PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

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chola
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

Post by chola »

Hari Seldon wrote:Much as I admire sri chola's perspective, sri vikamS's queries do strike a chord.

So for instance, how to reconcile a few (seemingly) opposing factoids - (i) PRC superstate can make mango people eat losses at will implying people's trust in bank savings in the PRC must be low and dipping, and (ii) there's great consumption boom with 100s of millions buying costly cars and costlier homes on a cash down payment basis, (iii) PRC's 4 super banks, which are larger than the ASEAN's banks put together, have already been recapitalized at least once with the people's savings.

Now if the PRC state stole people's money to save its banks, how come the same people in their 100s of millions still have ample cash lying around to consume on a scale that puts the G7 to shame?

Reread what I wrote in an earlier thread. I can't explain it better by any kind of rewriting. The ability to make its people eat losses is just one of the reasons and probably the least paramount. The key is the ability to print money without inflation which basically comes down to the market's confidence in holding a particular currency.
It's funny how people talk about bad debt without understanding what it really means. Debt is simply credit that needs to be repaid. Credit is often never repaid and it leads to great and tremendous things. For example, the Marshall Plan which rebuilt Europe and the massive loans to Japan that made it into the world's second economy for decades were debt that the US simply forgave. It is the same the US did for itself in the post War era with the GI Bill and massive infrastructure building that criss-crossed the nation with highways. That, my friend, is free credit and they created wealth for both the happy recipients and the US (at least until the Japanese destroyed the US car industry.)

Debt to foreign entities is credit that usually needs to be repaid. Greece needs to pay Germany. California doesn't really need to prepay Washington. GM doesn't really need to repay Washington either. Obviously if a government gives out loans that can't be repaid and then prints more money to make up for it, it can lead to inflation. That's how Zimbabwe ends up with a hundred billion dollar bill that can buy maybe an apple.

The chinis are on the opposite end of that spectrum. Not only can its currency build highways and high speed rail with abandon but it is considered undervalued. Given the chance, the US, Japan and Europe would want it raised by upwards of 40%.

So the debt issue is meaningless to the PRC. It owes money to itself and it can print money without really much inflation. It has massive leeway in the value of it currency. And I have not even mention the three trillion in foreign currency yet that would cover what little external debt it has about several thousands times over.

To top it all off, the chini government can make its people eat losses. Debt is only a problem if you are forced to repay it. Or on a humanitarian level, you feel the need to repay it. Panda owes money to itself. It can print what it wants. And it if feels like it (say, to tamper down any spark of inflation), it can simply not pay and make its population eat the losses.
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

Post by VikramS »

cholaji:

Did you read the WSJ article about PRC's foreign reserves and how they can (or can not) be used to recapitalize the bad banks without serious consequences? It is pretty much saying what I had been saying but goes deeper into the mechanics of how the process worked the last time, and how given the relative and absolute size of the debt the same process is unlikely to work.

Search Google for "beijing can't use its reserves to save the banks" to get a link to read it for free.

If NPAs are not an issue why are they cutting cutting back on highway and HSR construction, leaving projects "unfinished"? After all as you say, internal debts do not count.

On the consumer consumption side things are looking good: they are planning a big tax cut to increase the purchasing power of the masses and that should help spur consumption. Coach and Apple stocks are making new all time highs primarily driven by the China story.

Also follow what "they do", not what "they say". This article from Bloomberg talks about how currency valuation is not the issue to be concerned about, and how the actions of the Chinese companies and wealthy class are pointing to sub-surface undercurrents.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-0 ... raden.html

BTW: your argument about printing money without inflation and market confidence in the currency do not hold much water. The constituents of the Chinese CPI are a "secret"; with real estate values falling it can be massaged to show whatever high or low number they want.. Market confidence in a currency which does not float and a country with strong capital controls is a non-sequitur.

It is never "the same" every time, but during most bubbles the refrain typically is "this time it is different". The Chinese have played the confidence game very well; they understand the West very well and push the right buttons at the right time. But it does not take much for confidence to dissipate...
Last edited by VikramS on 09 Mar 2012 10:27, edited 1 time in total.
chola
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

Post by chola »

Hari Seldon wrote: Which then brings up the query sri vikramS raises - what are the the earnings sources and wage levels really for the middle class there including especially the white collareds that is enabling such a quaintly earthshaking consumption story to take shape? After tall, consumption figs don't lie and the bank recapitalizations are also presumably based on facts, so...
Sales figures don't lie. If they are not making money, MNCs close up shop and leave. VW and BMW won't stick around providing numbers of cars sold.

The banks had money to provide one of the biggest stimulus around during the recession so I would say it is safe to say they were recapitalized.

Of course, none of this takes away from my jai-china mantra-japams....I continue to maintain that like the Fed, the PRC too has discovered the secrets of the perpetual motion machine (or in this case, the perpetual create-money-from-nothing-indefinitely machine).
Exactly. Very good, Hari. You're closer than anyone else. There are a few select nations in the world who can print money and create wealth of thin air. The US is obviously one of them. The EU -- who just last week pushed through the second installment of $1.7 trillion to European banks -- is another. That $1.7 trillion was not backed by $1.7 trillion of real goods that suddenly appeared. The ECB simply printed it.

When the US took the US dollar off the gold standard, it basically told the world that it will print money without any associated backing other than its word. And its word is good enough. QE1 and QE2 were basically money created out of thin air.

China is fast becoming one of those nations but its affect is mainly internal because the Yuan is not convertible. It can and probably did print enough paper to pay itself off and recapitalize the banks. It also has $3T in forex as backing for the Yuans it prints.

