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What do you do?
This is an attempt to harness the ZH brain trust, an invitation to exchange views and refine understanding
You used to be a run-of-the-mill fund manager, but you've been managing funds for the Communist Party of Angina for the past ten years. On your advice, your boss decided to buy a shitload of US Treasuries to keep his exports competitive. That worked out ravishingly, but now he's faced with a major headache. If you can't find a solution to it, you'll be required to make a voluntary donation of both your kidneys to members of the party.
The US economy is in the shitter and someone's hand is on the flush-lever. Angina's holdings of US Dollars - some estimate them to be between 1tn and 2tn - will soon become worthless as the sadomasochistic bastard holding the lever laughs and yanks it. You're tasked with salvaging as much value out of Angina's holdings as you possibly can.
You tried buying Australian minerals, but some shitheaded Party factotum thought it wise to piss the Aussies off by arresting one of their own. Now they won't return your phone calls.
You could buy a boatload of American companies, but what good will that do? You make everything for them anyway. So why dump a lot of money in buying the front office and secretarial staff? You can hire those jokers cheap after their economy's destroyed.
Any rational move you make will move markets. Make the wrong move and that hand on the lever might just end up being yours. So ... what do you do, assuming that you aren't suicidal or masochistic?
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It's really simple actually - corner the Gold market while at the same time making sure you do it subtly enough that you get the maximum bang for your toilet paper holdings and then launch your own international reserve currency backed by it. Oh wait...Angina is doing that already.
What to do?...the answer will be found in communication. It is a global problem. Good, honest communication with Angina's leaders and others. There is no "going it alone".
Trust and mutual agreement must be established, for without there cannot be sufficient, quality communication to stop the downspiral of human affairs.
Slow the downspiral with some honest communication...and then more...and more...and more...
If we do this and persist, our grandchildren may have a chance to avoid incineration.
A lesson in response to "What To Do?":
The journalist Edgar Snow about 1930 got a unique and paid tour of Angina with official sanction to travel "anywhere the railroad goes". Snow had been diligently learning Anginese, but thankfully he was given an escort...a minor official who had studied years earlier in America.
Early on they roamed to the furthest reaches of the railroad, where they both were suddenly amazed and horrified at the sights of desperation, starvation and the resulting depravity of the populations.
At that moment, the escort acknowledged he had not travelled outside the major cities for years and never imagined confronting such conditions. In tears, he then begged Snow "You must do something! Please! What can we do? You have to tell us what to do."
Snow replied, "Your country has a history over 2500 years. I come from a country barely 150 years old. Who am I to tell you what to do? How can I? The solution must come from you."
[from Snow's Journey To The Beginning...he of Red Star Over China fame, after sharing a cave with Mao about 1936].
[By the way...every country that tried to swallow Angina got Angindigestion. What do you expect?]
Buy all technology out of your reach. Purchase education slots for future students in leading edge institutions. Stockpile unperishable raw materials. Purchase all human knowledge to discover and access all intranational resources. Purchase specialized knowledge in genetics, biotech, bioengineering, military, alternative energy, pollution remediation. Invest in infrastructure within sovereign. Purchase swaps, shorts, options which lock in present value in PPP terms of outstanding $ holdings with solvent counterparties which can deliver on terms. Purchase options on global assets which lock in nominal $ terms without reference to other hard assets, inflation, etc. Use money to suborn powerful enemies governments through explicit bribery or legal lobbying. Obtain preferential treatment in every venue to glean value, especially entry to markets, tariff reductions, knowledge transfers, military treaties.
Purchase by whatever means, without spiking prices, precious metals. Target and short all equity and debt instruments in all world bourses which are very overvalued. Lock in all your instruments from outside borrowing so you cannot be shorted. Stop corruption by whatever means which is contrary to your purpose. Corrupt all other mechanisms which cannot be controlled overtly, make them specific only to respond to YOUR will; make other corruption lethal for the cartel breaker.
Stockpile medicines, pharmaceuticals, chemical treatments which will keep your population as healthy as possible, while denying same to your enemy.
