Great post from Brewskie here. The idea is that China is falsifying her statistics, due in part to saving face. But also the commies do not want a big revltnion so they convince the people things are better than they truly are. The bottom line however, is that growth may not be as good as they proclaim and also the numbers from profits to increases are suspect.
In terms of construction, it is definitely up or was, but now is slowing. What the Chinese do, however, is to construct buildings and then tear them down within a year or two. Although the buildings have lain fallow, it does not matter as the construction shows up in the GDP numbers so that means some dirty square headed communist thug gets a bonus which he promptly secrets away in civilized countries and then goes out and pops a few ktv hookers.
The upshot is that much of what is going on in China is smoke and mirrors and so many US companies do not want to tell us the truth. After all, if we knew the truth, we would ask all of those expats and buyers to curtail their Chinese travels, and 20 dollar handjobs are sooooo convenient, so why should they?
From Brewskie
“The King’s been on a great roll lately – tell him to keep it up.
Got several other things on the China front…
The first is from Patrick Chovanec… this guy is a true genius on China, one of the best. Some day, when the great China block throws a rod, this guy’s gonna make a mint selling books. The link includes a video interview, but I’ll cite some highlights.
From the great Chovanec!
http://www.businessinsider.com/chovanec-disconnect-between-official-data-and-real-data-2012-4
“…and the gist is that inflation is much hotter, and growth is much slower than what any official numbers say.
GDP could in reality only be growing by 4-4.5%, well below official targets of over 7%.