Could a Chinese Economic Bubble 'POP' and take us down evern further?

[dc dalton]

Interesting read and some very similar coincidences to where our economy was just two years ago .... and remember who own a huge chunk of our debt.

http://money.cnn.com/2009/07/29/mark...ion=2009072913

[TXDMERC73]

i really cant wait till i stop seeing things "Made in China" everywhere in the US . maybe if China economy slows down we might be able to have more "Made in USA' items... we really need to eliminate China from ruining our steel industry. they are selling steel so cheap its putting our US steelworkers out of business... i hope to see the US economy rise by itself soon without putting ourselves in debt..

[stephpd]

Interesting read and some very similar coincidences to where our economy was just two years ago .... and remember who own a huge chunk of our debt.

http://money.cnn.com/2009/07/29/mark...ion=2009072913

With the world's economies being tied together, now more then ever, I have a hard time understanding how an exporting country can continue to expand while the rest of the world is contracting. Won't that end up cutting off your nose to spite your face? Over investing in manufacturing can only lead to lower prices, and reduced profits, for all involved.

Granted China is the 'made in Korea' or 'made in Taiwan' of yesteryear. Cheap labor can only be expanded if there is market for what you sell. Of course I always have a hard time understanding market fluctuations and it's relationship to selling tangible products.

To me if unemployment is going up, prices are rising, home foreclosures rising, I'd think that there would be less willing to invest in manufactured goods. There would certainly be less spending by those not working and sales (of almost everything) should fall off.

Everything seems to point toward a downturn yet the markets do something else. I'm just too stupid to understand.

I just can't see how China can continue to grow and profit.

[stephpd]

i really cant wait till i stop seeing things "Made in China" everywhere in the US . maybe if China economy slows down we might be able to have more "Made in USA' items... we really need to eliminate China from ruining our steel industry. they are selling steel so cheap its putting our US steelworkers out of business... i hope to see the US economy rise by itself soon without putting ourselves in debt..

I don't expect to see much 'made in the USA' until we are willing to lower our standard of living to that of the average Chinese worker. Either they have to raise their standard or we lower ours. And I don't expect either in my lifetime.

[US Militiaman]

With the world's economies being tied together, now more then ever, I have a hard time understanding how an exporting country can continue to expand while the rest of the world is contracting. Won't that end up cutting off your nose to spite your face? Over investing in manufacturing can only lead to lower prices, and reduced profits, for all involved.

Granted China is the 'made in Korea' or 'made in Taiwan' of yesteryear. Cheap labor can only be expanded if there is market for what you sell. Of course I always have a hard time understanding market fluctuations and it's relationship to selling tangible products.

To me if unemployment is going up, prices are rising, home foreclosures rising, I'd think that there would be less willing to invest in manufactured goods. There would certainly be less spending by those not working and sales (of almost everything) should fall off.

Everything seems to point toward a downturn yet the markets do something else. I'm just too stupid to understand.

I just can't see how China can continue to grow and profit.

From what I have read, they have continued to grow based on sales abroad and entering new markets...much of the debt that has been incurred though has not been the result of growth, but taking advantage of low interest rates to retool factories and incorporate new technologies.

The good thing is that if they have made it this far, they are probably going to be ok since the United States is a very important importer of Chinese manufactured products.

The information on the debt that they hold is somewhat troubling though...if they were to sell it for another currency, as they have been saying they are thinking of doing for several years now, the United States Dollar would be in serious trouble. So far, we have avoided that (and even increased our debt by more than $1 trillion) in the past year, but as we increase our debt the fear of hyperinflation becomes real...the idea that we will have to buy $100 loaves of bread and pay $63/gallon because the dollar isn't worth anything is becoming more of a reality (exaggerated, but thats the general basis) as we keep 'printing money' with these bailouts and such. The dollar looks like a poor investment the more we go in debt, and China doesn't want to be holding a pile of worthless paper at the end.

I've said it before, but we've essentially outsourced and liquidated ourselves to China, India, Taiwan, and Malaysia...

[Yellowfin]

we really need to eliminate China from ruining our steel industry. they are selling steel so cheap its putting our US steelworkers out of business...

Our tax system, regulatory structure, and unions are what killed off the greatest steel businesses in the world. It happened long before the Chinese were any factor in the matter.

[phillyd2]

I think most of you are missing or not understanding China's long term plan which should not be a surprise to anyone since its no big secret. They are currently using their vast holdings of US dollars for internal investment and to buy rights for natural resources from around the world.

Why?

Their goal is to be like the US was say up to the 1960's but with a much larger internal domestic market for their domestically made goods. Afterwards it will not matter a wit if the USA simply disappears since their own economy will be mostly self sufficient with customer and supplier within the same border.

For the short term they need to make sure that all of those dollars they hold can still buy tangible assets so look for no major moves by them for the next 15-20 years.

[wis bang]

Our tax system, regulatory structure, and unions are what killed off the greatest steel businesses in the world. It happened long before the Chinese were any factor in the matter.

Not quite; all those closed steel mills were crated up and sold to China. We handed them the means to eat our lunch...

Same thing happened w/ the textile industry. I used to work for an intermodal motor carrier. Our South Carolina location did alot of work from the remaining textile mills in North Carolina.

We kept the equipment to make alot of the synthetic yarns, we make the yarn and ship it overseas to be woven into the cloth that gets made into the garments we are importing.

At the same time others are importing other yarns here to be made into stuff on the machines we didn't export; I had an unit rolled over full of yarn from New Zeland that was being sent here to be made into 'Tiger Turf' an astro turf product.

[wis bang]

I think most of you are missing or not understanding China's long term plan which should not be a surprise to anyone since its no big secret. They are currently using their vast holdings of US dollars for internal investment and to buy rights for natural resources from around the world.

Why?

Their goal is to be like the US was say up to the 1960's but with a much larger internal domestic market for their domestically made goods. Afterwards it will not matter a wit if the USA simply disappears since their own economy will be mostly self sufficient with customer and supplier within the same border.

For the short term they need to make sure that all of those dollars they hold can still buy tangible assets so look for no major moves by them for the next 15-20 years.

We can agree on some of this; they are copying our infrastructure big time. Their new roads are modled on our interstate system right down to the dimensions and the color of the signs.

Problem is they were not expecting the scope of the down turn. In June I was working on the Hillclimb in Steel City, just outside Hellertown. The old Lehigh Valley tracks run between the road and the river just across from our property. During the past 10 years or so there was an increasing amount of continer trains passing durring the race. Just last June there was at least 5 single and double stack trains. This June there was one mixed freight and one half full train of flatcars hauling FedEx and UPS boxes TOFC and no containers, zip, none, nada, figa.

This after 10 years where the projected 10% growth in container imports was exceeded by 5 % to 10% actually imported [yup 1.5 to 2 times above projected amounts] to now where a large amount of the container ships are 'laid up' in China. Their docks are so crowded w/ empty containers that they are filling all the un-used ships with them. This is due to the drop in demand worldwide and that's going to hurt their economic plan because they are depending on using the export sales to pull a few billion people out of the stone age into that wonderful economy they want to build. It may end up as a 'speed bump' that will add years to their completion of their plan.

[phillyd2]

Not sure who is more delusional: Congress or the People they serve. There is only one reason all those jobs moved overseas and that is because the American consumer voted with their wallets and decided that lower cost goods were better than saving US jobs.

So lets stop blaming the Corps or Congress or Them because its all your fault, my fault, OUR FAULT!