Yeah, was quoted at half last I heard. I think, my friend with the qwerty keyboard centre row handle, it is you who needs to look at the big picture. Hallucinated growth does not a stable country make.
Property prices across China fell 15 percent in the third calendar quarter of 2011, but prices in some areas have fallen by as much as half in the three months between July and September 2011. Real estate developers in Shanghai are slashing their prices in a desperate attempt to find new buyers. Overnight price cuts of between 25 and 40 percent have people who have already bought into these developments up in arms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory and this will continue? I fully expect 2012/2012 to provide us with a new world currency, and that will mean that whatever we think at the moment it is nothing like the future. The cartoon about sums it up - and it does not make sense in the broad sense. Endless posts here on SS raise the same issues - stock market doesn't make sense. POG doesn't make sense, POS doesn't make sense. NWO losing control. NWO plan proceeding. The foundations are too shaky and uncertain and any commentator worth his salt says 'play safe'. Everyone is saying the dollar is doomed which is a good a contrarian indicator as any for a resumption of business as usual, but suppose something brings the whole house of cards down? What if China's state santioned figures are total rubbish and they're in the grip of massive inflation and bankrupt debtors and desperately trying to keep their population subdued in the face of food shortages from inflation or nature? It is too easy to assume that a dictatorship with barely 30 years of capitalism experience knows enough to avert an economic disaster if it should happen. The followers in the Party during the Great Leap Forward (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward) are still influential. It's easy to be smart when everything is going well - just ask the thieves in Wall Street Yes Australia will continue to be well off with Chinese patronage but what is the result if 2008 x 10 happens - through any range of events - natural disaster through to financial disaster. What happens if China decides to make its quarry local - in Mongolia for instance. What if famine strikes again and the Party tries to fix it again (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine). They'll be a bit too busy to entertain Europeans tryng to borrow money, or BHP tryng to renew contracts, or Obama and his ilk making excuses about not repaying their debt. Rather than ponder the short term, I'm preparing for the long term - destroyed fiat currencies, derivatives melt-down, swarms of Black Swans in the air and an isolated Australia heading toward the quiet doldrums from whence it came. Buy gold. Buy it often. What's the worst that can happen? What's the worst that can happen if you don't have any?
For China sub 8% will be effectively a recession. Anything under 8% and the millions entering the workforce each year will eat up that <8% growth and unemployment will rise. Another reason Krudds big Australia policy is a joke.
There were two recent Financial Sense interviews relating to the expected downturn in China. For those who missed them... worth a listen: Bud Conrad: ChinaThe Next Crisis Center http://www.financialsense.com/finan...11/01/bud-conrad/china-the-next-crisis-center Dr. Jim Walker: Weakness in China AheadTranslating into Commodity Bear Market http://www.financialsense.com/finan...-ahead-translating-into-commodity-bear-market
Oh.... Stop griping everyone - If we don't blow ourselves to kingdom-come shortly when NATO attacks Iran after about 100 generations we'll all have semi-olive skin, hairless chests and latent sino-features. The added bonuses for me of course being that I've always LOVED Chinese food, my kids will be doing FANTASTICALLY WELL at school and they'll be instilled with that wonderful innate sense of respect and loving care for their parents & elders coupled with a (by then) totally proven World-beating (literally) work ethic... Come on the Reds!!! VRS x
2011-November-7 08:53 Shenzhen Daily THE debt crisis of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Wenzhou, an economic hub in East China's Zhejiang Province, has been eased one month after Premier Wen Jiabao visited the city and urged stronger financial support to SMEs. Fifteen "runaway bosses," who had disappeared or declared bankruptcy to invalidate debts owed to individual creditors, have returned to, or resumed contact with the city over the past month, and some of the cash-strapped SMEs have restarted operation after getting financial support, said a spokesman with the city government at a press conference. Five enterprises, after getting a fund injection of 50.8 million yuan (US$8 million), have entered the restructure process, the spokesman said. To give financial support, the local government, financial organizations and companies were mobilized to help the SMEs. New lending in the city reached 5.45 billion yuan in October. The aid was given after Wen visited the city Oct. 5, who emphasized the importance of SMEs on securing local jobs and urged bank credit support and preferential tax policies. Since this year, one-fifth of the city's 360,000 small and mid-sized businesses have stopped operating due to cash shortages and nearly 100 business owners disappeared or declared bankruptcy to invalidate debts owed to individual creditors pooled from the private lending market, causing public panic, according to the city's council for small and mid-sized enterprises. (Xinhua)
It's interesting how more debt on top of already crippling debt is the answer in the USA, Europe AND China. Are they all independently delusional or working together for the same outcome? Either way they are all clearly insane! It's a good thing the Premier didn't call for more severe punishment for delinquent business owners. But then he can always "call" for that next month can't he. The carrot and the stick, remarkably the same tools for the communist politburo and global central banks . . .
