Boom. You can't out tariff us. Period. This Trump knows.

[Origanalist]

Just throwing it out there..

US trade gap grew to $54 billion in September

https://www.foxnews.com/us/us-trade-...n-in-september

[EBounding]

Well, I've recently had to make a life change and work at a company that manufactures drive lines for GM, Ford, Fiat Chrysler, BMW and Maserati. They just told us to square everything away and take time off now. Come spring we will be working 7 days straight for 2-3 months. So I'm thinking they are not hurting so bad as you have been led to believe.

GM's actually doing well profit-wise. But they're trying to get ahead of the curve to preserve free cash flow instead of doing it during a recession. Ford too. I get it. But the tariffs are making things much worse.

From July: GM cuts 2018 profit forecast, says trade war hit to car sales

[phill4paul]

GM's actually doing well profit-wise. But they're trying to get ahead of the curve to preserve free cash flow instead of doing it during a recession. Ford too. I get it. But the tariffs are making things much worse.

From July: GM cuts 2018 profit forecast, says trade war hit to car sales

They say what they need to. GM certainly didn't mind appealing, through false advetising, being "America's Truck," all the while building on cheap foreign steal.

$#@! them. No sympathise given.

[Swordsmyth]

Just throwing it out there..

US trade gap grew to $54 billion in September

https://www.foxnews.com/us/us-trade-...n-in-september

A rising dollar and people trying to stock up ahead of the tariffs, it's temporary.

[Swordsmyth]

GM's actually doing well profit-wise. But they're trying to get ahead of the curve to preserve free cash flow instead of doing it during a recession. Ford too. I get it. But the tariffs are making things much worse.

From July: GM cuts 2018 profit forecast, says trade war hit to car sales

China Pressures Wall Street To Intervene In Trade Fight

[Swordsmyth]

China's senior leadership has just signaled for more stimulus, as its economy and stock market prepares for a possible economic collision in early 2019 from the trade war with the United States.

The Communist Party’s Politburo, a group of 25 people who oversee the Communist Party of China headed by President Xi Jinping, finally admitted on Wednesday that there was "growing downward pressure" on the economy with "profound changes" in the economic environment, Xinhua news agency reported.


This statement from the communist party was a massive shift from three months ago when the Politburo said there had been “noticeable” changes in the economic environment, reported the South China Morning Post.
It is the first time the leadership has shown public concern about China's rapidly slowing economy since the trade war began earlier this year.


Calls for more stimulus came after disappointing economic data showed the country is headed for turmoil next year. The purchasing manager report showed widespread deterioration across the country could spill over into the rest of the world.
The Politburo said there were “a lot of difficulties with certain enterprises and the emergence of risks accumulated over long periods of time.”

“We need to attach great importance to this situation and be more forward-looking to respond in a timely manner,” the statement said.
“We have to enhance reform and opening up to focus on core problems with targeted solutions ... We must get our own things done and firmly seek high-quality growth."

Officials have already tried a handful accommodative policies, ranging from tax cuts to regulatory support, rather than loading up the ole' fiscal cannon as seen in prior slowdowns. Bloomberg notes that investors seem unpersuaded by the drip-feed approach with the yuan near decade lows and regional stock markets in correction territories to soon bear markets.

"Accepting slower growth has long been a challenge for Beijing, but now the rate of slowdown is firmly out of the comfort zone," Katrina Ell, an economist at Moody's Analytics in Sydney, told Bloomberg. "In recent years the balancing act has been addressing risks in the financial system against pressure to stabilize economic growth. It appears the latter is again more of a priority."

"Manufacturing growth slowed to the lowest level in more than two years, and while economists had seen further tax cuts coming, few had predicted bigger stimulus for now. An export sub-gauge fell deeper into contraction territory, suggesting that an earlier export rush to beat US tariff deadlines will fade sharply.
The US is preparing to announce by early December tariffs on all remaining imports from China if talks next month between presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping fail to ease the trade war. An increase in the tariffs already in effect on US$200 billion of Chinese imports scheduled for January would provide a stiff test to many exporters and could quicken the shifting of global supply chains," reported Bloomberg.

In the overnight session on Tuesday, a series of trade data releases suggested that the global economy was headed for economic turbulence in the coming months. Industrial output for September in South Korea and Japan missed estimates, as did third-quarter output in Taiwan.
"The spring of 2019 will be the real difficult time for China as multiple factors such as trade tension, slower sales of durable goods and the end of a property boom in lower-tier cities weigh on growth," Lu Ting, chief China economist at Nomura International Ltd. in Hong Kong, said after the announcement. "It'll be a test if China can sustain growth of around 6.5%. Policymakers are likely to further cut taxes and ease property purchase controls in bigger cities to lift the economy."

