More China Mixed Nuts

I find that when I post on China I get a wide variety of comments on how good or bad things are there. Some seem to be from people who are there and most seem to be from people who know the situation better than me. Yet the commentators are like economists - you can get 100 in a room and not get two to agree to a single idea. I get some that say things are worse than I am reporting and some better. Now I expect some of this is due to a bit of distrust in the entities reporting the numbers. I am not just talking national stats here but regional stats and local stats. Oh my goodness, might politicians in China be cooking the books one way or another? They must be learning something from U.S. politicians if that is true as we are the experts on cooking stats. Either way, understanding where the China economy stands is a very tricky thing indeed. I will continue to endeavor to do so and try to report here what I think is the more accurate information, but it is a challenge.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2009/02/china-agricultural-ministry-pegs.html

Of Course a Worse Case Can Be Made for Japan

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2009/02/japan-on-edge-of-abyss.html

But Japan has been sucking wind for a good decade and a half, so what is new here. Nonetheless, the fact that Japan has sucked wind so long should be a lesson/warning to us. It could happen here.

Keynes Rolling In His Grave

I will not spend a lot of time on this but I have seen a number of posts talking about how Keynes would call for massive fiscal stimulus spending in this economic evironment for the U.S. Well, I do not to profess to be a Keynesian expert but as I understand what he had to say, fiscal stimuls was what the U.S. needed to do in the Great Depression, and it is not a lesson for today. Then, we were the major exporter for the world, and now we are probably the major importer. I think Keynes would have a totally different view today of the mess we are in, so please stop using his name to justify what we are contemplating doing.

Disclosures: None