China Economy Megathread

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > China Economy Megathread

Bip Roberts: Mar 29, 2005

Cultural Imperial posted:

http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/SHCOMP:IND

That flat line is pretty loving hilarious. You think something untoward is happening here?

lmao

Is there any way to also see market trading volume?

# ? Oct 5, 2015 03:45

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# ? May 23, 2024 18:49

ocrumsprug: Sep 23, 2010; by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

Bip Roberts posted:

Is there any way to also see market trading volume?

https://www.google.ca/finance?cid=7521596

You have to move to like a 6 month range to see it though. It is funny to watch volume drop from 860M/day at the peak of the bubble to about 200M/day now.

The static price chart and volume numbers are probably unrelated to the number of frozen equities because

# ? Oct 5, 2015 03:51

FrozenVent: May 1, 2009; The Boeing 737-200QC is the undisputed workhorse of the skies.

Shifty Pony posted:

The dimensions of the Panama Canal locks is one of the major limitations for the size of cargo ships.

For a certain class of ships, yes, but as fishmech said the canal is being expended. In practice, it wouldn't be such a huge deal because there's a limit to how big you can make canals anyway, and...

Shifty Pony posted:

Wasn't one of the make work programs China did to dump ton of new cargo ships on the market? A new canal would create more reason for companies to buy bigger newer ships.

They sure did! And then their economy shat the bed and they stopped buying so much raw materials, so these ships are now sitting idle or desperate for work. So nobody is buying new ships, because why would you spend fifty millions on a boat that's going to sit collecting ~$8,000* a day in freight, after fuel?

Now if you're the guy doing the renting, you don't give a poo poo that your hundred and fifty thousand tons of dirt are going to get here twenty days later because that'll cost you a whooping $160,000 extra, as opposed to paying for canal fee on the two boats you'd need otherwise and warehousing for all that raw material that showed up early. Fun facts: ships make for great warehouses when they're cheap.

Anyone investing money in shipping right now is loving up. It's going to take years for the market to recover. And I recall reading an article recently where some reporters went to Nicaragua to look for the canal... Apparently there's not a lot going on there.

*of course that's not profitable.

# ? Oct 5, 2015 05:17

Flaky: Feb 14, 2011; Can't post for 3 years!

Someone who works in the industry should make a shipping thread. I'd read the poo poo out of that thread.

# ? Oct 5, 2015 06:01

I would blow Dane Cook: Dec 26, 2008

Flaky posted:

Someone who works in the industry should make a shipping thread. I'd read the poo poo out of that thread.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3393222

This one?

# ? Oct 5, 2015 06:22

namaste friends: Sep 18, 2004; by Smythe

You guys should follow the Baltic dry index.

# ? Oct 5, 2015 06:29

I would blow Dane Cook: Dec 26, 2008

quote:

Trashed Tests Put FDA on Notice as China Pushes Drug Exports

During a visit to Zhejiang Hisun Pharmaceutical Co.�s factory in the Chinese city of Taizhou this year, FDA inspectors noticed a worrisome sign. When workers conducted quality tests on drugs for export to the U.S. they sometimes didn�t record the results. Other times, they deleted them.

It was a warning signal that led the Food and Drug Administration to ban 15 drug products from Hisun worth about $31 million, over concerns that the medicine might not meet U.S. quality standards. Hisun said it has addressed the problems.

Policing drug manufacturers abroad has become a critical task for the FDA because medicine that doesn�t meet U.S. standards could sicken patients. The idea is to avoid situations like the one that arose in 2008, when a blood thinner called heparin was made with contaminated Chinese ingredients and linked to 246 deaths in the U.S.

The FDA has worked for years to increase its scrutiny of India, another major exporter, and now China is a focus. Together, the two countries manufacture more than 80 percent of the main active ingredients in the world�s drugs, including in the U.S. and Europe, according to an Institute of Medicine report.

China has a growing drug industry, and one that increasingly wants to make not just raw ingredients but finished drugs for export. Yet there are currently only two FDA drug inspectors in the country, overseeing about 700 facilities involved in drugmaking. The FDA wanted to boost that number to a total of 26 inspectors for drugs and food, and has ended a long fight with the Chinese government over visas, but it�s been slow going to deploy the inspectors, the FDA has said.
More Exports

�We�re hearing the Chinese are definitely interested in developing innovative products that aren�t just for the Chinese marketplace, but that are for the global marketplace, for the U.S. marketplace,� Leigh Verbois, the newly appointed director of the FDA�s China office in Beijing, said in an interview with Bloomberg.

