China 2010.09.02 The news of China moves the market. The market is entering an irrational phase that it could be the beginning of a serious bear market crash or the last phase of a bull rally. Or it could be the combination of both (bull then bear as part of the bear market correction) which makes the situation danger. This is the microeconomic view. From the macroeconomic view, the fog of war shrouds the growth engine or engines of the world. There is no question that BRIC countries combined together have the potential to replace American as the world's biggest economy but cannot replace American as the world's biggest consumer market. So if the BRIC grows at a pace faster or greater than the American's shrinking, the world's demand on material will grow. This is the key for the future trend of commodities. Unfortunately, economists have not get used to the American centric analyst which leading to inaccurate results. With export to the West continues to decline during the coming years, the world's economy's growth has to lie on the internal consumption. This is the development of the consumer market of the BRIC countries. We observe, subjectively, that the living standard has been improved. While the income average is only a meager fraction of the West but the population size makes up to a certain extend and it remains climbing by the fact that exporting deflation is not one of the major export fro the BRIC. The following is quoted from the newsbite from ASPO-USA today:
"China continues to grow. China’s manufacturing increased modestly in August after several months of contraction as the government implemented measures to rein in credit and slow housing speculation. Beijing also announced that passenger car sales rose 59 percent in August over 2009. While there is still trouble ahead, particularly the likely slowing of exports to the US, China’s GDP is still expected to grow by about 9 percent for the rest of 2010 and 2011.
"India reported this week that its economy grew by 8.8 percent in the 2
nd quarter as compared to last year. The New Delhi is trying to increase this to 10 percent. It seems clear that increasing demand for oil from Asia will be with us for a while. "The newsbite shows the consumer market is continue to grow in a very rapid pace. Again, this rapid pace in percentage is not necessary the long term view because of the small base of reference. But the increasing volume (absolute) is what we watch out.
2010.08.08 US and Republic of Korean (South Korean) Navy will have a joint military exercise in September 2010 at the Yellow Sea despite China's pretest. (China Daily 2010.07.22) While American continues to depend on China's export of hard money to buy the T-bills, this is a strange move because military exercise is always regarded as a thread to the non-participants of the place conducted. Like during high tension period with Iran, American will perform military exercise at the Middle East. Yellow Sea is not Korean's territory. China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang states that "We resolutely oppose any foreign military vessel and aircraft conducting activities in the Yellow Sea and China's costal water that undermine China's security interests." Other than a treat to the country directly, the military exercise is usually used as a precursor to claiming the sovereignty of the territory. American has tried at the Canadian Arctic Sea in order to create a passage through the North Pole by having the American's Costal Guard drove through the area without consulting Canada to demonstrate that Canada could not exercise her sovereignty right by proper protection of the area. China could not take this kind of challenge lightly because of the rich petroleum and many other natural resources (such as fishery) from the area. This is a bold and calculated action on American's part. While American continues to send high rank financial official such Tim Geithner to China to request the support of the U$ through appreciation of RMB (not excluding the possibility of requesting to hold and continue to buy treasuries), which means that she publicly admits that China is her creditor but contrarily performs such an offensive attack on China's sovereignty right. We should not take this action likely on the political side but can totally discount it on the economic side. The ASEAN countries is under the influence of China; full stop. There is nothing Korea and Japan (non-ASEAN members) could do anything to China rather reaping the profit of cheap labour and investment. The purpose of this exercise is related to China's stepping up to buy the Canadian Tar Sand assets. American is importing 1.2 million barrels per day from the Tar Sand. Under the NAFTA it is as secure as domestic production. However, with the asset purchased by Chinese companies, some tar sand output will be directed to China. It is known that the export is for sure but the detail on volume is not in public knowledge yet. This is a thread. American is trying to give China a warning shot but this is a very traditional Cow Boy style but she makes a big mistake to try to correct something that is a macro trend. The Gun and Rose spirit remains which has to be changed if American wants to gain the support of China.
