US pledges financial rescue plan (2008)

[vxv]

And have an actual unemployment rate of around 20%



http://fjordman.blogspot.com/2005/06/how-high-is-total-swedish-unemployment.html

and rather sickly





http://www.thelocal.se/article.php?ID=1851

Oh and I'm pretty sure many Swedes are big fans of Ms Spears

I'm glad to hear, but you went against your own argument now proving mine. Thanks.

Personally, I would rather vote for Christina...

 

[PeterCH]

It would be interesting to know how their clumsy dim-witted mess can be mitigated by the rest of the world...rather than allowing the US to just stumble and make a bigger mess things…

Wow you really have a problem with America. What, did they deny you a visa or do a body cavity search on you when you visited?

 

[Alan]

I'm glad to hear, but you went against your own argument now proving mine. Thanks.

Personally, I would rather vote for Christina...

How so?

Wow you really have a problem with America. What, did they deny you a visa or do a body cavity search on you when you visited?

ROFL

 

[boramk]

Firstly who gave the US permission to tackle the global financial crisis when they are the cause due to their Doofus financial tactics?

I'm guessing because of their "Doofus Tactics" they are fixing things, as many people are inclined to their economy.

Why the Doofus thread?

Do you okes eat ignorance for breakfast?

 

[Alan]

I think it's called envypops. Not very healthy

 

[boramk]

Job creation fine, but actual value in production, I'm not so sure about. Maybe their easy accesible loans ensured the jobs.

Don't base your thesis on your own petty thoughts.

I’m confident the Indian and Chinese exceed this by far.

No they are actually very productive. India and China DO NOT exceed this by far, as they are equally productive, maybe more maybe less.

This will never happen…

Why because you say so? Not everyone is like you an wants to go backl to the stone age as you indicated in a previous thread.

America has a fair share of failings and also a fair share of successes.
Being Anti-American with thesis based on Youtube videos doesn't make you smart, it makes you ignorant.

 

[Arthur]

I’m confident the Indian and Chinese exceed this by far.

Your confidence is misplaced.

According to any research by any organisation you care to mention you're wrong. The US worker is the most productive on earth, by far. In certain sectors, China's most productive industries are approaching Japan's productivity, was lags the USA by about 8% (a very significant margin, if you understand how producivity leverages economic performance). The best Indian industries are even further behind. This is true despite the dollars decline in relative terms.

(You are wrong because I suspect your impressions are gleaned from the mass media and general hype about India and China's industrial growth over past decade. Yes they have surged in high percentages, but off a tiny base in comparison to the USA. Despite the ignorant hype of many commentators, China is not nearly close to world economic dominance. It was ony recently that China's entire economy surpassed Italy's, with a rather large population disparity.)

International Labor Organization Their Factbook 2008 is an invaluable source. Latest ILO report: "What’s more, the report also shows that the productivity gap between the US and most other developed economies continued to widen. The acceleration of productivity growth in the US has outpaced that of many other developed economies..."
One of many reports by REITI (Research Institute of Economy, Trade, Industry), and another
UK Govt paper on international productivity comparisons
One of many OECD reports

... there are hundreds more. Can you cite any authoritative sources to back your claim?

In the period 2000-2006 only Taiwan, Sweden and Korea had productivity increases greater than the USA, but in overall productivity per worker in virtual all sectors the USA leads the world. Remember, productivity increases measure only productivity growth relative to previous levels obtaining in that country, not the actual productivity in comparison to other countries. Thus Burundi for example can lead the world in productivity increase but still be only one-fortieth as productive as say a Japanese worker.

The general nonsense peddled about the USA economy is staggeringly naive, so it's little wonder people suffer from misapprehensions. It's astonishing how many people genuinely think the USA economy consists largely of do-nothing managers sitting in offices shuffling paper, and hamburger-flippers and 7/11 checkout clerks. They forget that when Americans (and their media) complain about exported manufacturing industries, for example, or the "gutting of America's industrial base", they are speaking in comparative terms the rest of the planet can barely comprehend. America's domestic manufacturing & industrial base is still by far the largest, most productive and most profitable on the planet, and by a very long measure. Even with the rise of China and India, America remains the 900lb gorilla in industrial output.

 

[PeterCH]

Regarding China:

"Rumors Spread Of High Economic Officials In China Facing Replacement"
http://www.nni.nikkei.co.jp/
I don't have a sub and the Trial sub seems too much of a bother. Still
this possibly ties in with ongoing problems in China.

 

[Obaht]

Doofus American Economy?

If the US is a doofus economy, then by comparison, SA's economy must be a Shytehole African Banana Republic Economy and you, vxv, must be a banana picker in that economy.

The wealthiest 10 people in the US are probably worth more than the entire SA GDP, and if that isn't the case right now, they will be in the future, with doofus Zuma and his looney crew coming to power next week.

 

[Turiko]

SA's economy must be a Shytehole African Banana Republic Economy

Oh, it is.