The government and central bank have introduced several stabilizing measures, adding to steps to boost liquidity in the financial system, tax deductions for households and targeted measures aimed at helping exporter. However, those countercyclical buffers have yet to have much effect.

George Magnus, an economist at Oxford University's China Cent, told Bloomberg if the new stimulus measures accelerate China's debt load, then the communist party could face backlash and have unintended consequences so late in the cycle.
"It was always the case that the acid test of the government's resolve to deleverage would be its nerve if the economy started to falter," he said. "Which it is."



More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...on-spring-2019

[Swordsmyth]

Ever since China's shadow banking sector peaked two years ago, one of Beijing's biggest financial and social stability concerns was of widespread, out-of-control bank runs which if left unchecked, could cripple China's massive, $35+ trillion financial sector, and which prompted the authorities to launch an aggressive deleveraging campaign targeting China's shadow banks.

And while China has had its close encounters with the occasional bank jog, it always succeeded in intercepting them just in time, or threatening a crackdown if such "behavior" persisted; as a result financial stability was preserved.
That may be about to changed: in what the Epoch Times warns could be the "sign of an impending financial crisis", a small local bank in the southwestern Chinese city of Zigong just suffered a bank run.
Shareholders of Bank of Zigong in Sichuan Province absconded with 40 billion yuan ($5.78 billion), through loans issued to shell companies that they had created, according to a Nov. 2 post in a Chinese social-media account, and a report by Da Zhong, a state-run news website. The loans were long overdue, resulting in huge losses for the bank.
Even though the post was deleted within 20 minutes by internet censors, the news spread like wildfire and scores of bank customers rushed to dozens of bank branches in Zigong City to retrieve their deposits, while long lines of people could be seen from photos of the scene and uploaded by netizens.


Shortly after, the Zigong City branch of the national bank regulator, China Banking Regulatory Commission, sent out an emergency notice seeking to calm customers. The notice indicated that the Bank of Zigong, which was founded in 2001 and has 32 branches in the city of 1.2 million people, is running normally and has sufficient cash flow for reserve funds.
While the local police also announced the arrest of the person who spread the "online rumors", that didn’t stop customers from rushing to the bank. Though the rumors were unconfirmed, the resulting bank run by panicked customers could spell serious trouble. As more customers try to withdraw funds, Bank of Zigong may eventually default.
That would have broader repercussions for the Chinese economy, as the Bank of Zigong exemplifies a common situation in many regions across China. Like many economic hubs in China, municipal authorities in Zigong have borrowed large sums from the Bank of Zigong to finance local infrastructure projects. The bank explicitly explains on its website that the institution supports initiatives by the city’s Communist Party committee and government authorities such as building projects, city redevelopment, state-owned enterprises reform, and more, according to the Epoch Times.
Zigong City, as with many other municipal governments, has set up local investment firms as a popular option to borrow money. But that has led to enormous debt that governments couldn’t repay. The Chinese regime recently published rules that allow these investment firms to file for bankruptcy if they don’t have the funds to repay their debts—highlighting the severity of the situation.
Economists - at least those outside of China - have warned that when the city investment firms go bankrupt, the domino effect on banks that loaned money to them, as well as the private individuals and companies that invested in them, would be detrimental.

“When city investment firms have no way to repay their debts, the Bank of Zigong will be in a crisis,” said Zhao Pei, a current affairs commentator at NTD Television, part of the Epoch Media Group.

More ominously, Twitter user Cao Ji, a former professor in Shanghai, who now does academic research in Taiwan said that "if there is a bank run at the Bank of Zigong, this means a financial crisis in China will begin from these local small banks."
Meanwhile, there are also clues that what was said in the initial social-media post that sparked panic may be true. The post listed three companies as the bank’s majority shareholders: a real estate company; a conglomerate with portfolios in residential development, commercial real estate, and manufacturing equipment; and China Western Power, a firm that manufactures and distributes boilers.
China Finance Information, a financial data portal, released a public announcement stating that after China Western Power invested in Bank of Zigong, it became the bank’s largest shareholder, with a 20% stake.

However, according to an Oct. 8 report by the Changjiang Times newspaper, China Western Power is currently in financial distress, due to - what else - high levels of debt. As of the end of June, the company’s debt-to-asset ratio reached 77.52%, an increase of 10% from the end of 2015. The company also needs to repay 1.01 billion yuan (about $146 million) in loans by year’s end, and may be unable to meet its obligations.
The company’s shares have continually fallen since May, and such financial straits would match the claims in the initial social-media post.

More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...nancial-crisis

[Superfluous Man]

Every time I see this thread title I just have to shake my head.

We should positively want every other country to out-tariff us. Having a government that burdens us less with tariffs than the people of other countries have, and enjoying the economic benefits of this, should be a badge we wear with pride. And a president who wants to deprive us of this freedom should not be tolerated here.