It is not exactly a perpetual motion machine, you still to print paper within a reasonable amount that doesn't create inflation. But for nations and entities like the US, EU, Japan and probably China, the leeway is very high indeed.
They're now unstoppable, seriously, and will eventually end up buying all the for-sale resources from the world over.
No they can't. At least not yet. The Yuan is not convertible so they still need to use dollars to buy resources. Once the chini is accepted world wide then you will be right.
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

Post by chola »

VikramS wrote:cholaji:

Did you read the WSJ article about PRC's foreign reserves and how they can (or can not) be used to recapitalize the bad banks without serious consequences? It is pretty much saying what I had been saying but goes deeper into the mechanics of how the process worked the last time, and how given the relative and absolute size of the debt the same process is unlikely to work.
Why would they use forex to recapitalize their banks? They can print yuans to do that. You use hard currency to pay off foreign debt not internal ones. China $3T in hard currency is used mainly as backing for its foreign trade.
Search Google for "beijing can't use its reserves to save the banks" to get a link to read it for free.
Pray tell why? Who doesn't know this? You are the only bringing up the possibility that chiniland's forex stash could be used to recapitalize banks. The chinis print between six and seven yuans for every dollar they get. The yuans are what they put in their banks.
If NPAs are not an issue why are they cutting cutting back on highway and HSR construction, leaving projects "unfinished"? After all as you say, internal debts do not count.
NPA are a non-issue to a communist nation since a return is not expected That is how communism works. They could be cutting back because the work is shoddy. Maybe they don't need them anymore. Or they are simply going through a review period and will ramp up again once the review is done.

No one said internal debt do not count. Any debt has consequences but internal debt can be solved in a way that external ones can't. Argentina had external debt that they defaulted on. So did Iceland. They won't be able to borrow on global markets for a few decades.

Coach and Apple stocks are making new all time highs primarily driven by the China story.
We saw this story way before Coach and Apple through GE, Boeing, EAD (Airbus), Caterpillar, VW and a whole array of resource companies.

Just remember this. Trust no government data. Trust MNC sales. Foreign debt is transactions with multi-national banks so you can trust those too.
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

Post by VikramS »

cholaji:

It is easy to say there are no consequences of QE and LTRO. Have you looked at the price of Brent in Euros? It is at an all time high, even higher than the 2008 oil spike. Gold has gone up from the 200s to the 1700s in the past decade.

Further the transmission mechanism of these actions takes time. Caroline Baum wrote a nice article about it. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-2 ... -baum.html

I am not as dismissive of the inflation issue within China simply because the social consequences are not to be trivialized. With their resident permit system, modern China has made the system of haves vs have-nots, official. While the rich will try to protect their interests, for how long will the poor also tolerate it? It is not without a reason that the CPC heads are talking about wealth harmonization, and domestic consumption.

The cost of a debt bubble is not about the return on capital, but the return of capital. When the return of capital becomes uncertain, the first casualty is animal spirits. Local credit markets will start freezing and the state will eventually have to intervene.

The Chinese are trying very hard to get recognition to the Yuan so that it can become a reserve currency. There is even talk of making Yuan a gold backed currency, and a Chinese precious metal exchange and Chinse bullion bank which will be fully allocated. Right now they are floating the idea of the BRICs trading in Yuan and using Yuan denominated loans. While this might work for bilateral trade, unless and until the Yuan is fully convertible and capital controls are dismantled the Yuan will have to wait in the wings. Right not even the constituent of the PPI/CPI is a secret in China; the CPC can pretty much declare what ever it wants as those numbers.

BTW Argentina has a good amount of external debt though Venezuela has been one of the big buyers; it is still not rated investment grade.
http://www.latin-focus.com/latinfocus/c ... rgdebt.htm

And the Debt rating of Iceland is back to investment grade
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17075011
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

Post by Theo_Fidel »

The Soviets went this way too. For a long time they looked unstoppable.

What destroyed them was commodity shortages. Most critically they started running out of grain. Harvest after harvest failed and they increasingly had to lean on the West to feed them at which point all their goosed up growth caught up with them. After Perestroika there were so many Roubles chasing so few products that Russia was running an inflation of 2000% plus for several years to burn off the paper printing. Bankrupted the people and the nation.

Chola says that purchases are being made with cash. This can only mean there is a tremendous amount of printed cash floating around in Panda land. As long as commodities are plentiful this wild paper printing won't catch up to Panda. It will take a proper Black Swan to trigger this hidden paper money bomb....
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

Post by Hari Seldon »

Exactly. Very good, Hari. You're closer than anyone else. There are a few select nations in the world who can print money and create wealth of thin air. The US is obviously one of them. The EU -- who just last week pushed through the second installment of $1.7 trillion to European banks -- is another. That $1.7 trillion was not backed by $1.7 trillion of real goods that suddenly appeared. The ECB simply printed it.

When the US took the US dollar off the gold standard, it basically told the world that it will print money without any associated backing other than its word. And its word is good enough. QE1 and QE2 were basically money created out of thin air.

China is fast becoming one of those nations but its affect is mainly internal because the Yuan is not convertible. It can and probably did print enough paper to pay itself off and recapitalize the banks. It also has $3T in forex as backing for the Yuans it prints.

It is not exactly a perpetual motion machine, you still to print paper within a reasonable amount that doesn't create inflation. But for nations and entities like the US, EU, Japan and probably China, the leeway is very high indeed.
sri chola does say it in style, must admit. I mean, if this isn't flair, what is?

Which brings up some minor, igorable Qs. If its indeed true that the consequences of money minting can be delayed quite a bit even in the information age, why don't the superpowers with this great capability use more of it? Why suffer bubble bursts, bankruptcies, low or no growth etc at all in the first place?

Take the stoopid ECB. Why not embrace oirobonds? After all, any loss in value can be made up simply by electronically creating oiros outta think air. Use it or lose it, no?

I suspect, and sadly fear that such delusions of grandeur will eventually visit the sooperpowerses when things get bad enough. Perhaps. I hope that doesn;t happen but I fear it will and end up causing mayhem in the only country I care about - aamchi India.
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

Post by ashi »

A great video of how urbanization is happening in China
BBC Vidoe: The fastest changing place on earth
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

Post by zlin »

ashi wrote:A great video of how urbanization is happening in China
BBC Vidoe: The fastest changing place on earth
Wuxi county is just another one of 2000 odds ordinary county-level towns in China. It is far away to be called "the fastest changing place on earth". Actually it is just located on the remote mountainous border of Chongqing municipality. it is not even one of fastest changing places within Chongqing.
The location of Wuxi county.

