naked capitalism

ndk says:

The spring holiday is a big, fricking, deal in China, from huge festivals to visiting every relative you can imagine and some you can’t. It’s always left big dents in the data, in good times and bad.

I would be careful drawing any conclusions at all from January or February Chinese data. There are plenty of other ugly numbers around.

mxq says:

Spin city.

If everybody recalls, China had a huge snow storm during the chinese new year last year that knocked out the power for millions of people (and businesses).

That means Jan 09 weren’t exactly going up against the most daunting comps…

CHINESE consumer confidence dropped for the fifth straight month in December on concerns over the weakening economic outlook, the National Bureau of Statistics said yesterday.

…and also, don’t count on the chinese consumer for anything yet…”Chinese consumer confidence dropped for the fifth straight month in December on concerns over the weakening economic outlook, the National Bureau of Statistics said yesterday…The sentiment index settled at 87.3 last month, down from 90.2 in November and 92.4 in October”

eh says:

There seems to be an inverse correlation between the level of Chinese exports and their main stock market index. Wonder how long that will last.

Yves Smith says:

The Great Depression features 6 rallies of over 20% each before hitting its bottom of an 89% decline from the peak.

brushes9 says:

http://www.howestreet.com/articles/index.php?article_id=8614

Highlight: “”The Federal Reserve, Treasury Department and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation have lent or spent almost $3 trillion over the past two years and pledged to provide up to $5.7 trillion more if needed,” the Bloomberg duo reveal… These enormous pledges, Pittman and Ivry point out, would almost be enough to “pay off every home mortgage loan in the U.S., calculated at $10.5 trillion by the Federal Reserve.”"

Or, check watch Salma Hayek breastfeed a baby:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/10/salma-hayek-breastfeeds-a_n_165676.html

purple says:

by disappear, I mean from their everyday situation . They’re off visiting and traveling (as a commenter already noted).

Anonymous says:

This is purely anecdotal, but..
Chinese New Year is a consumption boom. Its always described for Westerners as Christmas and the 4th of July rolled in one. All the cities empty out, and for days preceding and following the holiday, every bus and train is packed to capacity. You cannot get a train anywhere. Every adult carriers a bundle of goods the size of a trunk (or two or three) to give their relatives and children. Beyond the tradition of gift giving and taking care of one’s parents and children, the practice is amplified by the big money these migrant workers have, and their increased desire to offset the negative effects of being gone for so long (buying off the kids.) This is a culture where grandparents do most of the young child rearing, and parental relationships are a little distant as a result. With parents being gone all year long, the new years gift giving has taken on an all new meaning and intensity.

Chinese new year buying is a huge deal, and in a country where real economic hardship isn’t a distant memory, a big drop in spending at this time of year says a lot about people’s perception of how dire things may become, and how much they’re willing to immediately give up in preparation for hard times. Its also worth noting that the gift of hard cash is still looked up as the supreme gift there, and the western notion of cash being cold or ‘cheap’ makes most Chinese laugh out loud. If migrant workers are foregoing the pleasure of giving their children those desperately wanted smile and affection-winning gifts, for hard cash (or worse, nothing) in the pockets of the family patriarchs, then it means that there is some serious concern and planning afoot, and that the frugal and weary grandparents are probably driving it.

bg says:

Donlast,

“the diabolical weakness of Euro and American culture that it believes it can trust government to shoulder this responsibility.”

Do you remember Mao? No government has such a long history of Mother China when it comes to belief in the state by the populace.

If anything, they are learning from the west not to trust Government.

Anonymous says:

One of the tricks to understanding the numbers is that the number is reported in USD.

However, RMB appreciation was operative from Jan 08 through to at least July 08.

Therefore, the actual export number, if expressed in RMB terms for Jan 09 vs. Jan 08, is actually SMALLER than the reported number.

Normally, factories work overtime in Dec. and January to fill orders which are shipped in anticipation of the great CNY shut down.

This time, rather than working overtime, many factories actually shut early.

Furthermore, it is not clear that many of the weaker ones reopened.

It is worse than the official version reports — even before the Xinhwa massaging.

Hu and Wen are basically trying to replace exports — but it cannot be done easily or fast.

D

tyaresun says:

Yves,

I agree. The import growth/decline number is the most important number to watch. This will tell us how much China will help the world in getting out of this recession. As long as it keeps declining, the threat of protectionism and demise of globalisation are very real.

Donlast,
The family versus govt. cultural debate very much applies to the West. This is the heart of the conservatives v.s. liberals debate. I believe it extends all the way back to Aristotle v.s. Plato. Who wins this round will also determine the resolution of the current credit crisis in the USA and what the world will look like in the next few decades.

Cash Mundy says:

I don’t know much about the Chinese economy, but I know the Asia Times is a good place to look for
informed commentary.

“The crisis in Western markets began at the top and worked its way down….

The process unfolding in China is precisely the opposite. The threat comes not from the commanding heights of the economy, but from the grassroots. All along the coast, thousands of small factories that rely entirely on US and European export markets are cutting back production or shutting down. Their margins were thin to begin with, and now their orders are being slashed. The first to be affected aren’t the global professionals that populate China’s big cities, but the migrant workers that made those factories hum.”