China Now Second Largest Economy After the United States
by ilene - August 16th, 2010 2:00 pm
China Now Second Largest Economy After the United States
Courtesy of Jr. Deputy Accountant
Bubble? What bubble?
NYT:
After three decades of spectacular growth, China passed Japan in the second quarter to become the world’s second-largest economy behind the United States, according to government figures released early Monday.
The milestone, though anticipated for some time, is the most striking evidence yet that China’s ascendance is for real and that the rest of the world will have to reckon with a new economic superpower.
The recognition came early Monday, when Tokyo said that Japan’s economy was valued at about $1.28 trillion in the second quarter, slightly below China’s $1.33 trillion. Japan’s economy grew 0.4 percent in the quarter, Tokyo said, substantially less than forecast. That weakness suggests that China’s economy will race past Japan’s for the full year.
Former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund and filthy Group of 30 operative Kenneth Rogoff is convinced there’s a bubble: “You’re starting to see that collapse in property and it’s going to hit the banking system,” said Rogoff, 57, who also serves on the Group of 30, a panel of central bankers, finance officials and academics led by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker. “They have a lot of tools and some very competent management, but it’s not easy.”
As opposed to #1 with no tools and completely incompetent management, right? I’m not naming names, I need not.
Marc Faber called a Chinese collapse in 9 to twelve months back in May, giving us a few more months to stock up on buttered popcorn and duck feet:
“The market is telling you that something is not quite right,” Faber, the publisher of the Gloom, Boom & Doom report, said in a Bloomberg Television interview in Hong Kong today. “The Chinese economy is going to slow down regardless. It is more likely that we will even have a crash sometime in the next nine to 12 months.”
I doubt Tim Geithner actually feels China’s hot breath on his neck because last time I checked, our Zimbabwe Ben printing press was still in full working order and recognized by the global economy as all-powerful mover of the cheap money-hungry monster.
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When Will China’s Bubble Burst?
by ilene - May 12th, 2010 5:12 pm
When Will China’s Bubble Burst?
Courtesy of Washington’s Blog
As Bloomberg notes, Marc Faber thinks China may crash in 9 to 12 months, and hedge fund manager Jim Chanos and Harvard University’s Kenneth Rogoff are also warning of a crash.
Nouriel Roubini told Bloomberg:
In China, where property prices rose at a record pace in April and consumer prices climbed at the fastest rate in 18 months, the economy faces the risk of a “significant slowdown,” Roubini said.
“China should be tightening monetary policy, increasing interest rates and let its currency appreciate over time,” he said. “They are too slow, they are not doing it fast enough.”
On April 20th, BusinessWeek wrote:
China’s Shanghai Composite Index may drop as much as 6 percent after breaching the 250-day moving average for the first time in a year, Shenyin & Wanguo Securities Co. said.
The benchmark gauge plunged 4.8 percent to 2,980.3 yesterday, the most in eight months, on concern government measures to curb real estate speculation will slow economic growth. The index may extend losses until reaching the next support level of 2,803…
Yesterday, Calculated Risk noted that the Shanghai composite is continuing down:
Keep an eye on the Shanghai index (in red). It appears China’s economy is slowing.
This graph shows the Shanghai SSE Composite Index and the S&P 500 (in blue).
The SSE Composite Index is at 2,622.67 mid-day – down about 300 points from 2 weeks ago.
[Click here for full chart]
Vincent Fernando notes that Beijing property prices are starting to fall rapidly (and that Shanghai is next), as China clamps down on the property bubble.
As MarketWatch notes:
China’s economy is teetering on the edge of a major slowdown … according to a noted China strategist.
David Roche, an economic and political analyst who manages the Hong Kong-based hedge fund Independent Strategy, says the world’s third-largest economy is now on the brink, faced with the inevitable reckoning that follows an extended bank-lending binge.
"We’ve got the beginnings of a credit-bubble collapse in China," said Roche, predicting the economy will likely cool from its stellar double-digit growth rate to a 6% annual expansion as a result.
While that may not sound bad, Roche believes the collateral damage from the cooling will be anything but mild, as the banking sector comes under pressure from cumulative
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Roubini Says The Problems of Greece and the Euro Area Are a Sign of Things to Come: Sovereign Risks To Spread to U.S., U.K., and Japan
by ilene - February 15th, 2010 7:01 pm
Roubini Says The Problems of Greece and the Euro Area Are a Sign of Things to Come: Sovereign Risks To Spread to U.S., U.K., and Japan
Courtesy of Shocked Investor
In a teleconference with investors, Nouriel Roubini, professor at the University of New York, says he sees a new wave of losses. He was adamant: "The problems of Greece and the euro area are a sign of things to come." This was reported today by Brazilian newspaper O Estado de Sao Paulo.
Perhaps on a media offensive lately, Roubini adds:
"There was a socialization of the losses of the financial system and housing market, and now there are huge budget deficits and public debt almost doubled, so we see sovereign risk serious not only in Greece but also in Portugal and Spain, and spreading in the future to the United States, Britain and Japan."
The article mentions that, as we know, Roubini is not alone. Kenneth Rogoff, Harvard professor and former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) issued a warning as well stating that Greece is just the beginning of a second wave of bankruptcies. After the financial turmoil of 2008, now it is the excessive indebtedness of the governments of advanced countries that will undermine the economy. Rogoff examined 800 years of financial crisis to write his book, This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly
He concludes that the pattern is repeated throughout history: after banking crises like the one in the world in 2008, after Lehman Brothers, there is always a wave of sovereign debt crises. To save the financial systems, governments enter into debt. A few years later, there is a wave of crises and sovereign debt defaults. That is, after a crisis in the financial system, there comes a crisis of sovereign debt.
Niall Ferguson, writing in the Financial Times last week, swelled the chorus of pessimists. "It started in Athens. It is spreading to Lisbon and Madrid. But it would be a grave mistake to
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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 site