Thus, the nation is expected to become party to endorsing the Chinese currency, the renminbi, as the currency of trade in emerging markets.

This means getting a renminbi-denominated bank account, in addition to a dollar account, could be an advantage for African businesses that seek to do business in the emerging markets.

The move is set to challenge the supremacy of the US dollar. This, experts say, is the latest salvo in the greatest worldwide currency war since the 1930s.

In the 30s, several nations competitively devalued their currencies to give their domestic economies an advantage over others.

And this led to a worldwide decline in overall trade volumes at the time.

The north will be pitted against the entire south in a historic competitive currency battle – whose terrain has moved to the Indian capital New Dehli – where the Brics (Brazil, Russia, India China and South Africa) nations will assemble next week.

China seeks to find new markets for its currency and to lobby to internationalise it throughout the Brics states.

For China this is not a new game. In 2009, senior Chinese banking officials issued a statement that the international monetary system was flawed owing to an unhealthy dependence on the US dollar and called for a “super-sovereign” international reserve currency.

Experts say Beijing’s first step is to internationalise its currency (by expanding its reach beyond China), liberalise it (to allow its value to be determined by the market instead of actively managing it as they currently do) and then make it a reserve currency for many nations in the developing world.

Africa’s largest bank, Standard Bank, says in a research document: “We expect at least $100bn (about R768bn) in Sino-African trade – more than the total bilateral trade between China and Africa in 2010 – to be settled in the renminbi by 2015.”

The bank anticipates that the use of the renminbi will lower transaction costs in Africa, thus lowering the barriers to doing business.

It also says that the Chinese will be more successful in transacting in renminbi in Africa than anywhere else because most currencies are weak and somewhat localised.

Not only will the US dollar be challenged, but also the entire international financial regime – led by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund – which has been dominant since the end of World War II.

South Africa’s place in the emerging international financial regime is set to be enhanced.

Zou Lixing, vice-president of the Institute of Research of the China Development Bank, told the Brics preparatory meeting recently that “although the economic aggregate of South Africa is small relative to the Brics, South Africa provides a gate for the Brics to get access to the huge African market”.

The five-member nations have collectively called for an end to the tacit agreement between the US and Europe that ensures that the head of the World Bank is an American citizen, and the International Monetary Fund head is European.

They have proposed that an emerging market candidate be fielded when the term of the current World Bank head, Robert Zoellick, expires in three months.

Fundacao Vargas, a member of the Brazilian delegation, said Brics could confront “existing governance structures”, and seek to strengthen the blocs’ influence in established institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, while creating alternatives.

The demand for greater political say in international affairs dovetails with China’s expected rise as a financial superpower in the next eight years.

Vargas showed the preparatory meeting projections indicating that China’s economy will have eclipsed that of the US by 2020, hence the promotion of the renminbi as the preferred currency of the south.

The renminbi has traditionally traded at a deliberately lower exchange rate, which gave a huge boost to China’s domestic economic sectors and enabled its booming industrialisation and growth.

The US and other trading partners have long accused China of being a “currency manipulator”.

Last week, Brazil declared its commitment to keep its own currency – the real – low. Its finance minister, Guido Mantega, reiterated his November 2010 declaration that a global currency war has broken out.

He said: “We do not want to lose our manufacturing sector.

We will not sit back and watch while other countries devalue their currencies.”

Brazil and China cried foul last year when, through a slew of initiatives dubbed QE2 – Quantitative Easing Two – the US indirectly devalued its currency by pumping about $600bn into its economy to protect the economy from sliding back into recession.

South African economists were in two minds about the moves to extend the influence of the renminbi.

Economist and academic Peter Draper told City Press recently that the decision to establish a Brics development bank and to enlarge the renminbi’s sphere “is political and related to the current political dynamics within the World Bank” and the established international financial system.

Tom Wheeler of the South African Institute of International Affairs said developments in New Delhi (India) were “giving substance to the previously (and) loosely arranged economic block”.