2010.07.21 On July 2, 2010, CNBC reports that "GM's Auto Sales in China Top US for First Time". On July 20, 2010, IEA report "China overtakes the United Strates to become world's largest energy consumer". In both cases, it is the total that China exceeds American not the per capita. This is the key point because with 1.3 billion of population, i.e. about 4 times of American, it just means the potential up side will be way higher if there is a catch up, even it is not at par. All these indicate China is on track to her growth. During the 1940 while China was on silver standard, American forced the rise of silver to bear the deflation upon China. Now American forcing China to appreciate the yuan. It is repeating the same exercise but this time the effect will be different because China will use the saving to buy out American. Stay tune for the new development.
2010.07.01 Is China's economy slowing down and the GDP will shrink with the PBoC tightening the credit? We know that China has a U$500B infrastructure rebuilt project which actually includes U$350B from previously announced railway modernization project. There is another infrastructure rebuilt in China's cyberspace. She is going to unify the internet, television and telecommunication. A 300B yuan or U$44B is planned to integrate 12 cities first then pushed to the rest of the country later. The report from China Daily (Trial launched to converge TV, web and phones on 2010.07.02) indicates there may not be any visible results for the first few years. This is interesting. Is this pork barrel project? No this is a needed project but the result could be much invisible if it does right because it paths for the future. This is a true railway project of the 21st Century. Is the capital tight? No, if it is tight, such advance infrastructure project will not be done. Is there such a demand? Judging from the growth of China's Internet 2 project, this is real and realistic growth management. This is not an overbuilt. This is a health sign. Let do not judge China's growth rate by some other country and give the planning bureau of China some credit.
2010.06.27
RMB is floating again. China resumes to use the reference basket of money to
evaluate the RMB. There could be a wild card on what is in the basket down the
road. The current components consist of fiat currencies. In the future, there is
a very high possibility to fortifying it with precious metals. The objective of
adding precious metals is not to harden RMB which is hard enough but to
stabilizing the world economy. By adding gold in to the money basket, it could
be the beginning of gold standard again. Rather than back RMB by gold fully,
which means China has to buy up gold held by the rest of the world which
basically drives RMB and gold to the sky. This high value RMB and gold is no
good to anybody. However, the present of gold in the
money basket could stabilizing the value of RMB which reduces the volatility.
This will be the key success to import and export planning. One could ask how
will gold stabilize the value of RMB. It is by using weighed factors. Gold
could be heavily weighted but not backed. There is no need to have any physical
gold involved because it is not backing the currency. But how could the gold tie
to the RMB? This will be coming from the IMF's withdrawing right. Yes, there
will be reform in IMF and it will happen in not too far future. Another way to
stabilizing RMB is to create a synthetic future contract for the RMB to avoid it
runaway. This future contract is the RMB denominated bond. The issuing of RMB
bond has already begun. The RMB bond is purchased now using the RMB current
value. When it is matured, if there is no roll over (it may be as doubtful as
can be) the bond could be converted back to other currencies which is selling
RMB. This is what happens to the U$ which was shorted by borrowing U$ for other
currency. When expatriated, the U$ rally. Why RMB would not be pushed higher
when the bond mature? I strongly believe it is not China's intention to become
the first top two world settlement currencies. By holding the third position and
leave the top to U$ and German mark, the expatriation could be reduced yet,
there is influence in the world trade stage. In the Far East, the ASEAN
(Association of South East Asian Nation) will continue to trade using the RMB to
a greater extend but it remains in the family. The trade and the exchange is
being closely managed by China. The runaway risk will be reduced to minimal. As
the result, China uses ASEAN to take on the low price manufacturing while she
took up the role of high price (high tech and big ticket items such as
automobile), China controls the quality of trade and enjoy the import of
deflation from the ASEAN and West while manages the appreciation of RMB within a
reasonable rate.
2010.06.21
The “unpegging” of RMB to U$ was over exaggerated and
completely blown out of proportion by many entertainysts. The statement from
China says limited floating, not completely free float. According to PBOC, the
change is needed as the balance of payment is reaching equilibrium. This confirm
the view point of currency volatility risk. The spokesperson also says “"With
the BOP account moving closer to equilibrium, the basis for large-scale
appreciation of the RMB exchange rate does not exist," ” It is imperative that
the unpeg does not mean a good thing for the American. When China started to
peg, she did it to protect the export from the volatility of the currency
movement. Any volatility in currency is japerdy to import/export trade because
of the currency risk. It does not really just to keep the RMB low for export.
Whether the RMB is really low to stimulate export is one way to see it but this
also implies less U$ to be received. You are talking about giving up profit. We
see how bad it could be when the Chinese low cost/profit margin manufacturing
collapse due to the margin vapourized during the 2007-2009 world economic
crisis. When there is no pegging, one should also consider the two ways street
scenario. With such powerful currency control and huge FX reserve, the RMB could
be driven down. How, sell RMB in contract in directly through bonds. When bonds
are matured, the money in RMB will be converted back to other currencies. This
is happening and happening fast. Today, when the reallity of unpeg sinks in, the
American stock market is less enthusiastic, the commodities market almost
tanked. This is a true reflection.
2010.06.21 Japan and China have been actively pursuit oil deals in Middle East. Japan has non-Government operated oil companies drilling and producing for her country. China has been actively buying oil from Saudi. The most recent news was joint venture with BP in Iraq. Association of Peak Oil and Gas Study's June 21 Peak Oil Review quoted "The Saudis reported last week that during 2009 56 percent of their exports went to Asian markets. The US share of Saudi exports dropped from 20 to 14 percent between 2008 and 2009 while the EU’s share dropped from 12 to 10 percent." We have witness the declining of world oil production while American and European are not increasing the production. The Asian's demand form China and India is just start to ramp up, the supply and demand equation is definitely tilted to the demand side notwithstanding the short term fluctuation. This explains a very steep contango for oil future. To confirm this conjecture, we have to identify whether the reduction of the Saudi export to American and Europe are caused by the increase of Asian purchase.
2010.06.12 According to the National Development and Reform Commission of China, the first half of 2010 China's CPI will increase by 2.6%. This is a very special announcement (China Daily report http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-06/13/content_9972697.htm). The number is higher than many countries' target 2% inflation rate. Last year the CPI was up by 3.1%. By this standard, China's inflation needs attention. This is not the first time that China taking attack at the inflation. The string of action to cool down housing speculation, lower export tax to reduce local supply, raising reserve and many others are foresight to control the inflation. Although the rate may be higher than the 2.6% but she is not sitting on the hands. The proactive action is the hallmark of the current generation of Chinese government. We should praise these type of well orchestrated economic planning.
2010.05.29 There is a series of junior employee suicide at one of China's biggest electronic contracted manufacturer FoxConn. As of today, there are 12 suicides. A recount of such event was seldomly available from any official or semi-official China news media but there is a summary report with details from China Daily, Foxconn shines light on China's factory problems 2010.05.28. Labour dispute and low wages issues exist at all stage of development of labour movement. But it will not be faced and taking positive action if the industry is at a struggling and declining trend. Consider the textile and coal mining child labour during the Nineteenth Century British Industrial Revolution, there was not much of positive action from the employer to manage the problem until East India Company had its firm grip on the world. First, the workers had a better living if they could swallow the bitterness. Their complain was just empty words. Second, the social attitude towards the issue was not sympathetic enough to create the mass opinion that trigger the change. The mass opinion is generally the product of the mass media which in turn controlled by the upper echelon. The upper echelon will take action if their is impact on their profit. Foxconn incident is an example. The sadness and the concern impairs the productivity and availability of labour. This affect Foxconn's competitiveness. By weighing the impact on factors, this results a general salary increase of 20% as reported by the China Daily, 20% raise for Foxconn workers 2010.05.29. There are two observations. China is more open and progress as oppose to the West's reports. (This does not imply China is as progressive as it should be. It also reflects the dark side of the wealth ripping off the poor.) The human right movement is progressing. Human right is a social culture development. It has to going through its growing pain and develop the culture and it is not something you can just install and go. The second observation is that when the West is alleging the declining of the growth in China, the truth may surprise the West because a dying company will not do a massive raise for the base worker. An implication of this is that there is a real threat of inflation in China which means China will have many more future actions to curb inflation which will be misinterpreted by the West again to weaken the economy. China's small step action is calculated and monitored closely. A very different discipline from the West. Will Deng Xiaoping's experiment successful? This is the real question.
