Regional Policy Reorientation and its Dilemmas: China’s Past Affecting the Future

Developing the coastal regions for so long during the Mao period has left a huge disparity between the economies of the interior and the coast. The gap is so large that even though the interior in some areas is growing at the same rate as the coastal regions, the absolute gap only grows larger because of the disparity of their starting points.

While the six and seven five-year plans were based on the system that economic development would diffuse into the center from the coastal regions, this was not a good idea…

Rural China left behind

After having the opportunity to visit a rural farming community in China it made me realize many things about China’s impressive growth. It is not an efficient growth, but an inefficient one. We see skyscrapers and massive Olympic structures being constructed every month but this is only a small part of China. Outside the two great cities of Beijing and Shanghai some small communities with de-collectivized farms hardly have any paved roads, and some have none at all. While we see this huge growth in China now, I do not believe that this growth is sustainable. My main reasons are as follows:

1. No infrastructure between inner and coastal China exists. During my visit to a small village the people said…

Venezuela is Taking Another Step Closer to Dictatorship

If you have any monies in Venezuela I would think very very hard about it taking those monies out. Venezuela is taking another step closer to becoming a dictatorship. As I commented earlier it looked like Venezuela was moving in this direction.

President Hugo Chavez was granted free rein Wednesday to accelerate changes in broad areas of society by presidential decree — a move critics said propels Venezuela toward dictatorship.

Some Interesting Details

Some people look at PE ratios, cash flows, and so on. I try to find the small details, small things that have big ramifications (1,2,3). Today many of the leaders that the West dislikes met in a single place. The fact that most of the South American leaders were in Ecuador was not a surprise. What (more…)

End of Year Calculations

Based on seven months of investment our ROI is 26% as that is when I jumped in this year. I have to say that I am very happy about this. This ROI is based on funds, stocks, and bonds throughout Europe, and the America’s.

As of today my positions are as follows:

USD Drop: A Butterfly Effect

So here we sit and see that the USD has dropped and breached the 1.30 mark against the Euro. The question is why? I would have responded on this question earlier, but could not. Last Friday my oldest English Bulldog Patches (11.2 years) went into the doggy hospital, and she died on Monday. Until Wednesday I have been a bit of a vegetable as Patches was my first real dog that I bonded with. So I have been oblivious to what is going on in the markets.

So why did the dollar drop? Is the answer here? Or how about here? What about here? Or what about here? Notice how nowhere you will find the reason why the dollar dropped? I find that really odd! Of course some will say, “Oh its the huge deficits of the US”, or “This drop was long in coming and finally somebody did.” Great love the comments (NOT) as they still do not make it any clearer. Many now say that this is the longer trend, and the drop will be bigger.

Investment Tip: Airbus

Airbus is in deep do-do. The company that was heralded as the role model of a European Corporation, is well, getting bogged down in the reality of Europe. If there is one thing that the European governments and the American Federal government share it’s getting bogged down in details and bickering. Conventional wisdom says that Airbus is a dud stock! After all there are financial problems, A380 shipping problems, and let’s not even talk about the hen pecking between France and Germany.

Invasions from the China Sea

I got an email from a reader at my other site asking about Geely Automotive Holdings Ltd. The author had already purchased over 19000 shares which might seem like a lot until you realize this is very much a penny stock. Still, the outlay for a young college student is significant and it probably brings up a topic for a good future article “Where the small investor should put his money?” We are not talking about that today because we need to answer the questions on Geely first.