Category: China Economy
The analysis published under this category are as follows.
Friday, January 19, 2024
Toward China's Soft Economic Rebound / Economics / China Economy
By: Dan_Steinbock
Last year, international observers charged China for global inflation, deflation and economic collapse. In reality, Chinese economy is inching toward a soft rebound, despite the dire global landscape.As global business and political leaders swarmed to Davos for the World Economic Forum, Chinese Premier Li Qiang took the podium. Chinese economy has rebounded and moved upward, Li noted, and was estimated to have grown around 5.2% in 2023. That’s slightly better than the official target of around 5%.
No matter how the world’s situation changes, Li added. China will adhere to its fundamental national policy of opening up, and its door will only get wider and wider.” he said.
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Tuesday, June 20, 2023
How Germany's Economy is Turning Ugly / Economics / China Economy
By: EWI
This economic gauge "dipped back below zero in less than a year"
In November 2020, when fears were rampant over a second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, the president of the European Central Bank called for economic stimulus (Reuters):
Facing gloomy outlook, Lagarde calls for unlocking EU aid
In December of 2020, what is known as the Next Generation EU package became operational. This economic aid was massive, amounting to more than €2 trillion at current prices.
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Saturday, November 13, 2021
China Singles' Day - Toward Double 11 Record Sales, Despite Economic Uncertainties / Economics / China Economy
By: Dan_Steinbock
As the world’s largest e-commerce market, China is likely to continue growing faster relative to North America and Western Europe. Singles’ Day 2021 will reflect that expansion.
Before the Singles Day, some observers thought that recent growth deceleration and continued regulatory scrutiny could dampen e-commerce in 2021. Yet, the full-year results may prove not that different from the past year.
On October 20, Alibaba and JD.com kicked promotions off already on October 20 since they are no longer restricted to a 24-hour time window. Last year, Alibaba’s Tmall reported sales of $78 billion in the first 10 days of November; 26 percent more than the previous year. This year, the Double 11 turnover is expected to increase solidly in absolute terms, even if the growth rate slows, due to last year’s high base.
In times of uncertainty, consumers are more cost-conscious. Due to broad discounts and promotions, that is expected to translate record sales during the Singles Day.
Thursday, September 02, 2021
China’s theme park economy thriving, despite pandemic times / Economics / China Economy
By: Dan_Steinbock
Against odds, theme parks are expanding in China, thanks to rising disposable income, investor confidence, and long-term opportunities.On September 1, Universal Beijing Resort, the largest of its kind in the world, will start its trial run. It is the most recent international chain in China’s thriving theme park industry.
Over 2008 to 2017, total theme park attendance increased at 13 percent annually. Today there are more than 200 theme parks in the Chinese mainland and their numbers continue to increase.
In an era of misguided global divisions, the impressive rise of theme parks in China shows the brighter promise of foreign investment and Sino-American cooperation.
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Monday, July 05, 2021
China's xiaokang prosperity source of global hope / Economics / China Economy
By: MoneyMetals
Amid the centenary festivities, China’s success in development shows how peace and stability can foster sustained development, prosperity - and hope.At the 100th anniversary of the Communist Party of China (CPC), Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, declared the completion of the goal of building China into “a moderately prosperous society in all respects.”
The achievement of this quest for xiaokang, which ensures basic security and welfare, is predicated on four decades of reforms and opening-up policies.
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Thursday, April 22, 2021
China's record first quarter fuels strong expansion in 2021 / Economics / China Economy
By: Dan_Steinbock
China’s 1st quarter record performance will accelerate momentum in China and support recovery in the US and global economic prospects – as long as unwarranted geopolitical tensions remain in check.A year ago, China’s first quarter plunge was -6.8 percent, due to the pandemic effect. In the West, it was widely seen as the “end of China's growth story.”
Instead, in early February 2020 I predicted a turnaround in the increase of new virus cases in China, with the beginning of the economic rebound in the second quarter. Following the 6.5 percent expansion in the fourth quarter of 2020, the GDP rose to a record 18.3 percent year-on-year in the past quarter.
Obviously, the performance benefited from the base effect, due to the pandemic plunge a year ago. Nonetheless, it reflects a strong impetus for normalization.
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Tuesday, March 09, 2021
Amid Uncertainty, China’s Quest for Bold Development / Economics / China Economy
By: Dan_Steinbock
At a historical moment of hope and uncertainty, China pledges bold economic development, despite global tensions.
China’s annual “Two Sessions” meeting has approved national priorities for 2021. Delivered by Premier Li Keqiang, the Government Work Report set a growth target of over 6 percent for Chinese economy for 2021, releasing a numeric goal after it was skipped in 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
China plans to create more than 11 million new jobs in 2021, while keeping inflation rate (CPI) at 3 percent and cutting the deficit-to-GDP ratio to 3.2 percent. The goal is to increase annual R&D spending by more than 7 percent in the next five years, including foreign-funded R&D centers in China.
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Thursday, January 28, 2021
China's Accelerated Economic Recovery Key to Global Growth / Economics / China Economy
By: Dan_Steinbock
Unlike other major economies, China has rebounded and its recovery is accelerating. It could fuel a third of global economic growth in 2021.
With the Spring Festival holidays just weeks away, recent resurgences of COVID-19 infections in Jilin province and Shijiazhuang, Hebei province have renewed concerns about sporadic outbreaks.
China’s public-health authorities believe a major outbreak of the novel coronavirus in the Chinese mainland is unlikely. The authorities have taken strong containment measures to rapidly identify, isolate and control potential outbreaks.
Nonetheless, despite the holidays, Chinese people have been urged to avoid travels, to keep the infection rate under control. Downside risks permit no complacency in the foreseeable future.
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Tuesday, November 03, 2020
China’s New 15-Year Vision: ‘Dual Circulation’ to Sustainable Growth / Economics / China Economy
By: Dan_Steinbock
While the coronavirus fallout is still escalating in Western economies, China’s rebound has begun. Global recovery requires multilateral cooperation that China's new development pattern seeks to foster.
Last week, the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) completed its fifth plenary session in Beijing.
Unlike all other major countries, China’s economy is rebounding and fueling global prospects.
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Friday, May 22, 2020
China’s ‘Two Sessions’ herald Rebound of Economy / Economics / China Economy
By: Dan_Steinbock
As the coronavirus fallout is spreading in Western economies, China’s rebound has begun. Global recovery requires global cooperation, however.
Today, international interest in the annual Two Sessions of China’s top legislative and political advisory bodies - National People’s Congress, and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference – which starts on Thursday, is exceptionally high.
Due to the global pandemic, the Sessions take place under strong anti-epidemic measures, including social distancing, and will be significantly shorter and rely more on videoconferences. Such measures are in line with the science-based health policies, which the central government adopted in late January.
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Wednesday, November 13, 2019
Why China is likely to remain the ‘world’s factory’ for some time to come / Economics / China Economy
By: Submissions
US tariffs have hit the manufacturing giant to the tune of $35 billion, says a recent UN report. But companies have found that China’s rivals are a poor replacement.
In December 2018, about five months after US President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on China to correct the US trade deficit with Beijing that stood at $419 billion (2018), analysts at the Boston Consulting Group said that despite challenges such as rising wages and escalating trade tensions with its trading partners such as the US and Japan, “it is reasonable to assume that China will remain manufacturing’s center of gravity for the foreseeable future”.
It was easy to be sceptical of this assessment given the number of companies that announced plans to move manufacturing out of China following the imposition of Trump’s tariffs. One of them was the world’s largest bicycle manufacturer, Giant. “We started moving before he [Trump] shut his mouth,” said its chairwoman in an interview to Bloomberg in June 2019.
Tuesday, November 12, 2019
Double 11 Record Sales Signal Strength of Chinese Consumption / Economics / China Economy
By: Dan_Steinbock
On Monday, Alibaba’s Single’s Day broke all records. Chinese consumption and ecommerce signal not just continued resilience but evident strength.By 5 pm on Monday Alibaba Group had already broken last year’s record of $31 billion. And at midnight, the new record soared to $38.3 billion – 25 percent higher than last year.
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Thursday, November 07, 2019
China’s path from World’s Factory to World Market / Economics / China Economy
By: Dan_Steinbock
The rise of the Shanghai Import Expo reflects China’s huge transformation from world producer and cheap prices to world consumer and innovator.Speaking at the second China International Import Expo (CIIE) in Shanghai, Chinese president Xi Jinping pledged China will stimulate increased imports, continue to broaden market access, foster a world-class business environment, explore new horizons of opening-up and promote international cooperation at multilateral and bilateral levels.
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Friday, October 25, 2019
The Mystery of China’s Third-Quarter Growth - Resilience or Gloom? / Economics / China Economy
By: Dan_Steinbock
Despite trade wars and geopolitics, Chinese economic growth shows resilience. So why is there a deep gap between the third-quarter data and gloomy international headlines?
After the release of third-quarter data, The Wall Street Journal headline sounded a warning: “China’s economic growth slowest in decades.” CNN seconded: “China’s economic growth drops to lowest level since 1992.” Reuters extended the timeline: “China’s GDP growth grinds to near 30-year low as tariffs hit production.”
Friday, October 11, 2019
China Golden Week Sales Exceed Expectations / Economics / China Economy
By: Dan_Steinbock
In contrast to gloomy international projections, economic realities suggest that China’s Golden Week may have exceeded expectations.I spent China’s 70-year National Day festivities in Shanghai, China's global financial hub, and Guangzhou, the global trade hub of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. In both, China’s massive transition toward consumption and innovation is now an increasing reality.
Due to US tariff wars, Chinese mass consumers – like their peers in the United States, Europe and Japan – are cost-conscious, increasingly discriminate and sophisticated in their spending. Indeed, sales of gold jewelry boomed during the holidays, fueled by gold prices, holiday festivities and the wedding season.
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Friday, June 14, 2019
The American Dream Is Alive and Well - in China / Economics / China Economy
By: Ellen_Brown
Home ownership has been called “the quintessential American dream.” Yet today less than 65% of American homes are owner occupied, and more than 50% of the equity in those homes is owned by the banks. Compare China, where, despite facing one of the most expensive real estate markets in the world, a whopping 90% of families can afford to own their homes.
Over the last decade, American wages have stagnated and U.S. productivity has consistently been outpaced by China’s. The U.S. government has responded by engaging in a trade war and imposing stiff tariffs in order to penalize China for what the White House deems unfair trade practices. China’s industries are said to be propped up by the state and to have significantly lower labor costs, allowing them to dump cheap products on the U.S. market, causing prices to fall and forcing U.S. companies out of business. The message to middle America is that Chinese labor costs are low because their workers are being exploited in slave-like conditions at poverty-level wages.
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Monday, May 13, 2019
Why Rising Living Standard in China Offers Global Hope / Politics / China Economy
By: Dan_Steinbock
China’s 70-Year Anniversary As living standard rises in China, its global contribution continues to increase. And that means potential for growth, poverty reduction and prosperity in emerging and developing world - new hope.
When Chairman Mao Zedong proclaimed the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on October 1, 1949, the Chinese people could finally begin to leave behind a century of colonial humiliation and start building a new life.
What remains so poorly understood is how dire were the conditions on that extraordinary day, seven decades ago. While China had sustained its triumph, Chinese living standard was barely 5 percent relative to the United States.
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Tuesday, March 05, 2019
China - A Critical Global Growth Engine, Despite Deceleration / Economics / China Economy
By: Dan_Steinbock
Despite U.S. trade wars, China will stick to its growth target and fiscal easing in the short-term, deleveraging in the medium-term and rebalancing in the long-term. That’s the message of Premier Li’s report.Released on Monday at the annual session of the National People’s Congress (NPC), Premier Li Keqian’s annual work report sets the general tone for the 2019 economic policies.
In 2019, China has set a lower, flexible economic growth target at the range of 6.0% to 6.5%, while raising its tolerance of fiscal deficit at 2.8% of GDP.
The point about the GDP growth target is not how much it will exceed 6%, but that it should not fall below that level. That’s vital to sustain the quest to double living standard by 2020.
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Wednesday, January 30, 2019
This Is the Key to Understanding China’s Economy / Economics / China Economy
By: John_Mauldin
China is facing many challenges. That’s probably not news to you.
But what we often fail to understand is this: China will deal with those challenges in a much different way than what we are used to in the West.
To solve Europe’s financial woes in 2012, ECB President Mario Draghi promised to do “whatever it takes.” Yet central bank policy was his only tool.
Xi Jinping has a vastly larger toolbox. It is hard for us in the Western world to understand that.
Monday, December 31, 2018
China’s 2019 Economic Growth Outlook / Economics / China Economy
By: Dan_Steinbock
As China’s growth seems to be slowing, some observers see the country amid a “severe downturn.” As they mistake China’s secular deceleration with cyclical fluctuations, they miss the rapid increase in Chinese living standards.Amid the Christmas meltdown, the Dow Jones plunged to less than 22,000, the lowest since September 2017. Thereafter, it soared over 1,000 points; the biggest single-day point gain ever. Nevertheless, it has declined 4,000 points in two months.
It is this historical market volatility associated with the Trump administration that now overshadows world economy and China. In recent weeks, the U.S. economy has become increasingly exposed to policy mistakes and drastic market fluctuations.
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Tuesday, December 18, 2018
Why Chinese Economic Reforms Will Stay the Course / Economics / China Economy
By: Dan_Steinbock
After four decades of reforms and opening, China is accelerating the transition to post-industrial society.As Chinese President Xi Jinping gave his highly-anticipated speech on Monday on the 40th anniversary of Chinese reforms and opening-up policies, it was closely watched internationally in light of the 90-day truce in the U.S. trade wars.
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Monday, December 03, 2018
Trade War Truce Won’t Fix China / Economics / China Economy
By: Michael_Pento
The Main Stream Financial Media would love to have investors believe that the recent problems in the global equity market are all about a trade war with China. Therefore, everything can be made right just because Trump shook hands with Xi Jinping at the G-20 meeting in Argentina. But the truth is, China’s problems are structural in nature--resulting from a centrally-planned economy that goads its citizenry into pre-fabricated urban areas in order to manufacture a pre-determined rate of growth. Nevertheless, what the Chinese government has actually accomplished is to produce a dystopia; one that was erected upon the largest percentage increase in debt the world has ever witnessed.
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Friday, November 30, 2018
The World-Class Lessons of China’s Shanghai Free-Trade Zone / Economics / China Economy
By: Dan_Steinbock
Amid the fifth anniversary of the Shanghai Free-Trade Zone, new economic zones are proliferating in China’s critical productivity centers. Despite trade wars, China is opening but in its own terms.
The Shanghai Free-Trade Zone (FTZ) was launched in September 2013, some five years ago. It was the first FTZ in mainland China and has progressively been expanding its territorial coverage. Yet, territorial coverage is only a part of its strategic significance.
Tuesday, October 16, 2018
Chinese Economic Prospects Amid US Trade Wars / Economics / China Economy
By: Dan_Steinbock
As US trade war damage is spreading, markets reflect an elusive calm before a potential storm. While Chinese prospects and reforms prevail amid challenging conditions, IMF's global outlook remains too optimistic for 2018-19.According to new data, China’s exports rose by 14.5% year-on-year in September, which is an acceleration from the previous month. However, growth in imports declined to 14.3%.
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Tuesday, October 02, 2018
China Is a Growing Force That Many Grossly Underestimate / Economics / China Economy
By: John_Mauldin
We hear a lot about the China’s vast problems. They are very real and could have major consequences. But economic reality isn’t black and white.At any given time, both good things and bad things are happening. Ignoring one side because it doesn’t fit your preferred outlook is an excellent way to go badly wrong.
This article is my attempt to demonstrate that China has good news, and even some fabulously great news, much of it quite compelling.
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Friday, September 21, 2018
China Is Building the World’s Largest Innovation Economy / Economics / China Economy
By: John_Mauldin
China is on its way to becoming the largest economy in the world.In just one generation, something like 300 million+ people went from rural subsistence farming to urban industrial and technology jobs. This transition from rural poverty to export powerhouse to consumer goliath may be the most consequential economic event in centuries.
Yet this story is largely ignored in the US and in much of Europe. We hear about a few projects here and there, but we don’t understand the extent.
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Saturday, April 14, 2018
Shocking Chinese Economic Data Points Will Disrupt Markets / Economics / China Economy
By: Chris_Vermeulen
We, at Technical Traders Ltd., believe recent data released by China presents traders with a huge opportunity over the next 6~18 months. Recently released Chinese economic market data points to a general market disruption in regards to trade values, import/export data and loan/debt risk. As reported by Reuters and Business Insider, the continued crackdown on Shadow Banking in China, as well as recently announced trade tariffs, may be shifting the dynamics of the Chinese Dragon economy dramatically.
Wednesday, April 04, 2018
China/Asia Economic Implosion on the Horizon? - Part V / Economics / China Economy
By: Chris_Vermeulen
As we, the research team at www.TheTechnicalTraders.com, continue to deliver sections of this multiple part global market research report centered around China and Asia as a catalyst for an impending global market/debt collapse, we want to make sure our readers understand this process will likely play out over many months into the future. This is not something that we should concern ourselves with right away. This is not a warning that “the sky is falling and we need to run to our bunkers”. This is forward-looking research that indicates a strong possibility that China and Asia, along with many other nations in this region, may experience a credit/debt market contraction that could lead to another global credit crisis and we need to be aware of it and plan to profit from it. (Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV)
Saturday, March 31, 2018
Warning China / Asia Economic Implosion on the Horizon? / Economics / China Economy
By: Chris_Vermeulen
Thank you for following our multi-part research (Part I, Part II) into the possibility of a China/Asia market collapse and our hypothetical analysis of what that event might consist of and how it may play out. So far, we have discussed the Chinese housing market rotation as well as the recent trends within the past 7+ years, expansion and foreign investments made by many Chinese and successful Asian investors. All of this research raises some interesting questions for us to consider.
Wednesday, March 28, 2018
China/Asia Economic Crash Is Starting / Economics / China Economy
By: Chris_Vermeulen
In our previous article regarding the potential China/Asia Economic Implosion, we illustrated how the property market cycles in China (Beijing) are in the early stages of a potentially topping and a massive drop in value.
Today, we are going to try to expand on this analysis a bit further by illustrating how the US and other global established economies may have inadvertently setup certain emerging markets for another global crisis event. Our research team at Technical Traders Ltd. has developed a unique set of skills in sourcing and evaluating current market events and predictive price modeling systems that allow us to attempt to determine future events with relative certainty. Within this post, we will attempt to provide further evidence and supporting data as it relates to our belief that we are in a very late stage economic expansion cycle and about to enter a very early stage economic contraction cycle. As we continue to disclose our research and findings within this multi-part article, we will close this research out by explaining how and why we believe smart investors will be able to create massive opportunities over the next 12 to 48 months from our research.
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Wednesday, March 28, 2018
China/Asia Economic Implosion on the Horizon? / Economics / China Economy
By: Chris_Vermeulen
Recent news of the US enacting $60 billion in economic tariffs on China as well as reactionary tactics from China have everyone spooked. The US stock markets and global markets tanked last week as this news hit the wires. At www.TheTechnicalTraders.com, we have been warning of a massive upside move in precious metals as well as global market concerns for the past 12+ months. Our recent research shows just how fragile the global markets are to external factors as well as strengths in the US and other established economies.
Wednesday, March 14, 2018
China Toward Sustainable Economic Growth / Economics / China Economy
By: Dan_Steinbock
In the past, Chinese growth was too much fueled by credit. Now it is becoming more sustainable and the emphasis is shifting on living standards, poverty reduction and environmental protection.In his annual work report, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said on Monday that China aims to expand its economy by around 6.5 percent this year, or the same as in 2017.
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Wednesday, March 07, 2018
How Chinese Economic Growth Is Changing / Economics / China Economy
By: Dan_Steinbock
What many international observers continue to miss is that the deceleration of growth in China goes hand in hand with rapidly-rising living standards.In his annual work report, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said on Monday that China aims to expand its economy by around 6.5 percent this year.
While some of the leading international media reported the new growth target factually, others portrayed it as a “slowdown” that could even undermine global growth prospects.
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Tuesday, December 26, 2017
Chinese Economy in 2018 and Beyond / Economics / China Economy
By: Dan_Steinbock
In the coming years, China shall aim at high-quality development, while seeking to forestall financial and international risks.The recent Central Economic Work Conference marked a historical point in China’s economic development. After Mao’s struggle for the mainland’s sovereignty, and Deng’s economic reforms and opening-up, President Xi’s team seeks complete much of the transition to post-industrial society by the early 2020s.
What does it all mean for Chinese economy in 2018?
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Saturday, September 02, 2017
Leading China Expert Lays Down 9 Major Trends That Now Drive The Chinese Economy / Economics / China Economy
By: John_Mauldin
Leland Miller is a leading expert on China’s financial system and a good friend of mine.
