China Ready to End Dollar Peg

Garry White
London Telegraph
Sunday, March 7, 2010

The head of China’s central bank has given the strongest signal yet that the country will move away from pegging its currency to the dollar, but he said any changes would be gradual.

At the annual session of the legislative National People’s Congress in Beijing, Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People’s Bank of China, said that the days of the “special yuan” policy were numbered. He described the dollar peg as a “temporary” response to the global financial crisis, but gave no timescale for any change in policy. The currency has been pegged at about 6.83 yuan per dollar since July 2008.

Many economists expect China to allow the yuan to appreciate slightly this year, but the cautious tone by Mr Zhou means that any change may not happen for some time. He said that the central bank would maintain the “basic stability” of the currency. So, despite the fact that the Chinese economy grew by 10.7pc in the fourth quarter of last year, the country’s loose monetary policy looks set to continue.

“If we are to exit from irregular policies and return to ordinary economic policies, we must be extremely prudent about our choice of timing,” Mr Zhou said. “This also includes the [yuan] exchange rate policy.”

Full story here.

NYPD Police Officer Admits to Arrest Quotas

ABC 7
Sunday, March 7, 2010

An NYPD officer breaks his silence and admits that innocent people are set-up and falsely arrested and ticketed in order to meet funding quotas.