As 2013 comes to an end, we look back at the past five years since the global financial crisis with an uneasy calmness. A sense that not everything seems right even though a lot of the economic data points to expansion. As never before has the world been subjected to this scale of coordinated monetary stimulus to rescue the world from an economic abyss.
The US Federal Reserve monetizes debt at US$85bn a month ($75bn from January 2014), UK maintain's its asset purchase program at GBP 375bn ($620bn) and Japan buys 7.5 trillion yen ($81bn) a month of its own bonds. All these unrepressed money manufacturers make the annual production of Joss paper or Hell money (金纸) seem trite.
It is impossible to grasp the meaning of the idea of sound money if one does not realize that it was devised as an instrument for the protection of civil liberties against despotic inroads on the part of governments. Ideologically it belongs in the same class with political constitutions and bills of rights. Ludwig von Mises - The Theory Of Money And Credit - 1912
Monday, 30 December 2013
Friday, 27 December 2013
Smaug: The Dragon In The Made In China Cage
China's debt problem is like having Smaug the dragon from the Hobbit locked up in a cage made in China.
Saturday, 21 December 2013
HKT's acquisition of CSL is a vote of confidence in Hong Kong's telecoms industry
On Friday (20 Dec, 2013), HKT (6823) a subsidiary of PCCW (8) ultimately owned by the Li family announced the acquisition of CSL New World for US$2.425bn (HK$18.9bn), a unit of Telstra. This follows hot on the heals from Vodafone's summer sale of Verizon Wireless its US wireless joint venture wireless business to its joint venture partner, Verizon Communications Inc.
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