[Swordsmyth]

Every time I see this thread title I just have to shake my head.

We should positively want every other country to out-tariff us. Having a government that burdens us less with tariffs than the people of other countries have, and enjoying the economic benefits of this, should be a badge we wear with pride. And a president who wants to deprive us of this freedom should not be tolerated here.

That is the road to a hollow economy with a tremendous rich/poor gap that can be exploited by the communists and dependence on hostile foreign countries for our needs that can be used to subject us to world government.

We are too far down that road already, DJTvsg is turning us around just before the point of no return.

Low tariffs are ideal but only if we can negotiate for other countries to have them and only if we can reverse the taxes and regulations that damage or competitiveness.

[Swordsmyth]

In another sign of repeating 2015, the Chinese are beginning to mobilize their “reserves” again. Three years ago, in a futile attempt to staunch CNY’s stubborn “devaluation” various government authorities blew through just about $1 trillion. It didn’t work. You would think that everyone could learn from this episode.

I think the Chinese did, which is why in 2017 they engineered the bypass through Hong Kong in order to hide the continued peril; capital outflows in the mistaken parlance of the mainstream. All that changed, unsurprisingly, in January.
At first, unlike 2015, it was a trickle. Only small balances were deployed scattershot suggesting that officials weren’t going to repeat their mistake. Western Economists may still view foreign reserves as insurance against this kind of thing, but eurodollar squeeze #3 proved conclusively the absurdity of being so monetarily ignorant.
If you can’t steady your currency with $1 trillion, no one can. Period.
To chuck that mind-boggling amount into the ether and get nothing to show for it is about as conclusive a demonstration. The PBOC and others’ reluctance to do the same thing in 2018 is therefore understandable. They let CNY go mostly unaddressed (apart from some clandestine operations here or there) because what else were they going to do?
This, I believe, explains why CNY plummeted in 2018 compared to the “ticking clock” stairstep decline two and three years ago. That’s another aspect monetary officials may now appreciate, how in the end the mobilization of reserves tends to make things worse.



All that may be changing, however. I have to assume with great reluctance, pretty much they don’t know what else to do. Foreign reserves are flowing out of the government’s various pockets all over again. China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) reported that in September 2018 total foreign reserves fell by $22.69 billion. It was the most since January, that prior month a one-off fix.
Today, SAFE estimates that in October China shed another $33.93 billion. This was the largest monthly usage since the last ticking clock in 2016. On a 2-month basis, it is pretty clear things are getting serious in China with CNY hanging just on the other side of 7.0.




More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...hinas-not-safe

[Swordsmyth]

[Swordsmyth]

On November 8, China shocked markets with its latest targeted stimulus in the form of an "unprecedented" lending directive ordering large banks to issue loans to private companies to at least one-third of new corporate lending, said Guo Shuqing, chairman of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission. The announcement sparked a new round of investor concerns about what is being unsaid about China's opaque, private enterprises, raising prospects of a fresh spike in bad assets.

Guo’s comments were the latest attempt by authorities to try to improve funding access for China’s non-state companies, which have been struggling to get bank loans in the aftermath of China's crackdown on shadow lending. More importantly, it was the first time financial regulators had given targets on private lending, confirmation that earlier efforts hadn't sparked the necessary credit activity.
More importantly, this is the first time China set formal goals for private lending, a step it refrained from even during the financial crisis of 2008 according to Bloomberg. The stimulus package it implemented at the time swelled bad debt levels, which now threaten to swallow any new money poured into private companies. Non-state firms defaulted on 67.4 billion yuan ($9.7 billion) of local bonds this year, 4.2 times that of 2017, while the overall Chinese market is headed for a year of record defaults in 2018.



According to commentators, the new policy was prompted by the need to ensure that China’s private firms, already challenged by China's state-owned behemoths, survive amid a plunging stock market, record corporate defaults and a cooling economy. At the same time, the target for small and medium-sized banks is higher, at two-thirds of new corporate loans, with Guo adding that he wants to see loans to private companies account for at least half of total new corporate loans in three years.
But most importantly, this targeted lending will increase market concern on banks’ "civic duty" with Huatai Securities predicting a new sharp spike in NPL ratio amid the accelerating economic slowdown, which would prove negative for short-term sentiment.

