America: Get Ready for Big Money in Presidential Politics

"The big money in U.S. presidential politics is about to get a whole lot bigger," ran the lead sentence of the article in April 14 issue of The Global Edition of The New York Times.

Both Obama and Romney are gearing up for serious fund raising campaigns, each fund raising event to garner a million dollars or more. When the dust finally settles and the next president is elected, the total amount spent on this political campaign will exceed $2 billion, perhaps even $3 billion depending who is doing the counting and what is being included in the tally.

So, in this exercise of sham-o-cracy, which is more important, your vote or your checkbook?

Is this the model of democracy, proudly made in America, that other nations should aspire to?

Who's kidding who?

Internationalization of the Yen and Yuan

A detailed explanation of the interaction of the Japan's yen and China's yuan can be found here. Tokyo is about to join Singapore and London in becoming currency swap centers for the Renminbi.

Internationalization of the Renminbi

The steady but gradual appearance of China's currency in the global market is comprehensively described on the China Economic Net. According to this article, Turkey, the latest to sign a bilateral currency swap agreement, worth 10 billion yuan, is the 16th nation to enter into such agreement with China.

My previous tabulation listed 18 countries including Brazil and Japan. Apparently these two have agreed to settle their bilateral trades in their own currency but did not actually enter into a swap agreement. A typical swap agreement with China is for initial term of three years, renewable on mutual acceptance and has a stipulated amount.