Regulators want to make sure those products are safe, high-quality, and include the ingredients and strengths they claim to, for everything from seizure to heart drugs. The low point for Chinese-exported drug products may have been the deaths linked to heparin seven years ago. Regulators never found at what point the ingredients in the drug, made by Baxter International Inc., were contaminated. At the time, Baxter said it was alarmed that the contamination appeared to have been deliberate, though said it didn�t have proof of how it happened.

Now Chinese drugmakers are trying to fix problems, and the FDA�s Chinese counterpart, the CFDA, seems committed as well, Verbois said. The U.S. FDA conducted 120 inspections of drug facilities in China last year, Jeff Ventura, a spokesman for the agency, said in an e-mail.

�Companies are letting us in,� said Verbois, who has been with the FDA since 2002. Before she took over the China job last month, she ran the agency�s office that coordinates with regulatory counterparts in Canada and the Asia-Pacific region, excluding China and India. �We�re in a different place than we were in 2008.�

The CFDA didn�t respond to a faxed message requesting comment.
�Understaffed�

�It�s not just for the U.S. FDA, also the China FDA is understaffed as well,� said Jonathan Chan, an analyst in Hong Kong with Decision Resources Group, citing the size of the industry and the large number of drug applications. �It�s quite overwhelming. With agencies being understaffed, quality control and standards will get compromised.�

Even with only a handful of U.S. inspectors in the country, Chinese manufacturers are second only to India in the number of facilities that have been banned from exporting drugs and drug ingredients to the U.S. Including Hisun�s Sept. 9 prohibition, 38 Chinese facilities are on the FDA�s banned list. Some of the bans only apply to certain drug products, not the whole facility, according to the FDA.

At Hisun, certain lab employees failed to record data in a timely manner or deleted invalid data from failed tests, the company said in an e-mail. Hisun said it re-tested the batches of products in question and found that they met quality standards.

Hisun said it has taken measures to prevent similar problems in the future and is talking with the FDA to remove the import ban. The FDA declined to comment.

Along with making active ingredients for anti-infection, depression, cardiovascular and oncology drugs, Hisun and New York-based Pfizer Inc. formed a joint venture in 2012 to make generic drugs for the Chinese and global markets. Pfizer said in a statement that the import ban didn�t apply to products covered by the joint venture.
Another Ban

Similar problems were found last year at Zhejiang Jiuzhou Pharmaceutical Co., according to an FDA warning letter sent to the company. Jiuzhou, also based in Taizhou, says on its website its main product is carbamazepine, a drug used to treat epileptic seizures. The company says it provides 80 percent of domestic carbamazepine in China and 40 percent of the international supply.

The FDA said that Jiuzhou got active drug ingredients from a supplier, then relabeled them as its own without oversight of the company�s quality unit. The company also shipped drug ingredients without the quality unit�s sign-off, and FDA inspectors found missing and falsified data in the drugmaker�s manufacturing records. Jiuzhou was banned from exporting products from its Taizhou facility to the U.S. The FDA didn�t say whether the issues at the facility dealt with carbamazepine.

A representative for Jiuzhou declined to comment about the company�s steps to meet the FDA�s standards.
Workshops

Upon her arrival in China in August, Verbois kicked off a series of workshops for drug manufacturers there on data integrity and manufacturing. She�s also being assisted by the agency�s former top drug inspector in India, Peter Baker.

China�s own drug regulators are trying to help their country�s manufacturers meet higher standards. The Chinese government released a guideline last month seeking to improve drug safety and quality. The CFDA ordered companies in July to do self-inspections involving 1,622 drug applications. Drugmakers were give a month to withdraw their applications if they found data integrity issues.

�It�s a really good example of how CFDA has not only listened to what we�ve said about data integrity, but has implemented something to address it and made industry accountable,� Verbois said.

It�s also a sign of a bumpy road ahead. After the CFDA announced the self-inspection program in July, manufacturers pulled back a fifth of all the drug applications.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-30/as-export-of-chinese-drugs-to-u-s-grows-quality-worries-fda

# ? Oct 5, 2015 07:17

VideoTapir: Oct 18, 2005; He'll tire eventually.