They regularly interview (if memory serves correctly) about 2000 large Chinese companies in every sector to get a good idea of what is actually happening in the Chinese economy.
There is nothing else like their work, and anybody who is investing large sums or who just does business in China gladly pays the six-figure price to get access to their data and research.
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Saturday, August 26, 2017
China’s Strategy for the Global Economy / Economics / China Economy
By: Rodney_Johnson
In the fall of 1993, I was sitting in class in grad school. We were using case studies to explore business management decisions. My professor walked through the history of Otis Elevators, noting that the company had reached market saturation and had choices to make.I was sort of paying attention… sort of not.
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Tuesday, July 18, 2017
Here’s Why China’s One Belt, One Road Is Doomed To Failure / Economics / China Economy
By: John_Mauldin
One Belt, One Road (OBOR) is China’s ambitious initiative unveiled in 2013. In fact, it’s two plans combined to form a larger framework of new trade routes.
The first of these is One Belt (the orange line in the above map). It refers to the development of new infrastructure—particularly railroads and highways—to connect China’s interior provinces with Europe by way of Russia, Central Asia, and the Middle East. It’s a tall order, and expectations are low that China would be able to build them.
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Wednesday, June 28, 2017
China’s First Half of 2017: Growth amid Deleveraging / Economics / China Economy
By: Dan_Steinbock
Despite seemingly mixed messages, China’s great shift from easing to tightening has begun. While growth will continue to decelerate, it can still remain on the deceleration track, even as deleveraging has begun.
In May, Moody’s Investor Service downgraded China’s credit rating. But it took less than a day for Chinese financial markets to recover from the downgrade. Recently, index giant MSCI announced the partial inclusion of China-traded A-shares in the MSCI Emerging Market Index. After all, China is currently under-represented in global equity indices relative to its economic influence. The inclusion is predicated on a long and gradual move.
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Thursday, June 01, 2017
About My Healthy Economic Fear of the Chinese / Economics / China Economy
By: Harry_Dent
There’s an old adage in finance concerning borrowing and lending: If you owe the bank $1 million, you have a problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, the bank has a problem.It’s all about scale.
When it comes to countries and markets, there is no scale, and therefore no problem, like the Middle Kingdom.
China is the land of the “biggest.”
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Tuesday, May 16, 2017
How the China Belt and Road Could Change the 21st Century / Economics / China Economy
By: Dan_Steinbock
Until recently, globalization was led by the West and benefited only a few advanced economies. After China’s three decades of rapid growth, the Belt and Road initiatives hold potential for more inclusive globalization.During the weekend, the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation flooded Beijing with almost 30 heads of state and government leaders, 1,500 delegates from over 130 nations, and over 70 international organizations.
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Thursday, April 20, 2017
The Real Story of China’s Strong First-Quarter Growth / Economics / China Economy
By: Dan_Steinbock
After the solid first quarter performance, the central government may be in the unique position to achieve its growth target - even while tightening.In the first quarter, China’s economy grew 6.9 percent; slightly faster than expected and led by strong expansion at factories. What the first quarter data reflects is solid growth in several fronts.
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Friday, April 14, 2017
China Starting To Resemble Bernie Madoff / Economics / China Economy
By: Jeff_Berwick
Aubible.com just released a new show on Bernie Madoff (Ponzi Supernova, available for free to subscribers) that explains how the world’s biggest financial scam was enabled by banks and hedge funds who were making so much money that they chose to ignore obvious red flags.
Which sounds a lot like today’s China, Inc. Here, for instance, is a sequence of events involving China Huishan Dairy Holdings, an apparently too-big-to-fail chain of dairy farms:
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Thursday, March 16, 2017
China’s Economic Miracle Is Over / Economics / China Economy
By: John_Mauldin
BY GEORGE FRIEDMAN : Chinese Premier Li Keqiang told the National People’s Congress that China’s GDP growth rate would drop from 7% in 2016 to 6.5% this year. In 2016, the country’s growth rate was the lowest it has been since 1990.
The precision with which any country’s economic growth is measured is dubious, since it’s hard to measure the economic activity of hundreds of millions of people and businesses. But the reliability of China’s economic numbers has always been taken with a larger grain of salt than in most countries. We suspect that China’s economy is growing less than 6.5%, if at all.
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Wednesday, March 08, 2017
Accelerating Economic Reform Execution in China / Economics / China Economy
By: Dan_Steinbock
After political consolidation, China is ready to begin a broader implementation of structural reforms. That is vital to double per capita income in 2010-20.After President Xi assumed office in fall 2012, Chinese leadership has steadily moved toward more comprehensive structural reforms. As evidenced by the recent Two Sessions in Beijing, these reforms are about to move to a new level.
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Friday, March 03, 2017
This Chart Reveals How China Is Faking Its Economic Growth Figures / Economics / China Economy
By: John_Mauldin
BY KEVIN BREKKE : China ended 2016 with 6.8% annualized GDP growth for Q4 that let it log 6.7% growth for the year. Among other things, Beijing’s data divas were eager to report that fixed-asset investment (FAI) had jumped 8.1% last year.
But a quick dissection of that number reveals that a surge in FAI by state-owned enterprises (SOE) saved the year.
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Wednesday, November 30, 2016
Economic Imperialism Could Lead to China’s Demise / Economics / China Economy
By: Rodney_Johnson
In 2007, a Chinese company bought Mount Toromocho in Peru. That’s right. A mountain, in another country.It’s more than half the height of Mount Everest, but aesthetic beauty wasn’t a factor. Beneath the mountain’s surface sits two billion tons of copper, one of the largest reserves in the world. Through a state-owned company, the Chinese government secured access to yet another natural resource overseas.
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Monday, September 19, 2016
China Is Digging Itself into a Deeper Hole / Economics / China Economy
By: John_Mauldin
Chinese “depreciation” and all its ensuing hysteria occurred just about a year ago. It has also been a about a year since I co-wrote a book on China with Worth Wray titled A Great Leap Forward?
The title was meant to be ironic. The original Great Leap Forward was imposed by Mao in the 1960s. It was one of the most economically disastrous times in Chinese history. Food production increased, yet 30 million people starved. China underwent a true financial and economic crisis due to the insanity of central control of markets.
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Monday, August 29, 2016
Politics Is Getting in the Way of China’s Critical Economic Reforms / Economics / China Economy
By: John_Mauldin
BY JACOB SHAPIRO : Two important reports were recently published on the current state of the Chinese economy. The first was the IMF’s annual review. It said the outlook for China’s near-term growth had improved. But, it pointed out that corporate debt is rising. Also, capital outflows for 2016 will equal 2015’s at $1 trillion.
The second report was China’s monthly release of investment data. This showed that fixed asset investment growth in China slowed to 8.1% in July. According to Caixin, that’s the slowest year-to-date fixed asset investment growth in 16 years.
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Wednesday, July 20, 2016
China Economic Troubles - Is Kyle Bass Finally Getting His Revenge? / Economics / China Economy
By: Clif_Droke
One of America's most prominent hedge fund managers is betting the farm that China's economic troubles are far from over. His bet centers around the U.S. dollar and by extension several Asian currencies. What happens to the dollar from here will determine whether this man's epic trading positions pays off, and China suffers a major setback, and whether his worst case scenario for the global economic outlook is merely a mirage. If he's right, the outcome of his bet will also affect the commodities market and perhaps even the equities market.
Friday, June 24, 2016
Here’s Why China “Economic Hard-Landing” Worries Are Overblown / Economics / China Economy
By: John_Mauldin
Although a number of well-known hedge fund managers such as Kyle Bass and George Soros have publicly stated they believe some kind of a “hard landing” in China is coming, not everyone agrees.
Mark Yusko of Morgan Creek Capital is not in the China “hard-landing” camp. He says while the Chinese economy is facing a number of headwinds and risks as it tries to adjust to a consumer-based model, the authorities are wisely taking a balanced, long-term view.
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Tuesday, June 21, 2016
Billionaire Li Ka-Shing Says China’s Economic Outlook Is Bright / Economics / China Economy
By: Bloomberg
Trade surplus, income from services help counter mounting debt
Tycoon was criticised by Chinese state media last year
Hong Kong’s richest man said China’s economic outlook is bright in the long term, casting a vote of confidence in a country that’s growing at its slowest pace in a quarter century.
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Thursday, June 16, 2016
China's Hard Landing Has Already Begun! / Economics / China Economy
By: Gordon_T_Long
The Financial Repression Authority is joined by Richard Duncan, an esteemed author, economist, consultant and speaker. FRA Co-founder, Gordon T. Long discusses with Mr. Duncan about the current Chinese situation and the ramifications being imposed on the global economy.
Richard Duncan is the author of three books on the global economic crisis. The Dollar Crisis: Causes, Consequences, Cures (John Wiley & Sons, 2003, updated 2005), predicted the current global economic disaster with extraordinary accuracy. It was an international bestseller. His second book was The Corruption of Capitalism: A strategy to rebalance the global economy and restore sustainable growth. It was published by CLSA Books in December 2009. His latest book is The New Depression: The Breakdown Of The Paper Money Economy (John Wiley & Sons, 2012).
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Thursday, June 09, 2016
The Bull in The China Shop - The World Can No Longer Absorb China's Surplus / Economics / China Economy
By: Gordon_T_Long
ISSUE #1
The good news is that China produces more than it consumes. This is the opposite of the US which consumers more than it produces.
The bad news is that the world can no longer absorb China's surplus (Production minus Consumption). Global trade has slowed dramatically impacting Chinese exports. The problem is further compounded since China as the new global economic engine, has become the dominate importer of other countries production.
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Sunday, March 27, 2016
China Economy Soft Landing or Bust? SSEC Stock Market Analysis / Economics / China Economy
By: Chris_Vermeulen
China’s stock market ‘bubble’ was fueled by "speculative mania" which has proven to have had grave implications of the global stock markets. The collapse of this "speculative mania" will have far reaching ramifications on our current global stock markets. This indicates that Central Bank interventions cannot alter market cycles.
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
The Chinese Economic "Miracle" Evaporates / Economics / China Economy
By: Rodney_Johnson
There’s no doubt that the Chinese economic miracle is real. When you move 500 million people from rural to urban settings, taking them from small farms and putting them in a specialized labor force, the economic dividend is massive. That’s how you keep GDP growing more than 7% for 25 years. But along the way, they wanted more.Beyond building factories and housing for new arrivals, local politicians started building massive, wasteful projects.
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Wednesday, March 09, 2016
China And Fracking: The Pillars Of “The Recovery” Are Crumbling / Economics / China Economy
By: John_Rubino
When historians sort out this era of once-a-decade financial bubbles, they’ll marvel at how dissimilar the drivers of each boom were. The junk bonds of the 1980s were essentially leveraged tools for extracting wealth from companies. The dot-coms of the 1990s were vehicles for exotic new technologies and untested business models. The sub-prime mortgages and credit default swaps of the 2000s were semi-fraudulent fee-generation schemes.
All, in retrospect, were strange, unsteady foundations on which to build a global economy. But they look positively sane compared to the pillars of the current expansion: China and fracking.
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Monday, March 07, 2016
China: A 5-Year Economic Plan And 50 Million Jobs Lost! / Economics / China Economy
By: Raul_I_Meijer
China never had an actual economic model or growth model. It simply printed an obscene amount of money, especially after 2008, and used it to build factories, 30-story see-through apartment blocks and highways into nowhere cities, without giving much if any thought to where this would lead when their formerly rich western customers had less to spend on its ever increasing amount of ever more useless products, or when its workers would stop spending ever more on apartments as investments, or when no more roads and bridges were needed because nowhere was already in plain sight. Or all of the above. It was ‘to infinity and beyond’ from the start, but that’s a line from a kids’ fantasy story, not a 5-year plan or an economic model.
Monday, February 29, 2016
China's Newest Export: Empty Buildings / Economics / China Economy
By: Michael_Pento
A little over six months ago the owners of the Baha Mar, a $3.5 billion Bahamian resort, filed for bankruptcy. Shoddy construction from the China State Construction Company led to delays resulting from leaking plumbing, porous Chinese concrete and large cracks at critical stress points. The doomed project even led to the death of two Chinese workers. Although the building is 97% complete, the structural deficiencies make it uninhabitable. Given the Chinese proclivity to build ghost towns, it makes you wonder if their construction crews are accustomed to erecting buildings that are never intended to be occupied.
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Tuesday, January 19, 2016
Why Are We Still Paying Attention To Chinese Economic Numbers? / Economics / China Economy
By: John_Rubino
A few years ago, economist Nouriel Roubini was explaining to a reporter why Chinese economic data couldn’t be trusted. He noted that it takes the US weeks and sometimes months to pull together and process the information necessary to produce a complex stat like GDP, and wondered how China, with its far bigger, less developed (and therefore harder to measure) population was able to do it in considerably less time. He concluded that they’re just making up their numbers.
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Friday, January 01, 2016
China's Security of Supply / Economics / China Economy
By: Richard_Mills
Consider:
- There is a slowing of production and dwindling of reserves at many of the world's largest mines.
- All the oz's or pounds are never recovered from a mine - they simply becomes too expensive to recover.
- The pace of new elephant-sized discoveries has decreased in the mining industry.
- Discoveries are smaller and in less accessible regions.
- Mineralogy & metallurgy is more complicated making extraction of metals from the mined ore increasingly more complex and expensive.
- Mining is cyclical which makes mining companies reluctant to spend on exploration and development.
- A looming skills shortage
- There is no substitute for many metals except other metals - plastic piping is one exception.
- Metal markets are small so speculation is a larger factor.
- There hasn't been a new technology shift in mining for decades - heap leach and open pit mining come to mind but they are both decades old innovation.
- Country risk - resource extraction companies, because the number of discoveries was falling and existing deposits were being quickly depleted, have had to diversify away from the traditional geo-politically safe producing countries. The move out of these "safe haven" countries has exposed investors to a lot of additional risk.
- Lack of recognition for population growth, growing middle class w/disposable incomes and urbanization as on-going demand growth factors.
- Climate change.
Thursday, November 19, 2015
The Great Fall Of China Started At Least 4 Years Ago / Economics / China Economy
By: Raul_I_Meijer
Looking through a bunch of numbers and graphs dealing with China recently, it occurred to us that perhaps we, and most others with us, may need to recalibrate our focus on what to emphasize amongst everything we read and hear, if we’re looking to interpret what’s happening in and with the country’s economy.
It was only fair -perhaps even inevitable- that oil would be the first major commodity to dive off a cliff, because oil drives the entire global economy, both as a source of fuel -energy- and as raw material. Oil makes the world go round.
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Wednesday, October 07, 2015
Retirement Fears in China Ageing Economy / Economics / China Economy
By: Rodney_Johnson
The current economic mess in the developed world is easy to explain and hard to fix.
This is a demand-driven downturn, where aging populations choose to save more of what they earn, take on less debt, and generally rotate to a risk-averse world view.
The change isn’t new. It happens to almost all of us as we get older.
Friday, October 02, 2015
The Reality Behind the Numbers in China’s Boom-Bust Economy / Economics / China Economy
By: MISES
Yonathan Amselem writes: Last year, the world was stunned by an IMF report which found the Chinese economy larger and more productive than that of the United States, both in terms of raw GDP and purchasing power parity (PPP). The Chinese people created more goods and had more purchasing power with which to obtain them — a classic sign of prosperity. At the same time, the Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite more than doubled in value since October of 2014. This explosion in growth was accompanied by a post-recession construction boom that rivals anything the world has ever seen. In fact, in the three years from 2011 – 2013, the Chinese economy consumed more cement than the United States had in the entire twentieth century. Across the political spectrum, the narrative for the last fifteen years has been that of a rising Chinese hyperpower to rival American economic and cultural influence around the globe. China’s state-led “red capitalism” was a model to be admired and even emulated.
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Thursday, August 27, 2015
Why Devaluing the Yuan Won't Help China's Economy / Economics / China Economy
By: Frank_Shostak
Earlier this month, the Chinese government decided to depreciate its currency on three consecutive occasions. On August 13, the price of the US dollar was trading at 6.413 — an increase of 3.3 percent against July. The key factor behind the central bank’s lowering of the yuan is a sharp decline in the growth momentum of exports with the yearly rate of growth falling to minus 8.3 percent in July from 2.8 percent in June.
Wednesday, August 26, 2015
Why China's Economy is Deteriorating / Economics / China Economy
By: Steve_H_Hanke
The plunging Shanghai Stock Exchange and the sudden reversal in the yuan’s appreciation have caused fears to spread beyond China’s borders. Is something wrong with the world’s growth locomotive? In a word, yes.
The most reliable approach for the determination of nominal gross domestic product (GDP) and the balance of payments is the monetary approach. Indeed, the path of an economy’s nominal GDP is determined by the course of its money supply (broadly determined).
Monday, August 24, 2015
Playing the Chinese Trump Card / Stock-Markets / China Economy
By: John_Mauldin
“I know the Chinese. I’ve made a lot of money with the Chinese. I understand the Chinese mind.”
Back in the olden days (pre-2000 or so), information junkies like me relied on printed newspapers, paper magazines, TV newscasts, and snail-mail newsletters. All these channels still exist, but they can’t begin to compete with the constant stream of data rushing into our tablets and smartphones. And on some days the stream rushes faster.
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Friday, August 21, 2015
Why China Economy Is in Trouble - It's the Slumping Money Supply / Economics / China Economy
By: Steve_H_Hanke
The course of an economy is determined by the course of that economy's money supply (broadly determined). The relationship between money growth and nominal GDP growth is presented in the accompanying chart. It is persuasive. Indeed, money, not fiscal policy, dominates.
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Wednesday, August 12, 2015
China is Lying About Its Economy / Economics / China Economy
By: Harry_Dent
I and a few brave experts such as Jim Chanos, Gordon Chang, and David Stockman (speaking at our upcoming IES conference) have been arguing for years that China has the greatest investment and overbuilding bubble in all of modern history.We’ve also warned that its economic statistics are not real – they are purposefully overstated and then revised later, if at all.
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Monday, August 03, 2015
When China Stopped Acting Chinese / Economics / China Economy
By: John_Mauldin
“The one thing I know for sure about China is, I will never know China. It's too big, too old, too diverse, too deep. There's simply not enough time.”– Anthony Bourdain, Parts Unknown
Much of the world is focused on what is happening in Greece and Europe. A lot of people are paying attention to the Middle East and geopolitics. These are significant concerns, for sure; but what has been happening in China the past few months has more far-reaching global investment implications than Europe or the Middle East do. Most people are aware of the amazing run-up in the Shanghai stock index and the recent “crash.” The government intervened and for a time has halted the rapid drop in the markets.
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Wednesday, July 29, 2015
Chinese Corporatism Turns Sour / Economics / China Economy
By: BATR
As even the casual observer of the effects from the corporatist model for economic commerce knows, permanence in a developing prosperity is transient at best. What becomes the rush to ratchet up industrial production ends up in a piercing disappointment for long term stability. China is the latest example of a corporatist model in serious trouble. And who will suffer the most? Those dependent on export manufacturing are clearly poised for a very bumpy ride. While the oligarchs play global chess with their foreign companies, the enterprise of creating a rise in world-wide wealth suffers.
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
China Takes A Big Step To Spur Economic Growth / Economics / China Economy
By: AnyOption
After a strong end of last year for Chinese markets, there was a bit of a reversal in the first quarter of 2015; and it has caught the attention of Chinese monetary policy makers. In an effort to spur economic growth, the People's Bank of China has made big changes to monetary policy in the country. Today, we'll talk about what those changes are and how they're likely to help, as well as what we can expect to see from China's markets moving forward. So, let's get right to it.Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
Bad News For China: Bernanke Says It’s Okay / Economics / China Economy
By: John_Rubino
Former Fed chairman Ben Bernanke will be remembered by future generations as the guy who didn’t see a housing bubble while he was creating it.
That is, unless he says something even dumber, like this:
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Saturday, April 25, 2015
China Economic Slowdown Story - Why “Didi Dache” Is a Phrase You Need to Know / Economics / China Economy
By: Money_Morning
If all you’ve been hearing regarding China recently is noise about its economic slowdown, you need to find a better news source.
Investors need to stop worrying over China’s long-expected gradual slowdown. Do so and you likely will see, as my guest today does, the long-term growth ahead for key tech sectors in the world’s most populous nation.
I’m talking about the kind of growth that will fill investors’ portfolios with soaring profits for years to come.
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Thursday, April 23, 2015
Is China The Next United States? / Politics / China Economy
By: STRATFOR
By Mark Fleming-Williams: Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers wrote on April 5 that this month may be remembered as the moment the United States lost its role as the underwriter of the global economic system. His comments refer to the circumstances surrounding China's launch of a new venture, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). Wary of China's growing ambitions and influence, the United States had advised its allies not to join the institution, but many signed up anyway. The debacle was undoubtedly embarrassing for Washington, but even so, Summers' prophecy is a bit premature at this stage.
