Sunday, October 26, 2008

Inflation in Foreign Countries

Given the massive flight to quality out of emerging markets and into the US Dollar and Japanese Yen, they must feel as if they can't catch a break. Given the strengthening of the US dollar, we are experiencing deflation here Stateside, but if you are sitting in a place like Australia or South Korea, the deflationary effects on import and commodity pricing haven't been anywhere near as strong given that your currency just fell by 30-40%. A fall of oil prices by 50% in US Dollar terms doesn't feel that dramatic to you. So if you were the central banks of one of those countries, I would imagine you would end up selling your dollar reserves, if you have any, or buying back Treasury-issued notes to try and prop up your currency. Won't this selling of dollars around the world end up putting back a ton of eurodollars back onto the market and weaken the dollar from its current position? The US would probably want a weaker US dollar so they would probably tacitly support USD selling.
http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Money/Story/STIStory_295370.html

Similarly, it sounds as if Japan is likely to start intervening to break the strengthening of their currency as it would and likely is massively impairing their export business.
http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Money/Story/STIStory_295371.html

Also, a great article from the WSJ regarding the reason for Bretton Woods in 1944. Much of it was due to battling currency devaluations between exporting countries. Although not quite the same here, massive disruptions in currency markets should lead to some form of international resolution around these issues. As the article states, China's participation, nee leadership, seems to be critical.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122489333798168777.html

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