2010.05.03 While everyone is worry and biting nails on whether Greek will have the bail out money, there is a side story that did not catch the attention of many. Don Coxe has been identified Greeks' financial problem is only the canary of many sovereignty debts. It is not just PIIGS. How does it play out will have a profound impact on the world's financial world. Guild Investment published a commentary that the debt default could trigger a 10% market correction around the world. Therefore, it is many country's interest to put a soft cushion for the default. According to a INK Report on April 26, 2010,China is going to give a lending hand to Greek. "the stakes are extremely high for China and other countries to get the Greek situation under control. So it is not a big surprise that over the weekend People’s Bank of China Deputy Governor Yi Gang said that China was “part of the force” helping to stabilize the Greek situation according to Bloomberg news". The bad news is that the problem is much bigger and the good news is that China will be part of fire brigade.
2010.04.026 Last G8 meeting, there is another shadow meeting by BRIC to influence the outcome of the G8. China was the conduit or might be the leader of the pack. Today's G8 Summit at Halifax, China has vested major interest on Iran which is a trading partner and oil supplier. Tehran also the centre of the Islamic world which China is more than happy to be friend with. The sign of no shadow meeting indicates China is preparing this G8 meeting and the G20 at Toronto this summer very intense, very seriously and very focus. Negotiation has already started to cleanup the agenda. Early report indicates that RMB revaluation is no long on the table which has been ferociously driven by the American. This is a piece of humble pie the West has to take. We most probably would not hear any outcome of the exciting and animated exchange of words during the private small meetings. If not, we have to embrace major volatility around the world.
2010.04.015 The current notion of economic recovery gears on the economic health of the West is a wrong assumption. The notion of higher oil price can hurt the world's economy recovery is also dead wrong. The Western analysts remain equate the American to the world even fair and square the BRIC is rising. The demand waning at the West does not shrink meaningfully but the BRIC's growth is stronger every day. The destruction of demand at the West is made up more than enough by the East as the domestic consumption at BRIC expand. The issue of BRIC's currencies will also rise which means the cost of commodities to the BRIC countries will be less impacted by higher U$ prices.
2010.04.011 The focus on China seems only on one thing: when will her economy implode? This has become the spectator's sport for entertainysts. By shoehorning and throwing out the terms such as overgrown, overexpand, overheat without any analytical fact to support their justification, it becomes a spitting contest sideshow. These entertainysts use two contradicting pieces of partial information distortedly. The first piece is the growth rate of the Chinese economy is too fast at the 7-12%. The second is the majority of the Chinese population does not participate in the economic growth and these people are below poverty line. By taking the information out of the context both are true and create calamity impact on the health of the GDP. On the other hand, when statistician compares, a proper reference model must be used and just use this model rather than using part of the model conveniently. For example, the criticism on overheated real-estate speculation will soon create a collapse that implode the economy like the American. Guild Investment's April 7, 2010 commentary Global Market Look Good to Us, points out that for some small group of real-estate investment, the overheat exists for these multiple properties purchased for speculation purpose. At the same time, it is a hundred years old housing problem that shortage of the housing (forget affordable or not) is a major concern of the state. Significant reports on the shortage profiling are ignored. These reports usually bear the sensation headline like innocent citizen evacuation for high rise or farmland endangered by the expansion of apartments. Guild Investment points out one of the most important safeguard mechanism to reduce housing bubble is the 50% down payment rather than the 0% or negative (i.e. rebates or home equity) down payments in the States. When you satisfy the 50% down payment rule, your capital leverage is significantly handicapped as oppose expanded by the negative down. Lets get back the first point regarding the reference model. China's economy has been suffered since the Treaty of Nanking when the West marched in China and asked for compensation. The industry and commerce further hampered by the Sino-Japanese war which basically stripped