As for the people who think I have an issue with the USA, well I don't I just think there are better countries out there than the United States.

As for the industrial output, I am not stupid, seeing American brand named equipment passing through my factory with Chinese writing on it and stickers saying "MADE IN CHINA"

How can Chinese labour output be passed off as American industrial base? At the moment, I am not too sure what America's industrial output is, but, it won't last for long. Nobody can compete with the Far East. The cost of labour remains the key issue. Nobody in the West wants to work 12-hour shifts for a pittance. The Chinese will gladly do it.

 

[Arthur]

No reputable stats-keepers are passing Chinese manufactured goods off as American. Certainly OECD and DoL stats don't, and above stats (or below) do not include offshore manufactured goods. OECD, IMF, World Bank and other stats keepers allocate value-chain portions appropriately.

Let's keep some perspective:

USA GDP: $13.8 trillion
China GDP: $3.2 trillion
India GDP: $1.2 trillion

ie USA economy is >3 times larger than China and India combined. In fact, China + India is almost equal to Japan.

Then factor is population, and you get a rough idea of just how big the gap is.

 

[boramk]

No reputable stats-keepers are passing Chinese manufactured goods off as American. Certainly OECD and DoL stats don't, and above stats (or below) do not include offshore manufactured goods. OECD, IMF, World Bank and other stats keepers allocate value-chain portions appropriately.

Let's keep some perspective:

USA GDP: $13.8 trillion
China GDP: $3.2 trillion
India GDP: $1.2 trillion

ie USA economy is >3 times larger than China and India combined. In fact, China + India is almost equal to Japan.

Then factor is population, and you get a rough idea of just how big the gap is.

Thats what I go on about.

Its 2.4Billion people being compared to 0.3Billion. But No, China and India are the better countries with no "Doofus" Economy

 

[Arthur]

That's because there's not much economy to be doofus.

 

[Arthur]

As an aside, both India's and China's economies are far more leveraged, and China especially has serious structural problems in the banking system (ie massive bad/poor debts, currently sheltered by govt). Almost every economist who watches these things knows especially China has a massive structural problem with poor/bad loans to unproductive enterprises. China cannot keep all the balls in the air (servicing debt with no-profit exports) and pretty soon things will melt down, just as they did in Japan and Korea.

Analysts warn China vulnerable to a Japan-style debt meltdown

...But today, China could be ripe for a crisis of its own that might resemble the collapse of Japan's "Bubble Economy" in the early 1990s -- and have enormous global impact, analysts warn.

..The likely trigger of a crisis, should it erupt, would be a pile- up of bad loans in a weak banking system, analysts say.

"The banking system is still based on collateral and the collateral is all overvalued," says Andy Xie, an independent economist based in Shanghai and Hong Kong.

"If the bubble bursts, then you will have a banking crisis like Japan in 1990," he says. "The question is how China can manage after the bubble." Source

The China Syndrome: Meltdown Is Imminent (Feb 08)

China property meltdown feared (13 Sept 08 - before Lehmann Bros)

 

[Turiko]

The banking system aside, I cannot comment because I am no expert about the Chinese banking system. However there are a few tangible things I see:

1- The Chinese are killing the market segment in which we operate. We are working our butts off to fight them off with their cheap goods, imported into SA at better prices. We can't really compete on cost because it costs us a ton in labour. People don't want to work here for peanuts and all you can get out of them is no more than 45 hours a week max. The Chinese are not hindered by these problems. It is not only our market segment. It is computer parts, motor vehicles, home appliances.... the list goes on and on.....

2- Stuff must be happening there, particularly in Shenzhen. I have personally lost three good mates of mine, to China, they're all in the IT field and they went to China, and now they're the directors of a company that manufactures IT products.

 

[Arthur]

I can corroborate that experience. As we all know, exports from China's coastal cities (all the way up to Dalian) are indeed booming, and flooding the planet with cheap goods. Over the past decade or so the export industries have been funded largely by successive waves of first American, then European, Japanese and Korean DFI (direct foreign investment - estimates vary from $180b to $250b), leading to large trade-account deficits with these economies. Some 25% of China's population participates in these industries in the coastal cities - the remaining 75% or so are in low-tech agri or rust-belt industries in the north, central and west. The monetary authorities in Beijing have used this liquidity to prop up the rest of China's low-tech state-owned enterprises, which are hugely inefficient and riddled with corruption. This is the Chinese economy's 'sub-prime' bubble, because perhaps the majority of these loans are bad, unsecured and failing (much like the bad mortgages in USA/Europe, but in this case loans to businesses). To hold things together Beijing has to meddle with real currency values and drive exports ever more fanatically, even if they are unprofitable, which many perhaps even most are ... it's simply a device to draw revenues rather than profits. Sooner or later the chickens come home to roost, and the whole house of cards implodes. The Japanese and Korean meltdowns were for exactly the same reason - ever more urgent exports to keep liquidity in the banking system, which is inefficient and severly exposed by bad loans.