Tuesday, April 14, 2015
China Margin Debt, Trading Accounts, Construction Equipment / Economics / China Economy
By: Mike_Shedlock
In response to my April 1, post China Margin Debt Soars to Record 1 Trillion Yuan; Another Central Bank Sponsored Bubble I received an email from reader Nicolas.
He writes ...
Read full article... Read full article...Hello Mish
Happy Monday. I find your output excellent an I hope that you are flattered that you are followed by private banks is Switzerland.
Quick question on your last note; please can you tell me what (Bloomberg/Reuters) code you use for Chinese Margin debt? i.e. where can I cross-reference the Trillion Yuan figure you quote?
Best regards and many thanks,
Nicolas
Thursday, March 26, 2015
The Crude Oil Price Crash and China Economic Slow Down / Economics / China Economy
By: Raul_I_Meijer
This is another essay from friend and regular contributor of The Automatic Earth, Euan Mearns at Energy Matters.
One comment on my part: Euan says ‘This has lead to speculation that weak global demand, stemming from masked economic woes, may also be playing a key role.‘ I don’t think the use of the term ‘speculation’ is appropriate here, because it seems overly obvious that China’s economic slowdown has played a major role in the oil price crash (and continues to do so). Even if there’s no ‘scientific’ proof, and even if the main media narrative remains OPEC overproduction and the inane meme of the cartel’s refusal to cut production, it certainly goes way beyond mere speculation.
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Thursday, March 19, 2015
China's Deflationary Economic Bust and Beyond: Anne Stevenson-Yang Presentation / Economics / China Economy
By: Mike_Shedlock
Anne Stevenson-Yang graciously made her presentation on China 2015 Risks - Deflationary Bust and Beyond publicly available.
I wanted to embed the document but it got distorted a bit, so please click on the above link to download the document.
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Thursday, March 12, 2015
China Economic Growth Reality Check, Hard Landing Global Recession at Hand / Economics / China Economy
By: Mike_Shedlock
How Fast is China Growing?
Analyst estimates of Chinese growth keep getting lower and lower. Yet, those declining estimates have all been from a lofty level: From 10% to 9%, to 8% to 7.5%.
China's growth target for 2015 is 7.0%.
Many question those growth estimates. I certainly do. Chinese growth is not consistent with energy demand, raw materials, or personal consumption. Worse yet, growth does not factor in pollution or malinvestments in vacant housing, vacant malls, vacant airports, etc.
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Tuesday, March 10, 2015
China: Hot Money Flow In, Now Out / Economics / China Economy
By: Steve_H_Hanke
For some years, hot money flowed in, adding massively to China’s foreign reserve stockpile. Speculators borrowed cheaply in U.S. dollars and bought yuan-denominated assets in anticipation of an ever-appreciating yuan. Well, this carry trade has shifted into reverse, with $91 billion in net outflows in the last quarter of 2014. And with that, the ever-appreciating yuan story has come to a close, too. Indeed, the yuan has lost 1.8% against the greenback since the New Year.
Monday, February 09, 2015
Trade Data Show China’s Credit Bubble is Bursting, UK to See Deflationary Effects – Global Depression Ahead? / Economics / China Economy
By: GoldCore
- Chinese imports, primarily of raw materials, crashed 19.9% in January
- Exports fall 3.3% against expectations of 6.3% rise
- Total Chinese debt rose from $7.4 trillion in 2007 to $28.2 trillion in 2014
- Capital outflows last quarter were the highest on record
- China may devalue yuan to boost exports
- Currency depreciation by worlds biggest exporter may trigger global deflation and depression
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Saturday, February 07, 2015
China Makes the Right Move / Interest-Rates / China Economy
By: Steve_H_Hanke
Yesterday, China’s Central Bank reduced bank reserve requirements for large banks by 50 basis points to 19.5%. The Chinese know that the nominal level of national income is determined by the magnitude of the money supply. They also know that banks produce the lion’s share of China’s money. Indeed, banks produce 77% of China’s M2 money.
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Monday, November 24, 2014
Where Is China Economy On The Map Exactly? / Economics / China Economy
By: Raul_I_Meijer
A lot of people these days vent their opinions on what’s happening with the Chinese economy, and the opinions are so all over the place they could hardly be more different. Which is interesting, to say the least. Apparently it’s still very hard to understand what does happen ‘over there’.
And I don’t at all mean to suggest that I would know better than Morgan Stanley’s former Asia go-to-man Stephen Roach, or hedge funder Hugh Hendry, or Bob Davis, who just spent 4 years in the country for the Wall Street Journal, or Gwynn Guilford at Quartz, or local Reuters correspondents. It’s just that between them, they disagree so vastly you’d think they’re playing a game with your mind.
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Wednesday, October 29, 2014
As the Eurozone Economy Stalls, China Cuts the Red Tape / Economics / China Economy
By: Frank_Holmes
Forty-four percent. That's the alarming unemployment rate for those aged 15 to 25 in Italy, where I traveled recently to meet with other global chief executives and business leaders.
The reason for Italy's high youth unemployment? Tortuous red tape, high taxation and thuggish unions. Many of the CEOs at the event I attended noted that Italy is mired in unionization. This has created a restrictive jobs market that crowds out well-educated, aspirational young people, many of whom are forced to flee their homes and seek work elsewhere.
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Friday, September 05, 2014
What does a “good” Chinese Economic adjustment look like? / Economics / China Economy
By: John_Mauldin
People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage. Intellectual myopia, often called stupidity, is no doubt a reason. But the privileged also feel that their privileges, however egregious they may seem to others, are a solemn, basic, God-given right. The sensitivity of the poor to injustice is a trivial thing compared with that of the rich. - John Galbraith, The Age of Uncertainty
Thursday, September 04, 2014
Urbanization and Demographics Could Skew China's Economic Rebalancing / Economics / China Economy
By: STRATFOR
China's urban population may grow by as many as 230 million people in the next 15 years. But most growth will take place not in metropolises like Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing but in the myriad small- and medium-sized satellite cities around them. And as residents flock to these cities, China's working-age population will begin to decline, and its elderly population will grow dramatically.
Together, these processes will underpin major changes not only in China's overall economic structure, but also in the financial, fiscal and political relationship between central and local government. The added burdens facing small- and medium-sized cities, especially those located deep inside China that are sequestered from mainstream global trade, will be substantial and perhaps socially and politically destabilizing.
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Thursday, August 14, 2014
China's Credit Slowdown Raises Concerns About Overall Economic Health / Economics / China Economy
By: STRATFOR
New economic data released by China's National Bureau of Statistics on Aug. 13 shows the supply of credit to the Chinese economy expanded by only $44.3 billion in July, the slowest pace in almost six years. To be precise, credit expanded at the slowest pace since October 2008, the month after Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy and the month before the Chinese government launched an economic stimulus program that sheltered China's economy from the worst effects of the global financial crisis. That program also locked China into a growth model grounded in the intimate bond between government-led credit expansion and housing and infrastructure construction -- one that the Chinese government is now struggling, against time and at the risk of crisis, to escape.
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
China Economy Transformation or Bust, Part 2 / Economics / China Economy
By: John_Mauldin
In last week’s Thoughts from the Frontline (“Transformation or Bust”), my young colleague Worth Wray and I continued our groundbreaking series exploring the risks posed by China’s rapid private sector debt growth and its consumption-repressing, investment-heavy growth model that is quickly running out of steam. China is the true conundrum in the global economy. It is an outlier in the history of development, with no true analogues. And while there is much to be appreciative of and admired about China, there are clear danger signals.
Monday, August 04, 2014
China Transformation or Bust / Economics / China Economy
By: John_Mauldin
China continues to be front and center on my list of concerns, even moreso than the latest Federal Reserve press release or fluctuation in the Dow (although you should pay attention). I believe China is the single biggest risk to world economic equilibrium, even larger than Japan or Europe. This week my young associate Worth Wray provides us with a keenly insightful essay on what is currently happening in China. I will admit to not having written about China very much in the past five years, primarily because, prior to Worth’s coming to work with me I really had no secure understanding of what was happening there. I know some readers may be surprised, but I really don’t like to write about things I have no understanding of. Worth has helped me focus. (It helps that he studied Mandarin and lived in China for a while, and is obsessed with China.)
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
Peak Pollution: China Aims For The Top So It Can Go Down / Economics / China Economy
By: OilPrice_Com
City-dwelling Chinese may still be choking on smog, but amid all the haze, China may turning a corner in its fight on pollution. Top Chinese officials have hinted at the fact that China is working hard to achieve "peak" greenhouse gas emissions, which may come sooner than observers expect. "Peak pollution" refers to the point at which a developing country's economy reaches a high enough level of production to ensure it will continue to grow even as it begins to work on reducing pollution rates.
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Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Can China's Central Planners Revive China’s Economic Miracle? / Economics / China Economy
By: John_Mauldin
For years, when asked whether I thought China would experience a hard landing, I would simply answer, “I don't understand China. Making a prediction would be pretending that I did, so I can’t.” The problem is that today China is the most significant macroeconomic wildcard in the global economy. To understand both the risks and the potentials for the future you have to reach some understanding of what is happening in China today. Last week we started a two-part series on what my young associate Worth Wray and I feel is the significant systemic risk that China poses to global growth.
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
China Economy Leads the World in Green Energy, Gaming and Gambling Markets / Economics / China Economy
By: Frank_Holmes
Last month, Xian Liang, co-portfolio manager of our China Region Fund (USCOX), attended the 19th CLSA China Forum in Beijing. There he and hundreds of other global attendees were given the opportunity to meet with representatives from Chinese corporations, some of which U.S. Global owns. Xian also managed to get a sense of how the nation's recent changes in consumer behavior and governmental policy reforms might affect its investment outlook. Although China remains an emerging market, it has lately taken a number of considerable strides to position itself as one of the world's most attractive places to invest.
Sunday, June 01, 2014
China Debt - Looking at the Middle Kingdom with Fresh Eyes / Economics / China Economy
By: John_Mauldin
I am writing this introductory note from London during a layover on my way to Rome, and I’ll append a personal ending tonight after I finally make my way back from dinner to the hotel.
One of the few consensus ideas that I took away from the Strategic Investment Conference is that China has the potential to become a real problem. It seemed to me that almost everyone who addressed the topic was either seriously alarmed at the extent of China’s troubles or merely very worried. Perhaps it was the particular group of speakers we had, but no one was sanguine. If you recall, a few weeks back I introduced my young colleague and protégé Worth Wray to you; and his inaugural Thoughts from the Frontline focused on China, a topic on which he is well-versed, having lived and studied there. Our conversations often center on China and emerging markets (and we tend to talk and write to each other a lot). While I’m on the road, Worth is once again visiting China in this week’s letter, summing up our research and contributing his own unique style and passion. I think regular TFTF readers are going to enjoy Worth’s occasional missives and will want to see more of them over time. Now, let’s turn it over to my able young Cajun friend.
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Tuesday, May 27, 2014
In a Flash, China Economy Looks Strong / Economics / China Economy
By: Frank_Holmes
If you want to know where the world economy is headed, there is one number that I believe investors should focus on: the HSBC China Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI).
Last week, the preliminary flash PMI for May came in at 49.7, beating Bloomberg’s consensus of 48.3.
Saturday, May 17, 2014
China Economy Countdown to Crisis? / Economics / China Economy
By: Ty_Andros
Yes or no?
Every major corner of the world's economies is sitting on a knife's edge of one type or another; the question becomes who falls first triggering the next leg down in the Global Economies and ongoing depression. All are in debt spirals as deficits and debt compound at a high rate, while the growth to service them is but an illusion of official account measures, public sector growth and understated inflation.
Waves of insolvency are just waiting to strike as elites, academics, government servants and banksters worldwide cling to the dying Consumption, asset-backed economic model created at Bretton Woods II. Before that time, the developed world created wealth the old fashioned way: they produced more than they consumed creating savings for allocation to productive enterprises, also known as capitalism. Now growth is measured in how much you can consume creating a top line while ignoring the amount you borrowed from future income to do so.
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Wednesday, May 14, 2014
China Economy Will Drag Us All Down With It / Economics / China Economy
By: Raul_I_Meijer
Yeah, no kidding, as if reports from the US weren’t bad enough, with soaring student debt – that drivers debtors out of the housing market-, collapsing mortgage originations, increasing household debt and slumping retail sales. But still, today, the major news comes from China once again. The government issued a batch of data overnight that shine yet another and clearer light on what is going wrong in the Chinese economy. The numbers are so ugly you wouldn’t want to feed them to your dog. Many sources picked up on this, and not everyone comes up with the exact same numbers – is it 24 or 27 months of inventory? – but we’ll put that down to journalists having to speed read. Let’s do a series, shall we? First up, Bloomberg:
Friday, May 02, 2014
Is China Economy Cracking? / Economics / China Economy
By: Investment_U
Sean Brodrick writes: Signs of a near-term slowdown in the Chinese economy are apparent. And China's economy is so large and intricate that any slowdown there could have a big impact on investors here in the U.S.
In particular, I'm concerned about:
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Sunday, March 30, 2014
China’s Ponzi Scheme Unravels / Economics / China Economy
By: LewRockwell
China is the greatest construction boom and credit bubble in recorded history. An entire nation of 1.3 billion has gone mad building, borrowing, speculating, scheming, cheating, lying and stealing. The source of this demented outbreak is not a flaw in Chinese culture or character—nor even the kind of raw greed and gluttony that afflicts all peoples in the late stages of a financial bubble.
Saturday, March 22, 2014
China’s Minsky Moment? / Economics / China Economy
By: John_Mauldin
In speeches and presentations since the end of last year, I have been saying that I think the biggest macro problem in the world today is China. China has run up a huge debt, and the payments are coming due. They seem to be proactive, but will it be enough? How much risk do they pose for the global system?
This week as I travel to Cafayate I have asked my young associate Worth Wray to write up his research and our conversations on China. Worth has lived in China; and with his (and my) access to people with their fingers on the pulse of China, he has come up with some valuable insights. The hard part for him was to keep it in a single letter. China is a such a huge topic that writing about it can easily yield a tome.
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Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Marc Faber Warns China's Credit Crisis Unwind 'Will Be a Disaster' / Economics / China Economy
By: Bloomberg
Marc Faber, publisher of the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report, appeared on Bloomberg Television today to discuss the state of the Chinese economy.
Faber told Trish Regan and Matt Miller "I think that we had a colossal credit bubble in China and that this credit bubble is now being gradually deflated....if I look at export figures from China, and they are very closely correlated to overall economic growth, then there is a huge discrepancy between what China reports and what China's trading partners are reporting."
Sunday, March 16, 2014
Is China’s Economy About to Crash? / Economics / China Economy
By: Investment_U
Sean Brodrick writes: My newsfeed is buzzing with panicky stories on China's economy. Professional worrywarts are terrified that the country's first corporate bond default (by a little-known Chinese solar company ) is just a taste of an economic earthquake to come - one that could shake the global financial system to its foundations.
China's corporate bonds had always been backstopped by the government, so when Shanghai Chaori Solar Energy & Science Technology missed a $12.7 million interest payment on a bond, people panicked.
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, March 14, 2014
The Bursting of China’s Credit Bubble / Economics / China Economy
By: Alasdair_Macleod
According to Garet Garrett in his book “A Bubble that Broke the World” Cheops employed 100,000 men for twenty years to build his great pyramid, “and all he had for 600,000,000 days of human labour was a frozen asset.” Cheops’s distortion of the Nilotic economy was nothing compared with the economy warped by the Chinese government today, which has overseen the construction of empty cities, unused airports, carless highways and bridges to nowhere.
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Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Manufacturing Numbers Show Cause for Concern in China / Economics / China Economy
By: Submissions
Richard Cox writes: As the global recovery continues to progress, investors as keenly focused on developments in early Asia as a means for gauging whether or not the progress in economic growth is being seen in all areas. Without clear evidence that emerging markets in Asia have participated in the improvements, there is less reason to believe that the global recovery is moving forward as strongly as had been thought previously.
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Tuesday, February 18, 2014
China Fooled the World (But It Cannot Last) / Economics / China Economy
By: Mike_Shedlock
Steen Jakobsen, chief economist at Saxo Bank emailed a pair of interesting links on the explosion of investment and debt in China.
First consider the BBC report How China Fooled the World by Robert Peston.
Read full article... Read full article...Robert Peston travels to China to investigate how this mighty economic giant could actually be in serious trouble. China is now the second largest economy in the world and for the last 30 years China's economy has been growing at an astonishing rate. While Britain has been in the grip of the worst recession in a generation, China's economic miracle has wowed the world.
Friday, December 06, 2013
My Big Fat Chinese Plenum, Taking China's Economy to the Next Level / Economics / China Economy
By: HRA_Advisory
No, it's not a glandular condition. China's leaders concluded the third Plenum of the 18th Party Congress a couple of weeks ago. Party Congresses last for five years and Plenums (full meetings) are annual except for the first year of each Congress where there might be two or three full meetings.
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Understanding the Rise of China / Politics / China Economy
By: Frank_Holmes
If the sweeping economic reforms planned by Chinese leaders during the Third Plenum can be our guide, it looks to be a promising decade for global investors. Details released recently confirmed President Xi Jinping’s concerted efforts to move China toward a market-based economy that mirrors the West.The plan’s comprehensive nature and the level of clarity evidently pleased investors, as many Chinese stocks experienced a pop.
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Tuesday, November 05, 2013
China World Bank Rankings That Rankle / Economics / China Economy
By: Steve_H_Hanke
The World Bank has been producing its annual “Doing Business” report since 2004 and its 2014 edition ranking Hong Kong second out of 189 economies surveyed, in contrast to mainland China’s score of 96, hardly seems controversial.
Its rankings of 10 factors reflecting the ease with which entrepreneurs and businesses may conduct economic activity in a given economy offer an unbiased way of looking at business.
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Thursday, October 24, 2013
What’s Really Behind China’s Economic Growth and Why It Won’t Last / Economics / China Economy
By: InvestmentContrarian
Sasha Cekerevac writes: When I read some of the headlines by other news organizations, sometimes I can’t help but chuckle at their oversimplification. Other media outlets take a kernel of truth, and ignore the rest of the picture, only to blow that tiny piece of truth out of proportion.
As an example, there was a recent release by the National Bureau of Statistics of China that reported the Chinese economy grew 7.8% year-over-year for the three months of July to September. (Source: National Bureau of Statistics of China, October 18, 2013.)
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Friday, August 16, 2013
How the Chinese Economy Debt Bubble Will Impact Your Investments (and it Will) / Stock-Markets / China Economy
By: InvestmentContrarian
Sasha Cekerevac writes: I've always been a fan of long-term investing, as it allows big picture thinking to be more important than short-term gyrations. One of my concerns when it comes to developing a long-term investing portfolio is the Chinese economy.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, August 05, 2013
Shadow Banking - Is our Monetary Policy Dictated by the Peoples Bank of China? / Economics / China Economy
By: Sam_Chee_Kong
The current credit crunch in China is due to PBOC’s (People's Bank Of China) or China's Central Bank refusal to act as the lender of last resort to help banks to get out of their own financial mess. It also demonstrates that Central bank is willing to allow market forces to play a bigger role. This is to mean that banks will have to be on their own since PBOC has indicated that it will not be bailing them out this round. As a result banks have no choice but to be more conservative in their lending policies. What PBOC hope to achieve out of this?
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Why What Happens to the Chinese Economy Is Critical to America / Economics / China Economy
By: InvestmentContrarian
George Leong writes: The Chinese experiment is over—at least that’s what some in the financial media are saying. Well, guess what? It’s not over, but there will be hurdles along the road for China, as the country struggles to drive its domestic consumption and make sure the economy doesn’t tank.
The reality is that what happens in China is critical to America and the global economy. In fact, I will go as far as to say China is an increasingly important barometer for global business.
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Friday, July 26, 2013
Forecasting China - Rebalancing - Change And Discontinuity / Economics / China Economy
By: Andrew_McKillop
Forecasting China trends is now a hard ride. The days of rock solid 10%-a-year growth are going, going, gone. Like the celestial Dragon which Chinese astrologers place at the center of their Magic Square – able to appear or disappear without warning to the 11 other real Animals such as the Monkey, Snake, Cat or Horse. China has woken up to what is a new problem for Chinese, but not for others. Its slowdown of economic growth, but possible slump into very low growth was a process that took about 40 years for the USA and 20 years for Japan - but may may only take 10 years for China.
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Recognizing the End of the Chinese Economic Miracle / Economics / China Economy
By: STRATFOR
Recognizing the End of the Chinese Economic Miracle
Major shifts underway in the Chinese economy that Stratfor has forecast and discussed for years have now drawn the attention of the mainstream media. Many have asked when China would find itself in an economic crisis, to which we have answered that China has been there for awhile -- something not widely recognized outside China, and particularly not in the United States. A crisis can exist before it is recognized. The admission that a crisis exists is a critical moment, because this is when most others start to change their behavior in reaction to the crisis. The question we had been asking was when the Chinese economic crisis would finally become an accepted fact, thus changing the global dynamic.
