Global trade is brisk?

The Baltic Dry is a composite index of shipping rates for various bulk goods. When global trade is brisk, the cost of transporting goods (as reflected in this index) is high, and conversely when trade is quiet the index is low. Looking at the chart of $BDI today, below, we can clearly see that global trade is still very much on the ropes since 2008.

You can also look at a chart of many commodities today and see there are high spot prices pretty much across the board. This is something of a divergence, and to me it suggests the high commodity prices are only high due to speculators bidding up paper prices for commodities, with a view towards the upcoming high inflation that they see as a result of rampant currency issuance by the world's Central Banks (most notably the US Fed, but by no means exclusively).

The actual physical demand for the commodities, according to the $BDI, just does not seem to be there. This ought to be implying commodity price deflation, rather than inflation.

Santa Wen Is Coming To Town

Oh! You better watch out,
You better not cry,
You better not pout,
I'm telling you why:

Santa Wen is coming to town!

He's making a list,
He's checking it twice,
He's gonna find out
who's naughty or nice.

Santa Wen is coming to town!

He sees you when you're sleeping,
He knows when you're awake.
He knows when you've been bad or good,
So be good for goodness sake!

So...You better watch out,
You better not cry
You better not pout,
I'm telling you why.

Santa Wen is coming to town.

Merry Christmas, and an Interesting New Year!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/8215923/Euro-rises-as-China-supports-EU-debt-action.html

Is the SDR a diversionary tactic to forestall financial Armageddon?

I was recently musing that I could perhaps see the SDR becoming the world’s trading numéraire, but that it felt likely that this would only come about after a global rebalancing of currencies. Looking into the SDR in more detail took me a way off track into the wilderness, where I had no idea I might find myself. I found myself all of a sudden staring at the Islamic Dinar!

The reason I ended up at this seemingly unlikely place was I stumbled into a site on the web which stated that 1 Islamic Dinar = 1 IMF SDR. This I found an intriguing detail, but since this site was just a blog I figured I should dig a little deeper and see if I could find an “official looking” source to back that claim up. At first, all of the sites I could find on Google were what I considered to be ”unofficial” sources. But then, eventually, I found what I considered to be an “official” source: the Islamic Trade Finance Corporation (a Member of Islamic Development Bank Group).^[1]

Now, an Islamic Dinar is very clearly and specifically a coin of fixed gold content: 4.25g of 22 carat gold, to be exact. ^[2]

The composition and value of an IMF SDR is determined by consensus at five year intervals, and we can see that the Islamic Development Bank group must be agreeing with other Central Banks that 1 SDR shall be deemed equal in value to 1 Islamic Dinar, at the time of negotiation at least.

So, right now the thought I am brought to is... are SDRs being set up as the way the Islamic states who endorse the Islamic Dinar^[3] can receive payments from other, non-Islamic states in SDR denomination, and redeem them for the equivalent weight of gold, perhaps through the Bank for International Settlements? 3.89725g of gold per SDR, according to the definition of an Islamic Dinar being 4.25g of 22 carat (91.7%) gold.

Is the SDR the way that The West will continue to get paid in paper, while The East get the gold that they really have wanted all along? Is it the way that the paper global currency system can be sustained a while longer, beyond the now very obviously flawed US$? With the world’s wealth continuing to drain away to The East but at a diminished pace than if nations the world over were to be paid in gold from tomorrow, or worse, the global economy were brought to a paralysed standstill in want of gold to settle all global trade imbalances?

This thought has now changed my opinion, to put the SDR ahead of global rebalancing, rather than after. In fact, I am now seeing it as perhaps the proposed means to defer that rebalancing a while longer, enabling business as usual for The West, and more time to accumulate gold for The East. But how long can this additional sticking plaster solution last? Another 40 year cycle? Is the Mahdi^[4] due, but not until about 2050 or so..? That’s a lot longer than I was thinking to wait and tough it out...


[1] http://www.itfc-idb.org/content/islamic-trade-finance-terminology
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_gold_dinar
[3] http://www.idbgrouponline.com/WFE/Pages/MemCountries/AllCountries.aspx
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahdi