Hong Kong Monetary Chief Fears a U.S. Dollar Collapse, and Hedge-Fund Destabilization

PRESS RELEASE

Hong Kong Monetary Chief Fears a U.S. Dollar Collapse, and Hedge-Fund Destabilization

May 29, 2007 (EIRNS)—The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has warned about the dangers posed to the world financial system by the vulnerabilities of the U.S. economy, in a statement yesterday, the Hong Kong Standard reported. "A sudden and sharp depreciation of the U.S. dollar, the disorderly unwinding of global imbalances and a spillover of U.S. housing market weakness are external risks to the currency stability in Hong Kong. Financial instability and volatile capital flows are induced by an increased risk aversion of market participants and higher market volatility and the destabilizing activities of hedge funds," HKMA chief executive Joseph Yam Chi-kwong said in a report to the Hong Kong Legislative Council Panel on Financial Affairs.

Yam's warning points to those made by Lyndon LaRouche for two years against those bankers, elected officials, and economists who want to force China's currency dramatically upward; they are driving for a global dollar collapse and financial chaos. The HKMA recently decoupled the Hong Kong dollar from China's yuan, according to Yam, and kept it pegged to the U.S. dollar, though it has slid to the 22-year low end of its range against the U.S. dollar. Meanwhile, he said, the value of China's yuan has actually already risen 7% in two years. Now he is warning about "an asset bubble in China"; but clearly, Yam's real worry is of a U.S. dollar collapse and "an interest rate shock," with China tightening and raising interest rates even as the dollar plunges.

While Yam maintained that the economy of Hong Kong itself is "normal," he had warned in February, that efforts in Beijing to control liquidity and China's enormous trade surplus, means that "the economy may be faced with consequences beyond imagination, eventually."

Hong Kong, although only a "special zone" of China, has the eighth-highest amout of foreign exchange reserves in the world, $137 billion, more than either Germany or Brazil.