China Economy Megathread

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Pimpmust: Oct 1, 2008

GDP is kinda dumb like that.

# ¿ May 1, 2014 08:15

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# ¿ May 6, 2024 07:15

Pimpmust: Oct 1, 2008

I like how they use the Titanic metaphor to say they "are about to" hit an iceberg (and could somehow avoid it?) One more gets the impression that they've already ran straight over the iceberg, circled around, and hit it again.

# ¿ May 27, 2014 06:28

Pimpmust: Oct 1, 2008

Pervis posted:

If there is a famine I'd imagine we'd finally get off our asses and stop converting massive amounts of feed corn to Ethanol, which has been driving up the cost of meat in the US (and the herds to slowly shrink due to the cost of feed). Looking at the USDA site it looks like we're currently converting 5 billion bushels/year, which is around ~120 million tons.

If there is a sharp famine, but oil prices don't keep pace, it'll be more than worth it to sell the corn rather than convert to Ethanol. Although we may already be there at the moment, eventually we'd reverse course, I'd hope.

Feed costs are a tiny part of what you actually end up paying for your food though, like only 13% and the corn price has been bouncing up and down in relation to the harvests without having much of an effect on the food price (at least not downwards).

Energy costs on the other hand is a pretty big part of the price of food:

http://www.aisthetica.com/resources/energy-cost-of-food/

# ¿ Jun 27, 2014 21:31

Pimpmust: Oct 1, 2008

Sea level rise is gonna be trouble for the Yancheng, Shanghai, Tianjin, Weifang and the Guangzhou areas.

# ¿ Jun 29, 2014 21:19

Pimpmust: Oct 1, 2008

Cultural Imperial posted:

This is pretty stunning.

http://www.earth-policy.org/plan_b_updates/2014/update121

Weird then that they have suspended purchases of DDGS (from said ethanol production).

http://www.grains.org/news/20140612/ddgs-exports-china-threatened
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/25/us-usa-grains-china-idUSKBN0FT2LM20140725

More than 200 ethanol plants dominate the countryside, particularly in their most concentrated area�the corn belt. These plants, possess the capacity to produce more than 14 billion gallons of ethanol and 30 million tons of DDGS.

About 8 million tons of that is exported, with half (until recently at least) going to China.

# ¿ Aug 11, 2014 20:35

Pimpmust: Oct 1, 2008

Fireworks factory?

# ¿ Aug 12, 2015 19:07

Pimpmust: Oct 1, 2008

The 20 tons of TNT equivalent does seem to be a little on the... low end.

The Guardian:

quote:

USGS geophysicist John Bellini said it is rare to detect seismological activity from other events, like the explosion in Tianjin. �Blasts that are not mine-related are rare to record, just because they don�t get transferred into the ground very well,� he said.

Bellini said that it looks like multiple blasts were recorded at the Beijing monitoring facility, but the agency is not completely certain that the activity came from the explosion in Tianjin. The nature of the blast means that the seismological monitor does not give a completely accurate assessment of the explosion�s magnitude, he said.

�I can�t really give you an accurate magnitude picture � because it is one station and I don�t know how much air blast and how much of it is ground vibration, so I can�t give any precise magnitude measure for it,� Bellini said.

He did say that a safe estimate for the explosion is that it registered between a magnitude 2 and 3 on the Richter scale.

�That doesn�t accurately portray the amount of energy in the explosion, just because it isn�t transferred to the ground very well,� said Bellini.

quote:

Twelve hours after two huge blasts rocked the Chinese port city of Tianjin, here is what we know:

Latest casualty figures put the death toll at at least 17, with 32 injured and a further 283 people in hospital.
Nine firefighters are confirmed to have died, although it is not clear whether they are counted among the 17. Authorities say they have lost contact with a further 36 firefighters tackling the huge blazes.

# ¿ Aug 13, 2015 05:19

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# ¿ May 6, 2024 07:15

Pimpmust: Oct 1, 2008

Hey there's still a long way to go until negative interest rates!

# ¿ Aug 26, 2015 05:21

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