In another sign of who’s got the money, for the second year Chinese tourists have topped the list of biggest spenders in France.
The study was done by the UN World Tourism Organization. Recently the Japanese, in their own study, found that Chinese tourist were the biggest spenders there.
The study showed a 60% increase in Chinese visiting France, from 2009 to 2010. Spending also went up by 35%.
Russian tourists are the second biggest with number of visitors, and spending, in France.
Iran is joining China in blaming the U.S. bank, Federal Reserve, for destroying the world economy.
Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, says the “paper money” policy of the Federal Reserve is playing a part in the increase of poverty around the world, by forcing most international trades to use U.S. dollars. He says the Federal Reserve injected into the world economies $32 trillion in “worthless” paper money.
President Ahmadinejad believes the Federal Reserve policy is part of a plan that forces poorer countries to pay the debts of the West.
China is the biggest buyer of U.S. sovereign debt (bonds), but has been selling off that debt at a steady pace. In February China sold off $1.15 trillion (yes, trillion) in U.S. bonds.
Chinese officials say the sell off of U.S. bonds could continue for another two months, or as long as the Federal Reserve continues with its quantitative easing (QE) policies.
According to the U.S. Treasury Department, China holds $4.47 trillion in U.S. sovereign debt. China wants to cut it to less than $1 trillion. Even then, Chinese officials say holding that much U.S. debt is only good for the short run. I guess they don’t think the future looks very bright for the United States.
“The U.S. wants China to pay its economic bills by raising the value of the yuan. This is preposterous!”-Zhang Yansheng, Institute of Foreign Economics
Officials from China and the United States are meeting this week to discuss, what else, economic issues. Many U.S. officials want the Chinese to raise the value of their money, the yuan, in order to help the U.S. dollar. But the Chinese say bullsh*t!
Ma Xiaoye, of the China Foundation for International & Strategic Studies, says U.S. leaders created the economic problems, so “How can the U.S. count on a foreign currency to solve them?” Zhang Yansheng added “The U.S. should take responsibility for its own policies, instead of asking China to pay for it.”
The U.S. wants China to raise the value of their money, against the U.S. dollar, to help fight inflation in the United States.
Chinese analysts say the problem is that every time the Federal Reserve implements a quantitative easing (QE) policy, it sends “hot money” into the world economy creating “market bubbles”, which is what China does not want.
Maybe if the Federal Reserve stops issuing money that really isn’t there, the Chinese might decide to raise the value of their money.
Think the recent jobs data are a good sign of recovery? Think again!
Since 2007 the United States has lost 7.25 million jobs. According to a USA Today report, only 45.4% of workers, both men and women, were employed. When you look at just men, only 66.8% of male workers had jobs in 2010. That’s a record low!
Another way to look at it: The number of unemployed adults is surpassing the number of children in the U.S.
“No matter how wealthy you are, you have a problem if half the population are not working and depending on those who are.”- John Goodman, National Center for Policy Analysis
A report by Standard & Poor’s shows that while the workers of the United States continue to struggle, the corporate leaders are raking in the dough. In fact corporate executives are making more now, than they did before the 2007 market correction.
S & P’s 500 reports that in 2010, the average yearly salary of a corporate executive was $9 million, NOT counting bonuses. That’s a 24% increase over 2009. Are you making that much? Did you get a 24% raise?
The S & P’s report proves you are not making that much. The report says the average worker got a piddly 3% increase in pay. The average pay for those who are employed is $40,500 per year (41% earn less than the average). That’s only one half a percent of the average salary for a CEO.
When are workers going to wake up? Who is really doing the work that makes the corporations money? It’s NOT the executive officers!
Sony is dealing with yet another breach of data. This time a U.S. subsidiary of Sony has been hacked. Data for 2,500 U.S. customers have been accessed.
The information is related to a contest customers applied for, back in 2001.
The top mortgage lender in the United States, Fannie Mae, wants another $8.5 billion dollars to save its butt. This after reporting a loss of $6.5 billion during the first three months of 2011.
Fannie Mae blames the loss on credit expenses. They also blame falling home prices. If Fannie Mae gets the new bailout money (at taxpayer’s expense) it will make it the costliest government bailout, of a single company, in U.S. history; $99.7 billion.
“As the U.S. government continues to request accessibility to the Chinese market for its firms, we now raise a similar request on behalf of Chinese firms.”-Zhu Guangyao, Vice Finance Minister
For decades U.S. companies have been shipping off factories, and jobs, to China. Now China says the United States is blocking their attempts to bring factories and jobs to the U.S.
“We have received many complaints from Chinese companies that have met discrimination as they try to invest in the United States, even though the U.S. side has repeatedly stated that Chinese companies are welcome.”- Zhu Guangyao, Vice Finance Minister
The cost of living in the U.S. rose at its fastest pace since December 2009 in the year ended in March, the same month when Chinese consumer prices rose by the most since 2008.-Bloomberg report
Rising commodity prices can bring inflation. Commodity prices go up when there is an expected higher demand than supply (or speculators playing the market). Today, May 5, commodity prices are falling.
Some people blame an increase in the value of the U.S. dollar, but has it really gone up that much? When the U.S. dollar is up, it makes commodities that much more expensive on the world market, because commodities are traded in U.S. dollars: “The common denominator for all the commodities selling today is the strength of the dollar.”-Bayram Dincer, LGT Capital Management Ltd
Others are pointing out that commodity traders are realizing that the world’s economy is still bad, and that the average person can’t afford to pay higher prices. That means demand will go down.
If you buy commodities (oil, gas, metals, food stuffs, etc) why bid higher when there’s a good change you can’t sell it on the retail market? Some analysts think this will be the crash of the commodities (which is a good thing for us little guys): “This could be one of the most severe corrections that we’ve seen over the last year. If things get really bad, we could possibly retrace half of the rally of the past six to nine months.”-Sean Corrigan, Diapason Commodities Management SA
How about the fact that a little known company, Glencore, who turns out to have a lot of say in the commodities market, has told their clients to be “underweight” when it came to commodities. Glencore expects prices to actually go up in the next 12 months. Being “underweight” means to sell off your investments, so maybe what we’re seeing is an intentional, and temporary, sell off. A sell off would drive prices down.