I have a renewed respect for the ABC http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-...u-aint-seen-nothing-yet/3651130?section=world
A classic line. . . "a quarter of the fund is guaranteed by the states the fund is meant to protect" The answer is more debt, but what's the question? Certainly nothing that the population can vote on or Prime Ministers will be deposed.
"Domestic pressure on China's leaders is huge. Ordinary people are condemning" any decision to throw Europe a lifeline, one source with ties to China's top leaders told Reuters, requesting anonymity because of political sensitivities. European officials have asked China to put cash in a mooted special-purpose investment vehicle to enhance the region's rescue fund four- to five-fold, to about 1 trillion euros. China has given the idea a cautious response, saying it wants details first, but Europe will surely deliver the message again to Chinese President Hu Jintao at the summit, which ends on Friday. But a large swathe of China's 1.3 billion people is poor and many believe there are far better ways to spend excess cash in the $3.2 trillion pile of foreign exchange reserves the country has amassed in its rise to manufacturing might. High on their priority list: handouts to help lower soaring prices of basic goods, subsidies to cut the crippling cost of home ownership, more investment to support job creation and easier access to bank credit for consumers and companies alike. "Better to save Wenzhou than Ouzhou (Europe)," the source said, referring to one of China's wealthiest cities which has been hit by a credit crunch. Dozens of bosses of small and medium enterprises in Wenzhou have gone into hiding this year after borrowing heavily from loan sharks after the government tightened bank credit to fight inflation. Granted, China's leaders can't easily spend the foreign exchange on domestic problems. Doing so would mean converting U.S. dollars, say, into yuan and driving up the value of a currency whose exchange rate China labors to keep steady. But obsessed with maintaining their grip on power, top leaders fear they could end up with "ten thousand arrows piercing their hearts," as the source put it, if they make a hugely unpopular decision and political rivals gang up on them. http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/11/03/175238.html
Citi's Oscar Choi believes prices will decline another 10% next year, but that's a conservative estimate. Even state-funded experts are more pessimistic. For example, Cao Jianhai of the prestigious Chinese Academy of Social Sciences sees price cuts of 50% on homes if the government continues its cooling measures. http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonc...rty-prices-collapse-in-china-is-this-a-crash/ Ouch!
... And what happens when they start pulling their speculative Australian real estate investments out of the Sydney and Melbourne property markets?
In the past, real big shots never liquidate their foreign holding unless they need to expand their business, but that implies good times for everyone. The ones that might liquidate their holding are the ones that invest through a real estate proxy firms in Australia. I am guessing this number is very high and the ones likely to liquidate when things head south.
Chinese TV Host Says Regime Nearly Bankrupt http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/china-news/chinese-tv-host-says-regime-nearly-bankrupt-141214.html Europe, USA and China?
Alarm bells have been ringing there for a while I think. It was interesting to hear the recent news re selling Uranium to India and the related Gov't backpeddling that came with it - Perhaps this is part of a plan to diserify in a belated attempt to reduce our exposure to reliance on exports to China? Too little too late perhaps? I have a horrible feeling that the list of "real worry" countries will be a lot longer in the not too distant future :/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6JQ2Vzr0bQ we all know there is somewhere to run, but I love that song and couldn't help myself edit: hmmm seems insert youtube video feature is broken
According to Kyle Bass, Japan is a worry. 25 min. interview on BBC. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/kyle-...put-against-idiocy-political-cycle-its-simple