Friday, July 12, 2013
China GDP Growth Rate Falls to 6.7% / Economics / China Economy
By: EconMatters
China releases 2nd quarter GDP data Sunday night in US time zones and it is going to be ugly based upon all the second quarter econ data we have received throughout these three months. The trend is going south fast, and as bad as the second quarter GDP figures are the third quarter GDP will be even worse because of the effects of tightening measures to try to get a handle on the shadow banking sector.
Sunday, June 30, 2013
China's Economic Rebalancing Killed The Asian Locomotive / Economics / China Economy
By: Andrew_McKillop
PEKIN SCHEMES, PEKIN DREAMS
As we know, if we believe what we read in the media, Edward Snowden might be trying to return home and face show trial, but “under his own conditions”. In any case Vladimir Putin will be glad to get rid of him the same way China's leadership very quickly passed the buck, or rather the Snowden hot potato to Putin. More important for the world economy, China is no longer playing Asian Locomotive and has radical new plans – due to the pressures causing the new plans – for steering its economy.
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
China's Innovation Hurdle Points to Withering Economy / Economics / China Economy
By: John_Mauldin
All weekend long and this morning as I wake up in Monaco, the number of disparate publications screaming at me about problems in China is just overwhelming. Then I get myself up early to hear a speech by the esteemed British economist Charles Dumas of Lombard Street fame, and I am confronted with even more China. I have been watching China for a long time, expecting a crisis, as I readily admit I simply do not understand a country that has defied so many of the economic laws of gravity for so long. Some kind of return to normal economic paradigms seems almost mandated, but the question has always been when. Have the Chinese discovered some new control mechanism, found some different levers to pull that they should share with the rest of the world, or will we see them revert to something that looks more like whatever it is that passes for "normal" these days? My bet has always been the latter.
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Why Jim Chanos is Wrong About China's "Ghost Cities" / Economics / China Economy
By: Money_Morning
Greg Madison writes: China's "ghost cities" present the West with the shocking images of vast urban areas that sit nearly empty.
In a striking report, shown recently on CBS News' "60 Minutes,"there are rows of high-rise apartment buildings, tracts full of suburban American-sized detached homes and imposing government edifices in China's western desert that are empty and utterly devoid of any signs of life.
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, May 08, 2013
Is This the End of Cheap Chinese Labor? / Economics / China Economy
By: Money_Morning
Greg Madison writes: It's been the lament of everyone for years now: Cheap Chinese labor is killing the job market.
With lower wages and lax regulation, the giant sucking sound we heard was manufacturing jobs headed from Sheboygan to Shenzhen.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, April 22, 2013
Is China's Economic Miracle About to Burst Like a Bubble? / Economics / China Economy
By: Pravda
The bright Future of China is being predictably pushed back indefinitely. The GDP growth has slowed down. In the first quarter of 2013, the growth made up 7.7 percent, while China closed last year with the index 7.9 percent. Despite the fact that this growth may seem low for China, the consequences of the reduction already affect the world.
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Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Why China Is Tunneling a Mind-Boggling 800 Miles in 2 Years / Economics / China Economy
By: Frank_Holmes
Would it surprise you to discover that China is planning to add 800 miles to its subway system over the next two years? That's the distance equivalent to building a network from Dallas to Chicago in less time than the U.S. Congress can resolve a budget!
In 2015, when the infrastructure build-out is complete, China's subway track alone will be a mind-boggling 1,900 miles, according to JP Morgan.
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, March 08, 2013
China: This Is Your Time! / Economics / China Economy
By: Profit_Confidential
George Leong writes: The time has arrived for China. For the country, this will be a critical moment in its continued development as a global power, with a change at the helm under its new President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang. China is currently facing a potential property bubble, and it’s dealing with stalled growth from the eurozone as well as other key trading partners. (Read “Why Eurozone’s Problems Are Headed for America.”)
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Wednesday, February 13, 2013
China Economy Out With the Dragon, In With the Snake / Economics / China Economy
By: Frank_Holmes
During this Chinese New Year, more than a billion people will be welcoming in the Year of the Black Water Snake, celebrating with family and friends all week long. The previous Year of the Black Water Snake was in 1953, which was when China launched its first Five-Year Plan and the average annual income for a family in the U.S. was about $4,000.
As the Dragon took its last breath of the year, it exhaled plenty of fire into China: Looking at year-over-year data as of the end of January, new bank loans, passenger car sales and exports all rose while inflation was slightly lower. Imports of key commodities we track, crude oil, aluminum and copper, were also exceptional, with month-over-month increases of 6 percent, 4 percent and 3 percent, respectively.
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Sunday, January 27, 2013
Is China's Economic Miracle Government Sponsored Fraud? / Economics / China Economy
By: Graham_Summers
A few months ago, we asked, “is China an economic miracle or one giant government sponsored fraud?” Our views were the latter with corruption as one of the key driving forces for wealth creation and economic growth in China.
Monday, January 21, 2013
Confusing Economic Data from China; What’s Really Happening? / Economics / China Economy
By: InvestmentContrarian
Sasha Cekerevac writes: Recently, we have heard and seen some data stating that the Chinese economy is beginning to rebound. Many analysts have started to raise their economic forecast for the Chinese economy in 2013.
One of the difficult aspects when calculating an economic forecast for the Chinese economy is that much of the official data from China are questionable.
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, December 20, 2012
The Coming China Economic Crisis / Economics / China Economy
By: Clif_Droke
When Bert Dohmen talks, smart investors listen.
In 2007 when most investment analysts and economists were downplaying the developing credit market troubles, Bert warned investors that the probability was very high that the troubles would escalate into full-blown crisis and would produce a crash of historic proportions. He chronicled the developing credit crisis in the pages of his newsletter and also published a book in early 2012 entitled, The Coming China Crisis, which provided his insightful views on the emerging crisis in depth.
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Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Is China's Economic Boom Over / Economics / China Economy
By: InvestmentContrarian
Sasha Cekerevac writes: The strength of the Chinese economy over the past two decades has been nothing short of amazing. Because of this Chinese boom, we’ve seen one nation’s large consumption have a heavy impact on global commodity prices. The Chinese economy also has been a large driving force for lowering inflation levels for Western nations. As Western countries like America import cheaper products, the average consumer can buy a lot more goods for the same price.
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Thursday, October 18, 2012
China’s Economy Slowing Down as Power Output Drops to Four-Month Low / Economics / China Economy
By: Mike_Shedlock
A rally in Asia is underway this morning as Wen Jiabao, China’s premier is upbeat on China’s economy
Wen Jiabao, China’s premier, has given his most optimistic assessment of the Chinese economy since the start of the year, saying that it had stabilised and that the government’s target of 7.5 per cent annual growth was well within reach.
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Worried U.S. Econcomy? You’d Better Watch China / Economics / China Economy
By: InvestmentContrarian
George Leong writes: What happens in China will have an impact on the U.S. economy and the global economy. The linkage between economies worldwide has become more profound over the past decade. This is why, as an investor, you need to be fully aware of the situation across the Pacific.
The state of the Chinese economy continues to ramp up heated discussion specifically concerning the immediate need for further monetary stimulus to drive domestic consumption in China.
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, October 12, 2012
China Banking Ponzi Crisis, China Will Grow Old Before it Grows Rich / Economics / China Economy
By: Mike_Shedlock
The Ponzi schemes and off-balance sheet loans in China's banking system are in the forefront of today's news. Reuters reports Bank of China executive warns of shadow banking risks
Read full article... Read full article...A senior Chinese banking executive has warned against the proliferation of off-book wealth management products, comparing some to a Ponzi scheme in a rare official acknowledgement of the risks they pose to the Chinese banking system.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Is China an Economic Miracle, or Massive Government Sponsored Fraud? / Politics / China Economy
By: Graham_Summers
History has shown us countless times that centrally-‐planned, command style economies do not produce long-term economic growth. We’ve seen this will the Soviet Union, the UK, the US-since the Tech Crash, and today in China.
I realize that many would argue China has adopted free market policies with its “free market zones.” However, even this terminology reveals China is nowhere near a free, dynamic market (a free market is simply a free market, not a “zone.”).
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, October 09, 2012
China and the Global Economic Crisis of Industrial Overcapacity / Economics / China Economy
By: Andrew_McKillop
EARLY MATURITY
This term now has a special meaning. Not only OECD economies, and especially their leading industrial manufacturing sectors, but also these sectors in the Emerging economies are downsizing at an accelerating pace. After the shrink in industrial and manufacturing activity, in the mature or "post mature" OECD economies, comes the downsizing of the entire economy which in Europe, especially in the PIIGS, is now the rule and a new "tradition". Any other way is now an eccentric hope, and outside the PIIGS an increasing number of other EU27 economies are moving to net shrinkage, including the UK and France.
Monday, October 08, 2012
World's Brightest Minds Migrating to China, Brain Drain Creating the "Chinese Dream" / Economics / China Economy
By: Pravda
China actively took up the issue of attracting highly skilled professionals, scientists and managers to the country. Foreigners are offered attractive conditions, and observers are already talking of this trend as the "brain drain" into the PRC. China that does not shy away from learning from other countries intends to create the "Chinese dream".
Wednesday, October 03, 2012
China and Global Economic Recovery / Economics / China Economy
By: Ian_R_Campbell
Why read: To test the contemporaneous views I expressed four years ago, to observe similarities and differences then and now, and to determine if you agree with my current views.
Commentary then: On July 31, 2009 I commented as follows:
Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, September 30, 2012
China Painful Economic Rebalancing Act Ahead? / Economics / China Economy
By: Mike_Shedlock
HSBC China Manufacturing PMI™ shows Output falls at fastest pace since March .
Read full article... Read full article...Key points
New export orders fall at fastest rate in 42 months
Tuesday, September 04, 2012
Competing with China, the Real Answers are Never that Simple / Economics / China Economy
By: Money_Morning
Keith Fitz-Gerald writes:Q - The Chinese copy everything. Companies can't make money there, especially lately.
A - That's simply not true. Domestic Chinese companies have made plenty of money. So have foreign companies like McDonalds, ABB, Coke, and even GM, which have been fabulously successful there because they've taken the time to localize their products.
Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, July 15, 2012
China's End Game, the dark side of a great deleveraging / Economics / China Economy
By: Dee_Woo
1. The frustrated and aggressive central bank
If one wants to know how bad the health of China's economy has gone, look no further than PBOC's composure, which seems rather frustrated and aggressive as of late. On 5th July, the central bank cut benchmark interest rates for the 2nd time in less than a month. This happened right after the fact that in December 2011, PBOC cut the reserve requirement ratio(RRR) by a 50 bp to 21%, it followed up with another 50 bp in February and another 50 bp in May to 20% currently.
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Saturday, July 14, 2012
China Economic Growth Slows in 2012:Q2 / Economics / China Economy
By: Asha_Bangalore
Real GDP for China slowed to a 7.6% pace from a year ago in the second quarter compared with an 8.1% increase in the first quarter. The latest read on GDP growth in China is the slowest since the first quarter of 2009 not only on a year-to-year basis but also on a quarterly basis (See Chart 3), with the second quarter gain at 6.4%.
Tuesday, July 03, 2012
Unmasking China, the Asian Giant / Economics / China Economy
By: Frank_Holmes
Chinese operas have been keeping audiences enthralled for hundreds of years with mythical characters, enchanting stories and elaborate masks that add drama and mystery. While this fantastical treatment is appreciated in the theatre, it isn't in global markets. Investors don't like mystery--think of how uncertainty has spooked markets in recent years.
Global investors are rarely privy to every detail about the economy; that's why it's necessary to rely on multiple data and research to make decisions and be cautious of extreme views that unnecessarily arouse suspicion, skepticism, and criticism. These opinions may grab headlines, but rarely do they help investors' portfolios.
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Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Niall Ferguson: China, Turmoil and Triumph, a Flawed Understanding of China? / News_Letter / China Economy
By: NewsLetter
The Market Oracle NewsletterApril 2nd , 2012 Issue #4 Vol. 6
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Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Global Economic Growth, China Eases the Way / Economics / China Economy
By: Frank_Holmes
Following negative data last week, investors were clearly concerned about global growth and anxiously anticipated government actions. While Europe and the U.S. disappointed investors, China surprised on the upside by cutting interest rates. The market reacted positively, as the S&P 500 Index increased 3.7 percent.
It's clear the government's tone in China shifted this week with the rate cuts. The government appeared to be comfortable with slower growth, but that position seemed to change as the country took steps to avert a hard landing and cut interest rates to stabilize the economy.
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Tuesday, May 15, 2012
World Looking to China to Fire Up Its Economy / Companies / China Economy
By: Frank_Holmes
Following on the heels of renewed concern over Europe’s debt situation, China released its monthly economic data. Fixed asset investment, industrial production and retail sales all rose in April, yet growth was not as strong as analysts anticipated. “Weak” is the word to describe China’s April figures, says CLSA’s Andy Rothman in his Sinology Report.Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, May 11, 2012
China: Imports and Exports of Goods Post Disappointing Gains / Economics / China Economy
By: Asha_Bangalore
The trade surplus of China increased to $28.1 billion to $22.8 billion in April. However, the growth rate of exports and imports show a setback. Exports grew 4.9% from a year ago in April, down from an 8.9% pace in March. Exports of China rose nearly 21% in 2011 and moved up 14.3% in the fourth quarter of 2011 on a year-to-year basis.
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Thursday, May 10, 2012
Don’t Count China Economy Out / Economics / China Economy
By: Yiannis_G_Mostrous
Double-digit growth in the world’s second largest economy is officially over. China this month reported that gross domestic product (GDP) growth slowed to 8.1 percent a year in the first quarter of 2012, down from 8.9 percent in the previous quarter.Investors were disappointed, anticipating a milder drop to 8.4 percent. Much of the slowdown in China’s GDP stemmed from a drop in demand for its exports in key markets including the US and Europe.
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Tuesday, April 03, 2012
Three China Economic Trends to Watch for Global Investors / Economics / China Economy
By: Frank_Holmes
Bloomberg announced over the weekend that China’s manufacturing grew at the fastest pace in a year. We follow the government’s Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) closely, as we believe it is a better indicator of China’s domestic demand than the HSBC PMI. Whereas HSBC PMI surveys 400 small and mid-sized companies, which are typically export-oriented, the government’s PMI surveys 820 mostly large, state-owned enterprises across 20 industries. Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, March 22, 2012
China Shops While American Investors Drop / Economics / China Economy
By: Neeraj_Chaudhary
Unquestionably there has been a significant change in investor sentiment since the crash of 2008. The 50% decline in stock prices in 2008-2009 combined with the financial sector bailouts, the "Flash Crash" of 2010, and the continued demonization of our leading financial institutions, has helped shatter the public's faith in Wall Street. With U.S. stock markets essentially flat over the past 13 years (despite occasional heart-stopping volatility), many investors may have decided that long term equity investments are just no longer worth the risk.
Wednesday, March 07, 2012
Why Chinese Economy Won't Collapse, Premier Wen Real Story / Economics / China Economy
By: Money_Morning
Keith Fitz-Gerald writes:
According to Premier Wen Jiabao on Monday, China is only going to grow at 7.5% this year.
But this isn't the bombshell most Western analysts think it is-even though the markets sold off on the day and may continue their temper tantrum later this week.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, March 06, 2012
China: Wen Indicates a 7.5% GDP Growth Forecast for 2012 / Economics / China Economy
By: Asha_Bangalore
One of the major risks to the global economic outlook for 2012 has been the likelihood of hard landing in China. Much of this matter has been laid to rest with China’s premier Wen’s economic predictions at the opening of the National People’s Congress. Wen noted that Beijing projects economic growth of 7.5% for 2012 vs. the 8.0% forecast of 2011.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
China, Economy, Inflation, Investing and on Buying U.S. Debt / Economics / China Economy
By: Bloomberg
Bloomberg TV's Trish Regan spoke to Stephen Roach, non-executive chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, ahead of soon-to-be Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to the U.S. next week.
Roach said that he hoped U.S. political leaders would turn the visit "into an opportunity and not into a politically inspired, perceived threat." He also said that he foresees a "soft landing" of China's economy and that market access should be the main political issue with China, not currency.
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Thursday, February 09, 2012
China's Economic Rebalancing Should Be Good for Gold Demand / Economics / China Economy
By: Ben_Traynor
The next stage of China's development could give gold buyers a boost...
THERE IS an old saying: "Nobody rings a bell at the top or bottom of a market."
Having said that, anyone reading about the stampede for gold during last month's Chinese New Year celebrations might have heard a faint ringing in their ears.
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Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Heart of China Economic Bull Beats Strong, Stock Market Buying Opportunity / Economics / China Economy
By: Frank_Holmes
My debate last week with Gordon Chang on China's future at the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference was a stimulating, intellectual exercise. A healthy market needs a compromise between the bid and ask, and a discussion between people who strongly disagree is a great way to promote critical thinking.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Chinese Whispers about China's Economy / Economics / China Economy
By: Submissions
Jan Skoyles writes: Back in the 1980s any activity in the Chinese economy would have failed to interest anyone in the Western world. Back then they were only a seventh of the size of the US and their economic policies would have barely registered.
Since the 1980s China has seen an impressive transition from an emerging to an almost fully emerged economy. In just one generation’s time the Chinese economy will grow to $123 trillion – three times more than the entire world output of the year 2000. Robert Fogel predicts that by 2040 the Chinese economy will dwarf that of the US by growing to 3 times its size.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
It May Take a Chinese Dragon to Breathe Fire into Commodity Markets / Commodities / China Economy
By: Frank_Holmes
At the Cambridge House’s Vancouver Resource Investment Conference this week, I am part of a special debate on whether China will boom or bust with bestselling author Gordon G. Chang. The title of Chang’s book, The Coming Collapse of China, states his position quite clearly and I look forward to the intellectual challenge of convincing him otherwise.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
China Economic Growth Far From Hard Landing / Economics / China Economy
By: Bloomberg
Jim O'Neill, chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, spoke to Bloomberg Television's Erik Schatzker and Stephanie Ruhle about the Chinese economy and crisis in Europe.
O'Neill said that China's continued growth is "the most important thing in the world." On potential Greek default, he said that "China creates the equivalent of another new Greek economy every four months" and "Greece itself is not that important."
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Thursday, January 12, 2012
Tracking China’s Imports and Germany’s Exports / Economics / China Economy
By: Asha_Bangalore
Imports of China slowed to a 10.7% year-over-year growth in December 2011 (see Chart 1), the smallest increase since late-2009. Imports of China from Germany, the driver of economic growth in Europe, have posted a significant slowing, with the December increase amounting a paltry 4.2%, the smallest gain since October 2009. The broader implication of these trends is that not only is German business activity hit by a deceleration of imports of China but the intricate web of world trade has a wide reach and will translate into a setback in business conditions among other trading partners.
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Tuesday, January 10, 2012
The Making of China's Epic Economic Hard landing / Economics / China Economy
By: Dee_Woo
1. The unsavory episodes of China's economy
For the better part of the past year, my concern about Chinese economy was constantly aggravated by the depressing stories of entrepreneurs who committed suicide, fleeted the country or emigrate to the western world in droves. Most media have blamed the credit crunch and monetary tightening for all these unsavory episodes. The public outcry for the deteriorating conditions of Chinese entrepreneurship climaxed with the seemly positive step PBOC(the People's Bank of China) took on Dec 5 2011 to alleviate the liquidity crisis: cut the RRR (reserve requirement ratio) to 21 percent from a record high of 21.5 percent.
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Monday, January 09, 2012
China 2012: The Year of the Bull (Rogers) or the Bear (Chanos)? / Economics / China Economy
By: Janet_Tavakoli
When I think of a China bull and a China bear, I think of the legendary dueling Jims: Jim Rogers and Jim Chanos. In response to investors bearish on China, Jim Rogers famously said: “I find it interesting that people who couldn’t spell China 10 years ago are now experts.” Jim Chanos famously said that China’s real estate market is “Dubai times 1,000 — or worse.” He’s been saying that for over two years. Chanos points to a credit bubble, and says he’s early and sticking with his short positions. Rogers insists “China is not in a [credit] bubble,” rather it’s been in a price bubble in urban, coastal real estate, and to compare China to Dubai is a false analogy. Jim Rogers is bullish on China’s long term prospects: “China is going to have many serious problems along the way as it rises, but ‘Dubai 1000 times over’?!”
Wednesday, January 04, 2012
China Economy, Gold 2012 And Von Mises’ Crack-Up Boom / Economics / China Economy
By: Darryl_R_Schoon
The credit boom is built on the sands of banknotes and deposits. It must collapse… If the credit expansion is not stopped in time, the boom turns into the crack-up boom; the flight into real values begins, and the whole monetary system founders.