the rich mineral resources from the Northeast area of China. After the Second World War, civil war engineered by Russian and American continued a period of success on manufacturing and financial industry around Shanghai but did not spread to the rest of the country. With the founding of People's Republic of China, the sanction of the West prohibited the growth until Dang Xiaoping in the 1980's. So we are observing a handicapped base that did not participate economic growth over 100 years for one billion population which is about 4 time the population of America who is enjoying 25% of the worlds productivities while China is enjoying 3-5%. When you compare with such a small base, the yardstick has to be normalized for a proper reading. The proper analysis will not be discussed here but leaves it to some other specialist. Perhaps the most escaped economic development in China is the Shanghai World Expo. While the construction of the 2008 Olympic Games, the entertainysts predicted the collapse of the commodity demand after the Game. It did for a short while and than it picked up which had been explained as speculated hording of commodities by citizen which was predicted to a cave in. The question is why the construction of the Shanghai Expo was not included in the consideration? Expo has its root traced to do trade since last century. It always benefit the hosting country because it becomes the exhibition and trading ground for local import and export. This Expo will be no exception. It will promote the newly transformed export model and high end products. The export model has been fortified by shifting from American heavy to world heavy especially the growing demand of non-Japan Asian countries' Association of South East Asian Nations. Many of them is now using RMB to settle the trade. Through ASEAN and friends of African, Arabian Peninsular and South America, China is now is the first nation of world export. This will help the conversion of trade settlement currency from U$ to RMB. The Shanghai Corporation Organization manages Russian and her friendly countries. World Economic Forum provides a strong bonding between European countries and China's trade. This could potentially reduce the influence of the International Clearance House of the West but that will be another story. With a steady hand, China is pulling Asia, Africa and South America out of recession. The result is further insulating the Non-US Friendly countries from the American. The first conflict will be surfacing. Most probably on the nuclear weapon of Iran who is a major trading partner and oil supplier of China.
2010.04.02 The Sino-American healthy relationship continues to have its more than normal share of attention on the China Daily. There is a second report today, Hu, Obama vow more cooperation to mend ties 2010.04.02 on China Daily. This time, the report is not from Xinhua rather it is directly by China Daily. This is an escalation on the authority on the view point of the matter. This report disclosed that the call was not originated by China but by Obama. This means China is still on the upper hand that Obama is willing to deal a better card, i.e. use the 'currency manipulator label' as carrot to coerce China to follow his agenda. This is another type of threat the China would not take 10 years ago and will not take it now. The report emphasis the one China policy which is another way to say sovereignty. American gets lost. American continues to believe that the greedy American based multi-nation companies will give up the China market so the Obama government could use this as a bargaining chip. The pawn used in this poker game is Google. Does Google really want to given up its Chinese business or it is actually losing ground to Baidu? Does Google really support freedom of information? No. Any security expert and many leak indicated otherwise. Forget about a conspiracy leaked about the CIA tapped into search engine. There are many information sanctioned by the US and Western government supported by Yahoo and Google. They even tap who search the information such as nuclear weapon or virus implementation. You can only searched using some other engines. This is a political play that China waiting the American to make the first move. There is another point mentioned in the report; Iran. This China's trading partner will be pressure point for China. It is not the currency. But this pressure point cannot be touched. The consequence will be devastating to American unexpectedly. It could very possibly the significant rise of RMB but at the same time, the offloaded manufacturing by Vietnam and Indonesia will not happen because China will absorb all their export by its domestic market using the high valued RMB which these country will be prefer to the U$. American will suffer massive inflation while the expatriated revenue from China will be decreased because the Chinese will retaliate.
