China the new economic power?

[trottigy]

Predictions of an economic collapse in China are in vogue

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-china-bears-20111128,0,7099607.story

Once-unbridled optimism is giving way to fears that slowing GDP growth, rising public debt and stubbornly high inflation are signs of bigger problems to come.

Reporting from Beijing— Not long ago, those who predicted that China's economy was headed for a fall were in a lonely place.

U.S. economist Nouriel Roubini, widely praised for calling the U.S. housing meltdown, was dismissed as a serial contrarian when it came to his pessimistic China views. So was well-known hedge fund manager Jim Chanos. Lawyer and author Gordon Chang was derided as a Chicken Little for his 2006 book "The Coming Collapse of China."

Suddenly they're all Nostradamus.

Backed by data showing a slowdown in the world's second-largest economy, doomsayers have taken center stage. Unbridled optimism has given way to fears over widening cracks in the Chinese economic miracle.

They have had a few months of seeing their home prices go down as well. The government there says it can stop the fall, but hasn't been able to so far. Does this sound familiar? People are looking to China to bail out Europe, but they have their own problems coming up.

The global economies are getting desperate. The next year or two will be interesting to live through.

[retroHelen]

Yes we have seen similar reports here. Chinese Central Government seems solvent, but local regional/provincial governments have overspent on massive and dubiously useful building projects - sub-prime problems just like everywhere else. Empty blocks of new built, but not quite finished apartments where the money ran out and that are therefore not selling, just like everywhere else:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/china-business/8770945/China-faces-subprime-credit-bubble-crisis.html

[Precision]

And now China's military has admitted to constructing vast tunnel networks 3000 miles long, with massive nuclear warheads, according to a 3 year investigation by a group of Georgetown University students and their professor.

[retroHelen]

I was just reading about that in our Newspaper :http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2067984/Chinas-nuclear-arsenal-seven-times-bigger-previously-thought-students-discover-year-study-secret-documents.html

This week's financial reports from China have shown a slow down in manufacturing as countries they export to cannot place the same amount of orders as they are affected by the economic downturn:http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/34feee8e-1c0a-11e1-9631-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1fNzNygpi

[trottigy]

Sadly, it looks like China is heading down the same path as the rest of the world - only 3 years later.

"China's housing bubble is losing air" - http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-china-housing-bubble-20111213,0,3429813.story

"Home prices nationwide declined in November for the third straight month, according to an index of values in 100 major cities compiled by the China Index Academy, an independent real estate firm. Average prices in the Shanghai area are down about 40% from their peak in mid-2009, to about $176,000 for a 1,000-square-foot home.

Sales have plummeted. In Beijing, nearly two years' worth of inventory is clogging the market, and more than 1,000 real estate agencies have closed this year. Developers who once pre-sold housing projects within hours are growing desperate. A real estate company in the eastern city of Wenzhou is offering to throw in a new BMW with a home purchase."

To any who thought they would be the next "World Power" or "Economic World Power" - this seems EXTREMELY unlikely.

[rocket]

Who's left to buy up American debt when they falter.

[trottigy]

According to the Bible book of Daniel - they won't falter. They will be destroyed by Jehovah's hand and not their own or anyone elses.

Another interesting article about China:

"No joy this season for China's toymakers" - http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2011/12/14/china-toy-manufacturing/?iid=HP_River

"FORTUNE -- Zhang Shunlin, a 47-year-old businessman from China's southern province of Guangdong, talks about Christmas and Thanksgiving year round but has no idea of their origins. He thinks Thanksgiving is a religious holiday when "Westerners thank the blessings of God" and Christmas is just like the Chinese New Year.

But he knows their commercial significance all too well. Zhang operates a toy factory and a wholesale store with his sister and brother-in-law in Guangdong province, where 60% of China's exported toys are made. He says this holiday season has not brought much joy. Orders from his U.S. clients have plummeted 25% from last year. For the first time, he had to decline several long-term orders because of the soaring cost of raw materials and implementing what he calls America's "unreasonable" laws. His sister and brother-in-law are planning to leave the business next year.

Zhang isn't alone. The Guangzhou Daily recently called this Christmas "the worst" for Chinese toymakers. In the third quarter, the official government statistics show that gifts and toys exported to the U.S. and Europe, which normally make up more than half of the total export volume, fell 20% from last year. At the recent Canton Fair 2011, the largest trade fair in China and a bellwether for China's export volumes, transaction orders in toys from the U.S. decreased by 24% from last year."

[Keep Fighting]

I agree that they cant be strong alone but this is interesting.

The BRICs Are Coming--Fast

BRICS is a term used in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The countries were previously referred to as BRIC before South Africa joined in 2011 and attended the annual conference for the first time 14 April 2011 held in Sanya on the island of Hainan in southern China.

BRIC was first used in an article published by the investment bank Goldman Sachs in 2001. The four original countries started gradually a partnership based on this categorization, and held its first annual meeting June 16, 2009 in Yekaterinburg, Russia. At the same meeting in 2010, held in Brasilia, was South Africa, invited as a guest, and was then invited as a full member.

In the article from 2001 states that the economy in these four countries is growing rapidly. On this basis, set forth a hypothesis that during the 50 years, the economy of the BRIC countries become as large as the U.S. economy, which today is the world's largest.

China is not alone after all.....

Please understand me right, I don't have a clue but just thinking.

If you think I`m wrong please note I don't have a clue. lol