2008 Olympics

[Graeme]

Diplomacy: Olympics versus Human Rights

It has long been acknowledged by the West (privately and with pained expressions) that the Chinese are masters at diplomacy. Well, they have had a few thousand years of practice, haven’t they. The latest situation reminds me of that old tale about the curvy blonde who, seated in the dentist’s chair, grasps the dentist where it counts and purrs “now we aren’t going to hurt each other are we”.

So you will be aware of the mind-numbing amount of USA securities that China has been accumulating over the last few years as a result of the huge trade imbalance with the USA. And you will have noticed also that over the past few days the human rights industry has been threatening to disrupt the Beijing Olympics unless something is done about improving human rights in China. Well, this afternoon came the very muted announcement from Beijing that a massive sell-off of USA securities in favour of stronger currencies (Euro) might be contemplated. All very quiet, but massively threatening to world trade.

Living in exciting times!

[RKS Computer Solutions]

Graeme, would you be interested in doing a series of articles regarding Forex and currencies and so forth?... My personal experience with forex never went where I wanted it to go, but it's still there in the back of my mind every now and again... Would love to learn more from someone in the industry

[Graeme]

Forex

Hi Riaan. I have never been in the FOREX industry, but thanks for the compliment!

All I know about Forex is what I have picked up along the way, and believe me, the more you learn about it the more you realize how much you don’t know. A good place to start is the book “The Mechanics of the South African Financial System” by Falkena et al. This may be out of print now but a university book shop would steer you to the current text book.

Then you will find a lot of useful stuff in the website Investopedia.com, in particular http://www.investopedia.com/printabl.../04/122204.asp if it is still accessible.

Forex is shot through with anomalies - one of the most interesting being the “Big Mac Index” published periodically in the magazine “The Economist”. This compares the price of a standard McDonalds “Big Mac” in various parts of the world. For example on 7th July the price of a Big Mac was as follows (local currency converted to US$ at current exchange rate) : In the USA: 3.41; in New Zealand: 5.89: in South Africa 2.22. This implies that the NZ$ is over priced (in US$ terms) by 73% and the ZAR under priced by 35% against the dollar! An illustration of the inconsistencies in what the Economists call PPP - Purchasing Power Parity.

Have fun!

[RKS Computer Solutions]

The most money I've made from Forex, came from my blog about Forex in the form of Google Adsense

What exactly is your forte Graeme?

[Graeme]

Reply

Riaan - I'm a retired local government Management Advisor (a sort of in-house consultant) and my qualifications include Institute of Production Engineers (M I Prod. Eng); I had a rewarding and fascinating career, retired at age 57, and now relax at home and look after my investments. I'm a very lucky man.

[Dave A]

I'm a very lucky man.

I know you can't say it, so I will. There was a pretty hefty dose of good planning, skill and discipline in there too.

[RKS Computer Solutions]

Sounds like a great life...