2010.04.02 On April 2, 2010, Chinese President Hu Jintao made a statement on the Sino-American relationship, according to a Xinhau report published on China Daily, Hu: Healthy, stable ties benefit China, US, 2010.04.02. This is a short report but it covers trade, sovereignty and nuclear security. In another word, the scope is everything. There is unusual backdrop of this report. It quotes Hu's discussion with Obama over a phone call. Although this calls are not rare but rarely reported. It could be a hint, as Chinese always do, a subtitle way to tell the American that there are many things Chinese strongly disagree on the phone call. In this call, most probably, it is initiated by China who wants to find some middle ground to protect her interest while American is aggressively doing something that displease the Chinese. On the economic side, there is a possibility of trade measures is not something China wants. The continuous pressure to push China to appreciate the value of RMB is another way that ties to sovereignty and trade. This is equivalent to China to ask the American to increase the bond rate to protect the value of the gigantic Chinese foreign exchange in U$. In this report, China issues a warning that it will not tolerate any single side action that could infringing China's trade and sovereignty right. This message signals a beginning of an era that China will not bow to every wishes of American. If American does not get this message, the result will be very messy. On top of this complication, China also puts the stake in the ground on the Iran nuclear security. She does not agree with the American's approach. This is the precursor to warn American not to repeat Iraq. China is an important trade exporter to Iran and Iran is a major petroleum supplier to China. There is no way China will accept invasion of Iran that interrupts her benefit. There is another China Daily report Sino-US tensions show no sign of easing 2010.03.26 has explicit details on the trade issues which include a statement made by the Vice Minister of Commerce during his Washington visit. From this report it also shows a flurry of Chinese minister level bureaucrats visiting Washington which is a very significant sign.
2010.03.30 Stratfor has an interesting discussion on China's options under the pressure of American's currency revaluation. This article China: Crunch Time by Peter Zeihan also present some very less known fact about Bretton Woods Agreement on the trade promotion.
2010.03.28 Unical is the trough of the China buying spree limited by the Congress. Since then the rule has been relaxed, a lot. Does China flexing the creditor muscle or what? Not necessary. Energy is always a strategic reserve for American or any nation just like the port container terminals. It is not desirable to be controlled by a foreigner no matter how poor you are. Just take a look at Hong Kong. Every freighter had to stopped at Hong Kong before transport by barge to the much shallow Pearl River or through train to the inland. Now Hong Kong is the independent political nugget that also help the China's financial and economical activities. During the 50's to 90's, Brits skimed much of the profit from this entrepot terminal. Most recently, the American entertainysts have not comment on the vital development of invasion of Chinese automobile industry to the home land America. First, the Hummer deal (gone sour), now is the Geely buying Volvo. Volvo is the Swedish pride but the American really spoil it to make it no different from any Ford car for just U$1.8B. What makes Volvo so important is exactly why Geely failed to enter the North America or World market two years ago: crash test. Volvo is famous for its cabin's safety. Now, rather than spends a few years to figure out how to pass the crash test, the technology is handed to China on a silver plate. The U$1.8B price is a bargain price consider what will happen when the Americans have to down size to a smaller car. While the Big 3 auto-manufacturer still making gasoline T-rex, Geely can easily fill the need of lower purchasing power American. For those green guys, the Chinese BYD electric card is coming. The importance of these changes are two fronts. The first is that the export to America is not just those in Wal-Mart. It is the higher price item. Not just a bit higher, it is the American's first love, automobile. Second, the infiltration of Chinese investment is no longer up held by the Congress when the real administration (the big companies) says yes even it means losing business in the future. Will China going to revaluate the RMB? This will mean less revenue for China but lower price for American for the good sold in America. The Congress wishes to wane the cheap stuff made in China sold in Wal-Mart but now it is out flow the more money by buying big ticket items made in China. The higher the RMB, the more competitive because China will be building manufacturing plan in America using either the devaluated U$ or grant from Congress. These American built cars may have lower profit margin but China will make it as competitive as hell. China can sacrifice the FX reserve for nothing, why can't it sacrifice more for a pound of American's flesh. The competitiveness is not measured by price. It is by the ability to grow the industry and know how. China could almost pay American to take these product. Because it grows the manufacturing industry. China has the FX reserve to finance the lose until its heavy industry is on the top of the world while its domestic economy grows to feed the Chinese citizen. China purchases Bombardier trains five years ago to run the Tibet railway. Now it is selling train to Montreal, Bombardier's home turf. Scary not?
2010.03.18 A very insightful analysis on China's "bubble economy" and other major economies by Guild Investment's newsletter "WE SUGGEST THAT INVESTORS LISTEN TO WHAT CHINA IS SAYING" published on March 18, 2010.