- City Press

Source: http://www.fin24.com/Economy/Brics-move-to-unseat-dollar-as-trade-currency-20120325

For previous generations, the dream of a college education for their children was a primary motivation. Gaining access to the teachings of higher learning is certainly a laudable objective. While this goal still holds true, there is a systemic disconnect from attending institutions that cost a king’s ransom and having marketable skills to earn a generous income in the post industrial economy. When government employment becomes the most sought after occupation, the economic future of the country sinks into deep decline. The old correlation with the higher your education, the greater your income, is no more.

Proof for such a conclusion is provided by the following list, Shocking Facts About Student Debt And The Great College Education Scam.

1) Americans now owe more than $875 billion on student loans, which is more than the total amount that Americans owe on their credit cards

2) Since 1982, the cost of medical care in the United States has gone up over 200% but that is nothing compared to the cost of college tuition which has gone up by more than 400%

3) The unemployment rate for college graduates under the age of 25 is over 9%

4) There are about two million recent college graduates that are currently unemployed

5) There are about two million recent college graduates that are currently unemployed

6) In the United States today, 317,000 waiters and waitresses have college degrees

7) The Project on Student Debt estimates that 206,000 Americans graduated from college with more than $40,000 in student loan debt during 2008

In the United States today, 24.5 percent of all retail sales persons have a college degree

9) Total student loan debt in the United States is now increasing at a rate of approximately $2,853.88 per second

10) Total student loan debt in the United States is now increasing at a rate of approximately $2,853.88 per second

11) There are 365,000 cashiers in the United States today that have college degrees

12) Starting salaries for college graduates across the United States are down in 2010

In 1992, there were 5.1 million “underemployed” college graduates in the United States. In 2008, there were 17 million “underemployed” college graduates in the United States

13) In the United States today, over 18,000 parking lot attendants have college degrees

14) Federal statistics reveal that only 36 percent of the full-time students who began college in 2001 received a bachelor’s degree within four years

15) According to a recent survey by Twentysomething Inc., a staggering 85 percent of college seniors planned to move back home after graduation last May

The incurring debt that saddles students is unsustainable. The Business Insider reports in The $100 Billion Student Debt Bubble May Finally Blow, “As it stands, no matter how deep borrowers find themselves buried in student loan debt, they can’t discharge it in bankruptcy court – all because it doesn’t qualify as an “undue hardship.” As the economy struggles and minimum wage employment becomes the norm, how can attending college retain its glow?

The cost of college is not uniform. The College Board reports,

“In 2011-12, 44 percent of all full-time undergraduate college students attend a four-year college that has published charges of less than $9,000 per year for tuition and fees.

At the other end of the spectrum, approximately 28 percent of full-time private nonprofit four-year college students are enrolled in institutions charging $36,000 or more yearly in tuition and fees.”

The value of attending a prestigious private institution especially has a real harsh impact, if student loans are necessary to pay for that experience. “College tuition increases about 8 percent annually or doubles about every nine years, according to FinAid.org.” The continual increase in college costs is the persistent dilemma that challenges the ultimate benefit of attending university.

America has become a society for elites. The embodiment of success, sold under the mantra of achieving degrees of higher learning, no longer works. For all the “so called” professionals that act as gatekeepers for the establishment, the rewards from the system flow, as long as their loyalty, to the corporatist institutions remains. However, for all the ordinary college graduates that seek a better life through hard work, the prospect of entering the inner circles of the “golden parachute” is elusive.

Earning your way to the top may motivate the most competitive of type A personalities, but the survival of the most ruthless is no standard for a free society. The wisdom that college is supposed to share is not valued much in global business.

Some will conclude that only practical disciplines like engineering, accounting or medicine have pragmatic worth. Nevertheless, the systematic dismantling of the domestic economy is intrinsically responsible for the lost opportunities that can benefit from a work force of college graduates. Look no further than to the study of law for a primary reason for the sharp delineation in the lower ing of living standards.

The economics of college do not work for most students because the costs of the educational electives are void of entrepreneurial content. Transacting business commerce is still the fundamental activity in earning a living. As with any economic deal, both parties need to come away from the undertaking with a sense of satisfaction. Where is the gratification from flipping burgers in order to make your student loan payment?

The knowledge gained from the university exposure of classic studies is invaluable in the life of any adult. However, the cruel costs many colleges charge for that experience, have more to do with inflated institutional egos, than teaching developing intellectual minds.

As long as college graduates are prime victims of declining middle class prospects, the indebtedness of tuition bills will burden their futures. The solution is to grow a domestic economy based upon independence in manufacturing and self-sufficiency. Attending college on loans is a very bad decision. The money spent for a useless degree is better spent on buying or starting a business.

James Hall – March 14, 2012

http://www.batr.org/negotium/031412.html

Sergei Mavrodi

13/03/2012

MINSK, March 13 (RIA Novosti)

Belarusian Police are to investigate the newly-opened Minsk office of MMM-2011, a new business project by Sergei Mavrodi, the notorious mastermind of the MMM pyramid scheme which robbed millions of Russians in 1994, the Interior Ministry said on Tuesday.

“We have no information if anybodies’ rights have been violated yet. We will check [this office] with the financial and tax agencies and banks,” said Eduard Nikitin, head of the central economic crimes directorate in the Belarusian Interior Affairs Ministry.

Nikitin said he was sure MMM-2011 was a financial pyramid scheme.

“It is a dummy firm, it has no charter, no founding documents,” he said. “This is a [financial] pyramid. There is no evidence that it runs financial activities to get dividends or interest payments,” he added.

Mavrodi’s MMM-2011 (the three Russian letters standing for “We Can Do a Lot”) uses an online payment system, WebMoney, to allow investors to buy tickets that work like shares, but have no real value. The project’s mastermind has promised investors returns of 20-30 percent per month.

A former mathematician, Mavrodi was released from prison in 2007 after serving a sentence for offenses relating to the collapse of the original MMM. He described the new project as a “financial social network.”

While his 1994 scheme used an aggressive TV and radio advertising campaign to reel in investors, the new project relies solely on the Internet, a move which many see as a bid to attract Russia’s technologically-savvy youth.

Mavrodi’s 1994 swindle, which came to be regarded as a symbol of the lawlessness of the chaotic 1990′s in Russia, was one of the largest among hundreds of other such schemes in that era. The pyramids took advantage of the ignorance of a nation still learning the basics of a new capitalist system. Ponzi schemes became so commonplace that their prices were quoted on the front pages of newspapers.

According to estimates, the MMM scam attracted between two and five million investors, including a number of high-profile celebrities, who lost around $1.5 billion when it collapsed.

Nearly all economists who actually influence policy continue to regard gold as a failed and obsolete relic. Much as the automobile supplanted the horse and buggy, these economists see the “elasticity” of fiat paper money as a major improvement over the inflexibility of the gold standard. But what they see as progress has been, in reality, a major step backward.

History is littered with the worthless notes of one failed paper currency after another. The Framers of the US Constitution were personally familiar with the perils of paper, which is why they took great care to establish gold and silver as the only permissible form of money in America. Unfortunately, their efforts were undone in the 20th century by misguided economists, opportunistic politicians, and complicit judges.

Beginning with its final abandonment of gold in 1971, the US is now leading the world in the largest experiment ever conducted in the use of unredeemable paper money. The experiment is unraveling rapidly as people the world over are losing confidence in the ability of central bankers to preserve the value of their savings. It’s not a question of if the world will return to a gold standard, but when.

Gold is money because humanity throughout history has embraced it of their own free will. Paper is only money today because government decrees it to be. But just because government wants us to save and transact in its dollars, euros, or pesos doesn’t mean we have to oblige them. Thanks to modern technology, we now have a better alternative.

As more people are rediscovering gold, they naturally prefer it to its fiat alternatives as a store of value. But while owning gold has become increasingly convenient, using it as a medium of exchange is far more challenging. To buy a tailored suit with a gold coin, a buyer would first need to identify a merchant who will accept gold in exchange. If the gold did not match the garment exactly in value, the two parties would either have to add paper currency or accept paper as change.

