What's Going on in China?

Walter Kurtz at Pragmatic Capital has been watching short-term interest rates in China and is sounding the alarm.

This graphic is the equivalent of the US Federal Funds rate (or the overnight rate banks charge each other). One of the classic signs of an impending recession is when short-term interest rates are higher than long-term rates. It's a sign a central bank is stiffening; although in this case it may be that their central bank is simply looking the other way. 

You do hear stories of empty cities built with cheap money and that Chinese authorities want to curtail this speculative activity. This is one way to do it.

Now, can they do it without triggering a recession. This bears watching.

How Much Do They Know? Really ...

Apparently not much.

I've never studied economic projections but like I suspect most people do, I have a healthy suspicion of them. One of my favorite expressions is, "You can lay all the economists in the world end-to-end and never reach a conclusion."

Here's an example.

 It's the projection of American unemployment (from the Council on Foreign Relations?) from November 2012 through April 2013. Now, it's been a long while since I studied statistics but I think I can safely conclude that they don't have any more of an idea than you or I.

Tell you what; I'll take a while stab at it like they're doing and I'll charge half as much. Deal?

You Say You Want a Revolution!

I've posited earlier on what oil development in North America and the fracking technology will do to the world. Now the world is noticing! This article in Investors Business Daily goes into detail on how the growth of North American oil is starting to rend OPEC apart.

At Friday's Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries meeting in Vienna, the mask of non-chalance about America's new fracking energy boom came off.

As I've said before, if you want to stop wars for oil and (long-term) Islamic terrorism, this is how you do it.

Capitalism Baby!