“There is desperation among regulators, and sometimes muddled polices are difficult to avoid under this kind of pressure,” said Jiang Liangqing, a Beijing-based fund manager at Ruisen Capital Management. “Investors are voting with their feet.”
* * *
Also this week, PBOC Governor Yi announced a policy combination of “3 arrows” to support additional liquidity to the private sector, including bank loans, debt and equity financing. The arrows, per Goldman, were the following:

• Firstly, PBOC is looking into the possibility of promoting equity financing for private firms. The central bank is working with various financial institutions such as fund managers and brokerages on this initiative.
• Secondly, PBOC will expand a recently launched scheme to promote private firms’ bond issuance in collaboration with financial regulators. Three companies have already raised 1.9 billion yuan of bonds with over-subscription, and 30 more private enterprises are preparing for bond issuance.
• Thirdly, PBOC will add a new metric in the MPA formula to encourage lending to private companies. They will also increase the supply of long term and reasonably priced funding for financial institutions (further RRR cuts would fit this goal, in our view).

As Goldman notes, "it is rare for a senior official to openly acknowledge previous policy missteps." As a result, this is likely in response to the recent meetings hosted by President Xi, especially the one with entrepreneurs. That meeting was unique in that it carried the highest political authority and at the same time was very specific in terms of the measures to be taken.
As such, it likely put the onus on senior officials who attended the meeting to act in a timely manner. While the governor stated there is no change in the overall monetary policy stance, which is described as prudent, and more support for the real economy via more bond issuance had been stated previously, his comment on past policy missteps suggests a change in policy stance. Rather, the reiteration of the current policy stance should be read more as an indication that the PBOC will be measured in terms of the size of additional loosening. In terms of more tangible measures, Goldman now sees a higher probability that TSF growth will accelerate from now, but likely at a very measured pace. Worse, many of these new funds will end up funding underperforming assets, resulting in a spike in on-performing loans and more bad debt.


More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...stocks-reeling

[Swordsmyth]

The U.S. trade representative is considering opening a Section 301 investigation against Chinese labor practices, Inside U.S. Trade reported Nov. 9.

The United States has already used Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 to place tariffs on roughly $250 billion worth of imports from China. Various labor groups in the United States have petitioned the U.S. trade representative several times under previous administrations to open an investigation on whether or not China denied workers certain rights to gain an unfair advantage, but past presidents have not heeded their demands.

More at: https://worldview.stratfor.com/situa...-investigation


Related:

Underperforming Chinese workers made to drink urine, eat bugs

[Swordsmyth]

Regular readers of Zero Hedge are probably familiar with money-for-oil loans. But one liquidity-challenged pork producer is pushing an absurd twist on that concept that has helped to expose the financial dysfunction at many small- and medium-sized Chinese companies.
Instead of receiving cash, holders of local-currency bonds issued by Zhengzhou-based pork producer Chuying Agro-Pastoral Group Co will be paid with the company's ham, thanks to an agreement reached between the company and its creditors. Assuming the agreement, which was revealed in a security filing on the Shenzen Stock Exchange, holds, the "in kind" payments will only apply to the interest on the bonds, according to the South China Morning Post.

The agreement was struck after the company failed to repay a 500 million yuan bond that was due on Nov 5. The spread of African swine fever has caused pork demand in China to plummet, creating a cash-on-hand crisis for pork producers. As of Sept 30, the company had 1.3 billion yuan in cash against a short-term debt load of 8.4 billion yuan, according to data from Bloomberg.


More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...-defaults-soar

[Swordsmyth]

China was supposed to be the saving grace of the global auto market, pitched by auto makers and analysts as an endless area of opportunity and growth. Instead, China's October auto sales numbers have been another disaster, a harbinger for an accelerating global slowdown for the industry. Automobile sales were down 12% y/y in October, sliding to 2.38 million, according to the Wall Street Journal. And with this dreadful annual comp, 2018 has now turned negative for overall Chinese auto market.

A quick breakdown: passenger car sales fell 13% in the month to 2.05 million, down 8% for the third quarter. Passenger car sales were off 1% for the first 10 months of the year.That puts them down 1% for the first 10 months of the year, on course for their first yearly decline in nearly three decades.



This 12% drop for China follows a similar drop in September and a 4% decline in both July and August. It was the steepest drop since late 2012, which also marked the fourth consecutive month of declines at the time.
Yao Jie, vice secretary general of CAAM (the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers) commented at a press conference in Beijing: “Maintaining positive growth to the end of the year won’t be easy. There could be negative growth." As noted above, if that happens, it would be the first time since at least the early 1990s that annual car sales in China have contracted.
CAAM had originally forecast a 3% rise for the year, in line with last year’s growth, though sharply down from a 13.7% gain in 2016.


Further weighing on the auto industry is the ongoing stubborn bear market in Chinese stock prices leaving citizens with less disposable income.

China could wind up a huge (and somewhat unexpected) contributor to a major global pull back in the automotive sector because it has widely been seen over the last decade as an opportunistic spot for growth by auto makers. For instance, companies like Tesla (of course) have recently cited China as a way to gain a bigger slice of the global auto market. Auto sales in the United States and Europe have already started to plateau or fall, but China was widely seen as a remaining area for opportunity. Obviously, that changes now.

