A Visit with My Hong Kong Banker

Shall I share another wee story?

I sit with my banker in Hong Kong, and yes, my account has an investment module
attached
which allows trading in any foreign currency, allows me to hold currency in any
denomination, buy gold and store it in Hong Kong Shanghai Banking Corporation
(HSBC)
vaults, and trade securities on the Hang Seng. Just like any self-respectiing
cab driver in
Hong Kong would have.

I am pleased to hear this.

Except, she notes, as a US citizen, I may only hold hong kong dollars, using the
ATM and
write checks. And I can use my atm card to withdraw RMBY out, but it is RMBY
after
conversion from HK$, Well, heck, I can do that with my Bank of America ATM in
Hong Kong.

It appears the price of having a banking license in USA, HSBC will not allow US
citizens to do
what they let any other Hong Kong account holder do. I guess the thinking is if
Americans
can get out of USA currency and invest easily through Hong Kong, they will.

(Question: is there any US citizen on the list, who is not a dual-citizen, who
has a non-HSBC
bank account in hong Kong, who is allowed to do all the investment goodies thru
his
account? I wonder if this is just HSBC policy.)

I expressed consternation over this, and she seemed pleased.

Yes, everyone knows at some point the dollar will get hammered. Of course, if
the Fed cuts
interest rates later this year to get the republicans re-elected, the real
estate boom will take
off again for a while, but the crack-up will be all the worse afterwards.
Anything can happen,
so it's best to be positioned to deal with anything. Putin is recommending
Russian resources
be sold in rubles, not dollars, so it seems everyone is positioning themselves
for a dollar
crack-up eventually.

Yet, even though we can see the truck coming down the sidewalk, we are not
allowed to step
out of the way, as we see with HSBC policy.

On the other hand, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank is allowed to be the #1
Mortgage
handler in USA. Extremely few people know this, because rankings are expressed
in
originations. But whether it's a mortgage banker or mortgage broker originating
the loan,
they all bundle up the loans and sell them off immediately. These mind boggling
sums are
handled in the bankground, with HSBC as a major player, When the dollar gets
hammered, a
foreign company will have quite a bit of control over what happens to you and
me.

Well, gold crossed $720 today, and silver may cross $15.00 today so those
investments still
seem to offer protection, but the problem is the govt has seized that asset
before, during the
last big government-caused financial disaster. Sigh.

If things do go bad, happily there will be enough of us to say, "there is an
alternative."

John

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