China: Doomed If You Do, Doomed If You Don’t, by Charles Hugh Smith

China confronts the Command and Control Futiility Principle. From Charles Hugh Smith at oftwominds.com:

Whichever option China chooses, it loses.

Many commentators have ably explained the double-bind the central banks of the world find themselves in. Doing more of what’s failed is, well, failing to generate the desired results, but doing nothing also presents risks.

China’s double-bind is especially instructive. While there an abundance of complexity in China’s financial system and economy, we can boil down China’s doomed if you do, doomed if you don’t double-bind to this simple dilemma:

If China raises interest rates to support the RMB ( a.k.a. yuan) and stem the flood tide of capital leaving China, then China’s exports lose ground to competing nations with weaker currencies.

This is the downside of maintaining a peg to the U.S. dollar. The peg provides valuable stability and more or less guarantees competitive exports to the U.S., but it ties the yuan to the soaring dollar, which has made the yuan stronger simply as a consequence of the peg.

But if China pushes interest rates down and floods its economy with cheap credit, the tide of capital exiting China increases, as everyone attempts to escape the loss of purchasing power as the yuan is devalued.

To continue reading: China: Doomed If You Do, Doomed If You Don’t