Cultural Imperial posted:

http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/SHCOMP:IND

That flat line is pretty loving hilarious. You think something untoward is happening here?

lmao

Why would you bother trying to support the bubble when it's already almost down to the old baseline?

# ? Oct 5, 2015 07:21

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

Face

# ? Oct 5, 2015 08:03

Mercury_Storm: Jun 12, 2003; *chomp chomp chomp*

Is this poo poo for real?

"In China, Your Credit Score Is Now Affected By Your Political Opinions � And Your Friends� Political Opinions"

https://www.privateinternetaccess.c...tical-opinions/

# ? Oct 5, 2015 08:43

Artificer: Apr 8, 2010; You're going to try ponies and you're. Going. To. LOVE. ME!!

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/oct/12/western-economies-are-still-too-weak-to-cope-with-fed-rate-rise-says-china

One interesting quote: "The slowing of China�s economic growth is a healthy process, but it is a sensitive period. The Chinese government must make accurate adjustments, keeping the economy within a predictable space while continuing to promote internal structural reforms."

Healthy, is it?

# ? Oct 12, 2015 06:48

Fojar38: Sep 2, 2011; Sorry I meant to say I hope that the police use maximum force and kill or maim a bunch of innocent people, thus paving a way for a proletarian uprising and socialist utopia

also here's a stupid take
---------------------------->

China has been perpetually "rebalancing and reforming" for like 10 years now and the media keeps swallowing it.

# ? Oct 12, 2015 06:51

I would blow Dane Cook: Dec 26, 2008

Nice straight line going up today on the SHCOMP, The Chinese Government has really learnt a lot about manipulating the stock market since those nasty crashes a while back.

# ? Oct 12, 2015 13:29

Krispy Wafer: Jul 26, 2002; I shouted out "Free the exposed 67"
But they stood on my hair and told me I was fat; Grimey Drawer

Fojar38 posted:

China has been perpetually "rebalancing and reforming" for like 10 years now and the media keeps swallowing it.

It's like every 5 years they have another plan.

# ? Oct 12, 2015 13:52

HBar: Sep 13, 2007

You know they take a 1.5 hour lunch break in the middle of trading, right?

# ? Oct 12, 2015 13:54

I would blow Dane Cook: Dec 26, 2008

HBar posted:

You know they take a 1.5 hour lunch break in the middle of trading, right?

Yep

# ? Oct 12, 2015 22:50

Fojar38: Sep 2, 2011; Sorry I meant to say I hope that the police use maximum force and kill or maim a bunch of innocent people, thus paving a way for a proletarian uprising and socialist utopia

also here's a stupid take
---------------------------->

Krispy Kareem posted:

It's like every 5 years they have another plan.

I was referring more to how people, including Western media and institutions, are constantly writing off China's economic problems as a "rebalance" or a "reform" to a "consumption based economy" when if you go back far enough the Chinese have been paying lip service to those things for years now and still have diddly squat to show for it.

# ? Oct 12, 2015 22:57

WhitemageofDOOM: Sep 13, 2010; ... It's magic. I ain't gotta explain shit.

Mercury_Storm posted:

Is this poo poo for real?

"In China, Your Credit Score Is Now Affected By Your Political Opinions � And Your Friends� Political Opinions"

https://www.privateinternetaccess.c...tical-opinions/

I'm more wondering why our credit agencies haven't started doing that.

# ? Oct 13, 2015 03:33

Silver2195: Apr 4, 2012

Mercury_Storm posted:

Is this poo poo for real?

"In China, Your Credit Score Is Now Affected By Your Political Opinions � And Your Friends� Political Opinions"

https://www.privateinternetaccess.c...tical-opinions/

Somewhat exaggerated, apparently, but not totally made up.

http://thediplomat.com/2015/05/chinas-new-social-credit-system/

# ? Oct 13, 2015 03:56

Bar Ran Dun: Jan 22, 2006

Often bulk carriers going to China have 13.00 m max arrival draft restrictions.

This is because they don't often know what the specific discharge port is going to be when they sail. Ends up being a fair amount of dead freight for a panamax even if they are going into winter zones. Often panamax bulk carriers headed to China can only load about 66,000 MT when this is the case.

Heh, lost a TWIC card over the side of a cape sized vessel once. Monkey ladder twisted while I was reading drafts in the light condition. Had the TWIC card on a pull cord thing attached to my belt, popped right off. gently caress monkey ladders.

