Archive for the 'China' Category

Durable Goods Orders Decreased

Published
by
Doug
on February 28, 2008
in China, Economics, Energy, Foreign Policy, Politics and Recession
. 0 Comments

Yesterday I read a long post from Market Ticker detailing some of the recent, distressing economic and business news. Here are some things that stuck out for me.

First, durable goods orders decreased 5.3% on the month and inventories are rising. Market Ticker says this is always a sign a recession is on the way (or at least evidence that people are cutting back on spending), which makes sense to me. People used to be buying lots of crap, manufacturers ramped up production bit by bit to meet demand. Now that the demand is no longer there because people are limiting their spending, inventories will naturally rise and products will not get shipped.

Second, he berates the short-sighted politicians for setting America up for an energy crisis. The fools have prohibited any nuclear energy development for the past 30 years. We’ve turned our food into energy and we have refused to drill for oil off our coasts, oil which we know is there.

Also, and a most interesting and scary prediction that there will be a war between China and Russia in the future:

Let’s talk geopolitical risk - what’s really driving metals prices. Its not talked about, but it should be. China has north of 1.2 billion people. Russia, which shares a border with China, has 140 million, or about 1/10th of China.

Russia has a net surplus of both oil and natural gas, and in addition has a surplus of land per-capita. China has a dearth of all three. So long as China can pay for what they need, this is not a serious problem.

But as we flush, to believe that China can turn to internal consumption and pick up the slack, with a per-capita income of under $2,000, where ours is more than 10 times as high, is pure fantasy.

I wouldn’t take that bet at any odds.

What I expect to happen is that China will eventually run out of ability to subsidize, and will turn to what nations have always historically turned to when faced with severe internal pressures and a resource-rich nation sharing a border with them.

Quite distressing news overall, but good news if you happen to be a bear.

Problem With the Concensus Views About China

Published
by
Doug
on February 3, 2008
in China, Economics and Money
. 0 Comments

I just watched a very interesting presentation (and relatively short at about 27 minutes) by Dr. H. “Woody” Brock, President of Strategic Economic Decisions, about the threat of  China and the 5 general misconceptions of concensus views.

Here are the 5 questions Brock poses regarding the concensus views of China:

  • Is it true that a higher yuan would not improve the US trade deficit?
  • Do those who celebrate the virtues of “cheap Chinese imports now” not understand there is no free lunch?
  • Who says the very low US savings rate is in fact the principal reason for the vast US trade deficit?
  • Is it true that the Chinese will retaliate by “pulling out their money” and/or by reducing their ongoing purchases of US treasuries?
  • On what grounds is the yuan “only” undervalued by 15%-25%?

Brock addresses each of his questions in language that is easy to understand. Non-economists should be able to wrap their minds around the concepts which Brock discusses. 

In conclusion, Brock attempts to answer what should be done about China using the paradigm of game theory. There are three factors that influences the outcome of bargaining between China and the U.S.: (1) the relative risk aversion of the bargaining nation, (2) the relative threat power, and (3) the relative coalitional muscle. Brock essentially says that although the U.S. in theory has the upper hand on two of these three factors, he is worried that the U.S. is incapable of capitalizing on its strengths in order to bargain successfully with China. Brock is worried about the future of the U.S. in relation to China and Asia.

Though I think everyone has heard of “the Chinese threat” or some such variation on that phrase, most don’t really understand the nature of the threat, which is largely economic in nature, though there is a growing military threat. This presentation does a good job providing some simplified concensus views of China and also his arguments that the concensus views are wrong. Watching this will help you understand better the nature of the threat from China.