{"id":189,"date":"2012-08-12T10:05:08","date_gmt":"2012-08-12T14:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.planetsusan.org\/?p=189"},"modified":"2012-08-13T11:27:51","modified_gmt":"2012-08-13T15:27:51","slug":"more-about-the-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.planetsusan.org\/?p=189","title":{"rendered":"More about the Economy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is what I read this morning from my reliable columnist Ambrose Evans-Pritchard from the UK Daily Telegraph:<\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/a><em><strong>Caixin magazine reports that China\u2019s entire solar industry is \u201con the verge of bankruptcy\u201d as it struggles with debts built up during its world conquest over the past four years.<\/p>\n<p>Morgan Stanley said Chinese exporters face a \u201cmargin call\u201d. Profits have been squeezed 5pc a year since 2004 as wages rise faster than productivity, and the renminbi strengthens against the euro and the dollar.<\/p>\n<p>China Securities Journal confirmed this week that Beijing is steering the currency lower to cushion the shock. \u201cThe renminbi has entered a period of depreciation,\u201d it said, adding that this could cause short-term capital outflows \u2013 running at $110bn in the second quarter \u2013 but the overall effect will be \u201cbeneficial, by enhancing exports.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.planetsusan.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/remnimbi1.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.planetsusan.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/remnimbi1.png\" alt=\"\" title=\"remnimbi\" width=\"123\" height=\"92\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-201\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The policy risks a serious confrontation with Washington. \u201cIf they do the same old thing and slam down a few more roads to the Gobi desert they will end up with stagflation. They need Thatcherism to get out of this,\u201d said Mr Dumas. <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s a lot on which to comment in these four paragraphs.  Let&#8217;s start with the first one: the entire Chinese solar industry is on the verge of bankruptcy.  Apparently, in order to bankrupt Solyndra, China&#8217;s solar industry borrowed money in order to cut prices.  Now the debts are coming due.  First: recall the Romney ad chastising Barry O for loaning all that money to Solyndra?  Now it can be told how the Chinese flooded the market with low cost solar panels NOT produced by Solyndra.  As a purchaser, who did you buy from &#8211; cheap from China or expensive from &#8220;buy American&#8221;.  I suppose the answer is obvious.  Well, it&#8217;s too late for Solyndra, but the chickens have come home to roost for China.  So don&#8217;t blame Barry O &#8211; blame the Chicoms, as Al Payne my friend used to call them.  <\/p>\n<p>On to the rest of the quote.  The Chinese currency is getting stronger versus the dollar and the Euro.  Chinese exporters are seeing their profits dwindle, because they&#8217;re paying their people more and shipments are declining because the price &#8211; relative to other currencies &#8211; is going up.  That&#8217;s a double whammy.  First &#8211; is Chinese money going up because of anything China is doing?  Nope.  The dollar and the Euro are declining because their economies are in serious decline, with <strong>high unemployment and government deficits<\/strong>. These are two things China does NOT have, and doesn&#8217;t want.  So what does China do?  The government is &#8220;steering the currency lower to cushion the shock.&#8221;  &#8220;The policy risks a serious confrontation with Washington.&#8221;  And finally, the recommendation that China needs &#8220;Thatcherism&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The Chinese government has always resorted to steering the currency lower to buy themselves time to prevent massive uprisings from its huge population.  Since they are a &#8216;planned&#8217; economy &#8211; love the euphemism for communism &#8211; they can do that.  The U.S. and the E.U. are subject to the buffeting winds of the world&#8217;s investors, and have to manage as best they can to influence the strength of their respective currencies.  The Fed &#8211; that entity Ron Paul wants to dismiss &#8211; thru its monetary policy can have some influence on it.  Congress and the President through fiscal policy can have less influence, and it takes a lot longer to manage through the budget.  The E.U. is really up the creek in this regard, with individual countries managing their fiscal policies and no strong central bank.  <\/p>\n<p>So why does this policy risk a serious confrontation with Washington?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.planetsusan.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Mitt-pic11.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.planetsusan.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Mitt-pic11.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Mitt pic1\" width=\"182\" height=\"277\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-203\" \/><br \/>\n  Mittens wants to take them on in a big way for currency manipulation, and he&#8217;d start a 1930&#8217;s style disaster by likely getting the Republican Congress to institute strong tariffs on Chinese goods.  That&#8217;ll fix it!  First, that&#8217;ll kill Wal Mart &#8211; not that that&#8217;s necessarily a bad thing. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.planetsusan.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Walmart-pic1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.planetsusan.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Walmart-pic1-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Walmart pic\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-205\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.planetsusan.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Walmart-pic1-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.planetsusan.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Walmart-pic1-399x300.jpg 399w, https:\/\/www.planetsusan.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Walmart-pic1.jpg 998w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p> Then the Chinese will institute tariffs on American goods, and they are a seriously large purchaser of American equipment, software and technology.  Yep, that&#8217;ll fix it!  Be careful what you ask for, America: don&#8217;t say I didn&#8217;t warn you!<\/p>\n<p>Finally, the last part &#8211; a few more roads into the Gobi desert and the potential for &#8220;stagflation&#8221;.  What&#8217;s stagflation?  Whew &#8211; that would take another six paragraphs and do we really want to go there?  Let&#8217;s just say &#8220;Japan&#8221; and you&#8217;ll get the idea.  Governments can&#8217;t necessarily spend their way out of trouble if other factors in their demographic and political realities neutralize the effect.<\/p>\n<p>And the answer is &#8220;Thatcherism&#8221;?  That deserves an OMG!  Or at least an &#8220;Are you Kidding&#8221;?  Thatcherism is the exact opposite of communism.  Is that likely to happen?  Not in my lifetime &#8211; probably not in yours, dear reader &#8211; if any of you are out there.  <\/p>\n<p>China has enough dough to muddle thru, and I&#8217;m not talking about fortune cookie batter.  The U.S. will re-elect Barry O and we will team up with Russia, China, Japan and the friendly sheiks of the middle east to assist Europe in getting back on its feet.  Believe it or not, I&#8217;m very encouraged about the future!  Thanks for staying with me on this very long post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is what I read this morning from my reliable columnist Ambrose Evans-Pritchard from the UK Daily Telegraph: Caixin magazine reports that China\u2019s entire solar industry is \u201con the verge of bankruptcy\u201d as it struggles with debts built up during &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.planetsusan.org\/?p=189\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetsusan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetsusan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetsusan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetsusan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetsusan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=189"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetsusan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":192,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetsusan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189\/revisions\/192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetsusan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetsusan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetsusan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}