When we last looked at the Chinese auto sector last month we quoted Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Steve Man who said that "the slump may be the biggest that auto manufacturers have ever experienced in China." And just like in the US, weaker brands will be hit disproportionately, forcing price cuts to boost sales, Man said. Some carmakers may also be forced to shutter factories to reduce inventories and lower costs. The end result could be another deflationary wave coupled with China's biggest nightmare: mass layoffs.

More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...cline-30-years

[Swordsmyth]

China’s economy isn’t right now collapsing but that isn’t the problem. Again, what the numbers suggest is we’ve seen the best there is and it isn’t (ever) going to get any better. And it isn’t near enough growth. There just isn’t sufficient economic momentum anywhere in the world to overcome eurodollar tightening. In fact, the two go hand in hand; lack of momentum leads to monetary caution, spurning further growth creating more monetary tightening. The result is growing desperation in China, as elsewhere, about where things might be going just on the other side of the horizon.
These warning signs accumulate and escalate.
The latest statistics for trade and prices are all consistent with either the low ceiling or the impending rolling over. Chinese exports rose 15.6% year-over-year in October 2018, with imports up more than 21%. As usual, these sound terrific outside of any context. Inside, they suggest what commodity prices are starting to see – if this is the best it can be for China, it’s not nearly enough for either China or the world.



Internally, outside of bottlenecks in food, inflation remains subdued because monetary growth continues to be constrained. Even input and producer prices are coming back down because the (mini)cycle is turning. Reflation #3 was given a fair shot especially in commodity markets, and it just didn’t pan out. The screeching, emotional pleas for globally synchronized growth were never really based in honest analysis.
China’s CPI missed the government’s mandate for the 59th consecutive month. At 2.5% in October 2018, it was the same as September with food prices (including tobacco) still rising near 3%. The Producer Price Index was up just 3.3%, the second lowest gain since 2016.

The economy is stuck, which means markets and financial agents are going to realize that, if this is as good as it gets, the “stimulus” panic in early 2016 didn’t actually create the economy everyone was looking for – and underwriting debt in anticipation of. Thus, not only is the economy trapped, what can authorities really do to get everyone out of it? Nothing. And now everyone knows it.



More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...e-freaking-out

[Swordsmyth]

Back in 2017, we explained why the "fate of the world economy is in the hands of China's housing bubble." The answer was simple: for the Chinese population, and growing middle class, to keep spending vibrant and borrowing elevated, it had to feel comfortable and confident that its wealth would keep rising. However, unlike the US where the stock market is the ultimate barometer of the confidence boosting "wealth effect", in China it has always been about housing as three quarters of Chinese household assets are parked in real estate, compared to only 28% in the US, with the remainder invested financial assets.



Beijing knows this, of course, which is why China periodically and consistently reflates its housing bubble, hoping that the popping of the bubble, which happened in late 2011 and again in 2014, will be a controlled, "smooth landing" process. For now, Beijing has been successful in maintaining price stability at least according to official data, allowing the air out of the "Tier 1" home price bubble which peaked in early 2016, while preserving modest home price appreciation in secondary markets.

How long China will be able to avoid a sharp price decline remains to be seen, but in the meantime another problem faces China's housing market: in addition to being the primary source of household net worth - and therefore stable and growing consumption - it has also been a key driver behind China's economic growth, with infrastructure spending and capital investment long among the biggest components of the country's goalseeked GDP. One result has been China's infamous ghost cities, built only for the sake of Keynesian spending to hit a predetermined GDP number that would make Beijing happy.
Meanwhile, in the process of reflating the latest housing bubble, another dire byproduct of this artificial housing "market" has emerged: tens of millions of apartments and houses standing empty across the country.
According to Bloomberg, soon-to-be-published research will show that roughly 22% of China’s urban housing stock is unoccupied, according to Professor Gan Li, who runs the main nationwide study. That amounts to more than 50 million empty homes.

The reason for the massive empty inventory glut: to keep supply low and prices artificially elevated by taking out as much inventory off the market as possible. This, however, works both ways, and while it helps boost prices on the way up as the economy grow and speculators flood the housing market with easy money, the moment the trend flips the spike in supply as empty units are offloaded will lead to a panic liquidation of homes, resulting in what may be the biggest housing market crash ever observed, and putting the US home bubble of 2006 to shame.
Indeed, as Bloomberg notes, the "nightmare scenario" for Chinese authorities is that owners of unoccupied dwellings rush to sell when cracks start appearing in the property market, causing a self-reinforcing downward price spiral.

Worse, the latest data, from a survey in 2017, also suggests Beijing’s efforts to curb property speculation - which alongside shadow banking and the persistent threat of sudden bank runs (like the one discussed last week) is considered by Beijing a key threat to financial and social stability - have failed.
"There’s no other single country with such a high vacancy rate,” said Gan, of Chengdu’s Southwestern University of Finance and Economics. “Should any crack emerge in the property market, the homes to be offloaded will hit China like a flood.”