The wiki of Wuxi county

However, BBC did a good job to use an ordinary western Chinese town to depict the changing China society. Here is a documentary website on BBC with more details of the story.
White Horse Village - changing China
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

Post by Singha »

http://chineseposters.net/themes/index.php

a good collection of PRC govt posters down the decades.
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

Post by chola »

Theo_Fidel wrote:The Soviets went this way too. For a long time they looked unstoppable.
The Soviets looked unstoppable as a military power. It always looked backwards as an economy. When it collapsed, its people were using vouchers for soap and toothpaste because it couldn't produce the day to day necessities. It was a military super power onlee. Russia today is wealthier than it was during the USSR though people somehow see it as diminished.

The PRC is the direct reverse, it is a military midget but an economic power. Chiniland can collapse like the USSR but the association will be political not economical.

Chola says that purchases are being made with cash. This can only mean there is a tremendous amount of printed cash floating around in Panda land. As long as commodities are plentiful this wild paper printing won't catch up to Panda. It will take a proper Black Swan to trigger this hidden paper money bomb....
There is tremendous amounts of printed cash in every one of the major economic powers. What sets chiniland apart is that it is third world but can build infrastructure with printed paper like the first world.

Most third world nations cannot get a highway built on the money it prints. They need to borrow credit overseas because the material needed for the project are traded with hard currency and the locals often times don't trust the government to not to inflate the local currency to nothing.

To get to the point where there is an "oversupply" of infrastructure (like the US housing crisis), you have to have reached a pretty advanced level like the US, Japan or Europe. I would love it if India had a housing crisis where there are too many homes and not enough buyers. It would mean that the economy had attained the ability to create wealth with wild abandon.
Last edited by chola on 10 Mar 2012 21:13, edited 1 time in total.
chola
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

Post by chola »

Hari Seldon wrote:
Exactly. Very good, Hari. You're closer than anyone else. There are a few select nations in the world who can print money and create wealth of thin air. The US is obviously one of them. The EU -- who just last week pushed through the second installment of $1.7 trillion to European banks -- is another. That $1.7 trillion was not backed by $1.7 trillion of real goods that suddenly appeared. The ECB simply printed it.

When the US took the US dollar off the gold standard, it basically told the world that it will print money without any associated backing other than its word. And its word is good enough. QE1 and QE2 were basically money created out of thin air.

China is fast becoming one of those nations but its affect is mainly internal because the Yuan is not convertible. It can and probably did print enough paper to pay itself off and recapitalize the banks. It also has $3T in forex as backing for the Yuans it prints.

It is not exactly a perpetual motion machine, you still to print paper within a reasonable amount that doesn't create inflation. But for nations and entities like the US, EU, Japan and probably China, the leeway is very high indeed.
sri chola does say it in style, must admit. I mean, if this isn't flair, what is?
Thank you, Hari sir. Mine is a flair spoken by someone who spent too many years in the corporate world. You must make the gora realize that you command his language as well as or better than he.
Which brings up some minor, igorable Qs. If its indeed true that the consequences of money minting can be delayed quite a bit even in the information age, why don't the superpowers with this great capability use more of it? Why suffer bubble bursts, bankruptcies, low or no growth etc at all in the first place?
Remember what I wrote above? It is not exactly a perpetual motion machine, you still need to print paper within a reasonable amount that doesn't create inflation.

That is why they don't do it too all the time. But they do do it quite a bit. A lot of time, it is mostly hidden like the ECB action last week. Banks would know but the normal population not so much.

In fact, all nations do this. The goal of all governments is to be able to get people to exchange resource and work for paper. The more you are able to do this, the more wealthy (and powerful) you become.

So in the end, it simply comes down to ability. The US and EU can print money and people will hand them goods and services at the same price pretty consistently. If Zimbabwe does it, we get the following:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 90360.html
A 100-trillion-dollar bill, it turns out, is worth about $5.

That's the going rate for Zimbabwe's highest denomination note, the biggest ever produced for legal tender—and a national symbol of monetary policy run amok. At one point in 2009, a hundred-trillion-dollar bill couldn't buy a bus ticket in the capital of Harare.

As I said repeatedly, for 95% of the world the ability to buy and build with paper is the greatest struggle. Oversupply because credit is too lax? That is a problem for wealthy people.

Take the stoopid ECB. Why not embrace oirobonds? After all, any loss in value can be made up simply by electronically creating oiros outta think air. Use it or lose it, no?

I suspect, and sadly fear that such delusions of grandeur will eventually visit the sooperpowerses when things get bad enough. Perhaps. I hope that doesn;t happen but I fear it will and end up causing mayhem in the only country I care about - aamchi India.
All economics is a "delusion." If you are a shop owner and someone gives you a piece of paper with some numbers printed on it, it is completely delusional that you should give him something real -- an ounce of gold, a gallon of gasoline or a Big Mac -- in return. But we do that every day. And the most powerful and wealthiest countries do more of that than the poorest ones.

Bad things like Japan's decade of recession or the US housing crisis are often pointed at as their comeuppance. But sorry, those disasters still left those nations as the wealthiest on earth.

Why? Because in order to get to the point where things failed so spectacularly, you have to have succeeded spectacularly many times over during the journey there.

Sure the US now have millions of abandoned homes built in excess and funded by excess credit. But that is far better than Zimbabwe where you can't build a hut with the paper that the local government printed.
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

Post by chola »

VikramS wrote:cholaji:

It is easy to say there are no consequences of QE and LTRO. Have you looked at the price of Brent in Euros? It is at an all time high, even higher than the 2008 oil spike. Gold has gone up from the 200s to the 1700s in the past decade.
Who said there is no consequences for quantitative easing? This is stuff that top rate economic powers do all the time, I doubt they go willy nilly into them thinking there are no consequences.