Or, in the ultimate unanticipated move, ally yourself with traditional enemy as goals are the same, i.e. unification of the human societies throughout the globe under a singular government and suppression of all conflict globally. Whereupon peace may prevail, but using concentrated capital, labour, technology, know-how to make regional distinction.
Make your HQ the hub, with ample supply lines, and draw all the world's tribute to your region to make a density of wealth and distinguish yourself from fellow man. You are Xerxes, Nebuchanezzar, Nero, Uncle Sam, XXXX.
You are truly evil... and evidently the winner. Don't forget to buy a controlling interest in Goldman Sachs to complete the coup before you turn the lights off!
Buy all the prime farmland and send 100 million Anginans to work the farms (immigrating illegally, of course). In a generation they'll own the political system as well, not a shot fired.
Buy all kind of metal like Chinese is doing and bury all of them back into the ground. Doing so is still cheaper than keeping US$.
Buy Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and the heads of the SEC and US Treasury with the first $1 trillion. With the other $1 trillion, buy all the Gold that Cash4Gold will sell you.
You do nothing - in politics the only thing of value is victory in the next election cycle. The 2010 cycle is underway and Ben, Tim, Jeff and Larry are going to do whatever is needed to keep their mentors in power (that means no visible total collapse). Remember that government has very little to do with the governed anyway.
In reality, it doesn't matter who gets elected - the donors run the system and the system is gridlocked.
You sell them molybdenum mines and such? (ticker symbol GMO)
http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/August2009/19/c6042.html
I would annex the Sudetenland.
Ja. Anginese Lebensraum Mein Herr.
LOL
If I was leading the Anginans I would stick to my 100 year plan of crushing the US. Buy their treasuries until you have them where you want them. Then flush them down the toilet and take control of the world during the chaos. Squelching the roiting at home is easy, they have been doing that for centuries.
Put in an offer for California. Low ball em.
Interesting piece on Lehman collapse from Channel 4 in UK
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/business_money/who+really+pulled+t...
Admittedly, it may be difficult to offload USD 1.5 Trillion buying Australian politicians when they can be bought so cheaply:
Australia's Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon has resigned.
He had been under fire for failing to declare gifts received, including two trips to China.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8082388.stm
is angina anywhere near vangina?
It has a border with Buckf**istan. And URGay.
OK I know this isn't Angina, but the Anginese could maybe take some hints from the following transaction:
PetroChina will buy $50 billion worth of liquefied natural gas from the yet to be developed Gorgon field off the coast of Western Australia.
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2009/s2660091.htm
Australian minerals are still a good buy, and so are Australian politicians.
Pick a day to get out.
Two days before begin to short the market in treasuries and dollars to equal the losses you will take.
D day dump treasuries and dollars for other currencies.
Of course all your customers could be pissed, but they will admire you cleaverness, unless it backfires.
Flatliner
Make the AASB (Angina Accounting Standards Board) change its rules to allow mark-to-benefit-of-the-great-communist-party-of-angina accounting. With that, everything is green shoots.
Isn't that already the case?
Remember that China doesn't have currency risk - the Yuan is already pegged to the dollar. It only has the interest rate risk of thr treasury holdings to consider. All that they need to do is to get someone to take the other side of the trade (i.e. the arb gets paid if rates stay low for some period of time).
I bet that their holdings of treasuries are well in the money at this point (recall that rates have come down from the peak in 2006) so they are probably more concerned with status quo than appreciation.
Ditto re Status Quo. Look on the shelves of any large chain store in the U.S. and try to find anything made anywhere but China. Their interests are best served by a strong U.S. economy. They will certainly know how to leverage their $2trillion to maximum benefit, whether through commodity futures, GS front running, ever increasing international influence, or political pocket stuffing to achieve their ends. The status quo will automatically increase the $2trillion to $3trillion soon enough, if not from selling to a sluggish U.S. economy, then to an increasing list of customers worldwide. China has become the WalMart of the world's industry and will continue to drive out competition simply because it can. The U.S. is just a cash cow. Even at zero nominal return, the deflationary environment favors the treasuries. Fear of eventual inflation in the U.S. has to be tempered with the recognition that general inflation will not develop until the economy rebounds. Until then, it looks like QE and “stimulus” will be isolated to Wall Street and the financial industry. (Have you noticed how the banks are jacking up credit card rates on the flimsiest excuses and curtailing HELOC balances while enjoying record low cost of funds?) As far as the economy rebounding, I cannot for the life of me figure out where the engine of growth will come from. As things stand now, any rebound will be taxed away. So my recommendations to the Chinese authorities are to:
1. buy, buy, buy treasuries, even if it means forcing rates to negative. Their existing holdings will increase in value.
