Visualizing $65 Trillion in Hidden Dollar Debt
This was originally posted on Elements. Sign up to the free mailing list to get beautiful visualizations on natural resource megatrends in your email every week.
The scale of hidden dollar debt around the world is huge.
No less than $65 trillion in unrecorded dollar debt circulates across the global financial system in non-U.S. banks and shadow banks. To put in perspective, global GDP sits at $104 trillion.
This dollar debt is in the form of foreign-exchange swaps, which have exploded over the last decade due to years of monetary easing and ultra-low interest rates, as investors searched for higher yields. Today, unrecorded debt from these foreign-exchange swaps is worth more than double the dollar debt officially recorded on balance sheets across these institutions.
Based on analysis from the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), the above infographic charts the rise in hidden dollar debt across non-U.S. financial institutions and examines the wider implications of its growth.
Dollar Debt: A Beginners Guide
To start, we will briefly look at the role of foreign-exchange (forex) swaps in the global economy. The forex market is the largest in the world by a long stretch, with trillions traded daily.
Some of the key players that use foreign-exchange swaps are:
Corporations
Financial institutions
Central banks
To understand forex swaps is to look at the role of currency risk. As we have seen in 2022, the U.S. dollar has been on a tear. When this happens, it hurts company earnings that generate revenue across borders. That’s because they earn revenue in foreign currencies (which have likely declined in value against the dollar) but end up converting earnings to U.S. dollars.
In order to reduce currency risk, market participants will buy forex swaps. Here, two parties agree to exchange one currency for another. In short, this helps protect the company from unfavorable foreign exchange rates.
What’s more, due to accounting rules, forex swaps are often unrecorded on balance sheets, and as a result are quite opaque......More Below
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-65-trillion-in-hidden-dollar-debt/
US President Donald Trump confirmed on Wednesday the upcoming start of ground strikes against drug cartel targets in Latin America.
He made the remarks during Christmas greetings to the military.
Trump said the United States was "now going after the land" in its fight against drug cartel targets, noting that drug trafficking by sea was down 96 percent.
The U.S. president also extended special congratulations to the crew of the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, currently deployed in the Caribbean.
BEIJING (Sputnik) - China has begun operating the world's first intelligent ultra-large oil tanker powered by methanol, the China Central Television (CCTV) reported on Monday.
The tanker, designed to transport crude oil, was successfully put into operation in the city of Dalian in China's northeastern coastal province of Liaoning, the report said. State-owned company Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Co Ltd independently designed and built the vessel, it added.
The tanker is approximately 333 meters (1,092 feet) long and can carry around 2.1 million barrels of crude oil, the CCTV reported. Designed to produce low emissions and having intelligent control capabilities, the tanker will serve the route to the Middle East, among others, according to the report.
The vessel is powered by a dual-fuel methanol engine, which reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 92% compared to conventional fuel, the CCTV reported. It is equipped with an intelligent ship platform, an intelligent liquid cargo ...
A car bomb has killed a senior General Staff member, officials have confirmed
Source: The Investigative Committee
A Russian general has been killed in a car bomb blast in Moscow, the Investigative Committee has reported.
Officials identified the victim as Lt. Gen. Fanil Sarvarov, head of operational training at the General Staff. According to the statement, an explosive device had been planted beneath the vehicle he was traveling in, and detonated on Monday morning in the southern part of the Russian capital.
The blast also damaged several other vehicles and seriously injured Sarvarov’s driver, media reports stated.
Russian officials said one line of investigation is an assassination carried out by Ukrainian intelligence services, noting that Kiev has previously used explosive devices in targeted killings of officials and public figures.
Last December, a bomb hidden in an e-scooter killed Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, commander of Russia’s Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Defense ...