The cost of a debt bubble is not about the return on capital, but the return of capital. When the return of capital becomes uncertain, the first casualty is animal spirits.
Hmmm, "animal spirits" is the first casualty? I doubt that there is any measure of that.

Vikram, you seem to like the metaphysical/spiritual explanation for economics. I commend you for thinking outside the box. On the other hand, I rely on humdrum sale figures, direction investments and financial transfers through MNCs.

The Chinese are trying very hard to get recognition to the Yuan so that it can become a reserve currency. There is even talk of making Yuan a gold backed currency, and a Chinese precious metal exchange and Chinse bullion bank which will be fully allocated. Right now they are floating the idea of the BRICs trading in Yuan and using Yuan denominated loans. While this might work for bilateral trade, unless and until the Yuan is fully convertible and capital controls are dismantled the Yuan will have to wait in the wings. Right not even the constituent of the PPI/CPI is a secret in China; the CPC can pretty much declare what ever it wants as those numbers.
Is that an argument for or against a position? Or are you simply trying to tell us about the Yuan being a reserve currency?

From my viewpoint, the answer is both yes and no. The mercantile sections of the chini government and the export sectors absolutely don't want this because it means they will have a harder time cheating and a harder time controlling their currency. The political and internal economic sectors would love this because it means they can buy and import the world's resources without resorting to the US dollar. Overnight it would make the Yuan a competitor to the Dollar (and leapfrogging the Euro and Yen) because the PRC is the world's largest hoarder of commodities.

Because of these contradicting aims, it will be a slow process. A slow process, unless the US jumpstarts it by limiting its China trade and reducing the accumulation of US dollars by the PRC. If that is the case, the export sectors in China will lose quickly and the Yuan will the world's trading system like whirlwind. Right now, it pays for the world's commodities with US dollars. No one will deny the world's largest commodity importer by refusing its currency if it offers it.
BTW Argentina has a good amount of external debt though Venezuela has been one of the big buyers; it is still not rated investment grade.
http://www.latin-focus.com/latinfocus/c ... rgdebt.htm

And the Debt rating of Iceland is back to investment grade
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17075011
So what are you trying to imply with Argentina and Iceland? Default has no consequences?
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

Post by Vipul »

China posts record $31.5-b trade deficit in Feb.

China recorded a trade deficit of $31.48 billion in February, the first time in a year, as import growth far outpaced exports in view of economic downturn in the European Union and slow recovery in the US.

Exports rose 18.4 per cent from a year earlier to $114.47 billion in February, while imports went up 39.6 per cent to $145.96 billion, according to the Customs data released here today.

The fast trade expansion was fuelled by the lower comparative base for last February, when the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday cut working days from the month and skewed trade data, the General Administration of Customs (GAC) said.

The week-long holiday fell in January this year.

After seasonal adjustments, the annual growth of exports slowed to four per cent last month while that of imports was cut down to 9.4 per cent. Exports this January fell 0.5 per cent from a year earlier, the worst show in more than two years. Imports fell even more sharply, plunging 15.3 per cent.

The country’s foreign trade rose 7.3 per cent year-on-year to $533.03 billion in the first two months, with a combined trade deficit of $4.25 billion, the GAC said.

China’s trade with the European Union, its largest trade partner, grew 4.7 per cent year-on-year in the January-February period to $79.8 billion. However, China’s sales to the euro zone slid to 1.1 per cent in the first two months year-on-year.

In February, the United States, the country’s second-largest trade partner, replaced the EU as China’s largest export market, as monthly sales to the US outnumbered that of the EU. China’s trade with the US gained 9.2 per cent year-on-year to $66.05 billion, state-run Xinhua reported.
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

Post by sanjaykumar »

Interesting, I don't believe the Soviet Union ever had the debt (internal and external) that China has at present.

As China's low productivity meets high value Western aspirational goods, this will only worsen. The French can sell unlimited quantities of luxury items, L'eau d'asse perhaps. The Chinese will only be too delighted to fork over their yuan.
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

Post by VikramS »

chola:

"Animal Spirits" are a key element of any capitalist model to work. They measure the willingness to take risk. That willingness to take risk is finally what drives the movement of money (velocity). And that velocity of money drives spending, lending, and asset prices.

Over the past two decades, the Chinese people have not had to deal with losses, except perhaps for the equity market which is a small space. People who are not used to dealing with losses, are typically stunned when asset prices go down. The immediate manifestation of that is the reluctance to open up the wallet.

The local lenders who are committing suicide because their money is now lost as a bad debt are not going to inspire more local lenders to open up their wallet, and lend. This is how credit dries up. It can also lead to a reluctance to spend and take risks. You hear stories about Chinese businessmen trying to outdo each other in conspicuous consumption (like buying cases of expensive alcohol); that is a sign of animal spirits riding high. On the other side you have the bottom of bear markets when P/E ratios fall down to low single digits, when animal spirits are completely absent and investors just do not want anything to do with equities (a mechanism perhaps short circuited by the massive QEs).

The US has been dealing with it for the past few years. People who need credit are not getting it, except for those with absolutely pristine credit histories who have the entire country's banks chasing them at very low rates. OTOH, in Asia, when animal spirits start running, they are very hard to stop; but what happens when they start falling?

That is why I have been trying to understand the transmission mechanism to get a sense of the magnitude of the impact.

You did not respond to the questions about the source of wealth which is driving the auto and other consumer sector booms. What is making people feel so rich? Is it all wages? How high or low are the wages in different sectors compared to other countries? Since consumption of services is low, what constitutes the big white collar class and their higher wages? What role does asset price appreciation have with regards to consumption? What are the major segments of consumers: Is it first time car owners owners who are now done for a decade or is there a consumption cycle in place where people replace their vehicles in a few years, and how big are the respective segments? Essentially I am looking for a demographic profile of the Chinese consumer market, which I am sure you have access to.

