The Bank of Korea reported that total household debt — total consumer debt less mortgages — has reached $29, 070.
That large debt load is going to make it hard for consumer spending to rebound.
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From the category archives:
Housing Market
The high techindustry in Indian is suffering its own slowdown. Indian outsourcing firms have stopped hiring, freeze salaries,and laying off thousands of software programmers and call center operators.
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You’ve probably heard the figure thousands of times: roughly 70% of U.S. GDP is consumer spending.
That number is very different in China. In China, consumer spending accounts for only 35% of ChineseGDP.
The reason for the huge difference is simple — the Chinese (as all Asians) save a huge percentage of theirincome.
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I don’t think this any other economic significance, but I thought it was interesting to see the Seattle Mariners hireDonWakamatsu, the first ever Asian MLB baseball manager.
Plus, I was born in a small town named Aizu Wakamatsu.
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The People’s Bank of China (equivalent to our FederalReserve Bank) doesn’t make statements withoutcareful thought and planning.
“The impact of the international financial crisis is intensifying, and the uncertainty of the domestic economy isincreasing. The risk of an economic slowdown is expanding.”
“With the slowdown of the world economy and rising unemployment, anti-globalization, represented by tradeprotectionism, is [...]
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China’s State Council approved a massive $862 billion stimulus packageof capital spending and measure to boost consumer spending.
Massive infrastructure spending on roads, railways, airports and the powergrid
Land reform for rural farmers to increase incomes
Social welfare projects such as affordable housing andenvironmental protection.
Increase in bank lending limits
Reduction of the value added tax
To put [...]
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The deputy chief of the National Development and Reform Commission in China acknowledged that China is now the world’s largest greenhousegas polluter.
The air pollution problem is China is from two primarysources: automobiles and coal-fired utility plants.
Cleaning up pollution from those two sources will be generate huge profits for the right companies.
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I still remember watching a small Chinese town mayor bet tens of thousands of dollars per hand at a baccarat table atthe Macau Sands. I knew this mayor was betting several years of salary on each hand.
Corruption has been and always will be a problem in Communist countries.
Read this link about a corrupt bank employee [...]
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How bad is the pollution in China?
==> Pollution-related cancer is the leading cause of death in China.==> Air pollution is blamed for hundreds of thousands of deaths each year.==> 500 million people lack access to safe drinking water.==> Only 1% of 560 million city dwellers breathe clean air.
This link is to a lengthy article, but [...]
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Next week, China will release its official GDPstatistics for Q3 and I expect it to be down from the 10.1% in Q2. That doesn’t mean that the Chinese economy isfalling.
Consider this report of Beijing cement factories.
“Of the 28 cement factories in Beijing, 27 were shut down during the Olympics. The only one left open was [...]
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