If this is news, you'll remember this post when China's exports collapse, the Yuan is revalued, and all those cheap Chinese exports suddenly grow more expensive, and marketshare contracts ... not because labour costs increase, but because the systemic and structural problems in the Chinese banking system blow out and the export bubble deflates. This will cause serious social and political turmoil in China, and will be the talk of the world. Of course many a commentator's ignorance and bias will be on display as they try to blame America and the West for this, but the bottom line is their economy is living way beyond its means.

India is doing a better job of managing liquidity and curtailing financing bubbles, but it's about 1/3 the size of China's economy.

 

[PeterCH]

http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cach...aking+Due+With+U.S.+Assets&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1

 

[PeterCH]

http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewarticle+articleid_2535368.html

In the mid 1990s, Chinese leaders began to seriously examine the Chinese economy as it became clear that the widening gap between the rich and poor and between the coastal urban areas and the rural inland areas was stirring social unrest. Under then-President Jiang Zemin and Premier Zhu Rongji, China began revising its method of collecting statistics, and the more accurate numbers painted a stark picture of economic and social reality far different from the sugar-coated official reports feeding up the chain from the local levels. China’s age-old problem — balancing the distribution of wealth — was once again at the forefront, as it became apparent that economic growth had primarily benefited the coastal third of the population, leaving the remaining two-thirds behind.
This in turn meant that China’s rural interior population was growing restless. With the massive displacement of migrant labor, the chances for upheaval were very real in the minds of China’s leaders. When Jiang launched his Go West program, seeking to move economic growth into the interior, it was to address this economic imbalance and pre-empt its social consequences. The power of local officials, given relatively free rein in economic affairs under the economic opening and reform, meant that the Go West program met with little success; any serious effort to tackle the economic imbalance faced stiff resistance from the wealthy coastal urban leaders (who were being told, in effect, to transfer their wealth to the interior).

 

[PeterCH]

But having a fully convertible currency means losing much control over the ability to micromanage an economy. While in most — though certainly not all — cases the benefits outweigh the risks, China is attempting some tricky economic navigating at present. With a fully convertible currency, Beijing would no longer be able to artificially adjust or control the value of the yuan, and hence the international price of its exports to protect its exporters and the hundreds of thousands of jobs they provide (something Beijing has done effectively in the last two to three months by slowing down the rate of appreciation of the yuan compared to the start of 2008).

http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewarticle+articleid_2517873.html

 

[PeterCH]

The “Chinese miracle” has been a leading economic story for several years now. The headlines are familiar: “China’s GDP Growth Fastest in Asia.” “China Overtakes United Kingdom as Fourth-Largest Economy.” “China Becomes World’s Second-Largest Energy Consumer.” “China Revises GDP Growth Rates Upward — Again.” Everywhere, one can find news articles about China, rising like a phoenix from the economic debris of its Maoist system to change and challenge the world in every way imaginable.

But just like the phoenix, the idea of an inevitable Chinese juggernaut is a myth.

Moreover, Western markets have been at least subconsciously aware of this for a decade. More than half of the $1.1 trillion in foreign direct investment that has flowed into China since 1995 has not been foreign at all, but money recirculated through tax havens by various local businessmen and governing officials looking to avoid taxation.

Regional and local governors enthusiastically seized upon Jiang’s program to massively expand their own personal fiefdoms. And as corporate empires of these local leaders grew, so too did Chinese demand for every conceivable industrial commodity. One result was the massive increases in commodity prices of 2003 and 2004, but the results for the Chinese economy were negligible. China consumes 12 percent of global energy, 25 percent of aluminum, 28 percent of steel and 42 percent of cement — but is responsible for only 4.3 percent of total global economic output. Ultimately, while the “solution” espoused by Jiang’s generation did forestall a civil breakdown, it also saddled China with thousands of new non-competitive projects, even more bad debt, and a culture of corruption so deep that cases of applied capital punishment for graft and embezzlement have soared into the thousands.

Yet the potential drawbacks of the solution offered by Hu’s generation are even worse. In attempting to consolidate, modernize and rationalize Jiang’s legacy, Hu’s government is butting heads with nearly all of the country’s local and regional leaderships. These people did quite well for themselves under Jiang and are not letting go of their wealth easily. Such resistance has forced the Hu government to reform by a thousand pinpricks, needling specific local leaders on specific projects while using control of the asset management firms as a financial hammer. After all, since the central government relieved the state banks of their bad loan burden, it now has the perfect tool to strip power from those local leaders who prove less-than-enthusiastic about the changes in government policy.

Or at least that is how it is supposed to work. Local government officials have become so entrenched in their economic and political fiefdoms that they are, at best, simply ignoring the central government or, at worst, actively impeding central government edicts.

http://www.howardwfrench.com/archives/2006/01/14/dissecting_the_chinese_miracle/