Ludwig von Mises, Human Action, 1949
I first attended the Canton Trade Fair in October 1976. All Chinese men and women were dressed in blue shirts and blue pants, bicycles were China’s main mode of transportation, Chairman Mao had just died and China’s mantra, “We will continue to support the policies of Chairman Mao Tse-Tung and criticize the policies of Deng Xiao-Ping”, was heard everywhere.
Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, December 31, 2011
China's Economic Future Deconstructed: Holmes vs. Chang / Economics / China Economy
By: The_Gold_Report
China has become the $5.88 trillion question in the world financial equation for 2012. In an attempt to gauge the direction of this economic elephant, Cambridge House International is asking two China experts to debate the health of the second-largest economy at the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference January 22. We called the two speakers for a preview of the tactics they will take in this epic debate.
Monday, December 26, 2011
A Few Chinese Bad News Bears To Spoil A Happy New Year / Economics / China Economy
By: EconMatters
Goldman's Jim O'Neill noted in a recent interview that the world's future prosperity depends on China's growth. While we don't totally agree with that assessment as we see China as one of the many contributory factors towards world's future, there are some recent bad news bears coming out of China that could spell troubles for markets, at least in 2012.Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
China’s Stimulus Talk And Buying Silver On The Copper Dip / Economics / China Economy
By: Dr_Jeff_Lewis
All eyes are now on China as a source for consumer strength in the developed world. Customs data released on December 10 tells a concerning story - China's overseas shipments are growing, but at their slowest pace since 2009.
In November, China recorded 13.8% growth in overseas shipments from the year-ago period. However, Chinese trade balances are beginning to turn decidedly toward an imbalance. The balance numbers recorded a 35% plunge in China's trade surplus, enough to worry investors that European consumption is dropping dramatically in light of a debt crisis.
Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, December 17, 2011
China Economy May Drag World Down / Economics / China Economy
By: Barry_Elias
My column of June 24, 2011 ("China Yield Inversion May Portend Economic Slowdown") opened with the following sentence:
“The yield on Chinese bonds are inverting at an accelerating rate. This does not portend well for the Chinese economy, and this may have negative implications globally.”
China’s contribution to global economic growth this year is nearly 40%.
Tuesday, December 06, 2011
Timing China's Financial Meltdown and Housing Market Crash / Stock-Markets / China Economy
By: Janet_Tavakoli
At an October seminar of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs (CCGA), carnival economist Niall Ferguson promoted his new book, Civilization: The West and the Rest. He revealed the blindingly obvious as if it were a divine revelation: the U.S. has serious problems. He preached that the U.S. corrupted its six Ferguson-defined "killer apps": competition, science, rule of law, medicine, the consumer society, and a strong work ethic. Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, December 05, 2011
Marc Faber Warns China Economy Heading for a Major Slowdown / Economics / China Economy
By: Videos
Marc Faber's big China short. Forget Europe, says Faber, it's China that's in for a major slowdown, with a relatively short appearance on CNBC's Simon Hobbs and the Money In Motion traders.
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, December 01, 2011
China Returns to Economic Growth Mode with Major Policy Shift / Economics / China Economy
By: Money_Morning
Kerri Shannon writes:
The damaging global economic effects that Europe's unfolding debt crisis pose have caused a sharp reversal in China's monetary policy - one that will lead to a greater expansion of the Red Dragon's economy.
The People's Bank of China announced yesterday (Wednesday) that it would lower the percentage of deposits commercial banks must hold in reserve by 50 basis points, effective Dec. 5.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
With Rising Wages, Will China Remain a Manufacturing Hub? / Economics / China Economy
By: Frank_Holmes
Earlier this month, I spent a few days at the CLSA AsiaUSA Forum in San Francisco, which offered a geopolitical and economic intellectual feast for global investors. The research firm gathered a well-rounded cast of engaging speakers that included Republican Presidential candidate Herman Cain, Hall of Fame quarterback Steve Young, Pollster extraordinaire Frank Luntz and renowned physicist Dr. Michio Kaku. Here's a photo I snapped during a Q&A session with former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney.
Thursday, November 24, 2011
China Economy Will Collapse By The End Of 2011 / Economics / China Economy
By: Submissions
WealthCycles writes: Casey Research Host: Your original estimate for the collapse of China was by 2011… do you think (that was) relatively close?
Gordon Chang: I think it is very close when you see what is going on right now. -Gordon Chang, Forbes.com
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Jim Chanos on Chinese Economy and If He Will Cover His Short Positions / Economics / China Economy
By: Bloomberg
Billionaire short seller Jim Chanos, founder of hedge fund Kynikos Associates Ltd., spoke to Bloomberg TV's Betty Liu this morning about China's banking system and outlook for the Chinese economy and real estate market.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Rising Wages in China Good for Glocals, But Few Jobs Coming Back / Economics / China Economy
By: Money_Morning
David Zeiler writes:
Although some economists have predicted that steeply rising wages in China would bring some jobs back to the United States, the biggest winners will be the large multinational companies operating in China.
Last week the Guangdong province, where many of China's factories are concentrated, announced a 20% increase to the minimum wage. Combined with two earlier hikes in April and July, the total increase over the past 10 months is a startling 42%.
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Capitalism and China, Amazing Chaos / Economics / China Economy
By: LewRockwell
Skip Cook writes: It is seven-thirty on a Sunday night. I have just completed the last leg of my trip home from Guilin, China. As I travel across the Arkansas River bridge from the Little Rock airport, headed for the bedroom community of Maumelle, where I live, I notice something conspicuously absent from my drive: Horns; nobody is honking! In China, both in Shanghai and in the smaller city of Guilin, every vehicle has a horn. Every driver is damn proud of their possession and uses it liberally. In fact, I am convinced it is likely the first mechanical device on their vehicle which will wear out.
Tuesday, November 01, 2011
How China Drives the Global Economy / Economics / China Economy
By: Frank_Holmes
Unless investors get spooked today during Halloween trading, the S&P 500 Index will post its second-best month since the post-World War II era, according to a report published by GaveKal Research. The last time markets rallied so strongly, Gerald Ford had recently moved into the White House and Muhammad Ali "rumbled in the jungle" with George Foreman.
Friday, October 28, 2011
China Housing Market Crash, Shanghai Homeowners Smash Showroom in Protest of Falling Prices / Housing-Market / China Economy
By: Mike_Shedlock
The property bubble in China has finally burst. Denial has turned to anger as Shanghai Homeowners Smash Showroom in Protest Over Falling Prices
Read full article... Read full article...A group of around 400 homeowners in Shanghai demonstrated publicly and damaged a showroom operated by their property developer after the company said it cut prices. Home buyers had wanted to speak with the developer to refund or cancel their contracts but were unsuccessful, according to local media. One report said the price cuts exceeded 25% per square meter.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
China Continuing Economic Boom or Bursting Bubble? / Economics / China Economy
By: Casey_Research
In a recent article, How China Ate America’s Lunch, Clif Carothers described what China has accomplished in the last thirty years:
In thirty short years, China was able to accelerate her GDP from $216 billion to $6 trillion. She amassed reserve capital of $3 trillion. She reversed America’s fortunes from the greatest creditor nation to the greatest debtor nation. She gutted America’s factories while creating the world’s largest manufacturing base in her own country. A measure of output that highly correlates to GDP is energy consumption. In June of this year, 2011, China surpassed the United States as the largest consumer of energy on the planet. While the US consumes 19% of the world’s energy, China consumes 20.3%.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, October 10, 2011
China Economy Going Bust: Tic Toc / Economics / China Economy
By: Kel_Kelly
China is in the process of allowing its currency to rise. The reason for this is to address the worsening inflation rates in the country. Allowing the yuan to rise will indeed stop, or slow, inflation, but the way this fix works is not the way that is usually assumed. Neither will the effects of this policy be what most observers assume, i.e., just milder inflation. Instead, it will be an outright economic bust.
Tuesday, October 04, 2011
The China Economic Model Is Unsustainable, Just a Redder Version of Keynesianism / Economics / China Economy
By: Douglas_French
While the pols in Europe endlessly consider how they will paper over their financial crisis, "ring fence" Greece and the other PIIGS pass austerity programs, and still get reelected, some speculate that perhaps China will step forward to bail out the eurozone.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
More Signs China Is Going Bust / Economics / China Economy
By: Justice_Litle
While the world fixates on Europe, signs of a China crash are mounting behind the scenes.
Imagine you run a business with 3,000 employees. Your factories churn out 20 million pairs of sunglasses per year -- the best-selling brand in China. You are a celebrated businessman in your region, with expanded interests in real estate and solar energy.
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Marc Faber Sectors of China's Economy May Crash / Economics / China Economy
By: Videos
A Chinese economic slowdown is on the horizon, says Marc Faber, with property prices in some cities facing significant decreases.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
China's Economic Growth Won't Last; Chanos on Chinese Property Bubble and Growth / Economics / China Economy
By: Mike_Shedlock
Fund manager Jim Chanos spoke to Bloomberg TV’s Carol Massar about China's economy, debt and real estate market.
Chanos said that growth in China may be zero and that China has “European kind of numbers” when it comes to debt.
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Global Imperatives of a Chinese Exporter / Economics / China Economy
By: Ashvin_Pandurangi
Here are the two simple "equations" that all of the incessant rumor-inspired momentum chasers, equity bulls, peripheral EU bond bulls and relentless predictors of an imminent global Asia-backed bailout would do well to memorize:
1) Export Economy = Relatively Weak Currency
2) Chinese Economy = Export Economy
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
China's Biggest Bubble Warning Ever / Economics / China Economy
By: Justice_Litle
When the Japan bubble peaked in the late 1980s, there were major warning signs. The same is happening in China too...
It's the biggest and clearest sign yet: China is a giant bubble waiting to burst.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, September 12, 2011
China Economic Growth Fears Much Ado About Nothing / Economics / China Economy
By: Frank_Holmes
Markets in Hong Kong, Vietnam, Taiwan and Korea are closed this week as people across Asia celebrate Moon Festival, one of the culture’s most beloved holidays along with Chinese New Year. Moon Festival’s origins center around a husband (Houyi) and wife (Chang’e), who were sentenced to live eternally separated on the sun and the moon.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
China's Debt Problems Rival the West / Interest-Rates / China Economy
By: Justice_Litle
Though the focus has been on the U.S. and Europe, China too has debt problems to contend with.
"If you look at the accounting, I don't see how anyone could put a penny there."
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
China Economic Marvel Continues / Economics / China Economy
By: Jenson
China declared the second quarter performance. The summary data points are presented in charts. The impression continues to be that China has maintained its high growth and there are no indications of a crash landing.
Monday, July 11, 2011
Will China Economy Boom Turn into Doom? / Economics / China Economy
By: Jenson
As china chugs along non stop, it may just be that time of the year where we wait and introspect on the great juggernaut. Does the data point to any chinks in the armor? Do we see the economy crash landing with all the hikes priced in? Some of these questions will be answered as we bring some charts on the Chinese economy. Some charts have June 2011 as a data point while others only map till May 2011. As the data is released, we will update all charts to June 2011.Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, July 08, 2011
The China Debt $1.5 trillion, Is there a problem? / Interest-Rates / China Economy
By: James_Loong
It is a mystery. US analysts and rating agencies are increasingly worried about Chinese debt problem. But try and hunt as much as we do, we cant find a rationale for this.
Tuesday, July 05, 2011
The Chinese Black Swan / Economics / China Economy
By: Vitaliy_Katsenelson
Party rulers in China are trapped in a position that chess players deeply fear — zugzwang — where any move made puts you at disadvantage. In China, the potential cost of both action and inaction is economic collapse.
Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Chinese Economy Sputtering, Where Did the Trade Surplus Go? / Economics / China Economy
By: Washingtons_Blog
It was tempting to believe that China was different. With its command and control economy with some of the trappings of free market capitalism, trillions in reserves, and abundant natural resources, many thought that China would "decouple" from the Western world's problems and sail into a prosperous future. However, despite its long history, exotic names and seemingly strong position, China cannot avoid the rules of economics which have applied to all countries throughout history.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Dr. Copper and the Chinese Housing Market Bubble / Housing-Market / China Economy
By: Submissions
The mighty Dr. Copper; the only metal has a suffix attached to his name, for his accuracy predating equity prices for years. In the past 30 months or so, copper had a fantastic performance, almost quadrupled its price from December 2008 lows. But recently, this is becoming more of a story about emerging market infrastructure spree than acclaimed shortages.
Saturday, June 04, 2011
Railway Revolution Builds China’s Consumer Culture / Economics / China Economy
By: Frank_Holmes
Frequent readers of my “Frank Talk” blog and the weekly Investor Alert should be familiar with the story of China’s high speed rails. We’ve previously discussed how China is building the world’s largest network of high speed rails at an incredible speed.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Jim Chanos isn't Bearish Enough on China Housing Market / Housing-Market / China Economy
By: Bloomberg
Legendary short seller Jim Chanos of Kynikos Associates appeared on Bloomberg Television this afternoon with Carol Massar and Matt Miller. Chanos said that his "dramatic" bet against Chinese real estate may not be bearish enough and that "the bubble is really on the other side of the world."
Thursday, May 05, 2011
China's Economy Continues to Ascend But Watch Out for Speed Bumps, Investment Plays / Economics / China Economy
By: Money_Morning
Jason Simpkins writes:
Everyone knows that China's economy is hot. The only question is whether it may be a little too hot.
China posted yet another quarter of stellar economic growth in the first quarter of 2011, with its gross domestic product (GDP) growing 9.7%. However, analysts are worried about some of the side effects that have accompanied that growth- namely soaring inflation and the emergence of speculative bubbles.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Will China’s Economy Overheat? / Economics / China Economy
By: Frank_Holmes
China’s GDP growth continued at a blistering pace during the first quarter of 2011, rising 9.7 percent from the previous year, according to economic data released today from the People’s Bank of China. Once again this outpaced many forecasts—even that of the Chinese government—and reignited the discussion of China’s overheating economy. While its robust growth may raise a few eyebrows, the economy isn’t in danger of “red-lining.”
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Fitch Warns on China as Housing Market Crashes 26% in One Month / Housing-Market / China Economy
By: PhilStockWorld
The futures are bouncing!
Why are they bouncing? Why not? We went down and people love to buy those dips and that means they are just going to love this chart, courtesy of Barry Ritholtz's team. We don't get our next Case-Shiller data point until the 26th but we did get mortgage applications this week and they are down ANOTHER 6.7%. This is despite the fact that an average 30-year mortgage is still just 4.98%.
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, April 01, 2011
China's Highway System Growth Paves the Way to a Stronger Economy / Economics / China Economy
By: Money_Morning
Kerri Shannon writes:
What some have called "the worst traffic jam in human history" happened on the Beijing-Tibet Highway in August 2010. It trapped some drivers for more than 20 days and stretched more than 60 miles (97 kilometers).
The mess was so severe that local residents turned into vendors and profited from selling water, noodles and nuts to stalled travelers.
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
China Ready to Pull the World Economy Out of the Doldrums? / Economics / China Economy
By: ECR_Research
Renate van Ginderen writes:
The role of China’s 12th Five-Year Plan
China’s twelfth Five-Year plan promises reform in all key areas of the economy. The plan will have to guide China between 2011 and 2016 towards a more sustainable, balanced, stable, and coordinated growth model. However, the problem is that it actually does not differ much from the eleventh Five-Year plan announced in 2006, whereas that plan did only do so much. The new real annual growth target is reduced from 7,5% to ‘just’ 7%: enormous in Western terms, but drastically lower than the 9,3% attained in 2010. So will this drag the economy down? Probably not. The growth target for the 11th Five-Year Plan has been overshoot largely. It is much more likely the central government will not really succeed in redirecting its economy, as will be discussed below.
Friday, March 11, 2011
As China grows bigger, implicit risk for commodities goes up / Commodities / China Economy
By: Submissions
Jan Kaska writes: This may sound counterintuitive, but we believe that as China grows bigger, it poses the biggest risk to commodities. No doubt, over the long term, commodities should remain structurally well bid as emerging Asia and developing countries will continuously have to tackle the infrastructure gaps. For example, countries like India and Indonesia have a lot of catch-up to do. Or recall Africa, where the Chinese have to build roads and ports first in order to obtain access to untapped reserves of valuable minerals. And China itself is not done with infrastructure in its homeland by any means as the Western provinces are still stuck deep in poverty.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
China Housing Market Bubble Bust Could be Dubai X1000 / Housing-Market / China Economy
By: MISES
It's an eerily familiar story. Shortly before the American housing bubble burst, pundits across the globe argued that the world had reached a new plateau of economic growth, where the old rules of economics no longer applied — "this time it's different." The same has been said about the current boom in China, specifically with regards to its large degree of top-down state control over the economy, which somehow enables it to ignore the laws of economics.
Thursday, March 03, 2011
What If The China Bubble Bursts / Economics / China Economy
By: Dian_L_Chu
Russ Winter writes: “If the situation does not improve, we’ll definitely want to quit (production). The sun is setting on the Christmas product industry (in China) right now.” — Owner of arts and craft factory in Shantou
Tuesday, March 01, 2011
China's Five-Year Economic Plan Calls For Slower Growth / Economics / China Economy
By: Money_Morning
Don Miller writes:
China will take steps to cool off its red-hot economy in the next five years largely by increasing domestic consumption and de-emphasizing exports, Premier Wen Jiabao announced in an online chat with the country's citizens on Sunday.
Wen, China's leading economic official, said the government's official target for average gross domestic product (GDP) growth over the next five years will be reduced to 7% annually, down from a target of 7.5% in the past half decade.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, February 28, 2011
Timing the China Property Crash / Housing-Market / China Economy
By: Mike_Shedlock
Inquiring minds are investigating Analysis of the Chinese Property Bubble by Huw McKay, Senior International Economist, for Westpac Bank.
Friday, February 25, 2011
China Risks and Investor Opportunities / Stock-Markets / China Economy
By: Puru_Saxena
Opinion is currently divided on the world’s second largest economy.
On one hand of the spectrum, the bears believe that China is a train-wreck and that its economic growth is unsustainable. These sceptics love to highlight the property bubble in China and they never miss the opportunity to mention the fact that fixed asset investment accounts for a disproportionately large chunk of the Chinese economy. According to the bearish camp, China’s economy is not real; rather, its breakneck economic growth is centrally planned by Beijing. Furthermore, the bears argue that China’s vast foreign exchange reserves are meaningless and that they will be used up in dealing with the aftermath of the Chinese real estate bust.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Chinese Workers Surplus Value Makes China A World Economic Power / Economics / China Economy
By: Submissions
Prof. (Dr.) Raju M. Mathew writes: Karl Max, when developed the Theory of Surplus Value, might have never imagined that by using Communism, China would put the same Theory of Surplus Value in to practice more effectively than the Capitalists. Marx believed that the very basis of capital was keeping the workers at subsistence level and making them work at full capacity and taking away their surplus value.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, February 07, 2011
China a Trade Growth Machine Investors Ignore at their Own Risk / Economics / China Economy
By: Justin_John
There are very few macro points in the world that needs to be understood and analysed more than the story of the dragon and its kids. Infact for a generation to come, we may be telling the story of the great dragon which breathed fire and consumed the eagle in the sky. What happens to the dragon after that is the plot where almost everyone has a different ending.
Tuesday, February 01, 2011
Could China Be Forced To Bring A New Global Recession by 2015? / Economics / China Economy
By: Dian_L_Chu
Bloomberg on Sunday, Jan. 30 cited a 28-page report--The Financial Crisis of 2015: An Avoidable History (pdf file below)--by Barrie Wilkinson, a London-based partner at consulting firm Oliver Wyman.
The report describes a scenario--spanned 2013 to 2015--when Western QE-induced inflation brings down China, creating a debt crisis in the commodity sector--inclusive of resource-dependent countries as well as commodity producers--which eventually plunge the world into another recession, and a new world order by 2015.
Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, January 23, 2011
China Boom or Bust? / Economics / China Economy
By: Bryan_Rich
As China’s economy has continued to put up stellar economic growth in the midst of one of the worst global economic crises on record, it’s widely believed that China will lead the world out of its downturn and soon rise to global economic dominance.
So it’s no surprise that there was a lot of attention given to Chinese President Hu Jintao’s visit to Washington this week.
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, January 21, 2011
China Monetary Policy: Inflation Won't Last – Growth Will / Economics / China Economy
By: Money_Morning
Jason Simpkins writes:
Investors yesterday (Thursday) were rattled by fears that China's economy is overheating after it was revealed that the country's gross domestic product (GDP) expanded by 10.3% in 2010.
However, the policy changes that will come as a result of the data ultimately will benefit both China and the United States.
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, January 05, 2011
China Economic Outlook 2011, The Red Dragon Takes Its Next Step Forward / Economics / China Economy
By: Money_Morning
Jason Simpkins writes:
If the United States has a growth problem, China has just the opposite. The world's second-largest economy is set to grow 9-10% this year, building on its strong rebound from the global financial crisis.