FrozenVent posted:

Anyone investing money in shipping right now is loving up. It's going to take years for the market to recover.

Reduced demand for iron ore and coal from China are playing a large part in loving bulk carrier's poo poo right up.

# ? Oct 13, 2015 06:05

GlassEye-Boy: Jul 12, 2001

Fojar38 posted:

I was referring more to how people, including Western media and institutions, are constantly writing off China's economic problems as a "rebalance" or a "reform" to a "consumption based economy" when if you go back far enough the Chinese have been paying lip service to those things for years now and still have diddly squat to show for it.

I think this is more a case of you selectively picking at articles in western media and institutions. I've seen as many if not more articles claiming the opposite, China is "imploding" "melting down" etc.

# ? Oct 13, 2015 06:36

namaste friends: Sep 18, 2004; by Smythe

Imports down 20.4%, exports down 3.7%. So much for rebalancing that economy.

# ? Oct 13, 2015 14:54

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

Cultural Imperial posted:

Imports down 20.4%, exports down 3.7%. So much for rebalancing that economy.

RIP this decade's inscrutable oriental super society

edit: jesus, twenty percent. that's year over year, right?

icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 15:35 on Oct 13, 2015

# ? Oct 13, 2015 15:14

Slaan: Mar 16, 2009; ASHERAH DEMANDS I FEAST, I VOTE FOR A FEAST OF FLESH

Imports are down twenty percent. Wow, those factories are shutting down production fast.

# ? Oct 13, 2015 15:30

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

I just finished Age of Ambition and he claimed that construction/real estate/real estate bubble is (or was as of his writing anyway) 70% of China's GDP, which is more than double the peak of the Japan craziness. Anyone know if that's accurate? It feels right from the inability to be outside more than 15 minutes here without being in a construction site, anyway.

# ? Oct 13, 2015 15:43

Grundulum: Feb 28, 2006

Slaan posted:

Imports are down twenty percent. Wow, those factories are shutting down production fast.

How does that follow? Wouldn't imports being down mean that internal factories are taking up more of the consumption?

# ? Oct 13, 2015 15:54

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

How much of that 20% is the collapse in the price of oil over the last year?

Grundulum posted:

How does that follow? Wouldn't imports being down mean that internal factories are taking up more of the consumption?

Without an excuse like oil prices falling there's not really any way to spin imports being down 20% as anything other than catastrophic. China's not a major producer of raw materials, imports drive both exports and internal consumption

# ? Oct 13, 2015 16:09

Bates: Jun 15, 2006

icantfindaname posted:

How much of that 20% is the collapse in the price of oil over the last year?

Without an excuse like oil prices falling there's not really any way to spin imports being down 20% as anything other than catastrophic. China's not a major producer of raw materials, imports drive both exports and internal consumption

And remember China is pumping up their strategic oil reserves atm - it should inflate their imports and keep a hand under oil prices until 2016.

# ? Oct 13, 2015 16:29

Freezer: Apr 20, 2001; The Earth is the cradle of the mind, but one cannot stay in the cradle forever.

Is the 20% figure measured in USD worth of commodities or actual tons/liters of material?

Because if it's the former, it can be mostly attibuted to the commodities price slump and rising dollar.

# ? Oct 13, 2015 16:42

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

Freezer posted:

Is the 20% figure measured in USD worth of commodities or actual tons/liters of material?

Because if it's the former, it can be mostly attibuted to the commodities price slump and rising dollar.

Dollars

Also, Bloomberg says the numbers were still worse than expected, with analysts predicting only an 18% drop

icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 18:04 on Oct 13, 2015

# ? Oct 13, 2015 16:44

Krispy Wafer: Jul 26, 2002; I shouted out "Free the exposed 67"
But they stood on my hair and told me I was fat; Grimey Drawer

Cultural Imperial posted:

Imports down 20.4%, exports down 3.7%. So much for rebalancing that economy.

So much for countries like Brazil and Australia.

Do iPhones made in China and sold in China count as an import?

# ? Oct 13, 2015 17:10

Slaan: Mar 16, 2009; ASHERAH DEMANDS I FEAST, I VOTE FOR A FEAST OF FLESH

Grundulum posted:

How does that follow? Wouldn't imports being down mean that internal factories are taking up more of the consumption?

