Chinese railways and speculating pig farmers
by ilene - October 26th, 2009 12:52 pm
Chinese railways and speculating pig farmers
Courtesy of Michael Pettis at China Financial Markets
This weeks’ entry is fairly miscellaneous, a consequence both of the amount and variety of news coming out of China and my own hectic schedule, which prevents me from dealing with all of these issues in a more unified way. Between lots of investor meetings and finishing up a number of writing commitments, I am preparing next week to go to New York and Washington for ten days.
As an aside, the timing of my trip was determined by an East Coast tour, centered on New York, which my music label, Maybe Mars, is arranging for some of the best Beijing musicians, including the surreal folk singer Xiao He, one of the most astonishing and creative musicians I have ever worked with. For those of my regular readers based in or near New York who may be interested in checking out the Beijing new-music scene, I strongly recommend that you keep an eye out for the shows, beginning November 5 and running through the end of the month. These guys are really good and I expect a great reaction from the New York music community.
But back to more mundane stuff. Last week’s excellent economic numbers once again reinforced everyone’s existing prejudices. I discussed why in a September 11 entry in response to similar numbers last month. Those who believe that the stimulus package has essentially resolved China’s plight and eliminated its vulnerability to export demand saw the 8.9% year-on-year GDP growth rate (at the lower end of a narrow range of expectations) as proof that Chinese growth has solidly recovered. Andy Rothman at CLSA in a research report released the following day had this interpretation:
Other than GDP coming in just under 9%, no surprises, and we agree with the NBS spokesman, who this morning said ‘the overall situation of the national economy was good.’ We maintain our forecast of about 8% GDP growth for this year, and 8-9% for 2010 (closer to 9% if you expect a US/EU recovery to generate a bit of a net exports boost for China).
He then went on to say something that puzzled me:
The fact that China’s GDP grew by 7.7% in the first nine months of the year while exports were still extremely…
Is Higher Education Worth a Lifetime of Debt?
by ilene - August 26th, 2009 10:22 am
Is Higher Education Worth a Lifetime of Debt?
Courtesy of Charles Hugh Smith Of Two Minds
Our latest Sacred Cow to gore: Higher education.
Just this week I’ve demolished the housing "recovery" (was it in a 12-step program?) The Pareto Principle and the Next Wave Down in Real Estate (August 24, 2009), torched the fantasy that Medicare is sustainable The health care elephant in the room: Medicare (Daily Finance) and also deep-fried network/cable TV Television, Symbolic Capital and Empire (August 25, 2009) now… good golly, is nothing sacred? Short answer: not here. The next sacred cow dragged up to be gored: Higher Education.
Correspondent David C. summarized the Medicare-like trend in higher-education costs-- double the growth of inflation--and questioned the value of all those "must-have" degrees. David recommended this thought-provoking article: M.I.T. Calls Academia’s Bluff (Gary North) and added these comments:
According to this web site, Financial Aid.com, "A good rule of thumb is that tuition rates will increase at about twice the general inflation rate." I went to Dunwoody College of Technology, AKA private votech, for about $4,000 a year in the early 90s and now it costs about $16,000 a year! After all in our culture, parents are expected to pay the full cost of college. As if one must get a higher education or they’re screwed to a lifetime of crappy lowpaying jobs. Then there’s the snobbish view if you don’t have a college education you’re a moron. Academia pushes the "lifelong learning" dogma as if the only place you can properly learn is in school, they do this of course to increase their customer… I mean students.
I’ve always wondered why the cost to get a "higher" education goes up so much. Is it a conspiracy by the elites/rich to keep poor people ignorant? Or maybe to keep the middle class in debt servitude? Or maybe greedy teacher salaries? Or maybe too much bureaucracy? Or maybe schools that think they need state of the art facilities in order to provide a quality education.
Whatever the reason the increasing costs are going to make a "higher" education from academia impossible for more people. Maybe that’s a blessing in disguise, what is the real value of a college degree these days?
With the average student $20,000 in debt it seems to me


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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...









Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW. She manages the Favorites backup site
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