There is another economic cost to this speculative frenzy: the drop in supply puts upward pressure on prices and crowds young buyers out of the market, according to Kaiji Chen, who co-authored a Fed paper called “The Great Housing Boom of China."
And, as Americans so fondly recall, the result of chasing unaffordable homes for the purpose of price speculation has resulted in yet another unprecedented debt bubble: according to Caixin, outstanding personal home mortgages in China have exploded sevenfold from 3 trillion yuan ($430 billion) in 2008 to 22.9 trillion yuan in 2017, according to PBOC data


By the end of September, the value of outstanding home mortgages had surged another 18% Y/Y to a record 24.9 trillion yuan, resulting in a trend that as Caixin notes, has turned many people into what are called “mortgage slaves."
It has also resulted in yet another housing bubble: home mortgage debt now makes up more than half of total household debt in China. As of the third quarter, it accounted for 53% of the 46.2 trillion yuan in outstanding household debt.
For now, few are losing sleep over what will be the next massive housing bubble to burst. An example of a vacant home is a villa on the outskirts of Shanghai that 27-year-old Natalie Feng’s parents bought for her. The two-story residence was meant to be a weekend escape for the family of three. In reality, it’s empty most of the time, and Feng says it’s too much trouble to rent it out.
"For every weekend we spend there, we need to drive for an hour first, and clean up for half a day," Feng said. She joked that she sometimes wishes her parents hadn’t bought it for her in the first place. That’s because any apartment she buys now would count as a second home, which means she’d have to make a bigger down payment.

* * *
What is troubling is that despite relatively stable home prices, the foundations behind the housing market are cracking. As the WSJ recently reported, in early December, a group of homeowners stormed the sales office of their Shanghai complex, "Central Washington", whose developer, Shanghai Zhaoping Real Estate Development, was advertising new apartments at a fraction of the prices of the ones sold earlier in the year. One apartment owner said the new prices suggested the value of the apartment she bought from the developer in March had dropped by about 17.5%.
“There are people who bought multiple homes who are now trying to sell one to pay off the mortgage on another,” said Ran Yunjie, a property agent. One of his clients bought an apartment last year for about $230,000. To find a buyer now, the client would have to drop the price by 60%, according to Ran.
Meanwhile, in a truly concerning demonstration of what will happen when the bubble finally bursts, last month we reported that angry homeowners who paid full price for units at the Xinzhou Mansion residential project in Shangrao attacked the Country Garden sales office in eastern Jiangxi province last week, after finding out it had offered discounts to new buyers of up to 30%.

Country Garden cut the selling price at one of its residential developments by 1/3. Those who paid full price smashed the sales office. Similar incidents had happened before, and will again. It’s impossible to remove “the guarantee of principal”（刚性兑付）in China. pic.twitter.com/UxHFODYxmc
— Hao Hong 洪灝, CFA (@HAOHONG_CFA) October 6, 2018

"Property accounts for roughly 70 per cent of urban Chinese families’ total assets – a home is both wealth and status. People don’t want prices to increase too fast, but they don’t want them to fall too quickly either,” said Shao Yu, chief economist at Oriental Securities. "People are so used to rising prices that it never occurred to them that they can fall too. We shouldn’t add to this illusion," Shao added, echoing Ben Bernanke circa 2005.
But the biggest surprise once the music finally stops may be that - as a fascinating WSJ report revealed one year ago - China's housing downturn is likely far, far worse than meets the eye, as under Beijing’s direction more than 200 cities across China for the last three years have been buying surplus apartments from property developers and moving in families from condemned city blocks and nearby villages.China’s Housing Ministry, which is behind the purchases, said it plans to continue the program through 2020. The strategy, supported by central-government bank lending, has rescued housing developers and lifted the property market.

In other words, while China already has a record 50 million empty apartments, the real number - when excluding the government's own stealthy purchases of excess inventory - is likely significantly higher. It is this, and not China's stock market, that has long been the biggest time bomb for Beijing, and if Trump and Peter Navarro truly want to crush China in their ongoing trade war, they should focus on destabilizing the housing market: the Chinese stock market was, and remains just a distraction.

More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...ents-are-empty

[CCTelander]

Every time I see this thread title I just have to shake my head.

We should positively want every other country to out-tariff us. Having a government that burdens us less with tariffs than the people of other countries have, and enjoying the economic benefits of this, should be a badge we wear with pride. And a president who wants to deprive us of this freedom should not be tolerated here.

Ah but this is the New and "Improved" RPF for the Trump age. Now with 60% more economic insanity and a flavor of authoritarianism to please almost every taste.