2010.03.17 There is a market believe that American is reducing the consumption of petroleum products so there is not enough demand to support the current level of oil price. With words from OPEC that the price is in there expected range, the oil bull takes a hit. Although there is a general believe that China's growth could support the demand. However entertainyst has been singing from the old song sheet that the "mild" growth of the China will disappear soon and quickly face a economy collapse. Right after these comments, China publishes the January economy growth is 28% year over year. To someone, 28% growth is falling through the floor of demand destruction without seeing the fact that deals after deals sealed by the Chinese state own petroleum companies. It starts make somebody wonder why. First, even EIA also publishes the stats that American is not cutting down petroleum consumption NOW. After the financial crisis in 2008 and 209, people are resuming the consumption habit which will also include the merchandize transportation. If there is any destruction of demand, it is returning. The government would like the people to believe greener future by telling people are reducing consumption. The story from EIA is not. There is a interesting stats included on the imported goods. After a significant reduction in 2008 and 2009, it is more or less recovered by forecast. Is this pacifying the people? If the increase in petroleum consumption is based on the thesis of the recovery, is this too optimistic? The following is from the EIA March 10, 2010 report:
Table 1: Actual and Projected Growth Rates for Motor Gasoline and Distillate Fuel Oil Consumption and their Major Economic Drivers (Percent)| 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010* | 2011* | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Motor Gasoline Consumption | +0.4 | -3.2 | 0.0 | +0.6 | +0.7 |
| Real Personal Disposable Income | +2.2 | +0.5 | +1.3 | +1.7 | +1.4 |
| Motor Gasoline Real Cost Per Mile | +6.0 | +12.5 | -28.0 | +17.9 | +2.2 |
| Distillate Consumption** | +0.6 | -6.0 | -8.0 | +0.06 | +2.6 |
| Total Industrial Production | +1.5 | -2.2 | -9.7 | +4.0 | +3.4 |
| Imported Goods Excluding Petroleum | +2.3 | -4.1 | -17.4 | +13.9 | +8.4 |
*Projected **Includes transportation diesel, heating oil and some bunker fuels. In 2008, transportation diesel (on-highway, railroad, and vessel bunkering) accounted for 70 percent of total distillate fuel usage (EIA, Fuel Oil and Kerosene Report, December 2009, Table 13). Source: EIA, Short-Term Energy Outlook, March 2010.
Second, the American big oils are losing reserve without ability to replenish the reserve because of wrong focus on high expensive oil like those in deep sea area of the Gulf. In order for them to buy cheap reserve, they have to talk it down. This is definitely a good conspiracy theory. We know we are facing peak oil plus end of cheap oil. This is not just for American. The domination of American's big oils have been fading along the control of world through the American based company is just fading day by day.
Third, American always think they are the centre and master of the universe without knowing that things have changed. To understand the world, we have to diversify our research.
2010.03.17 Financial Post has a very interesting article today, "Are we headed toward a global trade war?". Other than the commentary on the trade war, it states that the 22% revaluation of the China's RMB does not put a dent on her trade surplus. This keen observation could play out again today if the pressure to revaluate RMB from American realizes. This will not help the current account deficit but conversely, it increase the deficit. The explanation is simple. The export from China is not just driven by China but by the international countries from America. They monopolize the market to sell products that OEM from China as oppose to China companies selling product to American directly. The value of RMB is not in the equation of the trading model. As the result, higher RMB means higher price or higher inflation. American has to be careful for what they ask for. If we can make a conjecture why these international companies control the market this way and any chance to change? The answer to the question is "to buying product from China to sell in America" is a way to establish foot hold in China. If they don't do that they can not open business in the China's virgin market. This is the formula for foreign capital invasion of a country's economy hoping that the company will survive because of their advance product that will have not market competition. The model will not work because we have seen the product from China is not just evolving to match the challenge but also export to the world directly that will weakening the West's economy. The table has turned.
2010.01.31 The New York Times has a feature article "China Leading Global Race to Make Clean Energy" 2010.01.30 on provides some interesting insight on the current status of green energy movement in China. In some area, she is ahead of the American. This has alarmed President Obama. Furthermore, the Chinese solar and wind energy industries are on track to lower the cost of manufacturing and have plans to export. This implies the traditional 800 pound wind turbine gorilla GE's dominated market will be weaken in time. The myth of holding big Western industry giant is safe may not be that safe without assessing the world market frequently.