My comments about the Yuan are observations of what is going on. What I do hope is that other countries do not fall for the Yuan carrot as a reserve currency before Yuan is a freely floating currency and capital controls are removed. If the Yuan starts replacing the USD without transparency it will be a license for the CPC to go berserk with absolutely no constraints. While the same can be said about the US, at least there is transparency and people can make a choice to go with it or not; many are exercising that by doing bilateral trade in Yuan.

About external debt: My point was that capital markets are forward looking. A country like Iceland can default but gets it ratings back within a few year because there was nothing structurally wrong with the overall economy; it was primarily a group of private banks which failed and the country can not be held responsible for the poor decisions by the banks. Argentina is a different case where the government is heavily involved with the economy especially the management of debt; their return is much harder. And that SIZE matters a lot.

My focus on all this is to get a better understanding of how global asset prices will be affected by what happens or does not happen in China.
Theo_Fidel

Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

Post by Theo_Fidel »

Chola,

I don't think the Soviet economy of 1950's & 60's was primitive at all. The literature certainly suggests nothing of the kind. You are taking hindsight from the 1990's and projecting it into the past. Classic error. It certainly did not have a consumption driven economy like the west but what it did economically it did very well. Growing at 8% per annum for much of the time. It economic model was much admired and copied around the world before people understood how wasteful and over consumptive of resources it was. The Soviets of course had commodities they could afford to splurge. The Soviets build dams, factories around the world and even exported music, books and culture around the world very effectively.

To my mind China is an economic midget because of its dependence on everyone else's technology. Despite their best efforts nothing new is ever going to come out of China and they will always be vulnerable to being made redundant from changes outside the world.

As far as your claim these that people will take yuan, I don't think so. No one trusts Panda policies of the ruling group enough to take an IOU from Panda. Everyone demands hard dollars from Panda, including those MNC getting fat there per your claims. A lot of international trade is based on trust and you would a fool to trust Panda.
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

Post by sanjaykumar »

I don't think the Soviet economy of 1950's & 60's was primitive at all. The literature certainly suggests nothing of the kind. You are taking hindsight from the 1990's and projecting it into the past.


It is more fundamental than that. The markers of national strength and prestige were steel production as well as coal and sulfuric acid (yes) and grain output.

Modern consumerist society only dates to the post war boom in America when automobiles, houses and education became more accessible to the majority. This in fact did not occur in Britain until the 1960s, perhaps even as late as the 1980s.


The Soviet Union was a true colossus, transforming a peasant society into a science and technology pioneer in the space of 30 to 35 years. It will forever be a landmark achievement.
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

Post by ashi »

The end of cheap China. What do soaring Chinese wages mean for global manufacturing?
If cheap China is fading, what will replace it? Will factories shift to poorer countries with cheaper labour? That is the conventional wisdom, but it is wrong.
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

Post by vina »

sanjaykumar wrote:The Soviet Union was a true colossus, transforming a peasant society into a science and technology pioneer in the space of 30 to 35 years. It will forever be a landmark achievement.
True. But the violence and coercion behind the rise also led to it's downfall. While China is no where a "Science and Technology" pioneer, but rather a manufacturer using labor arbitrage, the violence and coercion will lead to it's downfall, just like the former soviet union.
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

Post by VikramS »

ashi:

Thanks for the link. It reaffirms the value of reliable infrastructure and supply chain.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... ctory.html

Interesting news about how the workers are using their version of Gandhian tactics to get their point across: threaten mass-suicide. This also means that one of the advantages which China enjoyed, a very compliant labor force, will gradually dissipate as their labor standards harmonize with other countries; as I wrote earlier Maslov is alive and kicking in the PRC.

China will export inflation now. How will the masses in the US react when their dollars are worth even less?
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

Post by wong »

These desperate attempts to link China to the failed Soviet Union are just that: desperate. China has renounced communism in everything but name.

Maybe there is no secret sauce or Shanghai stats or modern state capitalism or socialism with Chinese characteristics and all that nonsense. Maybe it's just China being China,
Maybe the simplest explanation is the best explanation. Maybe this is just what a natural disaster-free, famine-free, and invasion-free China just does and has done for centuries (Nor does this preclude future famines, natural disasters or invasion for China. The only constant I know is that China will always be here).

Maybe this is just mean reversion. Maybe a little French Emperor saw this 200 years ago, but present day Indians can't even with the benefit of hindsight.
Maybe there is nothing to emulate and nothing to learn from China, good or bad, because it's just China being China.


China’s Rise, Fall, and Re-Emergence as a Global Power
by James Petras / March 7th, 2012

http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/03/china ... bal-power/

"The study of world power has been blighted by Eurocentric historians who have distorted and ignored the dominant role China played in the world economy between 1100 and 1800. John Hobson’s brilliant historical survey of the world economy during this period provides an abundance of empirical data making the case for China’s economic and technological superiority over Western civilization for the better part of a millennium prior to its conquest and decline in the 19th century.1"
Theo_Fidel wrote:Chola,

I don't think the Soviet economy of 1950's & 60's was primitive at all. The literature certainly suggests nothing of the kind. You are taking hindsight from the 1990's and projecting it into the past. Classic error. It certainly did not have a consumption driven economy like the west but what it did economically it did very well. Growing at 8% per annum for much of the time. It economic model was much admired and copied around the world before people understood how wasteful and over consumptive of resources it was. The Soviets of course had commodities they could afford to splurge. The Soviets build dams, factories around the world and even exported music, books and culture around the world very effectively.

To my mind China is an economic midget because of its dependence on everyone else's technology. Despite their best efforts nothing new is ever going to come out of China and they will always be vulnerable to being made redundant from changes outside the world.