2. Revalue the Yuan.
3. Buy American.
When the U.S. economy starts to recover, China’s will do well also.
well for fuck's sake, where is phil gramm when you need him??? i haven't seen him and his sagely advice in days....did he have an accident with his turtle wax buffer?
Ok - since no one has stated the obvious here yet, I will.
Engage GS to Buy 2 Trillion $ in nominal Interest Rate swaps on your behalf, and then do what you are going to do anyway.
Insert a viral CD in the mainframe and Reboot.
Then make a movie of the aftermath starring Zooey Deschanel as a gorilla world class hacker and as her sidekick, Bai Ling.
Let's replay the ending of Fight Club. With the music.
Posted on Monday, August 24, 2009 12:57:01 AM by American Dream 246
What do the liberals at AARP think about the latest from Obama as reported by AP: No cost-of-living increases forSocial Security recipients for the next two years!
The Social Security COLs, as everyone knows, are rigged to provide a tiny increase each year, much less than the true cost-of-living increase for seniors. Not only will these pittances be suspended for the next two years, but the Medicare premiums paid by the same seniors will INCREASE.
These Medicare premiums are automatically DEDUCTED from the Social Security payment every month. This means that America's seniors will receive a REDUCTION in.benefits in 2010, plus a FURTHER REDUCTION in 2011.
Obama's ACORN thugs will continue to receive raises as long as he's in office.
Remember when Bush's 100 billion, 200 billion, 300 billion deficits the past few years caused conniption fits among Obama and his lying Democrats the past few years. Obama has given us a deficit of more than THREE TRILLION in a few months. Obama has built in a 20 TRILLION DOLLAR DEFICIT within 10 years.
Besides being bankrupt, this nation has record unemployment and record home foreclosures right now. The Bush years, when we had to fight a vast war against terrorists, looks like an economic paradise compared to Obama who fights wars only against American citizens.
Oh god, dont you drag this partisian bullshit here. Go watch Fox News or something.
1) Be inscrutable. Disguise Treasury purchases and sales by trading through intermediaries.
2) Make sure you keep trumpeting your large dollar reserves.
3) Quietly offload dollar assets onto banks, SWF, investment firms, and anyone else who can sell the assets quietly
4) Instruct these firms to "short" the dollar. Euros, giant Afghan copper mines, gas pipelines, etc.
5) Don't fully divest. First aim to balance losses. Assets with multiplicative potential are a good bet. It may be possible to fully offset its Treasuries with only 25-35% invested in hard assets.
6) Once you are hedged, let your currency appreciate.
7) Make a ?? and leak the information.
Buy all the comex gold futures you can get your hands on and ultimately take delivery of it all. You win.
err, don`t count on it as they can now settle with an ETF contract or (EFP) Exchange of Futures for Physicals instead of physical. Seems everything is rigged. From Gata: `Commodity exchanges can dump gold debts on ETFs` http://www.gata.org/node/7586
i got a clarification from someone who stated
that both parties must agree to the etf settlement....
so if the buyer wants physical delivery he can
get it if in the minimum quantity....
Angry middle class-ers, now destitute with greenbacks, but fully loaded with ammos, encircled DC and ousted CEO, CFO, COO and all board of directors of the little coporation know as US of Angina. All banksters' bank collapsed, all corporations connected to GS collapsed, all corporations popped up by CNBC collapsed, and, the monetary base together with the credit creation machine all collapsed, and, and, and.
Once this happens, the scarcity of greenback pushes the dollar index to a new all time high at 200.
WMD (Whitehouse Money of Deception) and WMD squared (Whitehouse Madman of Decider), anyone? To save the greenback, all others must be destroyed and vice versa. The soon-to-be destitute middle-classers will destroy everything in sight and the dollar will be saved.
