Check out the top 20 list from Alexa,
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Year to year food price changes according to National Inflation Association,
So the Chinese banks have been lending money carelessly, it feels like the sub-prime mortgage thing all over again. Warnings unheeded tend to end badly.
According to the Chinese Central Bank governor at Bloomberg,
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Zhou Xiaochuan reiterated government warnings that investment in industries with excess capacity and in redundant infrastructure projects could threaten banks’ loan quality. China’s policy makers are seeking to contain risks from an unprecedented credit boom, in which banks extended 9.21 trillion yuan ($1.3 trillion) of new loans in the first 11 months of 2009.
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Then James Chanos states,
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China's hyperstimulated economy is headed for a crash, rather than the sustained boom that most economists predict. Its surging real estate sector, buoyed by a flood of speculative capital, looks like 'Dubai times 1,000 — or worse'...
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It has happened in the west, why not in China, too? It's gonna be a few interesting years coming ahead.
OK, so UAE has banned Sunday London Times from disclosing actual debt figures. The state's future appears bleak. Let's see how it affects the rest of the world.
UAE existing debt
Figures are from Zero Hedge,
United Arab Emirates (via Bank of America - Amortization figures only):
Total Debt: $184 billion
of which...Dubai: $88 billion
Abu Dhabi: $90 billion
Dubai:
Due in:
2010: $12.0 billion
2011: $19.0 billion
2012: $18.0 billion
2013: $ 7.5 billion
2014: $ 5.5 billion
Abu Dhabi:
Due in:
2010: $ 8.5 billion
2011: $14.7 billion
2012: $10.0 billion
2013: $12.4 billion
2014: $ 9.4 billion
UAE:
Due in:2010: $22.0 billion
2011: $34.7 billion
2012: $29.0 billion
2013: $20.3 billion
2014: $14.9 billion
HSBC Bank Middle East Limited: $17.0 billion
Standard Chartered Bank: $ 7.8 billion
Barlays Bank Plc: $ 3.6 billion
ABN-Amro (RBS): $ 2.1 billion
Arab Bank Plc: $ 2.1 billion
Citibank: $ 1.9 billion
Bank of Baroda: $ 1.8 billion
Bank Saderat Iran: $ 1.7 billion
BNP Parabas: $ 1.7 billion
Lloyds: $ 1.6 billion
Caroline Baum on effects of the US Healthcare reform, with respect to the Obama administration's claims of job creation. (Bloomberg)
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How many small businesses are holding off on hiring additional employees until they know what additional burdens Congress will impose on them in the name of health-care reform? How are expectations of higher health-care costs affecting consumers’ current spending, which in turn affects output and employment? (Only in government la-la land can you provide more health care for less money.)
In the face of a 10.2 percent unemployment rate and growing doubt about government claims of jobs created, the administration is standing by its 640,329. After all, Devaney has “no doubt that there’s a lot of jobs being created.” It’s just a question of how many.
One million? 640,329? It’s close enough to zero for government work.
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Having the above coupled with the coming "Climate-Gate" carbon-tax policies, no actual economic recovery would likely commence until the wrongs are put right. Here too, politics in NZ presently has largely followed American, Euro-centric influence.
Recent revelations on Climate-Gate,
Somebody must address these tough issues, and voice hard questions! Truth conquers all.
Noticed this at the NY Post,
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Over the last three months, banks put 63 percent of their new cash into euros and yen -- not the greenbacks -- a nearly complete reversal of the dollar's onetime dominance for reserves, according to Barclays Capital. The dollar's share of new cash in the central banks was down to 37 percent -- compared with two-thirds a decade ago. 'Bernanke's other choice is to keep rates at zero, print even more money and sell more debt, but we'll see triple-digit inflation that could collapse the economy as we know it.'
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The above article generalizes the immediate past, with no empirical evidence of likelihood for continued actions for the immediate future. And, the coming destruction of USD backed credit instruments still makes inflation/deflation immediate future uncertain.
This is In-Your-Face deflation that has not eased for a while now.
AP News, by Rachel Beck
" Prices on everything from clothes to coffee to cat food are dropping, some faster than they have in half a century. Items rarely discounted - like Tiffany engagements rings - are now. The two biggest purchases most people make - homes and new cars - are selling at steep price reductions.
Traditionally, manufacturers and retailers lowered prices to clear inventory. Today, they're cutting prices because consumers are demanding it. If it lasts, the ramifications will be wide-ranging.
Retail sales remain sluggish, and more than half of the people surveyed recently by America's Research Group and UBS said they are shopping less.
Homes in parts of Detroit are cheaper than a new car.
Overall, prices are tumbling at the fastest rate in decades. The government's Consumer Price Index, which measures the average price of goods and services purchased by households, has fallen 1.5 percent over the last 12 months. The reading for July showed a 2.1 percent annual decline, the biggest since 1950 "
The world, lead by US, remains in a credit/monetary contraction phase, while inflation has remained positive in New Zealand. This really hurts over here. People are losing jobs left and right, and everything just keeps getting more expensive (as inflation kicks in).
Whoa, this kind of stuff used to happen in third world regions, exclusively. Nice to see that Times Online still has the courage to tell stories as they are, against Bernanke's late message of "recovery".
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British victims of the credit crunch are offering to sell their kidneys for £25,000 or more to help pay debts... One person willing to sell a kidney is a 26-year-old mental health nurse who said he needed the money to pay debts after a business he set up went bankrupt. Another is a 43-year-old taxi driver from Lancashire, who wants to raise cash to pay off some of his mortgage and buy a new kitchen.
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Of course, some of these folks got into so much debt due to reckless borrowing and spending. Past mistakes do not just go away, decisions result in consequences. What happened to the contingency plans? Or did they all have the same standpoint, "K, I'll just sell a kidney to pay it off some day, how bad could it be?" It's bad.
US bank large-loan (>$20Million) losses have reached $53Billion USD in 2009, according to Yahoo Finance AP.
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The report said total identified losses of $53.3 billion in 2009 surpassed last year's total of $2.6 billion, and nearly tripled the previous peak in 2002, when losses totaled $19.1 billion...
While the economic downturn was first pegged to residential mortgage loans, banks and lenders are now having problems with commercial real estate...
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So... what about the derivatives like CDOs and CDSs riding on these loans? If a paltry $2.6Billion loss wrecked such havoc in 08, what the heck will $53Billion unleash, eternal damnation?!
Keep in mind the S&P500 remains quite over valued, PE ratio at Aug 31st 09: 129.19
Apparently, the same day that he declared the recession "technically" over, New Zealand bankers paraphrased it within the hour. I suppose this means that the escalating GDP decline is "technically" a sign of Happy Days returning.
... and that the unemployed folks are "technically" all just dirty liars.
Even the part time jobs have diminished. The question is then, why do the central banks want average folks to believe in a come back? More likely than not, the banks are preparing to take large short positions, and need liquidity from the "mom & pop" investors stupid enough to repeat the finance company mistakes.
