gashouse gorilla

What China's Stock Market Implosion Means for Oil

>> China is very inefficient in converting energy use into GDP, the USA being 4x and Japan being 9x as efficient.

Recent implosions in structured finance should be a lesson to be skeptical about accounting and what it does or doesn't hide.

For instance, do those calculations back out the fictitious contributions from the USA's FIRE sector? If most US revenue (and profits) come from manufacturing that's been outsourced to China, how "efficient" are we really?

Sorry, but each time I read figures like these, I hear "we're #1" and visualize foam fingers on the people doing the calculations.

China, Volatility and the Winter Storm

My "side note" notwithstanding, thanks for the good and informative post, Brett.

China, Volatility and the Winter Storm

Perhaps, the good news is: the Bush/GOP administration isn't any worse than the Wen Jiabao/Communist administration. I mean, when you look at (a) Bush's handling of a weather event hitting a half-million-person population center after 3 days of advance warning to drive at least 50 miles away and then compare it with (b) Jiabao's handling of one hitting millions over a larger area, it "clearly illustrates the frailty of an economy that, for all its volatile growth, remains one that is emerging".