Furthermore, Beijing is determined to accelerate China's transition toward a more domestically based economy, while stabilizing prices and cutting government waste.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, January 03, 2011
China’s Economy Is Being Pulled in All Directions / Economics / China Economy
By: Barry_Elias
I recently suggested it was possible to have high unemployment and inflation at the same time. Zimbabwe experienced unemployment above 90 percent while hyperinflation took over.
The basis for this is rather simple: demand for basic necessities, such as water and food, remain relatively constant irrespective of income.
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Monetary Tightening Threatens China’s Economic Prospects / Economics / China Economy
By: Claus_Vogt
China’s role on the global stage has grown tremendously during the past several years. And there are valid reasons to believe this trend will continue. But it will not go as smoothly as many pundits assume …
On Christmas Day, Beijing raised the benchmark deposit and lending rates by 25 basis points (bps) to 2.75 percent and 5.81 percent respectively. This is the second step in the current tightening cycle, following the first surprise 25 bps hike on October 19.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, December 27, 2010
China Hikes Interest Rates on High Inflation, Risks Hard Economic Landing in 2011 / Economics / China Economy
By: Mike_Shedlock
Inflation is running at a reported 5.1% in China, a figure most believe is on the low side. Nonetheless, China has been loath to hike rates out of fear of more "hot money" flowing in. Something had to give, and it did. The markets forced China's hand.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
China Outlook 2011 and the Next Decade, Is the Smart Money Right? / Economics / China Economy
By: Dian_L_Chu
China has been ranked as the top growing country among the G20 since 2001 and is expected to retain that title for at least another five years (See Growth Chart). However, the news coming out of China for the past three months has not been good. It is looking more and more that it is not a question of if China is a bubble and going to burst, but when.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Commodity Super Cycle Ripples into China / Economics / China Economy
By: Gary_Dorsch
Exactly two-years ago, - the world’s commodity and stock markets were caught in the grips of a death spiral. As revelations of the extreme magnitude of the sub-prime mortgage debt crisis began to surface, banks began cutting off funding to companies and other borrowers, despite efforts by governments and central banks to unlock jammed credit markets. Global cross-border lending by banks shrank $5-trillion in the last nine months of 2008, the sharpest fall ever recorded.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Chanos Expects to Cash in on His China Shorts During 2011 / Economics / China Economy
By: David_Haas
Here’s a recent interview with Jim Chanos on the critical state of the Chinese economic picture. Chanos typically makes his money short-selling overpriced markets and he’s “all over” China like stink on a pig; has been for well over a year.
Chanos believes 2011 will be his big year to begin cashing in on his China shorts. Here’s his reasoning:
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, December 13, 2010
China’s Relentless Advance Continues! / Politics / China Economy
By: Sy_Harding
Wars between major countries are no longer fought on the high seas, or on land with vast armies, but in board rooms and markets. It’s now economic warfare that threatens to alter the global landscape, enriching the winners and creating hardship for losers.
It’s no longer about which country has the largest navy or nuclear arsenal. It’s about which country can win the economic battles.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Fed QE2 Creates Rapidly Accelerating China Housing Bubbles and Price Inflation / Economics / China Economy
By: Jeb_Handwerger
After QE2, analysts were looking for possible consequences of the Federal Reserve Bank’s actions. What has become apparent is that the Fed has created another bubble in China. Investors globally have transferred devalued U.S. dollars and Euros to buy Chinese property and equities. China has had to combat imported inflation with rapidly rising asset prices. An influx of capital has caused a real estate bubble, a rise in costs of basic goods and excessive speculation in the commodity markets. The Chinese Central Banks will be observing the inflation data which should be coming out this weekend and will be compelled to act aggressively to prevent China from a bust similar to the housing crisis which occurred in the United States in 2007. Yesterday’s IPO’s showed that irrational exuberance is here once again, none since I have witnessed since the late 90’s.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
China Continuing Pointers to Strong Economic Growth For 2011 / Economics / China Economy
By: Money_Morning
Keith Fitz-Gerald writes:
BEIJING, People's Republic of China – While other investors are busy rounding up all sorts of economic data, tea leaves and fortune cookies in an attempt to figure out China's economic situation next year, I'm heading out the door once again to take a look at hairy crab prices.
Because of the timing of this trip, I'm a bit late in the season – but not enough that I won't be able to get a good reading on this surprisingly accurate indicator of China's economic health.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, November 09, 2010
How to Profit from China's Consumer Boom Throttling Up GDP Growth / Economics / China Economy
By: Money_Morning
Keith Fitz-Gerald writes: BEIJING, People's Republic of China – There's something inherently satisfying about waking up on a clear, crisp fall day in this bustling capital city, and seeing this headline atop the lead story in this morning's China Daily newspaper:
"World Bank Sees Change in Growth Pattern"
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
China Economic Growth and Technological Development Milestones, Investment Opportunities / Economics / China Economy
By: Tony_Sagami
China impresses me every time I visit. The skyline is dotted with new skyscrapers that didn’t exist a year ago, gorgeous, modern, sleek bridges that belong on the cover on an engineering magazine are everywhere, new freeways have seemingly popped out of nowhere, and the hustle and bustle of construction dominates your senses.
Monday, November 01, 2010
Why China’s Economic Growth is More Bark Than Bite / Economics / China Economy
By: Investment_U
Carl Delfeld writes: Is the great Chinese locomotive destined to run off the rails?
It is, according to renowned short-seller, Jim Chanos.
Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, October 30, 2010
China's Creative Accounting, Using Debt as an Instrument of Economic Growth / Economics / China Economy
By: Ellen_Brown
China may be as heavily in debt as we are. It just has a different way of keeping its books -- which makes a high-profile political ad sponsored by Citizens Against Government Waste, a fiscally conservative think tank, particularly ironic. Set in a lecture hall in China in 2030, the controversial ad shows a Chinese professor lecturing on the fall of empires: Greece, Rome, Great Britain, the United States . . . .
Friday, October 29, 2010
China's Massive Monetary Expansion and Crackup Boom / Economics / China Economy
By: Mike_Shedlock
China is pointing the finger at the US, complaining about "Out of Control" US dollar Printing by the Fed.
Read full article... Read full article...Dollar issuance by the United States is "out of control", leading to an inflation assault on China, the Chinese commerce minister said in comments reported on Tuesday.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
China Interest Rate Hike, Once Is Never Enough / Interest-Rates / China Economy
By: James_Pressler
In a move that caught international markets flatfooted, this morning the People's Bank of China (PBoC) tightened two key interest rates by 25 basis points, its first rate hike since December 2007. Few analysts expected a rate hike any time before Q1 2011, so such a sudden hike - that lacked any accompanying discussion or explanation - triggered a wave of uncertainty as everyone scrambled to explain the move. So, along with the mob, we offer our own interpretation of today's events.
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, October 14, 2010
China Casts Shadow Over Asia, Flawed Conventional Wisdom on the Chinese Economy / Economics / China Economy
By: Vitaliy_Katsenelson
The summer is over in Denver. Of course, in Denver the summer was officially over Labor Day weekend, when the outdoor swimming pools were drained and locked for the winter. For most people summer ended a few weeks later, when the leaves turned bright yellow. But not me, I wanted to hang on to this summer for as long as I could; I really did not want it to go. But my illusions were finally shattered a few days ago by rain, chilly winds, and almost-bare trees. My deliberate (though mostly harmless) failure to recognize the obvious is similar to an investor hanging on to the illusion that Quantitative Easing, the Sequel will change the fundamentals of the economy. It won’t, it will just entrap us in more debt and low interest rates. But that is a subject for a different time.
Friday, October 08, 2010
Russia Fears China's Growing Economic Power / Politics / China Economy
By: Pravda
China takes the first place in the world in terms of economic growth. However, analysts say this trend is caused by injections of cheap financing to stimulate the economy of this country. Collapse of the "China bubble" brings a threat of the collapse of commodity prices. This is an extremely adverse impact, particularly for Russia.
Tuesday, October 05, 2010
Chinese Factory Workers Fast and Efficient Beyond Beijings Yuan Policy / Economics / China Economy
By: Dian_L_Chu
This video, courtesy of China Hush, illustrates one reason why factory jobs worldwide have shifted to China. Chinese workers have a lot more to contend with than just Beijing's yuan policy. Washington and many experts' belief that a totally floating yuan would bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. woudl most likely prove to be an over-simplistic view bound to fail.
Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, October 03, 2010
China’s Syndrome, Housing Bubble Perpetual Economic Engine Prompts Demolishing New Buildings / Housing-Market / China Economy
By: PhilStockWorld
Interesting story there [at Zero Hedge]. China has created a monster for itself that has already begun to turn on its master, and will one day devour it. The basic premise of economic growth in China is unsustainable. The government is trying various ways of forcing other economies to import more Chinese goods. But the saturation point has pretty much already been met. Now they are trying more artificial ways to stimulate foreign consumption, e.g. via currency manipulations.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, September 13, 2010
China Economy Booms as Farmers Get Access to Credit / Economics / China Economy
By: Shae_Smith
The second stage to the booming Chinese economy is about to begin.And many of the country's farmers, with little more than shacks and eight kids to feed are going to be the driving force behind it.
Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, September 12, 2010
China’s Housing Bull Market Built on $15 Trillion In Home Equity / Housing-Market / China Economy
By: Mario_Cavolo
Current United States home mortgage debt: $15 trillion. Current China home equity: $15 trillion. Mortgage debt on those homes? Zero. It is easy to suggest that this insight, which reveals a $30 trillion spread between U.S. home mortgage debt and Chinese home equity, better enables us to grasp the underlying forces impacting the economic power shift we are seeing from West to East. While it might be in vogue these days to criticize the United States for being built on a mountain of debt, I’d rather not. Let’s first take a moment to remember the positive effect the world over which the judicious and reasonable use of debt has had over the past 50 years.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, September 07, 2010
China’s Developing Economic System / Economics / China Economy
By: Frank_Holmes
“Global” is part of our company name, and we take it seriously. This week two members of our investment team are in Hong Kong for a CLSA conference, another is just back from China, a fourth will be there later this month and I’ve spent a fair bit of time in Colombia in recent months.
Sunday, September 05, 2010
The Great Traffic Jam of China, Transport Crisis and Investment Opportunity / Economics / China Economy
By: Dian_L_Chu
Well, it is official now - in addition to the Great Wall, the Great Traffic Jam started on Aug. 14--60 miles and ten-day long on an "expressway" into Beijing from Inner Mongolia (see map)--has earned the capital of China the top spot among the cities with the world's worst traffic…, at least according to Foreign Policy.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
China Gerts Worlds Largest Traffic Jam, Just a Brief Bottleneck on the Road to Growth / Economics / China Economy
By: Money_Morning
Don Miller writes: Besides recently being crowned the world's second-largest economy, China now has the dubious distinction of spawning the world's longest traffic jam. And it's all directly attributable to China's voracious appetite for energy and automobiles.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
China Is Winning the Economic War! / Economics / China Economy
By: Sy_Harding
During the ‘cold war’, a term used to describe the tension between communist and capitalist countries, which lasted from 1947 to 1991, one of the fears was a military conflict between Russia or China and the U.S.
It didn’t happen. The potential of a military war instead morphed into an economic war.
Monday, August 09, 2010
Straddling 3D Super Bus for a Greener China / Economics / China Economy
By: Dian_L_Chu
With its rapidly growing rural-to-urban population, China is in the midst of a massive transportation infrastructure upgrade in order to maintain the country's economic growth and development.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, August 09, 2010
Chinese Real Estate The Mother Of All Bubbles / Housing-Market / China Economy
By: James_Quinn
In the latest issue of The Casey Report Bud Conrad does a fantastic job analyzing the truth about Asia. Japan is a ticking demographic time bomb. The Chinese government has created the mother of all bubbles and when it pops, it will be felt around the world. The China miracle is not really a miracle. It is a debt financed bubble. Sound familiar?
Wednesday, August 04, 2010
BubbleOmics 101: China Does Not Have a Residential Property Bubble / Housing-Market / China Economy
By: Andrew_Butter
Bubbleomics 101:
1: Fundamental Price = Demand divided by Supply (Adam Smith)
2: If not – sorry folks…the market’s not working properly (Albert Eintein?)
Monday, August 02, 2010
China Leapfrogs Japan To Become World’s No. 2 Economy / Economics / China Economy
By: Money_Morning
Kerri Shannon writes:
As the old Avis rental car slogan used to say: "When you're No. 2, you try harder."
With the growth rates that its economy has turned in the past few years, no economist could ever accuse China's leader of not trying hard. China now claims to have jumped over Japan to take over the No. 2 spot in the world economic pecking order.
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
China Has a Painful Debt Bubble Surprise for the Global Economy / Economics / China Economy
By: Claus_Vogt
China implemented one of the world’s most aggressive economic stimulus programs to fight the recession of 2008. And the country went on something akin to a debt binge.
Credit growth surged as much 50 percent — an unprecedented peak. Such a policy can jump start an economy. But it lays the groundwork for imbalances and major bubbles.
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, July 08, 2010
In the Shadow of the Dragon / Economics / China Economy
By: Peter_Schiff
John Downs writes: Although China is not the biggest economy in the world by GDP, (it is third, after growing a remarkable 8.7 percent last year), its exports are increasingly seen as the needed lifeline for many shaky economies. But as China plots its future as the world's largest exporter, it must be of some concern to them that their top two clients (the US and EU) are broke. As a result, China knows that it will have to look beyond developed markets for continued growth. Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Will China Housing Market Follow the U.S. In a Mortgage Bust? / Housing-Market / China Economy
By: Hans_Wagner
As the second largest global economy and one that is growing in the high single digits to low double digits, how China goes so goes the global recovery. A property boom is helping to fuel the Chinese economy. Some analysts claim many new Chinese property owners are encouraged to take out mortgages to buy a home that they can ill afford. Sound familiar? Is China following the U.S.’s example, issuing mortgages that they can cover? If this is true it will bring down the rapid growth of China and the rest of the world suffer. After all China is the economic engine for the global growth story.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
China's Housing Boom a Bubble or Not? / Housing-Market / China Economy
By: Mike_Shedlock
Stephen Roach does not seem to understand what a bubble is. He makes the same arguments in dismissing China's property bubble that we heard in the US, regarding "solid demand".
Monday, June 14, 2010
Can China Save the World Economy? / Economics / China Economy
By: Graham_Summers
Nope. No chance.
For starters, let’s look at the basic numbers. China’s GDP is now $4.3 trillion, making it the fourth largest economy in the world. However, there’s a HUGE drop off from the first two economies (Europe $16.4 trillion and the US $14.2 trillion) to the third and fourth (Japan $5.0 trillion and China $4.3 trillion).
Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, May 29, 2010
China – The Next Economic Ill-Wind? / Economics / China Economy
By: Sy_Harding
It’s been one world economically, a global village, for years now.
The competition between major countries is no longer fought on the high seas, or on land with vast armies, but in board rooms and markets. That China is a communist country politically is no longer a concern. The competition is economic, for instance whether China’s semi-capitalistic economy, having already surpassed France and Germany, will soon surpass Japan to become the world’s second largest economy behind the U.S.
Monday, May 17, 2010
China Property Bubble Popping, Home Sales Down 50% In a Month / Housing-Market / China Economy
By: Mac_Slavo
China has been the investment darling for the last couple of years. As US economic woes continued to mount and the EU ran into debt problems, many an analyst continued to talk about China as if it had decoupled from the rest of the world.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Max Keiser Report: Can China Save Western Economies From Collapse? / Economics / China Economy
By: Submissions
This week Max Keiser and co-host Stacy Herbert look at whether or not, as Western economies collapse under the weight of all their debt, China can save the world economy. In the second half of the show, Max interviews Paul Midler, author of "Poorly Made in China", about China's $300 billion rail projects; how restricting liquidity in a command and control economy actually accentuates misallocation of resources; and about having to hire lawyers to find out what is in his shampoo.
Friday, May 07, 2010
Will China's Bubble Implode and Bring the U.S. Down with It? / Economics / China Economy
By: The_Gold_Report
It's the world's biggest and fastest-growing economic powerhouse, the subject of countless daily discussions and conjectures in the news media and an endless source of controversy, fear and confusion among investors, businessmen, politicians, bankers and bureaucrats. For those who follow the global economic outlook, it's probably the single-most important focus in trying to solve the global financial crisis. And answers to the questions surrounding this country's near-term future will undoubtedly have a momentous impact on your own financial future. It's also the subject of our commentary today: The China outlook.
Tuesday, May 04, 2010
China's Stock Market and Economy May Crash Within 12 Months / Stock-Markets / China Economy
By: Submissions
Marc Faber talks with Bloomberg's Haslinda Amin about the outlook for China's economy. Faber, speaking from Hong Kong, also discusses Greece's debt crisis and the euro, the commodities market, and the implications of political unrest in Thailand for the nation's economy and stock market.
Tuesday, May 04, 2010
Marc Faber Says China Could Crash Within a Year / Economics / China Economy
By: LewRockwell
Investor Marc Faber said China’s economy will slow and possibly “crash” within a year as declines in stock and commodity prices signal the nation’s property bubble is set to burst.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, May 03, 2010
Is China’s Economic Recovery a Fraud? / Economics / China Economy
By: James_Quinn
The China growth miracle has resumed its vertical trajectory. We know this because the Chinese government says it's so. And, of course, governments never massage economic numbers for public consumption, right?If you believe the data, China's GDP has tripled since 2000, with annual growth rates ranging from 8% to 13% over that time frame.
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
China's Nonexistent Economic Rebalancing Act / Economics / China Economy
By: Mike_Shedlock
In March, China's trade surplus turned into a deficit, prompting some pundits to proclaim that China's economy was rebalancing. Others pointed to a surge in auto buying as proof consumer demand in China was picking up steam.
I did not buy either of those arguments, and instead proposed the numbers were indicative of collapse in US demand for Chinese goods coupled with massive surge in Chinese buying of commodities at ever increasing prices.
Monday, April 26, 2010
China Imports Boom / Economics / China Economy
By: Frank_Holmes
Just as the U.S. consumer is key for Chinese exporters, so too is the Chinese consumer key as an export destination for the rest of emerging Asia.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
No China Asset Bubble, Healthy Economic Growth to Continue / Economics / China Economy
By: Dian_L_Chu
Olivier Blanchard, chief economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), talks with Bloomberg this morning about the prospects for an asset bubble in China. Blanchard, speaking from Washington, also discusses the impact of sovereign debt on global economic growth.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
U.S. Companies Profiting from China's Economic and Consumer Boom / Companies / China Economy
By: Tony_Sagami
March 24 was the last time I told you that the Wall Street experts have been and still are underestimating the strength of the Chinese economy. Here is what I said:
“I’ve been regularly and consistently telling you that the Chinese economy is doing much better than the mass media and Wall Street ‘experts’ have been telling you.”
Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, April 18, 2010
China and the Emerging Markets Investing Mega-Trend / Economics / China Economy
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The following is an excerpt form the Inflation Mega-Trend Ebook Page 54-57 (FREE Download) on investing in the emerging markets mega-trend. The ebook includes additional analysis of other emerging markets including, Brazil, India and Russia.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Chinese Real Estate, the Biggest Mass Migration in History... Here's How to Profit / Housing-Market / China Economy
By: Money_Morning
Keith Fitz-Gerald writes:SHANGHAI, The People's Republic of China - Given what you may have heard about Chinese property values in recent months, it may surprise you to learn that Chinese real estate investors are extremely value oriented.
And so are the institutional investors I've run into during my latest investment-research visit to this country. These institutional players want to lock up some valuable land parcels before 2020. That's the date by which 500 million Chinese citizens are expected to have moved into China's cities as part of the greatest urban migration ever recorded.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, April 12, 2010
No Housing Market Bubble in China / Housing-Market / China Economy
By: John_Derrick
China’s housing market is hot, but it’s not a bubble on the verge of bursting, as many contend.
Before we can discuss why it’s not a bubble, a little background on the Chinese housing market is needed.
Monday, April 12, 2010
China Russia on Treadmill to Economic Growth Crushing Chanos Bubble Bets / Politics / China Economy
By: Dian_L_Chu
President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed the biggest nuclear arms pact in a generation last week. The so-called New START is hailed by Obama as a major step to show the world that the U.S. and Russia have mended their troubled relationship.
Thursday, April 08, 2010
China Economic Crisis, From Export Juggernaut to a Credit Addict / Economics / China Economy
By: Mike_Whitney
There's no doubt that China manipulates its currency to gain an unfair advantage over its competitors. There's also no doubt that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will do everything in his power to avoid a confrontation with China's President Hu Jintao when he arrives in Washington in two weeks. That's why Geithner has decided to shelve Treasury's mandated currency manipulation report for the time-being and diffuse a potential imbroglio with Hu.
Monday, April 05, 2010
Pacifying the Panda, U.S. Companies Must Take a New Approach to China / Politics / China Economy
By: Money_Morning
Jason Simpkins writes: There's no question about what kind of profit opportunities the Chinese market offers. Moreover, the willingness of U.S. companies to partner with China in the pursuit of profit is equally blatant.
