bloody hell! Consider these snapshots of China: Since 1978, China has averaged 9.4% annual GDP growth It had a five-fold increase in total output per capita from 1982 to 2002 It had $61 billion in foreign direct investment in 2004 alone and foreign trade of $851 billion, the third-largest in the world The US trade deficit with China exceeded $200 billion in 2005 China has $750 billion in foreign exchange reserves and is the second-biggest oil importer Last year it turned out 442,000 new engineers a year; with 48,000 graduates with master's degrees and 8,000 PhDs annually; compared to only 60,000 new engineers a year in the US. China for the first time (2004) surpassed America to export the most technology wares around the world. China enjoyed a $34 billion trade surplus with the US in advanced technology products in 2004 (The Economist, December 17, 2005). In 2005, the surplus increased to $36 billion It created 20,000 new manufacturing facilities a year It holds $252 billion in US Treasury Bonds (plus $48 billion held by Hong Kong) Among the five basic food, energy and industrial commodities âgrain and meat, oil and coal and steel âconsumption in China has eclipsed that of the US in all but oil. China has also gone ahead of the US in the consumption of TV sets, refrigerators and mobile phones In 1996, China had 7 million cell phones and the US had 44 million. Now China has more mobile phone users than the US has people. China has about $1 trillion in personal savings and a savings rate of close to 50%; U.S. has about $158 billion in personal savings and a savings rate of about 2% (The Wall Street Journal, Nov 19, 2005) Shanghai boasts 4,000 skyscrapers â double the number in New York City (The Wall Street Journal, Nov 19, 2005) Songbei, Harbin City in north China is building a city as big as New York City Goldman Sachs predicts that China will surpass the US economy by 2041.
Yes and they have yet to survive a capitalism style recession, so yes very nice on the way up, but how will things be when there is slump. They will not know what hit them, and thats coming.
Perhaps they'll take a page out of Bernanke's playbook, and just cut rates and throw money out of the helicopter.
USA economy is riddles with corruption in producing is govt statictics In the western world, the USA fed is the only central bank that does not have price stability as its main goal. Employments numbers survey, CPI calc, CPI core calc are all bullsh*t.
That # has been thrown out tha' window for a long time now, we have been in a negative savings rate for 2 years now!! But everything is going well! Go Go Go Market!!! weeeeeeee!!!!!
Whether the regime over there can survive the first severe recession they get is going to be the question. I give them less than a 50% chance of surviving such an event, myself. In the shorter run, say the next 20 or so years, China is it. But past that, India will be where the action is, because of the stability that democracy brings.
They have an enormous literate working class, rapidly becoming their middle class. We have to import ours illegally from Mexico. All 100 million of them. That's still 1/10th their working class. Not hard to see how it will be difficult for the US to compete with this behemoth. Also, they have no unions, no billions wasted every year on frivilous lawsuits, little taxation..
They also suffer from severely contaminated water and toxic air pollution. Their markets are a hot air balloon waiting to pop. Currently, you can't short their markets, and there's NO regulations by the Government. This is not a safe play. It's simliar to the 1920's before the 12 year depression. China is NOT a safe play or investment strategy. New Zealand, Taiwan and other suppliers to china are a better plays.