15. March 2010 by Dan Walkow, CFA, CMT.

As economist Xie points out, residential prices in China relative to per capita income are far and away the highest in the world. The housing price-to-income ratio in urban China is over 20, which means it takes the average citizen’s total wages for 20 years to buy an average dwelling. (By comparison, the highest housing affordability ratio for a U.S. city — Honolulu — is 8.2.)

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1971284,00.html#ixzz0iFWqVIxE

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15. March 2010 by Dan Walkow, CFA, CMT.

At the beginning of the year we described China as one of our “5 biggest risks” of 2010.  Last week we mentioned (see here) the risks in the Chinese economy appear to be mounting as property prices surge and inflation begins to rear its ugly head.  Well, it looks as though we’re not the only ones who are concerned about the sustainability of the Chinese economic recovery.  According to Westpac Bank in Australia the leading economic indicators in China are beginning to roll over:

Read  more at the Pragmatic Capitalist here.

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15. March 2010 by Dan Walkow, CFA, CMT.

China has succumbed to hubris. It has mistaken the soft diplomacy of Barack Obama for weakness, mistaken the US credit crisis for decline, and mistaken its own mercantilist bubble for ascendancy. There are echoes of Anglo-German spats before the First World War, when Wilhelmine Berlin so badly misjudged the strategic balance of power and over-played its hand. This is worth a read go here.

Posted in Investing, protectionism, Economics | No Comments »