Paper Money

Chinese call those 'money' offered to the dead as 'paper money'. Paper money comes in BIG denominations, really big ones, issued by the Bank of Hell (BoH). The minimum value is well over a million dollars I think. A few billions in paper money or hell money is just small sum. In the 7th month of the lunar calender, piles & piles of paper money will be burnt as offer to the dead, to finance their after life, for the benefit of the living.

In the past few days, some big financial institutions in the living world announced their 3Q financial resuls. Reading their results, you might just wonder whether you are living in hell or the living world. I actually pinched myself to make sure that I am still a living person. Merrill Lynch said they lost US$7.9b in 3Q, Countrywide US$1.2b, JP Morgan will write off US$2.1b, while Citigroup announced they lost some billions too (I can't remember the exact amount). Many billions of dollars just vaporized over night. However, it does not seem like the dead had benefited from this vaporization, neither do the living. That amount of money just went up in smokes.

The Fed now acts more like BoH, printing money like nobody's business. The green back has fallen from its high of S$1.80 to US$1.00 down to S$1.46 to US$1.00. Investment gurus from Warrant Buffet to Jim Rogers to Julian Roberson all agreed that the dollar's downfall is still far from over. Jim Rogers even said he will convert all his US dollar dominated assets into some other currencies, mainly Chinese yuan, in the next couple of months, according to reports.

Asian countries, from Japan, to China, to Vietnam, have all reduced their reserve amount in US dollars, while favouring some other currencies, which are not publicly disclosed yet. Nobody wants to be the last one standing holding the bodies of the past dead presidents. There is no fun. The green back probably soon will be as good as paper money issued by Bank of Hell, with the Jade Emperor's portrait on the front.

Is it really this bad? For the short term, I do think so, thanks to Mr George W. Bush, for his poor management of the only remaining superpower on planet earth. In the long term, there might be some turn-around. Remember some 15 years ago, back in 1992, the United States was also in a similar situation, and at that time, it was coupled with high interest rates. I could still remember George W. Bush's father, George Bush, fainted during his visit to Japan, with the hope of convincing the Japanese to buy more American goods. Then after Bill Clinton took office, things became better, and led all the way to the year 2000 boom, and the subsequent busrt in late 2000, early 2001. Will the same happen again? Most likely. Economy development goes in 'cycles'. Well, anyway, I just don't want to see the new paper money is actually printed by the US government :)