Posted on 03/07/2014 10:31:28 PM PST by SatinDoll
Plenty of excuses out there for this evening's collosal miss in Chinese exports (-18.1% YoY vs an expectation of a 7.5% rise) mainly based on timing issues over the Lunar New Year (but didn't the 45 economists who forecast this data know the dates before they forecast?)
This is a 6-sigma miss and plunges China's trade balance to its biggest miss on record and 2nd largest deficit on record. Combining Jan and Feb data (i.e. smoothing over the holiday), exports are still down 1.6% YoY - not good for the much-heralded global recovery. Exports to the rest of the BRICs were all down over 20% but no there is no contagion from an emerging market crisis.
Even when the trade deficit was last this large, economists were more accurate - this is the biggest miss on record...
Seasonally-adjusted the data is stunningly bad...
*CHINA FEB. SEASONALLY ADJUSTED EXPORTS FALL 34% MOM *CHINA FEB. SEASONALLY ADJUSTED IMPORTS FALL 0.4% MOM
and non-seaonally-adjusted
*CHINA'S FEB. EXPORTS FALL 18.1% FROM YEAR EARLIER (vs +7.5% expectations)
The excuse...
"The Spring Festival factor caused sharp fluctuations in the monthly growth rate as well as the monthly deficit," Customs said in a statement accompanying the data.
Chinese traders followed their "business habit" of bringing forward exports ahead of the holiday, and focusing on imports immediately afterwards, it added.
But, our simple question is - didn't they already know this when applying their forecasts? If so - then why a 6-standard-deviation miss?
At least they didn't blame the weather?!!
It seems the massive imports of copper - to act as collateral for all the shadow banking loans - also did not help as imports surged...
*CHINA JAN.-FEB. COPPER, PRODUCT IMPORTS 915,000 TONS
All that apparent demand and yet the price is collapsing - not good for the credit unwind
And what does it say about the US that our trade balance with China collapsed MoM...
After several generations, you would have one son supporting his parents, plus four grandparents. Not sustainable.
Perhaps they are having cash-flow problems, needing to have an increasing amount of payment "float" so they can buy the supplies to make what was ordered.
It would be the first time ever a war happened because a nation’s population was DROPPING, although the fact that they have tens of millions of excess MEN is scary and unprecedented.
are you talking about orders on Ebay and Alibaba?
I would not trust or eat any food product from China. I don’t trust it for Mexico.
I ordered from Amazon: not receive product. Emailed the company via Amazon. They emailed me back and said product was coming from China, but it would get here soon. It is still not here.
I wasn’t taking about depleting their resources. I was talking about poisoning their land and air. Like all good communist, they care little about people and only about production.
HuH? That didn’t make sense.
- China has 1.4 billion people. Nearly five times the size of the USA.
- The USA has nine cities with a population of over 1 million. China has 163 of them.
- Go to a coastal Chinese city and you feel like you are on a giant college campus. These places are young. Just about everybody you meet is under thirty, including many company executives. Demographic bomb, my foot - Young China is rising very, very quickly.
- Contrary to popular belief, the big cities are absolutely full of girls. It's the rural areas that experience the big one-child-policy shortages. And who can blame the girls? They do everything they can to avoid ending up as a poor farm wife, just like Americans do.
- The pollution is ridiculous - but it's actually worse outside the cities. Why? Because much of it actually comes not from industry, but from the burning of China's cheap, dirty coal by peasants for heat and cooking fires. China is still lacking in bringing electricity to rural areas - they'll get it done, but it may take two more decades.
- Communism? That's a laugh. Though difficult for foreigners, it's incredibly easy for Chinese citizens to start businesses and make money. As long as they pay their taxes, the government leaves commerce almost entirely unregulated. Because the CCP is actually hanging on by its fingernails - they don't have the time nor luxury of implementing things like the ADA and the EPA.
- Much of what we attribute to Party oppression (which certainly still exists) is actually a result of Chinese culture. Chinese were smashing down internal dissidents long before Mao Zedong ever picked up a rifle. They are much harder on political dissent in their own communities than any government ever could be. Communist rule - as it always does - injected a large streak of amorality into the culture, but traditional values are making something of a comeback. The growing popularity of Christianity has something to do with that.
- No more platitudes about "cheap Chinese crap". That might have been true in the 80's, just like it was for Japan in the 50's. Now, the most sophisticated and modern factories in the world can be found in China, producing some of the highest quality goods in the world. Is there garbage, too? Of course. China is huge. Pointing to a shoddy bath mat or tainted dog food as a "typical Chinese product" makes just as much sense as pointing to a t-shirt made in a sweatshop in Los Angeles by illegal aliens as a "typical American product" (and these exact items do command a significant "Made in the USA" price premium at your local stores...caveat emptor.)
In short, China is still a more repressive place to live than the USA, but they are getting better and we are getting worse...
Attacks on China by FReepers who ought to know better really happen to mask an ugly truth none of us want to admit: The USA sucks right now. We suck because we let Fabian Socialists take over our public education system and turn it into a twelve year political indoctrination process. And we will continue to suck until we throw the Fabians out - all of them - from education and government and media, like. Economic nationalism can't save us from internal idiocy. There is a relevant quote:
"No Communist, Fascist, or any other totalitarian committed to the destruction . . . of the principles and practices of democracy should be permitted to teach in a democracy. Freedom does not imply freedom to destroy freedom." -- Dr. Clarence R. Decker, President of the University of Kansas City, 1949
Had we left the schools alone, we would be running rings around China and nobody would care what they are exporting. We've done this to ourselves.
Normally a business has capital with which to buy the supplies and pay the people to make the stuff, which they then sell.
A business without enough capital may need to sell first, and use the money to buy the supplies and pay the people to finally make the stuff to deliver.
Our complaints aren’t about the sellers, the retailers, it is about China, the government.
The package is sent into the postal system where it just sits, and sits, and sits for weeks, before it is forwarded on.
I never buy Chinese stuff, if I can help it. It happens I got fooled because the goods origin is not displayed...
Do you know that from an independent source, or is that what the seller is saying the hold-up is.
From tracking.
Did you read posts 15 and 38? Why all these little questions, and me having to repeat everything?
great post. goosebumps.
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