China's achilles heel

Oil and the cost of transport.

A thought provoking article from the Telegraph (Via Yves Smith).




Oil price shock means China is at risk of blowing up

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Last Updated: 2:00am BST 08/07/2008

Have your say Read comments

The great oil shock of 2008 is bad enough for us. It poses a mortal threat to the whole economic strategy of emerging Asia.

Oil price shock means China is at risk of blowing up
An oil rig in China's Bohai Sea

The manufacturing revolution of China and her satellites has been built on cheap transport over the past decade. At a stroke, the trade model looks obsolete.

No surprise that Shanghai's bourse is down 56pc since October, one of the world's most spectacular bear markets in half a century.


The bad news is that this adds inflationary pressures. China was a net exporter of cheap goods, and that is gone, the products are now expensive. The good news it that some of those jobs are coming back onshore in US and EU.

Comments

Roy Russo said…
So where will we get our lead-painted toys from now?!?!
July 10, 2008 at 7:15:00 PM PDT
Tom said…
I guess it becomes harder to export our inflation. Yes, this will create some jobs but I see job creation also happening from alternative energy and perhaps even some more domestic drilling. I think China is the one that will end up on the short of the stick perhaps? Now if we can just get our monetary policy in order and start jacking up interest rates to save the dollar.
July 11, 2008 at 11:21:00 AM PDT
Anonymous said…
"So where will we get our lead-painted toys from now?!?!"

Through LoopFuse? :-) ....
July 12, 2008 at 7:35:00 AM PDT
Roy Russo said…
"Through LoopFuse?"

Ahem... this is a post on China, so its then "WoopFoos"
July 12, 2008 at 12:37:00 PM PDT
adt43wt342 said…
Look who is trying to remain on topic for once :)
July 14, 2008 at 8:58:00 PM PDT
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thug vs Thug: Porsche 1, Hedge Funds: 0

The latest drama is fun. VW became the largest company in the world, in terms of market cap, ahead of EXXON on a little financial market coup d'etat orchestrated by Porsche. Apparently VW stocks was on the way down, I don't know the details but many Hedge Funds (HF) were short the position. Fine. The price goes down. Porsche starts buying the anonymous float (and probably some private too?), but the point is they build a 73% market share without many people noticing. In the US you would need disclosure after 10% or so. Point is, that many HF wake up and realize that their short position is about to lose a lot of money. So what do they do? those idiots? they short cover all together, which means they buy the stock to cover the short. The stock zooms up, by a full multiplier and overtakes EXXON. Porsche makes A KILLING in the process and has robbed the city robbers to the tune of "potentially $30B". Not bad for a days worth of work. PS: hey, psst Porsche! With t
Read more

Love ya 2 PTB!

Jules: I wouldn't go so far as to call a dog filthy but they're definitely dirty. But, a dog's got personality. Personality goes a long way. -- Pulp Fiction Jonathan Schwartz has this wonderful quote about me in a recent interview 15 minutes with the great man : Q:Turning to MySQL, how long do you think it will take before MySQL is fully integrated into Sun? We saw with Red Hat and its JBoss acquisition that this can be a slow, laborious process.... A: First, the personalities involved. Let's just say that integrating Marten Mickos into a company might be easier than assimilating a few of the JBoss personalities. Marten is a joy to work with and will make this integration work. I got to hand it to you Jonathan. You hit the nail on the head. JBoss was full of prima donnas, a lot of them actually; it drove me nuts. My developers were bitching all day long, my executives were even bigger fat cats, my sales guys were testosterone freaks. Even the receptionist had an att
Read more

Madrid Blog--We get sued

Image
...for having children If you are a foreigner and move to Madrid, do not, necessarily expect a warm welcome. Yesterday, we, or rather Don Mark Fleury and Dona Natali Manson ***note to Building Association of Serrrano XX, before you lawyer up, do your research. My husband spells his name "Marc" with a "c." and my first name is spelled "Nathalie;" not to mention that my honest English stone mason forbears would cringe at the misspelling of their last name to confound with that of the notorious 20th century serial killer. received an official communication from the Juzgado de Primera Instancia de Madrid, from one Don Ramiro Blah Blah, President of the Building Association of Serrano XX, a building of exactly 12 units, half of which were owned at one time by his father in law, in which it is alleged 1) "Mark Fleury and Natali Manson" have four children 2) these children own bicycles 3)and roller skates 4) and scooters ( Nathalie comment: nope sorry
Read more