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Steve's note: In yesterday's edition, my colleague Porter Stansberry introduced a controversial idea: A possible currency war between China and the United States. Whether you agree with Porter's idea or not, you owe it to yourself to consider what will happen if he is right. Here's "Part 2" of his idea...
The Largest Gold-Accumulation Plan of All TimeBy
Thursday, February 23, 2012
For more than 30 years, since the start of the country's "Reform Era" in 1978, China has been selling (exporting) more goods than it has imported.
That's allowed the nation to stockpile trillions of dollars – more money than our entire monetary base totaled before the recent financial crisis.
The way it works is simple to understand. When a Chinese business earns dollars by selling overseas, the law requires the company to hand those dollars over to the country's central bank, the People's Bank of China (PBOC). In return, the business gets Chinese currency (called either the "yuan" or the "renminbi") at a fixed rate.
There's nothing fair about this. The Chinese people do all the work, and the Chinese government keeps all of the money. But that's the way it goes.
At first, the dollar inflow was small because trade between the two countries was tiny. In 1980, for example, China's foreign currency reserves stood at approximately $2.5 billion. But since then, the amount of foreign currency reserves held by the Chinese government has gone up nearly every year... and now stands at $3.2 TRILLION. That's a 127,900% increase. It's simply astonishing to look at the chart of the increase in currency reserves...
.png) As I mentioned yesterday, the group in China that manages these foreign reserves is called the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE). This group is engaged in a full-fledged currency war with the United States. The ultimate goal – as the Chinese have publicly stated – is to create a new dominant world currency and dislodge the U.S. dollar from its current reserve role.
And for the past few years, SAFE has had one big problem: What to do with so much money?
SAFE decided to use most of these reserves to buy U.S. government securities. As a result, the Chinese have now accumulated a massive pile of U.S. government debt. In fact, about two-thirds of China's reserves remain invested in U.S. Treasury bills, notes, and bonds. The next biggest chunk is in euro. Of course, all this money is basically earning nothing to speak of in terms of interest... because interest rates around the world are close to zero.
And while the Chinese would love to diversify and ditch a significant portion of their U.S. dollar holdings, they are essentially stuck. You see, if the Chinese start selling large amounts of their U.S. government bonds, it would push the value of those bonds (and their remaining holdings) way down. It would be like owning 10 houses on the same block in your neighborhood... and deciding to put five of them up for sale at the same time. Imagine how much that would depress the value of all the properties with so much for sale at one time.
One thing China tried to do in recent years was speculate in the U.S. stock market. But that did not go well... The Chinese government bought large amounts of U.S. equities just before the market began to crash in late 2007. It purchased a nearly 10% stake in the Blackstone Group (an investment firm)... and a similar stake in Morgan Stanley. Blackstone's shares are down about 46% since the middle of 2007, and Morgan Stanley is down about 70% since the Chinese purchase.
The Chinese got burned big time by the U.S. equities markets and received a lot of heat back home. They are not eager to return to the U.S. stock market in a meaningful way. So China's U.S. dollar reserves just keep piling up in various forms of fixed income – U.S. Treasury bonds, Fannie and Freddie mortgage bonds, and other forms of debt backed by the U.S. government. These investments are considered totally safe – except that they're subject to the risk of inflation.
According to a statement by the government: "SAFE will never be a speculator. It mainly seeks to protect the safety of China's foreign exchange reserves and ensure a stable investment return."
If the Chinese won't buy stocks and the only real risk to their existing portfolio is inflation, what do you think they will do to hedge that risk?
They will buy gold... lots and lots of gold.
It was no surprise to us when, in 2011, China became the No. 1 importer of gold. For many people in the gold market, this was a big shock – India has always been the world's leading gold buyer. In India, people traditionally save and display their wealth in gold. Their entire financial culture is based on gold. Historically, silver has played the same role in China... but not anymore.
In fact, not only has China become the world's leading importer of gold, it was already the world's leading producer... by far. According to the most recent figures from the World Gold Council, China produces nearly 50% more gold (about 300 tons per year) than the second-place country... Australia. And guess what? Every single ounce produced in China – whether it's dug out of the ground by the government or a foreign company – must, by law, be sold directly back to the government.
The Chinese are now clearly on a path to accumulate so much gold that one day soon, they will be able to restore the convertibility of their currency into a precious metal... just as they were able to do a century ago when the country was on the silver standard.
The West wasn't kind to China back then. The country was repeatedly looted and humiliated by Russia, Japan, Britain, and the United States. But today, it is a different story...
Now, China is the fastest-growing country on Earth, with the largest cash reserves on the planet. And as befits a first-rate power, China's currency is on the path to being backed by gold.
China desperately wants to return to its status as one of the world's great powers... with one of the world's great currencies. And China knows that in this day and age – when nearly all governments around the globe are printing massive amounts of currency backed by nothing but an empty promise – it can gain a huge advantage by backing its currency with a precious metal.
As the great financial historian Richard Russell wrote recently: "China wants the renminbi to be backed with a huge percentage of gold, thereby making the renminbi the world's best and most trusted currency."
I know this will all sound crazy to most folks. But most folks don't understand gold, or why it represents real, timeless wealth. The Chinese do. And in tomorrow's essay, I'll provide more evidence of how they are carrying out the largest gold accumulation plan of all time.
Good investing,
Porter Stansberry
Further Reading:
The last time the United States was in a currency war, our government made a terrible mistake. "When the history books are finally written," Porter writes, "this chapter will go down as one of our nation's most incompetent political blunders." Find out what happened here: How the Chinese Will Establish a New Financial Order.
The risks to the global paper money system have never been greater. But Porter teaches DailyWealth readers how to hedge their portfolios against this crisis. Learn more here.
Market NotesBIG "PRICE NEWS" FROM THE SILVER COMPLEX Price action of note in the silver market: Silver Wheaton (SLW) just notched a short-term breakout...
Regular readers know we consider Silver Wheaton one of the premier silver plays in the market. Silver Wheaton isn't your average mining stock. It doesn't operate mines or explore for mineral deposits. Instead, it finances lots of early-stage silver projects... and collects royalties when those projects start producing silver. This makes the company a diversified, leveraged way to profit from rising silver prices.
In 2009, with shares trading around $13, we noted how this stock was enjoying one of the strongest uptrends in the market... and could explode higher in a precious-metals bull market. About two years after our note, SLW had tripled in price. But like all big moves, this one needed time to "digest" its gains before going higher. That's just how the market works.
As you can see in the two-year chart below, SLW spent 2011 "digesting" in a volatile, sideways range... which frustrated both buyers and sellers. During this sideways move, sellers twice managed to knock SLW down near $27. The stock rebounded both times. And just this week, the stock "broke out" to its highest level in five months. SLW is resuming its bull market.
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