A poo poo ton of China's imports are raw and unfinished materials and fuels. Few imports means the factories are planning on making a lot less in the future.

# ? Oct 13, 2015 17:32

rex rabidorum vires: Mar 26, 2007; KASPERI KAPANEN KASPERI KAPANEN KASPERI KAPANEN KASPERI KAPANEN KASPERI KAPANEN KASPERI KAPANEN KASPERI KAPANEN KASPERI KAPANEN KASPERI KAPANEN KASPERI KAPANEN KASPERI KAPANEN KASPERI KAPANEN KASPERI KAPANEN KASPERI KAPANEN KASPERI KAPANEN KASPERI KAPANEN KASPERI KAPANEN

Krispy Kareem posted:

So much for countries like Brazil and Australia.

Do iPhones made in China and sold in China count as an import?

If the product is domestically manufactured and consumed domestically it would be captured as part of the GDP.

# ? Oct 13, 2015 17:59

ocrumsprug: Sep 23, 2010; by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

Freezer posted:

Is the 20% figure measured in USD worth of commodities or actual tons/liters of material?

Because if it's the former, it can be mostly attibuted to the commodities price slump and rising dollar.

The price slump is because the Chinese aren't buying as much of the materials so these are not unrelated occurrences.

# ? Oct 13, 2015 18:00

Arglebargle III: Feb 21, 2006

Grand Fromage posted:

I just finished Age of Ambition and he claimed that construction/real estate/real estate bubble is (or was as of his writing anyway) 70% of China's GDP, which is more than double the peak of the Japan craziness. Anyone know if that's accurate? It feels right from the inability to be outside more than 15 minutes here without being in a construction site, anyway.

Read Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics next. It's some really eye-opening primary research into investment records that shows a huge swing back towards SOE lending in the early 90s in the wake of the Tiananmen crackdown. The author argues that China's economy was "Shanghainized" in the 90s: dominated by SOEs, the public sector, mafiesque corruption cliques and suppression of workers and private entrepreneurs. Basically there was a wave of genuine poverty reduction followed by a massive retrenchment and expansion of the fabulously corrupt state sector.

# ? Oct 13, 2015 18:14

RocknRollaAyatollah: Nov 26, 2008; Lipstick Apathy

Krispy Kareem posted:

Do iPhones made in China and sold in China count as an import?

Yes, they're shipped out of country and imported back in. This is why there's a good deal of iPhone smuggling from Hong Kong and elsewhere because the import taxes make it more expensive than in most markets.

# ? Oct 13, 2015 18:33

Freezer: Apr 20, 2001; The Earth is the cradle of the mind, but one cannot stay in the cradle forever.

ocrumsprug posted:

The price slump is because the Chinese aren't buying as much of the materials so these are not unrelated occurrences.

Granted, there's definitely a slow down. But the belief that China is importing 20% less 'stuff' is incorrect.

# ? Oct 13, 2015 19:06

Fojar38: Sep 2, 2011; Sorry I meant to say I hope that the police use maximum force and kill or maim a bunch of innocent people, thus paving a way for a proletarian uprising and socialist utopia

also here's a stupid take
---------------------------->

Cultural Imperial posted:

Imports down 20.4%, exports down 3.7%. So much for rebalancing that economy.

No you see all the import and export declines are planned by the brilliant far-seeing Chinese leaders as the economy transitions to a consumption based economy like the USA.

Consumption is making up an increasing portion of Chinese GDP, proving that they're rebalancing! It makes up an increasing portion not because consumption is increasing but because everything else is freefalling

# ? Oct 13, 2015 20:06

Arglebargle III: Feb 21, 2006

US treasury secretary debates Chinese ambassador on monetary policy. Worth watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKm7NloL8bA

# ? Oct 13, 2015 21:06

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# ? May 23, 2024 18:49

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

RocknRollaAyatollah posted:

Yes, they're shipped out of country and imported back in. This is why there's a good deal of iPhone smuggling from Hong Kong and elsewhere because the import taxes make it more expensive than in most markets.

That doesn't necesarily make sense to me but if so they'd have to go on the books as an export first. Though the export value would only be the cost of manufacture. The difference between that and the retail price would be a US import of Apple's software and IP (and this should be true regardless of whether they physically leave or not).

asdf32 fucked around with this message at 23:32 on Oct 13, 2015

# ? Oct 13, 2015 23:19

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