As far as your claim these that people will take yuan, I don't think so. No one trusts Panda policies of the ruling group enough to take an IOU from Panda. Everyone demands hard dollars from Panda, including those MNC getting fat there per your claims. A lot of international trade is based on trust and you would a fool to trust Panda.
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

Post by sanjaykumar »

The only constant I know is that China will always be here


For this statement to be meaningful, you would have to define China. Perhaps we can call it South Southern Mongolia given its history.

These desperate attempts to link China to the failed Soviet Union are just that: desperate. China has renounced communism in everything but name.


You think this is about communism. It is really about freedom-China is exactly like the colonising Soviet empire, with the exact same state rigidity, paranoia, party corruption, mad nationalism and messianic zeal to demonstrate the superiority of this system over (western) democratic ones. Ask your citizens, those wealthy ones not the poor discardable workers, where they would like to be. The answer is to be found in Vancouver property values-anywhere but China.

John Hobson’s brilliant historical survey of the world economy during this period provides an abundance of empirical data making the case for China’s economic and technological superiority over Western civilization for the better part of a millennium prior to its conquest and decline in the 19th century.1"


I thought it was just Indians who seek affirmation from the white man.

Convince me that China produced anything like the intellectual tour de force of Panini's grammer or India's contributions to mathematics.

I have been ascerbic in my criticism of India and Indians, but I respect them none the less for I know what the are capable of.
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

Post by Hari Seldon »

VikramS wrote: It has a link to the economist which I will not link to as a matter of principle.
Hmmm. Could you throw light on why, sir. I think I have an idea - the the conomist is a racist rag that cheered Brit exploitation of India starting 1843 all the way to the 1950s oblivious to the sufferings imposed on ordinary Indians and now derides everything those dirty ordinary Yindians are incapable of. But would like to know your perspective anyhow....
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

Post by Raja Bose »

Another high speed rail track collapses in China....

High speed rail track in China collapses after heavy rains
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

Post by Hari Seldon »

More scaremongering from the alarmist AEP at the london telegraf here. take with salt only. However, some nuggets...
Monetary data for China is remarkable. Real M1 contracted in January, weaker than post-Lehman. The rate rebounded in February but only to zero.
It is too early to judge whether China really can deflate its property bubble with carefully-calibrated credit curbs, achieving a feat that has eluded very clever officials across the world over the last century.
But bear in mind that China has racked up loan growth of 87pc of GDP over the last five years - according to Fitch study that should be compulsory reading - compared to less than 50pc in Japan leading up to the Nikkei bubble, or in Korea before the 1998 crisis, or in the US before the subprime debacle.
We know from China Iron and Steel Association that steel output has dropped from 2m tonnes a day last year to 1.7m this year - with chilly implications for Vale and Brazil’s real, or BHP Billiton and the Aussie dollar.
We know too that R&F Properties in Guangzhou reported a 40pc fall in house sales over the first two months of the year, with a 22pc drop in price. Like others, I am watching the Confucian 'soft landing' with curiosity.
Like I said, pass the salt...
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

Post by Theo_Fidel »

Marten,

Before you added the /sarc I had to look 2 or 3 times before I realized it was not a Chinese protestator (sic). :)
---------------------------------------------------

Wong is being silly about Panda not being Communist. They haven't publicly shot the mass in a while but that is because they have not had to. Wait till serious unrest begins.

This hard boiled belief in Chinese 'sooperiority' is quite demented when you think about it. In the very next line they are invaded and declined from some form of peachy bottomed perfection. :) So much for sooperiority.
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

Post by VikramS »

HSji:

I unfortunately paid for the Conomist once and learnt what you have articulated beautifully above.

On a different note, the rich-poor gap issue is getting more air-time now in almost all leading publications. I expect CPC to embark on its own version of NREGA pretty soon. I think they will start off by reducing taxes. Jain Hu Chola, your MNCs clients will have a bigger pool to sell the iStuff to.
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

Post by Raja Bose »

Marten wrote:Oh, that is not an HSR - it is an older track that was scheduled to be upgraded this year. It was demolished by choice - it did not collapse.

/Sarc.
:rotfl:
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

Post by amit »

VikramS wrote:HSji:

I unfortunately paid for the Conomist once and learnt what you have articulated beautifully above.

On a different note, the rich-poor gap issue is getting more air-time now in almost all leading publications. I expect CPC to embark on its own version of NREGA pretty soon. I think they will start off by reducing taxes. Jain Hu Chola, your MNCs clients will have a bigger pool to sell the iStuff to.
Even in the above quoted article, conomist is doing what it does best - that is pull a fast con. :D

After rah rah about how the super dooper supply chain will save China and how the Huaweis of China will lead the charge, it ends with the actual fact: China must innovate or slow down.

Where's the innovation? The country has plucked all the low hanging fruits of development. The next stage has to be innovation driven. Do they have it in them as a society? For innovation you need a more free wheeling social atmosphere. You can't just decree at the CPC Congress that over the next five years, Chinese innovation will go up by X per cent every year, can you?
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

Post by Hari Seldon »

^^^Aah, you forget amit sir, that when the same CPC can regulate the amount of 'culture' society needs at a given time, innovation is not a big deal either, eh?
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

Post by Singha »

imho innovation in any context (china or elsewhere) is much than just "how many patents filed every year or how many peer reviewed journal articles are produced every year". I am sure the CPC will use such metrics to "prove" its point.

by that yardstick, whatever be its score in the above the US is king - it is quickly able to develop , adapt and commercialize new technologies to create entirely new industries and grow employment therein. its educational system is able to keep pace with these changes and conduct research that also spawns some of these new techs and create high quality manpower. every yr 1000s of small cos make the change to medium cos there...a few become large cos. meantime large cos gradually die...the cycle repeats.

japan and germany type nations I would only rate a partial pass because they seem unable or unwilling to make the creation and destruction of small cos easy. neither are their big cos probably growing or splitting at a speed to create new global giants. google or facebook would not have happened in japan or germany. I am sure volkswagen, toshiba and canon file a ton of patents and are very good in their fields, but not sure how much incremental employment they can generate or if they can spawn entirely new industries like the US does routinely.
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

