From the trenches of China

Discussion in 'Economics' started by svrart, Jan 20, 2009.

  1. Seriously annoying.

    How hard is it to spell HAVE?

    We should start abbreviating everything and let the readers attempt to decipher it.

    Ts thrd sks (this thread sucks).

    :)
     
    #21     Jan 20, 2009
  2. You are correct.

    People (not typing ppl anymore based on suggestions frm many... sorry for that as English is not my native language) really close to the situation will pay attention to:
    i) oil usage
    ii) investment level
    iii) electricity level
    iv) PMI

    Forget about GDP (very much lagging and massaged).

    Forget first hand experience in shopping malls.

    Forget about even the rising trade surplus... this can simply means that China's "processing trade" is dropping rapidly and thus importing much less. This implies higher value of trade surplus but at the same time huge layoff and the negative effect is much much higher than the positive effect.

    Let me give you an example. This is about a customer called Foxconn. At peak, they employed 280k people in just one factory in Dongguan. Now they employ below 100k people. And when the TV interviewed the staff, one of them said that her income has dropped from USD300/mth to USD110/mth.

    So the first thing is the US downturn. When the factories go down and people become out of jobs, you can expect what to come next.

    One thing I also agree with US is that China should NOT export its overcapacity to other countries. The exchange rate should not be kept artificially low to stay price-competitive. The way is to is to give the money back to the workers so they have enough to spend.

    But be careful. In case this really happens, China no longer needs to buy so much debt from US. And whether the Chinese can buy a lot US products is unknown... Those middle class in the cities are more inclined to buying US goods. But those farmers making USD600 a year don't care. They don't know Nokia/Nike/Dell/Apple in the very first place. They may still buy but they may buy local brands. It is up to these US NMCs to understand what these people really want otherwise they will lose this market miserably.
     
    #22     Jan 21, 2009
  3. dtan1e

    dtan1e

    i think for the biz wise in china has deteriorated, but as someone mentioned general population the poor that is has no money to begin /w so hardly impacts them, then there r the middle rich class that will still purchase foreign stuffs, then there is the gov't that will pump billions to keep the economy going, so conclude i think there is an overall down trend but nothing exaggerated like in the rest of the world
     
    #23     Jan 21, 2009
  4. dtan1e

    dtan1e

    YET !!!
     
    #24     Jan 21, 2009
  5. svrart

    svrart

    Wow, I did not know I would anger so many people. Have to wonder why ....

    Ha. ha ha ha
     
    #25     Jan 21, 2009
  6. The one I hate the most is "prolly". Like I'll prolly have to put you on ignore if you write "prolly" one more time.
     
    #26     Jan 21, 2009
  7. gangof4

    gangof4

    hey moron.

    his comments are, BY FAR, the most useful and insightful in this thread. anyone who uses the internet knows his abbreviations and, thus, had no problem reading what he said. kinda like me not using caps- word capitalizes everything so me, and many, are accustomed to ignoring the caps key for speed purposes. doesn't impact the content nor the 'credibility' of our musings. given, for him, ESL (look it up if this abbrev. is over your head!), his wording is very good.

    you have some serious issues if THAT is what pisses you off enough to type a post about it.

    i'll take useful info over perfectly punctuated drivel any day...
     
    #27     Jan 21, 2009
  8. nonam

    nonam

    Richard thanks for your info.You do a good job with the language.Dont take any offense with the spelling police.You get them on every forum.:)
     
    #28     Jan 21, 2009
  9. Richard writes descend enough english to be understood, but this isn't a texting competition. If you know how to write a word properly, then do it. Also a lot of chinese who try to write english have never heard of prepositions or conjugations or any of the grammar of the english language. That's great that you can write car in english, now how about you learn the grammar too.


    Btw, I spoke with a chinese friend of mine and he said that like others have mentioned before, you don't have a social safety net in China. If you lose your job, tough luck. If you get injured, get well soon. So people naturally save a lot. Now that the savings have been so great, the government has allowed a policy of cheap credit to stimulate growth. That of course has also created inflation, destroying people's savings.
    The massive housing bubble there was due from the fact there aren't many places to put your savings to work. Banks don't pay anything, and all you have is a crooked stock market and housing speculation.

    On top of that, the government is fighting against its people to encourage domestic demand. It does this not only by inflation and abusing decades worth of savings, but also by taxing savings. Of course I haven't heard anything about a social safety net either. So the chinese consumer is stuck between a rock and a hard place and won't spend. Government policies does seem to be generally towards business and nothing else. Their goal is to become a China Inc, getting the same profits and power that the US has enjoyed. Their concern over well being seems to be secondary if at all.
     
    #29     Jan 21, 2009
  10. yes, as Renegen points out China has No social safety nets such as
    unemployment insurance/payments or welfare and no law protecting
    individual rights particularly concerning worksite injuries, working conditions
    or preventing employers cutting wages by 50% or not paying workers at all
    if there's a country facing a 'Great Depression' scenario it's China

    an interview i glimpsed last night a married ? couple - employees at the
    same factory said they saved 50% of their combined $20 weekly wages
    because they'd experienced 'rainy days before'

    the SSE Shanghai Composite Index has dropped from 6000 to 2000
    tomorrow there will be the release of new data that will show whether
    China's economic slowdown is worse than expected
    National Bureau of Statistics of China: http://www.stats.gov.cn/english/

    'Economic Difficulties Sweep China' Jan 21/09 by Xu Yisheng, Beijing
    "It is generally believed that the difference between national figures and
    local figures is led by technical problems as well as problems lying with the
    political system, for instance some local governments are desperate to show higher GDP data." —
    like the US, gov stats are not to be relied upon
    http://www.chinastakes.com/story.aspx?id=974

    add to this world trade/growth is virtually zero and both the World Bank
    and IMF continue to revise downwards world GDP points to the obvious
    that questionable data and happy optimism aren't economic facts

    housing:
    see chart - to Oct 08: 'The housing market provides some nasty shocks
    to China’s new middle classes'
    http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12470459
    general: http://www.chinatoday.com/rst/a.htm
     
    #30     Jan 21, 2009