[Swordsmyth]

“I think China’s manipulating their currency, absolutely,” President Trump said back in August. Yet the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) was, and has been, intervening to keep the RMB up, and not to push it down, as Trump was alleging. And we believe such interventions are about to get much larger. Here is why.
Over the past two years, as our left-hand figure above shows, foreign portfolio investors have piled prodigiously into Chinese assets, helping to support the RMB. But history suggests this trend is about to reverse. While inflows have been rising, Chinese stocks have been tumbling—they are down over 20 percent from their January peak. Dreadful performance like this typically drives funds out of emerging markets. We may be seeing the beginning of such outflows in China.
Repatriation of liquid foreign capital will make it far more challenging for China to keep its currency up. Of course, China could change course and let it fall, but that risks exacerbating the foreign-debt burden of its highly leveraged corporates. It could raise interest rates, but that would further slow a slowing economy. It could, to keep capital at home, demand higher returns on its foreign lending, but that would mean sacrificing its efforts to subsidize its companies operating abroad, as well those aimed at putting dollars to the service of geostrategic objectives—like Belt and Road.
In short, then, there is every reason to expect that the PBoC will boost its support for the RMB by selling dollar reserves. This is what it did back in 2015, when a plunging stock market scared away foreign capital.
So in spite of President’s Trump’s repeated charges that China is manipulating its currency for competitive advantage in trade, all evidence suggests that it will continue to do the opposite. But if China were to sell reserves at the same pace as in 2015, its reserve levels would, by mid-2020, actually fall below the safety threshold implied by the IMF’s framework for reserve adequacy—as shown in the right-hand figure above.

The prospect of a balance-of-payments crisis, in which China would struggle to pay for imports and service foreign debt (a prospect considered outlandish a decade ago), highlights the urgency with which China must begin addressing the problem of high and rising corporate and local-government debt levels. The PBoC has no easy fix for these problems.


https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...when-it-leaves

[EBounding]

^ Those are some terrific words from Tyler Durden. Did America win the trade war yet?

[Zippyjuan]

^ Those are some terrific words from Tyler Durden. Did America win the trade war yet?

Zerohedge is totally about economic collapse. They always assume (or at least project) that things are at or near their worst.

[Zippyjuan]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-asian-nations

Pence in Asia for meetings because Trump decided not to go.

Pence plans to “deliver the message that authoritarianism, aggression, and the disregard for other nations’ sovereignty by any nation in the Indo-Pacific will not be tolerated by the United States,’’ Farah said in a statement.

For his part, Trump has threatened to levy more tariffs on Chinese goods early in 2019 if no deal is struck with Xi before then.

Pence’s trip to Asia, and any meetings he has with Chinese officials, could set the tone for Trump’s meeting with Xi. But because Trump has been known to undercut members of his administration on foreign policy, Pence may face an uphill battle convincing regional leaders that he speaks for the president.

The Trump administration’s mercurial nature is well-known throughout the region, said Shi Yinhong, an international relations professor with Renmin University in Beijing.

Um- isn't the use of tariffs to try to force a country to change their economic practices disregarding their sovereignty and ability to make their own economic decisions?

[Swordsmyth]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-asian-nations

Pence in Asia for meetings because Trump decided not to go.



Um- isn't the use of tariffs to try to force a country to change their economic practices disregarding their sovereignty and ability to make their own economic decisions?

No, it is negotiation, they started the trade wars, we are just defending ourselves.

[Zippyjuan]

No, it is negotiation, they started the trade wars, we are just defending ourselves.

It wasn't a war until Trump initiated his tariffs. It is supposedly in the name of negotiation tactics yet he is not negotiating. Why?

[Swordsmyth]

It wasn't a war until Trump initiated his tariffs. It is supposedly in the name of negotiation tactics yet he is not negotiating. Why?

It was a war when they attacked decades ago and they have shown that they aren't ready to negotiate yet.

[Zippyjuan]

It was a war when they attacked decades ago and they have shown that they aren't ready to negotiate yet.

LOL.

[Swordsmyth]

LOL.

LOL

[Zippyjuan]

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/dipl...a-asean-summit

Trump absent as China pushes free-trade agenda at Asean summit

Asia-Pacific leaders will join the heads of Southeast Asian states this week in Singapore to renew calls for multilateralism and fresh pledges to resolve regional conflicts ranging from the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar to tensions in the South China Sea.

Notably absent when regional powers such as China, Japan and India seek to enlist support for a multilateral trading system will be US President Donald Trump, whose decision to skip the Asia summit has raised questions about his commitment to a regional strategy aimed at checking China’s rise.

Vice-President Mike Pence will attend instead of Trump, and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe are among those expected to join leaders from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Li is expected to rally support for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) pact now being negotiated, showcased to be the free-trade deal that will encompass more than a third of the world’s GDP.

