing Coalition. “On its own, it’s a half measure.”

An eviction ban through the end of the year — enacted with the authority of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and to slow the virus’s spread — provides no new money for tenants, or for landlords to maintain their properties and pay their bills, including mortgages and local property taxes. It expands a CARES Act moratorium that expired last month, extending it to all properties, not just those financed with federal backing.

Amid rising tensions, China likely to reduce US debt holdings

Photo taken on March 3, 2020 shows U.S. dollar banknotes in Washington D.C., the United States. Photo: Xinhua

China may gradually reduce its holdings of US Treasury bonds to about $800 billion from the current level of more than $1 trillion, as the ballooning US federal deficit increases default risks and the Trump administration continues its blistering attack on China, experts said. 

China, the world’s second-largest holder of US debts, has been systematically but determinedly trimming its holdings of US bonds in recent years. In the first six months of this year, China dumped about $106 billion worth of US Treasury bonds. On a yearly basis, China’s holdings of US bonds dropped by about 3.4 percent as of the end of June. 

“China will gradually decrease its holdings of US debt to about $800billion under normal circumstances. But of course, China might sell all of its US bonds in an extreme case, like a military conflict,” Xi Junyang, a professor at the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, told the Global Times on Thursday. 

John Ivison: Trudeau's 'literally frightening' spending plan has some Liberals, bureaucrats very worried

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his new finance minister Chrystia Freeland have signalled that they are itching to remake Canada in their own progressive image – and that means new spending. PHOTO BY CHRISTINNE MUSCHI/REUTERS

Three weeks after the government unveils its new agenda, the cracks are already beginning to appear, as Trudeau’s spending plan has some liberals and bureaucrats really worried. Likewise, he has referred to the NDP, disparagingly, as liberals in a hurry.

Notably, it has been said that the New Democrats will have to move slightly if they want to avoid being crushed by a Liberal Party moving rapidly to the left in this month’s throne address. In this way, it is appropriate to bring up the fact that a senior official described the costly schedule of social programs that are being reduced as a “structural change in the way government in this country operates”.

There’s no question that the risk for Justin Trudeau and new Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland is that spending too much, too fast, could drive away blue liberals concerned about economic growth and fiscal discipline. The details of the throne speech remain unknown to all but a few, but there are enough general indications for some MPs and liberal supporters to be genuinely concerned.

Speculation that overflows

John Robson: Why government only increases in size

PHOTO BY GETTY IMAGES/ISTOCKPHOTO

Given all that is happening today, it is appropriate to address an issue that could make some uncomfortable, as well as why the government is only increasing in size. In reference to that, it is no secret to anyone that in general and across the country, politicians who did not want to cut government in good times seem literally incapable of considering doing so in bad times.

A good question that has arisen and that has been circulating is, Is there something that the government does not do better than the private sector?

You could say that given the staggering variety of things modern governments undertake, regardless of jurisdiction, and how poorly many of them do, it shouldn’t be difficult to think of one that isn’t necessary. It is necessary to take into account one consideration and that is that the left does not like corporations and the right does not like subsidies.

Practical question

Terence Corcoran: You are not you, and other truths of the new world

"Wanderer above the sea of fog", by Caspar David Friedrich, circa 1817.

The effort to sideline individualism and associated economic ideas is being propelled by journalists, academics and political forces in the name of fighting racism and other isms

The storm has been moving in for some time, building up over decades of political and academic activism fuelled by the ideological advocacy of a long line of leftist intellectuals and writers, from Karl Marx through Herbert Marcuse’s New Left celebrations of the ’60s and ’70s to the Occupy Movement to Naomi Klein. After half a century of torch-passing from one anti-liberal theorist to another, North America and other Western nations have settled on a final truth: You are not an individual.

In the new world, people are slotted into assorted collective categories: white or Black, oppressed or oppressor, straight or LGBQ, steeped in inequality, male or female or other, green or a denier, young sidelined millennial or aging privileged colonialist, a Muslim or a Jew or a Christian. From now on, these are the primary labels that define and describe your role in life and shape the content of your mind and character. Forget and submerge your individual capacities and abilities, your intellectual independence, your personal perspectives, ambitions and failures.