Thursday, June 11, 2009

Good Job, China!

The Chinese are making me proud. They've actually done something smart with their stimulus spending:

China’s spending on factories, property and roads surged by the most in five years as the government’s 4 trillion yuan ($585 billion) stimulus package countered a record slump in exports.
(snip)

Climbing property and auto sales, record new lending and growth in manufacturing are also signs that the stimulus spending announced in November is driving a recovery in the world’s third-biggest economy. Falling exports because of the global recession are the nation’s biggest challenge, the State Council said last month.


China is building out infrastructure that will provide productive work for its people, whose earnings will substitute for the increasingly comatose American consumer. Contrast this with the U.S.'s stimulus spending, a ginormous agglomeration of transfer payments that encourage wasteful consumption.

China 1, U.S. 0.

And as for China's financial maturity, well, just check this out:

China’s banks, the world’s largest by stock market value, are starting to beat Western financial companies in underwriting Asian bonds as the government turns to capital markets to stimulate the economy.


The Anglo-West's long hegemony over world financial markets is slowly coming to an end. The first sign was the joint Russian-Chinese proposal for a world currency that would relegate the U.S. dollar to also-ran status. The rise of Chinese banks is not merely a function of the relative decline of U.S. firms' market capitalizations; they can now win underwriting business in their own right throughout emerging markets.

China 2, U.S 0.

Nota bene: Anthony J. Alfidi is long FXI (with covered calls).