2010.01.30 The Iceland was the first one that has hydrogen replenish station for the hydrogen fuel car other than the hydrocarbon gas station. This is as green and as clean as it can get. China, one of the alleged environment non-friendly country and bull eyes of many green house gas cutting culprit, has announced to build 27 plug-in station for electric car as a pilot project and more will be built countrywide. This could be the second country that walk before talk to make the world cleaner using the electricity. Of course, these energy could come from highly polluted power technology but this is the first step. Complement of the China Daily: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2010-01/28/content_9390392.htm. According to this report, the electric car industry and the heavy duty battery industry will be complemented by this move. American has been claiming the leadership of electric car by car manufacturer such as GM's Volt but there is no such complementary plan. The first world distributed commercial electric car could very possibly by China's BYD not Volt by the second half of 2010. China's actions are very pragmatic. She deserves more recognition on the effort to improve the quality of life of the Earth.
2010.01.28 China's information used to be very concealed and illusive. The bamboo curtain has been lifted many decades ago but the perception prevails. As the result, many people do not research to back up their analysis but just alleging a lot of empty fact. One of the most recent one is alleging Chinese government pumping too much liquidity and creating housing bubble, commodity bubble and equity bubble which will hurt the rest of the world. (Since when China becomes so influential?). The article Chinese Dragon Rattles Commodities, Gold, Brazil, - January 22, 2010 by Gary Dorsch, Editor, Global Money Trends published at http://sirchartalot.com/ recounts the effort how Chinese government controls the liquidity in the market since 2007.
2010.01.24 The Chinese Government has been playing a very smart stimulus game. In some way, she manipulates the commodities and currency market to her favour. Lets take a look on the currency market. During 2008, U$ fell dismally about 4%. Chinese government was alleged to keeping too much foreign exchange reserve in U$ which cost the value of the reserve shrunk by 4%. The allegation sounds legitimate because the drop in U$ will imply China suffers the lost of sovereign wealth. However, a surprise report from the FX administration said that they made 8% in the year of 2008. This could not possibly from the American Treasury’s bond or notes because their rates were at 3-5%. So the gain made up the lost. If we image how can this happen? A possible case will be that the over U$2T FX were not all in U$ denomination and not all of them were in the T-bond and T-notes. They must be holding something else or leverage on that. China has foreign exchange control which means all foreign exchange must go through the government. We know the igress story that China accumulates U$ through trade payment. However, China also buys from outside. The settlement is in U$. It is true that there are trade surplus opportunity to accumulate the U$ but there is not tracking on what Chinese citizen or company invest, purchase or move the U$ to other currencies instead of the U$. To some extend, the U$ did not accumulated as much as the trade surplus. Furthermore, China aggressively builds the strategic reserves of oil, uranium, machinery, base metals and others. The filling of strategic oil reserve and many others such as gold have been surface. Many had not. China must using the revolving door technique to keep the U$ reserve in minimal. There is only statistics on how much China buys the T-bill & T-note but we have not seen the statistics on the maturity redeemption. This is a very clever game. Stimulus is another clever game the Chinese creates a perception that massive liquidity has been free flowing. For example, the U$500B+ package announced at the beginning of 2009 included the railway development. That project was over U$700+B and announced 3 years earlier as the national railway modernization program. The U$500B also includes the 100+ nuclear power plans going to build (http://uxc.com/products/rpt_geo_china.aspx). So the stimulus is spinned as part of earlier planned activities which is not new stimulus. Now we can read frequent reports on Chinese buying assets; Geely buys Volvo, Sichuan Motor buys Hummer, BYD is world leader in battery technologies. All the U$ are either spent on purchasing or used to pay building business base outside Chinese; HuaWei (the Chinese version of Cisco) has grown to a U$23B company in 2008 with 75% outside China(http://www.huawei.com/corporate_information/financial_highlights.do) while Cisco is U$39B in 2008. In a few months we can see the difference can be much less than U$16B. Canadian high tech darling, Nortel, never exceed U$20B. Within 5 years, HuaWei will for sure the world telecom solution leader passing IBM and Cisco.