By Horace Campbell

On 25 December 2011, the government of Peoples Republic of China and Japan unveiled plans to promote direct exchange of their currencies. This agreement will allow firms to convert the Chinese and Japanese currencies directly into each other, thus negating the need to buy dollars. This deal between China and Japan followed agreements between China and numerous countries to trade outside the sphere of the US dollar. A few weeks earlier, China also announced a 70 billion Yuan ($11 billion) currency swap agreement with Thailand.

After visiting China, the Prime Minister of Japan Yoshihiko Noda went on to India and signed another currency swap agreement with the government of India. These currency agreements in Asia came in a year when the countries of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam) were seeking to deepen ways to strengthen their firewall to protect their economies from the continued devaluation of the US dollar. In the year of the ‘Eurozone crisis’ when the future of the EURO as a viable currency was fraught with uncertainty, many states were reconsidering holding their reserves in the US dollar.

Greek Unemployment Rises to 18.2%, Worse Warned Yet To Come

Italy rail workers strike against deregulation plan

Zero Hedge
Thursday, February 9, 2012

Even as the ECB’s very own Mario Draghi is now peddling Greek deal rumors, which are essentially a reaffirmation that the country will “pledge” to return to GDP growth in 2013, we are already seeing real, not pledged, or promised, consequences of this deal, whether real or not (ignoring that Venizelos just said that it would actually take up to 15 days to finalize it, something which means the Greek exchange offer is DOA) namely that the crippling economic collapse discussed extensively on these pages is about to get far worse.

AP reports: “Angry union leaders announced a 48-hour general strike for Friday and Saturday.” “We are moving to a social uprising,” said ADEDY Secretary Genera Iliopoulos.” Surely this is the fastest shortcut for Greece to meet or beat expectations of halting the 10% drop in its GDP and convert that number to positive. One can only hope that makers of bulletproof vests can compensate the economic collapse as every other part of the economy shuts down.

From PressTV:

The unions, General confederation of Workers of Greece (GSEE) and Civil Servants Supreme Administrative Council (ADEDY), announced on Thursday that their members will go on a two-day strike from Friday in protest at the controversial decision.

“We will hold a general strike on Friday and Saturday along with the civil servants’ union,” said a spokeswoman with GSEE which represents the private sector.

ADEDY’s Secretary General Ilias Iliopoulos described the measures as “painful” which will “create misery for youths, unemployed and pensioners do not leave us much room.”

“We are moving to a social uprising,” said Iliopoulos.

Greece has been the scene of repeated strikes since the country first resorted to bailouts from international lenders in 2010.