So why is it that more U.S. businesses feel less welcome in China now than they did four years ago?
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
The China Economic Growth Juggernaut Is Alive and Well / Economics / China Economy
By: Tony_Sagami
It is becoming quite popular to say that China’s bubble is about to burst. Not a chance. Like Mark Twain said, “reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
10 Signs of Speculative Mania in China / Economics / China Economy
By: Mike_Shedlock
Inquiring minds are reading a GMO white paper on China’s Red Flags
Read full article... Read full article...In the aftermath of the credit crunch, the outlook for most developed economies appears pretty bleak. Households need to deleverage. Western governments will have to tighten their purse strings. Faced with such grim prospects at home, many investors are turning their attention toward China. It’s easy to see why they are excited. China combines size – 1.3 billion inhabitants – with tremendous growth prospects. Current income per capita is roughly one-tenth of U.S. levels. The People’s Republic also has a great track record.
Friday, March 26, 2010
China Economy, A Tale of Three Swan Songs / Economics / China Economy
By: Dian_L_Chu
The United States, the European Union and others have long been critical of China's renminbi / yuan regime. Many U.S. lawmakers complain China's currency is undervalued by as much as 40% and undercutting the competitiveness of U.S. products.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Sex and Trade Surplus in China / Economics / China Economy
By: Dian_L_Chu
Concerns over the global imbalance resulting from large Chinese current account surplus and large U.S. current account deficits has many economists and politicians locked in heated debates. Some experts, including Paul Krugman, propose measures focusing on changing China’s exchange-rate policy and trade barriers.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
China, The Coming Costs of a Super Bubble / Economics / China Economy
By: Vitaliy_Katsenelson
China may seem to have defied the recession and the laws of economics. It hasn't. When China's bubble bursts, the global impact will be severe, spiking US interest rates.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Who Wants To Be A Billionaire? / Economics / China Economy
By: Tony_Sagami
Forbes has released its list of the 500 wealthiest people in the world and while there is a little juggling at the top, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are still the richest men in America with a net worth of $53 and $47 billion respectively. That makes them the second and third richest people in the world.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Business Sours on China / Economics / China Economy
By: Trader_Mark
A very interesting headline story in the Wall Street Journal, on how foreign business is increasingly wary in doing business with China. So many cross currents happening here, it is hard to even begin to touch the surface of the topic... but a lot of this should be of no surprise. There has been a reason every foreign investment in China is done by joint venture and since the time frame of foreign executives (especially of the American kind) is very different then the Chinese, what has been a 'win-win' in the near term (10-20 years) is going to potentially create some major stresses down the road.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
The Dubai Hainan Connection: The Millionaire Speculators of Wenzhou, China / Housing-Market / China Economy
By: Mario_Cavolo
What does Dubai have in common with Hainan Island, China?
Answer: China's infamous millionaire real estate speculators of Wenzhou. I was recently pointed to a juicy background story at India Times of global property speculation leading from Wenzhou across the globe to Dubai and then back to Hainan Island where just one month earlier, the Wenzhou gang descended upon this tropical island paradise in a well-timed frenzy of property speculation, even by fast-rising Chinese property market standards.
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
China Economic and Investment Road Map, Playing Follow the Leader / Economics / China Economy
By: Tony_Sagami
While it is hard to get a straight answer from an American politician, they do have the freedom to speak their mind and say whatever they darn well want to.
They may often put their foot in their mouth with exaggerations — “I invented the internet” — or say something they regret later — “you lie” — but they have the freedom to say whatever they want.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
China's Economic Challenge / Economics / China Economy
By: STRATFOR
China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) remains in session. As usual, the meeting has provided Beijing an opportunity to highlight the past year’s successes and lay out the problems that lie ahead. On the surface at least, China has shown remarkable resilience in the face of global economic crisis. It has posted enviable gross domestic product (GDP) growth rates while keeping factories running (if at a loss) and workers employed.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
India Worries as China Builds Ports in South Asia / Economics / China Economy
By: Trader_Mark
Continued signs of stress among the 2 developing Asian powers. Not the first sign that China's new heavyweight status is causing consternation. [Dec 15, 2009: China's Economic Power Unsettles Neighbors] [Jun 13, 2009: Australia in Perfect Position Aside China, but at a Cost?] China appears to be following the same strategy in South Asia that it has taken in Africa ....
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Goldman Sachs Says China Currency and Economy Trouble Brewing / Economics / China Economy
By: Mike_Shedlock
With a lot of eyes focused on the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Spain), especially Greece and Spain, please don't forget about China. Goldman’s O’Neill Says ‘Something Brewing’ in China on Currency.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Marc Faber on China Economy Over Capacity Risk of Potential Crash / Economics / China Economy
By: Submissions
Marc Faber discusses the financial markets, specifically China's building of over capacity that could result in a stock and economic crash. Though this would still just be a temporary set-back in the long-run as the infrastructure built would help the China continue to grow in the future.
Sunday, February 07, 2010
Will China’s Massive Currency Reserves Save Them From Economic Depression? / Economics / China Economy
By: Mac_Slavo
As the United States and Europe deal with economic contraction resulting from excessive credit expansion that many believe has lead to another Great Depression, China’s future remains hazy. Some argue that China has replaced the US as the global engine of growth because of increased internal consumption, export capacity and massive reserves. And for these reasons, China will avoid the same fate as the US and Europe.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Chinese Quest for Shortcut to Economic Greatness / Economics / China Economy
By: Vitaliy_Katsenelson
The Chinese economy must be getting out of control, because the Chinese government is doing the unthinkable: It is desperately trying to put the brakes on the economy. When you pump a stimulus package that represents 14% of GDP through a fire hose into an economy, which was already on shaky bubble foundation, in a very short time you’ll have some serious unintended consequences -- you’ll get super bubbles.
Monday, January 25, 2010
China Economy, The Watched Pot… / Economics / China Economy
By: HRA_Advisory
Doubt that growth of the new creditor economies is the real driver for the metals market is waning ever more rapidly. Not everyone will view that as a good thing, but most will now look to China for the moment and to the other big areas of expansion in due course for cues on which direction the sector will take. That, and recognition of very real supply constraints, has been the HRA stance for most of this century. So it’s time for us to do the worrying.
Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, January 24, 2010
China Production Capacity Bumps! / Economics / China Economy
By: G_Abraham
Chinese economy soared 10.7% in the fourth quarter, leaving shell shocked analysts in a state of complete disbelief. Chanos even called for a contrarian bet on China. The growth has been very strongly supported by China’s aggressive stimulus spend which have been well observed through Bank lending.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
A "Fly On The Wall" Is Bullish On China, The Mother of All Economic Expansions / Economics / China Economy
By: Mario_Cavolo
Stop listening to the bubble doomsayers and pay attention to the realities of why China’s expansion will continue for many years. My observations as a fly on the wall are a collective reflection of what I and other foreign businesspeople living here for five to ten years have experienced.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
China's Leadership Serious About Keeping Inflation Under Control and Economy Booming / Economics / China Economy
By: Tony_Sagami
I’d laugh if it didn’t make me cry.
I’m talking about the money-printing, bubble-blowing excuse for monetary policy that our last two Federal Reserve Bank Chairmen have followed. By chopping and then keeping interest rates close to zero, Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke were responsible for creating the painful real estate and credit crisis that we’re going through.
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, January 21, 2010
China Lending Restrictions and Beijing's Predicament / Economics / China Economy
By: STRATFOR
Liu Mingkang, head of the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC), said in an interview Jan. 20 that several Chinese banks had been asked to restrain their lending after proving to have inadequate capital reserves. Chinese media reports claimed that new bank loans so far in January have risen to as high as 1 and 1.5 trillion yuan ($146-$220 billion) — approaching or equaling the massive hike in January 2009. As a result, several major Chinese commercial banks (whose names were not given) were given oral commands to stop new lending for the rest of the month.
Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, January 10, 2010
China Economy and Stock Market Crash Warning From Hedge Fund Manager / Economics / China Economy
By: Trader_Mark
This is not a new position for legendary short selling oriented hedge fund manager (who smoked out Enron) Jim Chanos, but he continues to pound the table on the dangers of China. [Dec 16, 2009: CNBC Video - Hedge Fund Maven Jim Chanos on Autos, Banking, and China] It's a tough environment to be short anything globally; I assume he is taking some pain even in his anti automotive parlays.
Sunday, January 03, 2010
China Property Bubble May Lead to US Style Real Estate Crash / Housing-Market / China Economy
By: Trader_Mark
First, let me say that the term "bubble" could be the most overused term of 2009. We now are calling anything excessive a bubble; it's become stale. Of course some things are developing bubbles, but not every asset class as some would have you believe. Second, much of what I am reading about China today reminds me of the things I was reading in the US in 2005-2006. With the caveat that knowing what information to believe out of China, and how accurate it all is - is many times harder.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
China Leads the Way to Strong Global Economic Growth 2010 and Beyond / Economics / China Economy
By: Nadeem_Walayat
China is leading the way to the return of global growth with expectations for GDP growth for 2010 of as much as 10%, which further confirms expectations for the potential of a global growth story surprise to the upside for 2010. Whilst at the present time many analysts / commentators worry about China market bubbles, much as they worried about the "stocks bear market rally" that was always destined for an imminent demise during 2009 which instead was one of the greatest bull markets in history.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
China On the Verge of a Great Crash and Its Impact on Crude Oil Price / Economics / China Economy
By: Submissions
Dr. Raju M. Mathew writes: China is always a mystery. Nobody knows the depth and complexity of the problems of the Chinese Economy and Society, including the scholars and bureaucrats in China. Their words or expressions are confusing and self contradictory. The Chinese mind has been shaped by Confucius, then a series of wars, defeats and external dominances; then Mao and Chinese Communism and finally the Market Economy and Globalization. Globalization made a small group in China as super-rich who want to have all the pleasures enjoyed by the western billionaires.
Friday, December 04, 2009
China Looking for Entrepreneurs / Economics / China Economy
By: David_Franke
Filmmaker Ole Schell has given us a compelling one-hour documentary that reveals exactly why we should be concerned about China’s challenge to the United States.
Thursday, December 03, 2009
The Five Things Investors Need to Know About China / Economics / China Economy
By: Money_Morning
Keith Fitz-Gerald writes: Legendary investor, Bill “The Bond King” Gross made headlines recently when he said that China will one day have to contend with a bubble of its own making. Gross runs the world’s biggest bond fund at Pacific Investment Management Co. LLC (PIMCO). Millions of investors reacted just as you would expect when someone of his prominence makes such a pronouncement – they panicked.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Five Reasons China Is Not a Bubble / Economics / China Economy
By: Frank_Holmes
Romeo Dator writes: A year ago, nobody thought China could manage 8 percent GDP growth in 2009. With year-to-date growth coming in at 7.7 percent through the first three quarters and getting stronger, China is poised to break that 8 percent mark rather easily.
The success of the stimulus and the lofty economic numbers China has managed to produce amidst a global crisis has led many to claim China is the next great bubble.
Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, November 14, 2009
China's Phony GDP Growth Data, Evidence Ordos the Empty City / Economics / China Economy
By: Trader_Mark
Just a fascinating video below showing how China is achieving these "consistent" GDP growth numbers [Aug 5, 2009: China's Provincial Growth Figures Far Overstated versus National Figures]. Obviously on a relative basis the country is doing far better than many in the world but trying to figure out what is actually happening inside is guesswork.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Pig Farmers and China Monetary Inflation Are Making Brent Nervous / Economics / China Economy
By: The_Gold_Report
Before getting into to the relationship between copper and pork products, I want to draw your attention to one paragraph from a commentary by Paul van Eeden that offers a contrarian, and undoubtedly unpopular view amongst the Kitco readership, of the gold market:
Thursday, October 15, 2009
China Real Estate Burgeoning Bubble Special Report / Housing-Market / China Economy
By: John_Mauldin
Today I offer you an insightful look at China's real estate market - a "burgeoning bubble" that deserves a close eye as the possibility for breaking increases. Remember the chaos in Japan after their own housing dreamscape got violently yanked back to earth? As investors, we have to recognize opportunities - and know what to avoid. With a global economic crisis - and now surging housing prices in China - investors in any global market need to keep watch on political and economic developments around the world.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
U.S. Dollar Woes Boost China's Global Resource Investments / Commodities / China Economy
By: Money_Morning
Keith Fitz-Gerald writes:
Washington continues to believe that the U.S. dollar is a weapon and most of the G8 is playing along. They simply can’t see – or won’t acknowledge – where the dollar is actually headed, even though the evidence is right before their eyes.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
The Great China Economic Recovery Conundrum / Economics / China Economy
By: Clif_Droke
Probably the biggest “X-factor” in the ongoing effort at reviving the global economy is China. China is seen by many as the world’s emerging industrial powerhouse and its relationship with the United States is considered to be crucial for its own development, as well as for the strength of the world economy. With the U.S. in the role as the world’s premier consumer and China considered to be the major industrial player, all eyes are on the respective economies of these two great nations.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Investors Connecting With China's Profit Pathway / Companies / China Economy
By: Money_Morning
Keith Fitz-Gerald writes: XIAN, People’s Republic of China – During the politically charged period in the late 1980s and early 1990s – when China believed it really needed friends – a small number of Western companies ignored the controversies and refused to abandon the market.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Outsourcing Unemployment To China / Economics / China Economy
By: Mike_Shedlock
As goes the US consumer so goes Chinese manufacturing. Here is a long but educational video produced by Vanguard on several Chinese manufacturing cities and what the economic downturn has meant for them. It's well worth a play.
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
China Trading Places with U.S. As Economic Super Power / Economics / China Economy
By: Tony_Sagami
Here’s a headline that broke my heart when I read it last week: “U.S. Poverty Rate Hits 11-Year High.”
The U.S. Census Bureau reported that a sad-but-true 13.2 percent or 39.2 million Americans are living below the poverty line, defined as less than $22,025 for a family of four. That’s the highest rate since 1997.
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, September 04, 2009
How Much of China's Export Industry Is Owned By US Corporations? / Economics / China Economy
By: Andrew_Butter
I don't know much about China but I know about free zones.
From 1990 to 1995 my partner and I wrote the "playbook" to entice foreign companies into the Jebel Ali Free Zone in Dubai, during that period the number of companies went from 500 to 3,000 (an increase of an average of about 40% a year), we also set up interviews with the new arrivals in to understand what were the deciding factors, and we worked out how much the zone contributed to the development of Dubai. It was considerable, in my opinion the main driver of the Dubai economy which grew in nominal terms at a rate of 15% a year since 1990 was free zones (real estate came later and that was driven by the economic growth not the other way around).
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, August 28, 2009
The China Growth Myth Debunked, What Happens When the Credit Bubble Pops? / Economics / China Economy
By: Graham_Summers
Virtually 95% of all the evidence of economic recovery has stemmed from China in one way or another. Whether it’s the rise in price of commodities (China stockpiling), the global economy (the “China” growth miracle will lead us into a recovery), or even retail numbers (China producers lowering prices in an effort to move inventory), China is linked in one way or another to the “green shoots” nonsense.
Friday, August 21, 2009
China's False Economic Boom, What Chinese Authorities Do Not Want You to See! / Economics / China Economy
By: DailyWealth
Tom Dyson writes: If the Chinese authorities had caught him making this video, they would have arrested him...
Hugh Hendry is a hedge-fund manager from Britain. Eclectica is the name of his fund. He's outspoken and critical of the establishment. You could say he's somewhat of a pariah in London's hedge-fund industry. In 2008, his fund generated 32% by making massive bearish bets...
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
The Secret of China's Economic Success: State Owned Banks / Economics / China Economy
By: Global_Research
Ellen Brown writes: “The banks -- hard to believe in a time when we’re facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created -- are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. They frankly own the place.” -- U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, Democratic Party Whip, April 30, 2009.
Friday, August 07, 2009
China Is Through Screwing Around, Seeks to Deploy Reserves to Buy Real Assets / Stock-Markets / China Economy
By: Graham_Summers
Starting with the re-opening of formal trade arrangements in 1971, China has undergone a near unprecedented level of economic transformations. The country’s per-capita income doubled from 1978 to 1987 and again from 1987 to 1996.
In those 20 years, more than 300 million Chinese ascended out of poverty with accompanying dramatic changes in lifestyle, professions, and diet: between 1985 and 2008, average Chinese meat consumption more than doubled from 44 pounds to 110 per annum.
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, July 31, 2009
China Change to One Child Policy Population Boom Could Make You Rich / Economics / China Economy
By: Uncommon_Wisdom
Tony Sagami writes: They say the only thing constant in this world is change. That’s certainly true in Asia where some big changes are brewing.
1.4 billion — the population of China — is a lot of people. And for the last 30 years, Chinese couples have been limited to just one child.
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Blowing Stock and Property Market Bubbles in China / Economics / China Economy
By: MISES
Tim Swanson writes: Despite all of the shimmering skyscrapers and industrial output, unless market forces are allowed to truly dictate economic exchanges, today's Chinese megacities and their residents will merely be facades and actors within a 21st-century Potemkin village, and growth will remain stagnant for years to come. This is due in large part to continual state intervention through centrally planned investment.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
China Debt Bubble Looming / Economics / China Economy
By: Hans_Wagner
According to the latest reports from China, the country’s GDP is growing at 8% a year. This is an amazing achievement and helps to bolster the argument that China will help lead the global economy out of its recession. Since it looks like exports will be the major driver of growth for the U.S., selling goods and services to many emerging economies like China it pays to dig a little deeper to understand this growth phenomenon.
Monday, July 27, 2009
U.S. Dollar in Disarray as China Buys Resources and Assets / Stock-Markets / China Economy
By: Frank_Holmes
This article is from portfolio manager Romeo Dator, who covers China for the U.S. Global Investors investment team.
Since peaking on March 5, the dollar has fallen nearly 12 percent against the trade-weighted U.S. Dollar Index (DXY).
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
China Ignites Huge Credit Boom, Will it End in Tears? / Economics / China Economy
By: Money_and_Markets
Claus Vogt writes: China’s economic successes during the past ten years have been very impressive.
It has remodeled its economy along the guidelines of free market principles.
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, July 02, 2009
Will China Lead the World Out of Recession? / Economics / China Economy
By: Money_and_Markets
Claus Vogt writes: The Baltic Dry Index, which measures the freight rates for dry cargo traveling by ship, hit an all time high of 11,793 on May 5, 2008. Then it plunged to 663 on December 5, a decline of 94.4 percent. It was as if trade was coming to a standstill. However, freight rates soon started to recover …
Friday, June 12, 2009
China's New Commodity Hoard / Commodities / China Economy
By: Jennifer_Barry
In April, China announced that it purchased 454 metric tons of gold over the past six years. However, gold isn’t the only metal the Chinese have been buying. According to Michael Gaylard of Freight Investor Services, “They are building up some stockpiles right across the commodity spectrum, from base metals to coal.”
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Goldman Forecasts China Economy in the Ascendency / Economics / China Economy
By: Richard_Shaw
Goldman Sachs now forecasts that the China economy will overtake the US as the world’s largest economy by 2027. Several emerging market countries are predicted by Goldman to overtake key developed market countries in the not too distant future.
Thursday, June 04, 2009
China Moves a Step Closer to Economic Superpower Status / Economics / China Economy
By: Money_Morning
Keith Fitz-Gerald writes: When a Beijing court recently ordered three China automakers to pay more than $3 million in aggregate damages for allegedly selling a knockoff of an upscale German tour bus, it underscored that China is getting serious about intellectual property theft - one of the next major steps the Red Dragon needs to make as it evolves into a true global economic superpower.
Friday, May 15, 2009
How the New China ‘Yuan Carry Trade’ Could Accelerate the U.S. Recovery / Economics / China Economy
By: Money_Morning
Keith Fitz-Gerald writes: [Editor's Note: Money Morning Investment Director Keith Fitz-Gerald is the editor of the new Geiger Index trading service. As the whipsaw trading patterns investors have endured this year have shown, the ongoing global financial crisis has changed the investment game forever.
Thursday, May 07, 2009
China Succeeds in Fighitng Recession, Driving Gold, Stock and Commodities Higher / Economics / China Economy
By: John_Browne
This week, based on indicators of improving Chinese manufacturing activity, commodity and stock markets surged in the Pacific Rim. It appears that China's recession-fighting policies are being judged successful. The 41 percent rally in Chinese stocks in 2009 from the 2008 lows dwarfs the single digit rallies in the U.S. and Europe. With Western economies still sluggish, eyes are turning eastward for solutions to the global economic riddle. As such, recent hints at the direction of Chinese monetary policy should be closely regarded.
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Credit Crisis Investment Risks in China Outweighed by Growth Prospects / Stock-Markets / China Economy
By: Money_Morning
Keith Fitz-Gerald writes: MAOPING, People’s Republic of China - I’m often asked if there are investment risks in China.