Post by amit »

Singha wrote:imho innovation in any context (china or elsewhere) is much than just "how many patents filed every year or how many peer reviewed journal articles are produced every year". I am sure the CPC will use such metrics to "prove" its point.

by that yardstick, whatever be its score in the above the US is king - it is quickly able to develop , adapt and commercialize new technologies to create entirely new industries and grow employment therein. its educational system is able to keep pace with these changes and conduct research that also spawns some of these new techs and create high quality manpower. every yr 1000s of small cos make the change to medium cos there...a few become large cos. meantime large cos gradually die...the cycle repeats.

japan and germany type nations I would only rate a partial pass because they seem unable or unwilling to make the creation and destruction of small cos easy. neither are their big cos probably growing or splitting at a speed to create new global giants. google or facebook would not have happened in japan or germany. I am sure volkswagen, toshiba and canon file a ton of patents and are very good in their fields, but not sure how much incremental employment they can generate or if they can spawn entirely new industries like the US does routinely.

Singha,

Some pages back I posted a few articles on innovation. The metrics were very interesting. As Hari saar says, CPC has decreed that China needs more innovation. And so ooh la, la, China has jumped to No2 spot in terms of the number of patents filed worldwide leapfrogging Germany, Japan and South Korea, traditional strong patent driven economies!

However, now comes the interesting part. The three top patent offices in the world are the US, Europe and Japan offices. The fact is there are patents and then there are real patents. When patent filings in these three offices are counted, then China suddenly drops down to 20th position! Which means a vast bulk of patents filed by the Chinese are in China. And since China give precedence to local patents over foreign ones, the researchers who wrote the article found that most of the Chinese patents were designed to arm twist foreign companies wanting to do business in China for royalties and access to real patents.

Another interesting point that came out of the research is that, while large MNCs are rushing to set up shinny news research centres in China, over a 10 year period more patents were filed by MNCs from offices in India than in China! The researchers concluded that was because the MNCs were more willing to trust their Indian employees with core knowledge than their Chinese counterparts, whom they feared, would steal the knowledge.

Interesting stats, na?
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

Post by VikramS »

http://www.piie.com/blogs/china/?p=1128
Household Wealth and the Housing Market


http://www.mpettis.com/2010/02/22/what- ... -reserves/
Foreign Exchange Reserves and what they can and can not be used for


http://www.piie.com/blogs/china/?p=1057
The Myth of China’s Giant Fiscal Deposits

http://www.piie.com/blogs/china/?p=951
Soccer and Stock Market ..

http://chovanec.wordpress.com/2012/03/0 ... are-bloom/
3) Expat residents of Beijing like to joke how every period these days is a “sensitive period” for the government — but this just takes the cake. The South China Morning Post reports that Beijing police have swooped in and barred a 22-year-old university student, Li Maizi, from leaving the city during the NPC. Her crime against the State? Organizing a series of protests, called the Occupy Men’s Toilet Movement, to complain about “the longer wait endured by women due to a skewed ratio of public toilet cubicles for men and women.”

Inspired, of course, by the Occupy Wall Street Movement — reports of which, once hailed on Chinese TV, are now verboten out of concern they might give people ideas — the potty protests seem to have struck a chord. According to the Post, women students have occupied male toilets in Guangzhou, Zhengzhou, and Beijing — which undoubtedly is the concern. What terrifies the Party more than anything is any group that can organize people across multiple provinces (which is precisely what got the Falun Gong religious movement banned in 1999). Localized protests are one thing, but if young women can occupy men’s toilets across the country, who knows where they’ll stop? The Post notes that:

Her travel ban underscores a tightening of security in the capital for the two meetings. China News Service reported that more than 700,000 security personnel have been mobilised for the two meetings and that vehicles from other cities have needed a special pass to enter Beijing since Wednesday.

http://chovanec.wordpress.com/2012/02/2 ... -slowdown/
Usually economists consider slowing growth and inflation as polar opposites –you can have one or the other, but not both at the same time. Over-rapid growth spurs inflation, but slowing growth reduces price pressure. However, if you print (or in China’s case, import) money and spend it on projects with a zero or negative return, you will get an initial GDP boost (as long as you keep spending), but eventually you will get stagnant growth AND inflation: stagflation. The Journal gets it. Does anyone in China?
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

Post by Singha »

yes Amit I remember that post. however the DDM and even the eminent sarkari science czars like CNR Rao types always pick up the superficial stats and beat us up based on that . a few hundred read BR, a few million read TOIlet and go cluck cluck we are useless onree :mrgreen:
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

Post by amit »

Singha wrote:yes Amit I remember that post. however the DDM and even the eminent sarkari science czars like CNR Rao types always pick up the superficial stats and beat us up based on that . a few hundred read BR, a few million read TOIlet and go cluck cluck we are useless onree :mrgreen:
+100

We are own worst enemy.

Actually my Dad once told be a good allegory. According to him most Indians think that at any one point of time, there are only 1.5 intelligent people in this world.

It goes something like this:

Me, first person, is of course the most intelligent person in this world. You, second person, must also be intelligent because I'm talking to you. But you can't be as intelligent as me. However, to keep my interest in talking to you, you should be around 50 per cent as intelligent as me.

And you've guessed, it the rest of the folks not talking to me are dumbos.

This is would I think explain why even eminent persons fall into the trap of lecturing using superficial stats.

:twisted: :lol:

Regarding superficial stats, even eminent folks get fooled by Shanghai stats. :evil:
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

Post by Hari Seldon »

From NC, featuring Satyajit Das assessing reality in PRC. Worthwhile read.

Satyajit Das: “All Feasts Must Come to an End” – Fake Goods, Fake Growth? (Part 3)
A significant part of China’s growth has been an illusion. Since 2008, China’s headline growth of 8-10% has been driven by new lending averaging around 30-40% of GDP. Given that (up to) 20-25% of these loans may prove to be non-performing, amounting to losses of 6-10% of GDP. If these losses are deducted, Chinese growth is much lower.

