Thursday, April 10, 2014

Dependence on US weakening?

Planned European communications network " The United States on Friday criticized proposals to build a European communication network to avoid emails and other data passing through the United States, warning that such rules could breach international trade laws." 
Apparently so did Indian Food Security Bill.
US threatens Russia over Petro-dollar busting deal and one of the links What about the dollar: Russia, Iran announce $20 billion oil-for good deal "The White House has said such a deal would raise "serious concerns" and would be inconsistent with the nuclear talks between world powers and Iran"

But the dollar's role as international currency may be part of the reason for US trade deficits:
"Greider hit on a number of themes in this book, but at least part of the story was one of the U.S. trade deficit creating a deficiency in aggregate demand. In properly behaved macro models, trade deficits are supposed to be self-correcting as the value of the deficit nation's currency falls and the values of the surplus nations' currencies rise. This makes imports more expensive to the deficit nation and their exports cheaper to people living in other countries. This leads to fewer imports and more exports and therefore more balanced trade.
But this adjustment has not happened, or certainly has not happened quickly. We can blame evil doers at central banks in other countries who are manipulating their currencies or frightened foreigner investors who think dollar denominated assets are the only safe place to store their wealth. The actual cause does not matter, the point is that the dollar has not fallen to correct the imbalance." says Dean Baker
Two older articles on the dollar Debtor Nation from Harvard Business Review from mid 2007
The dollar and the Deficits from FP, December 2009.

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