Of course, a gold owner can always “cash in” gold coins with a coin merchant anytime spending is anticipated. However, this can be a cumbersome and time-consuming process. First, you need to find a gold dealer who will give you a fair price to sell your coin. If it’s a weekend, you may have to wait until Monday. If your gold is in storage with a third party, you will have to execute the sale, wait for the trade to settle, and then wait longer for the wire to hit your bank account. If the proceeds are paid by check, you will have to wait for the check to arrive in the mail and then wait for it to clear.

My new offshore bank solves these problems and makes spending your stored gold easy. Euro Pacific Bank, based in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, offers bullion accounts that may be accessed with a debit card accepted at over 3 million ATMs and 30 million merchants worldwide. Gold is changed into currency as needed to pay debits. It is always converted at the daily exchange rates. Unused balances are held in gold, giving the user all the benefits of gold ownership.

Unfortunately, this service is not available to U.S. citizens or residents.

To learn more about Euro Pacific Bank’s Gold Debit Card and to receive an application, click here.

If enough people use my debit card, and other banks follow my example, governments will be under even more pressure to return to a gold standard. If consumers demand real money, governments will have no choice but to provide it. In the meantime, your savings will be safe from their central planning. Since even Warren Buffett recently admitted that he no longer likes paper money, it looks like it’s game on. May the best money win.

In today’s financial marketplace there are many ways to own gold. The stock and commodity world offer a wide range of fancy trading products labeled “gold”. It is important to clearly understand when you buy one of these products if you own actual physical gold? More often than not, the answer is no! A lot of the today’s popular financial products are paper representations of gold. One such example is the precious metal ETF. Similar to common stock, an SPDR precious metals ETF is a paper promise. For the retail shareholder, it is not actual ownership of any physical gold.

As we all know, paper….is not metal. Paper has no intrinsic value. Paper is a promise to pay and very different from the shiny gold metal which is accepted as money in every country on earth.

A precious metal ETF or exchange traded fund is a type of financial product created by the good folks on Wall Street. This convenient financial product offers investors “exposure” to the movement in gold price. For the consumer, ownership in this kind of ETF us NOT legal title to any specific gold.

The SPDR gold ETF, symbol GLD, is commonly represented as being actual physical bullion.

It is not.

GLD is a fund, an Exchange Traded Gold ™ Security. It more closely resembles a a stock, than it does bullion. It’s price in the marketplace moves similar to the price of the actual metal but owning GLD is NOT owning the actual physical gold.

“SPDR® Gold Shares (GLD) offer investors an innovative, relatively cost efficient and secure way to access the gold market. Originally listed on the New York Stock Exchange in November of 2004, and traded on NYSE Arca since December 13, 2007, SPDR® Gold Shares is the largest physically backed gold exchange traded fund (ETF) in the world. SPDR® Gold Shares also trade on the Singapore Stock Exchange as well as the Tokyo Stock Exchange and the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong.”  *http://www.spdrgoldshares.com/

In between phrases like, “largest physically backed gold exchange traded fund” and “cost efficient and secure way to access the gold market.” it may sound a lot like real gold ownership, it is not. In reality, a GLD investor does not own or hold legal title to  any physical gold. From the prospectus: Page 10 “If the Trust’s gold is lost, damaged, stolen or destroyed under circumstances rendering a party liable to the Trust, the responsible party may not have the financial resources sufficient to satisfy the Trust’s claim.”  Page 9 “The Trust does not insure its gold.”  Further on page 12 “Gold held in the Trust’s unallocated gold account and any Authorized Participant’s unallocated gold account will not be segregated from the Custodian’s assets.  If the Custodian becomes insolvent, its assets may not be adequate to satisfy a claim by the Trust or any Authorized Participant.  In addition, in the event of the Custodian’s insolvency, there may be a delay and costs incurred in identifying the bullion held in the Trust’s allocated gold account.”