The China economic debate is focused on the alternatives of a soft or hard landing. Both scenarios assume a slowdown in growth and transition to a troubled maturity.

The case for the soft landing assumes that the investment and property bubbles are less serious than thought. Beijing has sufficient financial capacity to boost growth by loosening monetary policy and bank lending, while adjusting specific policies, such as lifting restrictions on housing sales to prop up prices. China is able to boost domestic consumption, replacing investment as the key driver of its economy. Excess capacity is gradually absorbed as the world economy recovers.

Growth comes down gradually, without causing social and political disruptions.
The case for the hard landing assumes the rapid and destructive unwinding of asset price bubbles and problems within the Chinese banking system. A poor external environment and losses on foreign investment exacerbates the problem. Growth collapses triggering massive social unrest and political tensions.

More benign scenarios rely on the self interest of the Party and Chinese leaders, who will risk anything to maintain growth at around 7% or 8% to preserve social stability and control.

But the end of a cycle of debt and investment driven growth is typically disruptive. Japan’s experience, which China has drawn on in shaping its economic model, is salutary. Japan grew by 10% in the 1960s, 5% in the 1970s, 4% in the 1980s, and has remained stagnant since, adjusting to the deflation of its debt fuelled bubble.

China analysts, like Michael Pettis, believe growth will decelerate sharply as the identified problems emerge falling below 5% by the middle to end of the decade. While growth of this level is high by the standards of developed nations, it is below that required in China to meet the needs of its population and their aspirations. A lower growth rate is also problematic for external investors and trading partners, assuming higher rates of growth.
I know. lotsa yak-yak of the familiar variety. No hard numbers, just noise. No? P-ass the salt onlee..
In the aftermath of the crisis, industrial and direct investors have looked at China for earnings growth and returns. High growth rates, fables of urbanization, rising domestic consumption and the need for investment in upgrading infrastructure have attracted investments. Fairy tales about how a billion Chinese would urbanise and consumerise, driving 10 % growth forever and replacing America as the global consumer of last resort captivated audiences at business conferences. In reality, a major source of interest in China and other emerging markets was that it wasn’t America, Europe or Japan.

Investors generally chose to ignore the truth underlying the fairy tales, ignoring how the growth was going to be achieved. China’s debt driven and investment fuelled growth is now vulnerable. There is a significant amount of unproductive investment and mis-allocated capital. Some of this will manifest itself in the form of bad loans.

The global economy increasingly looks to China to drive the world’s growth. These febrile expectations are ill founded. China’s GDP is only around 20% of the combined GDP of the US, Europe and Japan, which make up around 60% of global output. The view that China, because of its large population, can compensate for a decrease in consumption in the developed countries is fanciful. China’s consumption is only a little more than France, a little less than Germany and around 1/8th of the US.
Sri das knows more about derivative markets than most, almost all in fact. So when sri das purports to speak on globaloney, moi tends to listen. But clearly sri das doesn;t know stuf sri chola knows and those MNCs minting sales revenue in PRC know. So this is all juts another failed prognosis. Perhaps. Time will tell only.

Read it all only.
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

Post by wrdos »

amit wrote: :twisted: :lol:
Regarding superficial stats, even eminent folks get fooled by Shanghai stats. :evil:
There is an old Chinese expression to describe the point of the Shanghai stats called by you. "Better to pretend to be a pig so that one day you can find a chance to eat the tiger."

It is why the Chinese government pays so much efforts to under report the economic data of China whenever it is possible, especially for those soft stats such as "Consumption", or the "Service Sector".

Over report yourself gains you nothing but extra jealousy and unnecessary responsibilities. I hope India can learn this experience too, act more and speak less.
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

Post by amit »

wrdos wrote:
amit wrote: :twisted: :lol:
Regarding superficial stats, even eminent folks get fooled by Shanghai stats. :evil:
There is an old Chinese expression to describe the point of the Shanghai stats called by you. "Better to pretend to be a pig so that one day you can find a chance to eat the tiger."

It is why the Chinese government pays so much efforts to under report the economic data of China whenever it is possible, especially for those soft stats such as "Consumption", or the "Service Sector".

Over report yourself gains you nothing but extra jealousy and unnecessary responsibilities. I hope India can learn this experience too, act more and speak less.
So Wrdos,

Are you trying to say that India over-reports its econ stats? :-)

If that's the case I do detect a serious case of heebie jeebies setting in as Chinese growth slows and even Shanghai stats don't seem to work.

For your information Indian econ stats are if anything under-reported because the Babus sitting at our stats office CSO are a law onto themselves and do not need to meet quotas. They also don't fear losing their jobs, homes and sometimes their freedom and life if they don't follow the Govt line. Net result is these bunch of macro-economic nerds constantly devise even more stricter criteria to determine growth.

Net result is you'll never find a mismatch between consumption and growth in India. I hope you understand what I'm hinting at. :)

PS: Chinese proverb is more applicable to India than to China. And how about Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon?
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

Post by Suraj »

wrdos wrote:There is an old Chinese expression to describe the point of the Shanghai stats called by you. "Better to pretend to be a pig so that one day you can find a chance to eat the tiger."

It is why the Chinese government pays so much efforts to under report the economic data of China whenever it is possible, especially for those soft stats such as "Consumption", or the "Service Sector".

Over report yourself gains you nothing but extra jealousy and unnecessary responsibilities. I hope India can learn this experience too, act more and speak less.
I suggest you utilize your advise yourself first. Indian economic stats have been under-reported for a long time. You're a stranger to the Indian economy thread or you'd be actually aware of this.

China doesn't really have the attitude you allude to. If anything, it periodically unveils something notable and the usual drones come here and post it expecting high praise. When we go 'that's nice, but...' , the said drone gets upset and goes 'you Indians, how dare you criticize us!' :rotfl: It's been happening for the last 10 years here.
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