Op-Ed Contributors

Yuan target of greedy speculators

By M.D. Nalapat (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-05-21 07:52

When the price of crude oil rose fivefold between 2003 and 2007, it was clear that speculators were making profits at the expense of humanity. Many so-called "free markets" are in reality controlled by speculators, who lobby to prevent scrutiny of their activities. Monetary authorities in the US and the UK have failed to curb speculation, which has led to a massive rise in commodity prices across the world in the previous decade. Instead, they have helped them by relaxing their already weak regulations.

While in the UK, the monetary authorities have close ties with financial institutions and individuals who make most of their profits from speculation, in the US, high-level officials are almost always chosen from among people who are experts in market-distorting activities.

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For example, former US Treasury secretary Hank Paulson was in charge of companies that indulged in uncontrolled speculation, and the present Treasury secretary, Tim Geithner, when he was the president of Federal Reserve Bank of New York, had been indulgent toward the very financial entities that caused the global financial crisis. In fact, Paulson and Geithner collaborated to ensure that US taxpayers paid more than $1 trillion to rescue the financial companies that have cost international investors $4 trillion during the global financial crisis.

Several American and British financial institutions' top managements focused only on getting large annual bonuses. They ensured this by creating and palming off investors' financial vehicles that were designed to make losses, and by increasing loans to people who they knew wouldn't be able to pay back.

Because of the total lack of accountability in the US and UK financial systems almost none of the key players of the 2007-09 financial scam has been punished. Instead of being behind bars, their rightful place, they are enjoying the huge profits they made from activities that forced hundreds of millions of people into poverty. No wonder, speculators have become active in world markets again, especially in the oil market, seeking to hike commodity prices so that they can make more profit.

Not satisfied with the profit made from oil, several of the speculators have moved into the currency market, buying yuan in bulks in the hope that China will follow the advice given by their friends to revaluate its currency substantially. Once that happens, they are sure to make a killing - this time at the expense of the Chinese people.

Speculators have close ties with many countries' monetary authorities. That's why we hear a rising crescendo of voices urging China to revaluate its currency at a time when the other major exporter of manufactured goods, Germany, is seeing a fall in the euro. Germany's surplus is proportionately higher than China's. But none of those pressing China to revaluate the yuan has asked Germany to purchase more goods from Asia, by far the largest importer of German goods.

Speculators have withdrawn money from the share markets to invest in the yuan. This transfer from equity to currency is one of the reasons why share prices have fallen on the Shanghai Stock Exchange this year. Once the speculators make the desired profit from a revaluated yuan, they will move on to other pastures leaving China poorer.

The over-indulgent attitude of the US and UK governments toward speculators has caused people in those two countries to suffer, too. In the US, more than 20 million people are homeless because of the wrong policies of financial enterprises. The incomes of hundreds of thousands of people dependent on the financial industry have fallen because of the international loss of trust in UK's financial institutions.