Ownership of this fund exposes your money to increases (and drops) in the price of gold and there are some tax benefits to this type of profitable transaction as it is likely to be taxed at a lower rate than selling an actual gold bar. However, as with any investment in precious metals, you should ask yourself, if you really own actual metal? With GLD the answer is NO.

Unlike the GLD fund shares, physical gold is not subject to any counter-party risk. Whether you own physical gold coins in your pocket or professionally vaulted gold, like a digital gold, you are safe from the perils of GLD and “paper gold”.

The GLD prospectus states that, “Investing in the Shares involves significant risks. See “Risk Factors”. That seems to be a gross understatement, here are some of the risky issues in this Wall Street financial product. Experts in the precious metals industry have been able to closely evaluate the offering prospectus for the SPDR Gold Shares fund (GLD) and some rather startling problems turned up.

“For these reasons including (1) the quality of the gold is at issue, (2) no audit of the physical metal is permitted, (3) counter-party risk impregnates the investment vehicle and (4) there are strong conflicts of interest with complicit players in the central bank gold price suppression scheme; GLD and SLV appear impotent in reducing inflation or counter-party risk.”  *Trace Mayer, J.D. http://www.runtogold.com/2008/12/a-problem-with-gld-and-slv-etfs/

Operating one of the largest digital gold companies in the world, Mr. James Turk of GoldMoney.com had this to say, “If GLD declared its asset to be “Gold”, the fund’s auditor would have to substantiate that the gold really exists, which GLD of course cannot do because of the inability to audit or even inspect gold stored in subcustodians and sub-subcustodians, which is a risk noted in the prospectus.”

Unlike paper traded financial instruments such as GLD, physical gold ownership through a digital gold company is actual legal title to the precious metal. Digital gold offers many of the same benefits of paper gold without the serious counter-party risk. Let’s examine BullionVault which is the world’s #1 gold ownership service online.  As transactions are completed online from the comfort of your home or office using the Internet, we often refer to this type of business as a “digital gold” company. Additionally, this online service is independent of banks. This business allows customers to place buy or sell order anytime day or night 24/7 – 365 days a year.

Outright Ownership of 100% Gold

Don’t confuse buying physical gold through BullionVault with types of paper gold investing as previously discussed.  BullionVault offers every client the outright ownership of an amount of gold. Each client owns the physical gold and it is their legal property. All precious metal is stored in high-security vaults located in Zurich, London & New York then  independently inspected by an LBMA-accredited company.

Via Mat is the storage operator for BullionVault and each day Via Mat makes available a daily bar list of BullionVault’s gold holdings(with bar numbers). The list is then published on the BullionVault website. Another valuable measure of transparency occurs daily when the company publishes the actual metal balances of each customer account. These are visible from the BullionVault web site but of course for privacy reasons, each investor is represented on the daily list by a generic nickname. Compare this with GLD where no audit of the physical metal is permitted.

For precious metal traders, The London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) is the professional trade association which represents the wholesale market for gold and silver in London. This organization sets the rules for all standard bullion bars known as “good delivery bars”. BullionVault along with its independent storage operator Via Mat are both members of the of the LBMA. In fact, Via Mat is one of the world’s largest vault operators.

Furthermore, the easy to open account at BullionVault offers consumers a platform to buy or sell any quantity of physical bullion and the account holder is the legal owner of record for that amount of precious metal. BullionVault offers a powerful and cost effective platform for anyone, from the comfort of their own home, to buy precious metal. However, in contrast to GLD, the gold held in this company is counter-party risk free, audited, verified and insured.

Today, even the smallest investor can go online and purchase investment grade gold or silver and sell it anytime for an instant settlement. Whether you own bars, coins or professionally vaulted digital gold, don’t settle for paper promises. Don’t put your trust in Wall Street. Alen Greenspan spoke the truth, “…gold is the ultimate form of payment.” Caveat Emptor, be sure you own physical gold and not a paper promise.

reference http://www.soundmoneycenter.org/2012/02/10/missouri-introduces-sound-money-act-of-2012/