The pact includes 16 countries, including China, India, Japan and South Korea, but not the United States.

The United States is also in the midst of a bitter trade war with China which has undermined global markets.

China is pushing the RCEP deal. Assistant Foreign Minister Chen Xiaodong told reporters on Thursday it “will be of great significance for deepening regional cooperation, coping with unilateralism and protectionism, and promoting an open, inclusive and rules-based international trading system.”

However, Li is expected to appeal in Singapore for the need for the world’s two largest economies to work together to resolve trade disputes, reiterating a commitment made by Beijing’s top leaders last week to market opening and lowering tariffs.

more at link.

[Swordsmyth]

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/dipl...a-asean-summit



more at link.

They want to open up to other countries as part of their trade war with us, we are their primary target because we are the dominant power in the world and they want to be.

[Swordsmyth]

Whether due to China's weaker currency, or the collapsing premium of Chinese over U.S. interest rates, foreign holdings of yuan-denominated, domestically traded bonds in China rose by just 250 million yuan ($35.9 million), or 0.02%, to 1.44 trillion yuan in October, according to the WSJ citing data provider Wind. As shown in the chart below, the rate of growth has been decelerating since June, when it peaked at 8.9% month on month, the fastest in 21 months.
Even more troubling, after adjusting for valuation effects, ChinaBond calculated that foreign investors actually reduced their holdings of Chinese bonds. While this reduction was modest, JPMorgan noted that it nonetheless represents the first outflow since February 2017, highlighting the risk of continued currency depreciation exacerbating the capital outflow picture.

Meanwhile, as Bank of America notes, China's weakening economy has led Chinese bond prices to rally sharply in the past year, pushing yields down, even as rising interest rates send U.S. bonds in the other direction. That means Chinese sovereign debt now offers a much thinner premium over U.S. Treasurys. Yields on benchmark 10-year Chinese securities fell to 0.24 percentage point above Treasurys late last week, the narrowest gap since July 2010.

It's not just the collapsing yield differential that confirms the economic slowdown and is a threat to Chinese capital inflows: in addition to the near contracting Chinese PMI, as the chart below shows the Korean KOSPI, Macau-exposed WYNN, Caterpillar and Chinese property giant China Evergrande, have all slumped this year.

So why does Chinese bond flows matters? As the WSJ explains, foreign institutions, such as central banks and pension funds, own just 1.7% of China’s overall $12 trillion bond market, the world’s third largest behind the U.S. and Japan. Still, they have already become influential players in the narrower field for central government debt, where they own 8.1% of what is a roughly $2 trillion market.
Still, a reversal in bond flows is the last thing China's economy, whose current account surplus is now virtually non-existent, can afford. According to Peter Ru, Shanghai-based chief investment officer of China fixed income at Neuberger Berman, foreign investors slowed their purchases of Chinese bonds mostly because of the yuan’s fast depreciation: "Given the uncertainties over the trade war, nobody can be sure how much more the yuan may weaken."
He is right: foreign investors have decided to sit on the sidelines as they await potential initiatives from Beijing, such as further monetary easing, said Jason Pang, Hong Kong-based China government bond portfolio manager at J.P. Morgan Asset Management. And yet, such easing would result in even further depreciation, making the choice whether to resume buying Chinese bonds a complex one: on one hand, one would need to hedge bond exposure (which is virtually impossible as anyone who has shorted the offshore Yuan knows the central bank's tendency to periodically "murder" speculators), and absent that there would have to be an expectation of currency stability, something which the central bank increasingly is unable to provide; as such not even a most generous stimulus can offset the risks of rapid currency devaluation, ensuring that foreign investors will stay on the sidelines for the foreseeable future.
There is one alternative: Pang said he sees Chinese government bonds as a “trade war hedge.” Their prices have rallied as Beijing has taken measures such as loosening lending conditions to offset the impact of worsening trade frictions, he said. "If you believe that the trade war will escalate, there’s all the more reason that you should own some Chinese government bonds," Pang added.

Of course, bond prices may simply be rallying because investors expect a sharp, disinflationary slowdown in the economy; and should China itself fall into a deflationary liquidity trap, then all bets are truly off and the last thing bond investors will want to do is allocate capital to a country which is about to have a debt crisis during deflation.

In any case, the PBOC now finds itself trapped, on one hand facing the end of China's current account days, and on the other facing the danger that Beijing's increasingly ad hoc response to the US trade war which includes continue yuan devaluation, will scar foreign bond investors, leaving Beijing with no source of outside capital. And since the only offset to these two developments would be a surge in domestic saving - and collapse in domestic Chinese consumption - the result for China should foreign investors indeed pull their money, would be nothing short of a recession or worse.

More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...17-why-matters