Comrades, just be patient.
Just found another WMD (Whitehouse Money as Debt). I see we have no chance of exiting the current mayhem.
Shoot the hostage
The real question to ask is what they will do when we ask for a do over and default. I really don't see any other option at this point. Why not... Russia did it.
I don't see any problem. Buy American, pay in dollars.
I thought we voted to sell California to them. Personally, I thought lower Manhattan and the Beltway were better choices...
I would maximize power and control, but good is money for, besides that?
Only show up for TIPS auctions. Then you can say "Hey we still believe in you guys. We're still buying your bonds". China has enough bargaining power to force a much larger percentage of bonds to be TIPS.
Time to set up a Willy E Coyote long plunge in T land?
I.e. what about a derivatives play with the gist of Porsche->Volkswagen squeeze inverted + OTC to escape T holdings & TIC stats. E.g. buy hard assets at premium and pay with DEEPLY in-the-money T calls, with settlement in T. Assuming that the T calls are held until expiration, could our Angina Assetman dispense with the T&$ bag before Willy looks down?
PS
What the **** is the Fed doing in OTC derivatives land?
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/good-morning-worker-drones-week-mayhem
Easy the the US taxpayers will subsidize and credit 6X levererage debt for the Anginans are buying $2 billion, the US puts up $2 billion, and then the PPIP allows the purchase of $24 billion of distressed assets in the open market.
All for $2 billion dollars. Oh, and the FDIC would guarantee the debt being issued by the PPIP.
Hence, taxpayer dollars are subsidizing Chinese Anginans purchases of U.S. assets at a discount.
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/08/why-is-us-government-subsidizing-chinese-ppip/
Three options...
1. Demand recognition that your rebellious island "nation" Angiwan is under your soverignity in a treaty with the US.... an offer they can't refuse. National pride improves, you keep both kidneys.
2. Advise your bosses to prepare for revolution. The average people, who are essentially the elites' slaves (who get dollars, by preventing the local currency, and purchasing power, to rise), rise in revolution on the first sign of a major downturn. Once US consumers stop buying products (at any price), contentment engendered by high employment and rapid growth, dissipates. Thoughtful members of the party leadership take some precautions, and the rebellion is largely crushed. Your bosses stay in power, albeit weakened. You are forced to give one kidney in the subsequent purges.
3. Allow your currency to appreciate (and lose most of the value in the securities you hold). More than a billion of your citizens, live happier, more contented lives as their purchasing power increases and they are able to reap the benefits of their hard work. Your bosses lose their investment, and the power that comes with keeping a chokehold on the national economy. You lose both kidneys.
massive anginese nuclear first strike on ruska. with stockpiled natural resources, the grand anginese imperial army can sieze ruska's frozen (resource rich) far east and hand the corrupt western rump to the polles and youcrannins. why would the US (already overstreched) get between ruska and angina. let the fucker's waste each other, so long as somebody keeps buying the big Ts
You do nothing. You want your hand on the handle. You feed just enough to the market to make them squirm. You reel enough of it back in to ease the pain. Anginians are ASTUTE observers of history and have learned many lessons from their oil-producing neighbors. They have not forgotten the Opium Wars, and probably feel a sense of entitlement now being on the other end of the trade. To speak nothing of their own accomplishments, the Anginians have literally bought their way in to the table.
To frame it another way: how much would you pay to control the world's largest economy? $1T? $2T? What's the breakup value of a whole productive nation? How much would a company spend to be left alone to their own devices from every major regulatory agency in the world?
Seems like smart money to me...
Step (1) - Enlist the cannibalistic help of America's bankers to covertly enter forward contracts to purchase commodities. What the market doesn't know can't hurt them.
Step (2) - Sell off American dollars covertly in exchange for stronger currencies through darkpools. Again, keep the market in the dark as long as possible. Preferably, sell off US holdings with the help of third parties to mess up the trail further.
Step (3) - Increasingly trade in non-US dollar currencies and follow Japan's lead in only providing credit that is linked to the exchange rate and not the rigged "CPI."
Jesus will come down from his heavenly throne, and his name will be John. ==With apologies to Johnny Cash.