My answer: Absolutely… there are investment risks everywhere.
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, May 01, 2009
China Profits From the Global Financial Crisis / Economics / China Economy
By: Money_Morning
Keith Fitz-Gerald writes: BEIJING, The People’s Republic of China – For the debt-ridden West, the global financial crisis has been an unmitigated disaster, forcing the so-called developed economies to take on financial commitments that will serve as burdens for years, if not for generations.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
China and Russia Sign Oil Deal as America Watches From the Sidelines / Politics / China Economy
By: Money_Morning
Keith Fitz-Gerald writes: BEIJING, The People's Republic of China - It's Day Two of my three-week trip here, and already I feel myself getting quickly reacquainted with this capital city. If you've never been here, it's hard to do this city justice with simple prose - and without sounding a bit cliché. Beijing - like much of emerging China - is special. And it deserves to be seen that way.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Positve Signs for China Stock Market Investors, FXI / Economics / China Economy
By: Money_and_Markets
Tony Sagami writes: Have you become more optimistic about the stock market? If you listen to the experts on CNBC, you might think that a great bull market is right around the corner.
The most commonly cited reason to be optimistic: Some variation of “business isn’t sucking as bad as it used to.”
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
World Bank Calls China an Economic Bright Spot / Economics / China Economy
By: Money_and_Markets
The Dow has been on a mini-roll. Therefore, most investors are thrilled to see battered stock portfolios recover even a smidgen of their massive losses. The problem is that these investors aren’t paying attention to what’s happening elsewhere around the globe. And they may be missing out on the opportunity of the decade! Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, March 05, 2009
China's Economy Recovers as Stock Markets Turn Bullish / Economics / China Economy
By: Prieur_du_Plessis
China's manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) strengthened for a third consecutive month in February, climbing to 49.0% from 45.3% the previous month. Li & Fung Research Centre reports that there were some encouraging signs: all sub-indices were higher than their respective levels in the previous month though many were still lower than the critical level of 50% (i.e. still contracting). Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, February 27, 2009
Old fashioned Leverage as China takes out its Wallet / Economics / China Economy
By: HRA_Advisory
One of our earliest editorials (in what was then a monthly only publication) was entitled “ China Beckons”. This was after David's first trip to China in 1995, at which time the stirrings of the country's boom economy was evident in major city core areas, but highway travel still often involved a slow progression around ox-cart and foot traffic. During that trip the central government's mining ministries made it plain they were expected to make their own way while government funds were directed elsewhere. A more appropriate title these days would be “China Buys”. Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
China's Commercial Property Market Crash / Housing-Market / China Economy
By: Mike_Shedlock
Inquiring minds are reading Beijing's Olympic building boom becomes a bust.
Reporting from Beijing -- "Empty," says Jack Rodman, an expert in distressed real estate, as he points from the window of his 40th-floor office toward a silver-skinned prism rising out of the Beijing skyline.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
China's Internal Divisions, Economic Crisis and the Stimulus Plan / Economics / China Economy
By: STRATFOR
Due in large part to fears of dire consequences if nothing were done to tackle the economic crisis, China rushed through a 4 trillion yuan (US$586 billion) economic stimulus package in November 2008. The plan cobbled together existing and new initiatives focused on massive infrastructure development projects (designed, among other things, to soak up surplus steel, cement and labor capacity), tax cuts, green energy programs, and rural development. Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, February 16, 2009
Meat, Milk and Motors: The New China Syndrome / Economics / China Economy
By: Robert_Singer
August 21, theatres around the nation screened the documentary I.O.U.S.A. and a live discussion with America's most notable financial leaders and policy experts, including Warren Buffett; William Niskanen, chairman of the Cato Institute; Pete Peterson, senior chairman of The Blackstone Group and former U.S. Comptroller General, Dave Walker. Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, January 23, 2009
The Great Fall of China / Economics / China Economy
By: Q1_Publishing
Earlier today, China announced its economy grew at a 6.8% in Q4. This is not very good news at all. China's GDP growth is inching perilously close to 6% economic growth. Which is viewed as the minimum to keep the lights on. It's a critical level the world is watching closely. Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
China Imports Crash by 17.9% in November / Economics / China Economy
By: Eric_deCarbonnel
I realized today that if demand for goods from developed nations like US is truly falling faster than demand for goods from emerging markets, then the best place to verify this trend would be to look at what's happening with China's imports. With this in mind, I looked up this Herald Tribune report about an unexpected drop in China's imports and exports . Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, December 14, 2008
China to Print Money, Devalue Currency to Combat Deep Slowdown / Economics / China Economy
By: Mike_Shedlock
Deflation talk is surfacing in China as Chairman Liu Mingkang says China December Producer Price Index to Drop .
China's producer price index is expected to drop "sharply" in December, China Banking Regulatory Commission Chairman Liu Mingkang said. The world's fourth-biggest economy is shifting toward deflation, Liu told a financial forum in Beijing today. Capital inflows may shift to outflows, with gross domestic product projected around 8 percent next year, he said.
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, November 28, 2008
China Panic Interest Rate Cut as Job Losses Soar / Economics / China Economy
By: Mike_Shedlock
The Telegraph is reporting China slashes interest rates as panic spreads . Factory workers surround a damaged police car during a protest outside Kai Da toy factory in Dongguan, China. Photo: REUTERS The People's Bank of China cut interest rates by more than 1pc point as the economy crumbles and millions of jobs are predicted to go ahead of Christmas.
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
China's Stimulus Package Suggests Good Long-term Economic Prospects / Economics / China Economy
By: John_Browne
As Peter Schiff and I have long warned, America's reliance on borrowing and consumption to fuel economic activity would result in the wholesale destruction of national wealth. Until recently, the dissipation was largely invisible to most consumers. However, the ongoing plunge in real estate and equity prices and newly released statistics concerning retail sales, consumer confidence and employment have now made it plain to most Americans that their own wealth has been seriously, and perhaps permanently, degraded. In response, they are now hoarding cash and reevaluating their spending habits. Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Strategic investing by Focusing on Companies that Sell to China / Companies / China Economy
By: Money_and_Markets
Tony Sagami writes: Beijing's latest stimulus package was a great sign that the country is devoted to future economic growth. And I think all the measures — which include infrastructure spending and tax deductions for exporters — are great news for investors focused on Asia.
But today I want to spend some time looking at another set of important economic indicators — the American pastimes of baseball and basketball.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, November 10, 2008
Peter Schiff and China's Economy Hard Landing / Economics / China Economy
By: Mike_Shedlock
We will take a look at Schiff from two perspectives shortly. First let's note the massive influx of workers into Chinese cities is now in reverse as Chinese job losses prompt exodus .
Tens of thousands of migrant workers are leaving the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou after losing their jobs, railway officials say. The increase to 130,000 passengers leaving the city's main station daily is being blamed on the credit crunch.
Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, November 01, 2008
Chinese Manufacturing Contracts as the Tail Fails to Wag the Dog / Economics / China Economy
By: Mike_Shedlock
For the third month in four, China's manufacturing is in contraction. July and August were in contraction as discussed in China's Manufacturing Contracts for Second Month . Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Credit Crisis Bailouts Continue; China Takes Aggressive Action on Economy / Economics / China Economy
By: Money_and_Markets
Tony Sagami writes: Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke will go down in history as two of the most incompetent Federal Reserve chairmen our country has ever had. Like Mr. Magoo, they blindly drove the stock market and then the real estate market into some of the biggest bubbles our world has ever seen. Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Chinese Perspective on the Global Economic Recession / Economics / China Economy
By: Money_and_Markets
Tony Sagami writes: You've probably never heard of the Canton Fair, but it is the largest trade fair in the world, where thousands of manufacturers, businessmen, and merchants gather to conduct business.
The Canton Fair is co-hosted by the Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China and the People's Government of Guangdong Province, and organized by the China Foreign Trade Centre.
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, September 05, 2008
China: Beyond the Olympics Bird's Nest / Economics / China Economy
By: Jennifer_Barry
I don't usually follow the Olympics closely, but these Games were different. The 2008 Beijing Olympics were an event of great and unusual cultural, political, and economic significance to the world. Most commentary has naturally focused on the athletics, and I have not seen much serious analysis on these other topics. I decided to highlight the economic issues behind the Olympics. Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
China's Manufacturing Economy in Recession? / Economics / China Economy
By: Mike_Shedlock
Bloomberg is reporting China's Manufacturing Contracts for Second Month . Manufacturing in China, the world's fastest-growing major economy, contracted for a second straight month in August, according to a survey of purchasing managers.
The Purchasing Managers' Index was a seasonally adjusted 48.4, unchanged from July, the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing said today in an e-mailed statement.
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, August 28, 2008
China Heading for Post Olympics Economic Bust? / Economics / China Economy
By: Mike_Shedlock
Something is going on in China that simply does not add up. Let's start with the GDP. ChinaView is reporting China think tank forecasts GDP growth at 10.2% in Q3 .
BEIJING, Aug. 8 (Xinhua) -- China will record a GDP growth of 10.2 percent in the third quarter, roughly the same as the second-quarter level, according to a report released on Friday by the State Information Center, a government think tank. The report said consumption would continue to be a major driving force for the national economy. However, auto and home purchases ebbed notably in the first half, adversely affecting consumption in the third quarter. I doubt 10.2% growth is anywhere close to sustainable in a world economy slowing so fast that a global recession is visible on the horizon. Furthermore China has a major pollution mess that needs to be addressed. China is poisoning its land, air, water, and most importantly its citizens.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
China Growing Risk of Corporate and Economic Distress / Stock-Markets / China Economy
By: John_Mauldin
China is all the rage for the next few weeks as the Olympics are going on. Many are calling this China's time to showcase itself to the world. I have a lot of friends and analysts who are big China bulls, believing that the next few years will see continued high growth in China, although less than the above 10% of the past few years.
In Outside the Box, we like to look at some contrarian analysis from time to time. Value Investor Vitaliy Katsenelson gives us some reasons why the outlook for China might not be so bright. This has implications for lots of markets that are driven by Asian demand.
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Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Higher Gas Prices Will Help the Chinese Economy / Stock-Markets / China Economy
By: Money_and_Markets
Tony Sagami writes: With all the great economic strides China has made, it is sometimes easy to forget that China is still a communist country and is controlled by the Communist Party of China.
Part of that Communist control is over prices. The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) controls the prices on thousands of items: Drugs, grain, edible oils, pork, noodles, milk, eggs, cigarettes, cloth, steel, train and bus fares, cement, fertilizer, college tuition ... and fuel.
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, May 09, 2008
Investment View From China: The Secret Path to Profits / Stock-Markets / China Economy
By: Keith_Fitz-Gerald
BEIJING, CHINA - Whether you're trying to invest profitably in the region here, or are just trying to understand what's going on, there's a single secret that will virtually guarantee your long-term success.
And I'm going to tell you what that secret is.
Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, December 23, 2007
China Infrastructure Growth: It's Not About Beijing 2008 Olympics / Stock-Markets / China Economy
By: Chip_Hanlon
Stop it! Please just stop.
I saw it yet again yesterday: another commentator talked about how China 's economy should keep chugging along through the 2008 Olympics in Beijing , particularly its appetite for commodities due to its infrastructure needs ahead of that event. Sometimes I hear it said that the trend might last through 2010 and the World Expo in Shanghai for similar reasons.
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, November 15, 2007
China Inflation Problem A Result of Policy of Support for the US Dollar / Economics / China Economy
By: Paul_L_Kasriel
China's inflation problem will continue as long as the U.S. dollar remains under downward pressure and the Chinese policy is to cushion the greenback’s decline. Chart 1 illustrates the result of China’s inflation problem – i.e., rising prices for goods/services, financial assets and real assets. Chart 2 illustrates the reason for China’s inflation problem – i.e., excessive credit creation by the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), the Chinese equivalent of the U.S. Federal Reserve.Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Chinese Consumers Show No Sign of Slowing! / Economics / China Economy
By: Money_and_Markets
Tony Sagami write: Just when U.S. investors were breathing a sigh of relief based on last week's uptick in new home sales, they got smacked again yesterday with far bleaker news on the larger market for existing homes:
• Another decline in sales …
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
China's Economic Blackmail / Economics / China Economy
By: Joel_S_Hirschhorn
Massive amounts of Chinese imports are threatening public health and safety. Many food and consumer products pose risks. Lead in children's toys and jewelry. Toxins in foods for pets and humans, and in toothpaste. Unsafe automobile tires. Many prescription drugs made with few safeguards. The list is endless. The federal government is not safeguarding American citizens through thorough testing of imports.
Why?
Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Lower Standards - The Downsides to Outsourcing to China / ConsumerWatch / China Economy
By: Andy_Sutton
We were greeted this week again with something that is becoming rather familiar and worrisome; a recall of yet another Chinese-made product. This time it was toys which contained paint with unacceptable lead levels. Most if not all of us remember the recent pet food scandal in which melamine was found in pet food. This substance was responsible for the deaths of an untold number of pets, our own included.
Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Chinese Money Supply - How Do You Say "Rube Goldberg" in Chinese? / Economics / China Economy
By: Paul_L_Kasriel
China has an economic problem - inflation. When I speak of Chinese inflation, I am referring to what the People's Bank of China (PBOC, not to be confused with PB&J) is doing - creating massive amounts of credit "out of thin air." Chart 1 shows that the total assets on the PBOC's balance sheet grew by approximately 29% in the 12 months ended May. Although that is down from peak growth of 38% in the 12 months ended September 2005, 29% still is a sizeable increase in central bank credit creation.Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, July 12, 2007
China: The One-Child Policy Dilemma / Politics / China Economy
By: John_Mauldin
This week in a special Outside the Box my good friends at Stratfor addresses the current Chinese dilemma created by their One Child Policy, namely how to continue economic growth with a rapidly aging population coupled with a deteriorating labor force, mind you striving to attend to these issues simultaneously without creating significant rural unrest.Stratfor predicts a less than somber outcome, anticipating Beijing' inability to address these dire concerns simultaneously, with the result being bureaucratic malaise and rural unrest.
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Looming Trade War - The China Syndrome / Economics / China Economy
By: Dr_William_R_Swagell
“The issue on the table is not whether the US needs to take action to respond to the interventionist policies of China and Japan in this key area, but what form that action should take.” Sander Levin, Chairman trade subcommittee House Ways & Means Committee.
“The time for talk has passed; we must act now to end this unfair trade practice that cripples American industries.” Charles Rangel, Chairman House Ways & Means Committee.
“…by going after China, you in the Congress are playing with fire… (risking) a policy blunder of monumental proportions…if the China bashers get their way.”
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, June 01, 2007
China Diversifying Reserves into Equities and into Gold? / Commodities / China Economy
By: Julian_DW_Phillips
Last year the Chinese government decided to change its policy on the composition of its reserves to reflect the composition of its trading partners. This was an effort to hold currencies sufficient to cover 'rainy days' with these partners. But as reserves are at levels way above those needed for a 'rainy day', the Chinese government finds itself holding well over a $ trillion more than it needs and this amount is rising by $250 billion a year and sure to rise.Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, May 24, 2007
China, U.S.: The Strategic Economic Dialogue as a Tool for Managing Relations / Politics / China Economy
By: John_Mauldin
As the forth largest economy in the world, the rapid growth of Communist China' military, and economic prominence has both perplexed and intrigued the United States. Stratfor analyst Rodger Baker addresses the two primary economic concerns troubling Washington and Wall Street alike: the Chinese-U.S. trade imbalance, and the floatation of the renminbi, currently pegged at 7.8 Yuan to the dollar, though allowed to fluctuate 2-3%.Washington has identified the currency dilemma as the primary obstacle to improved U.S.- Chinese relations, concluding that the removal of the currency peg will not only permit U.S. exports to be more competitive but also shrink the current trade imbalance.
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Paulson’s Kabuki: Integrating China into the Neoliberal System / Politics / China Economy
By: Mike_Whitney
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is a man who knows what he wants. And what he wants is to further integrate the Chinese market into the global system — the “American-run” system.To achieve that goal he has assembled a group of 10 cabinet-level officials—mostly from big-business – who will are expected to urge the Chinese delegation to implement "sweeping economic reforms" that will open up their market to U.S. investment.
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Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Hyperinflation in China, 1937 - 1949 / Economics / China Economy
By: Mike_Hewitt
Till 1927, China had a free banking system through the interaction of private banks operating in various regions of the country. Privately held banks operated like any other Chinese business and competed with one another to obtain customers. Most banks issued their own notes which were redeemable in silver, the traditional medium of exchange in China. The notes from each bank circulated freely with the notes from other banks.
These Chinese banks operated largely without state regulation. A free banking system has inherent checks against inflation - primarily because customers will flee from depreciating currencies - and instances of banks' inflating their currencies were rare.
Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, May 19, 2007
People's Bank of China Takes With One Hand, Gives With The Other? / Interest-Rates / China Economy
By: Paul_L_Kasriel
The People's Bank of China (PBOC) announced today that it was raising the required reserve ratio on its constituent banks by 0.5 percentage points to 11.5%. This would be the eighth increase in the required reserve ratio since June 2006 when the ratio was 7.5%. You would think that with the PBOC mandating that banks now hold more reserves, the cost of reserve credit would be moving up. Think again. Chart 1 shows that the Chinese overnight interbank interest rate, the equivalent of the U.S. fed funds rate, stood at 1.57% in March (latest data that I have available) - 12 basis points lower than where it was in June 2006, before the required reserve ratio started its ascent.Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, May 18, 2007
Dirty Clothes are Big Business, Whirlpool and Mastercard / Companies / China Economy
By: Michael_K_Dawson
Long regarded as the world's growth engine the U.S. economy is currently experiencing a rough patch. This was highlighted by first quarter GDP of 1.3% down from an annualized rate of 2.5% in fourth quarter 2006. Anticipating the slow down, Wall Street analysts lowered first quarter S&P 500 earnings from 8.7% in January to 3.3% by the first of April. However, after all is said and done it appears as though Wall Street's concerns were for naught. Earnings will be closer to 9%, better than the historic average. How could this be?Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Is China's Economy Too Hot? / Economics / China Economy
By: Michael_K_Dawson
I am sure many were concerned on April 19th as it appeared that the markets were in for a repeat of the China led melt-down on February 27. The Chinese Stock Market's negative take on the countries 11.1% first quarter growth rate spilled over to Europe and cast a black cloud over the U.S. Markets as it opened. The surge in growth rate coupled with a higher than acceptable consumer price index and a 23.7% growth in fixed-asset investment prompted statements such as the following from the government:
“If this type of fast growth continues, there is the possibility of shifting from fast growth to overheating. There is that risk,” Li Xiaochao, spokesman for the National Bureau of Statistics, told a news conference.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Whats behind the Euphoria in Asian Stock Markets and Gold? / Stock-Markets / China Economy
By: Gary_Dorsch
For a few tumultuous hours on April 19th, it seemed like deja ‘vu all over again. Global commodity and stock market operators held their collective breathe, as the Shanghai Stock Index tumbled as much as 7.2% to the 3,400 level, reviving fears of yet another gut wrenching global shake-out. Beijing had delayed the release of two key economic statistics until after the close of trading, heightening fears of bearish news that could derail the Shanghai freight train.
After the close of trading, Beijing said consumer inflation had hit 3.3% in March, its highest in more than two years, and far above 2.7% in February. China's economy is overheating, expanding at an 11.1% annualized clip in Q'1, and factory output is 18.5% higher from a year ago. The news of above target inflation, jolted China's 5-year bond yields upward by 50 basis points to 5.25%, to its highest in two years, on fears the People's Bank of China (PBoC) might actually tighten liquidity.
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Tuesday, April 24, 2007
The Conundrum that is China / Economics / China Economy
By: Paul_Petillo
There are currently two undeniable truths in this new global marketplace: The US will buy what it wants with borrowed money and the Chinese have so far enabled that buying spree by loaning us the cash.
China has become an economic enigma. Growth in the country is running over 11% and inflation, now at 3.3%, slightly over what China considers reasonable, is beginning to increase much to the dismay of the Communist government.
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Tuesday, April 17, 2007
The US Dollar and Chinas Impending Recession, Part I / Economics / China Economy
By: Gerard_Jackson
There is a great deal of hot air being blown about -- particularly from that pack of economic illiterates commonly called politicians, especially Democrats. Their line is simple and to the point: China has manipulated the exchange rate so as to artificially lower the price of her manufactures at the expense of American industry. In other words, hapless Chinese taxpayers are being forced to subsidise American consumers. (Complaints about this alleged policy are particularly rich coming from Democrats: the people who made careers out of offering free lunches to the American public).
It is true that something bad is going on in the Chinese economy, but it is not subsidised exports. China is undergoing a massive inflation-led boom that can only result in severe distress. Let us look at some statistics, the sort our economic commentariat ignore. The latest monetary aggregates show that M2 increased by "16.9 per cent year on year in 2006". (M2 consists of currency and deposits).
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