Global Economic Crisis

According to China’s National Bureau of Statistics, the nation’s GDP in 2013 grew by 7.7 percent over the prior year, beating the original forecast of 7.5 percent, albeit by a small margin. On the surface, this is an impressive performance that the U.S. and Eurozone can only dream of emulating. However, a caveat is always required in assessing official Chinese economic data. Not only is Beijing suspect and at times manipulative in compiling the nation’s economic statistics (as are many other countries), it must be remembered that China’s GDP growth is seeded with massive borrowing by local governments, which in turn invest in vast infrastructure projects, which often have little real economic utility, such as uninhabited housing projects.

The truly important news with the 2013 GDP numbers from China is that they represent a marked slowdown in economic growth, when relying on just official government economic data. The current level of GDP growth is far removed from the brighter days when China achieved double digit growth year after year, for a decade or more. It is clear that China’s remarkable economic growth is slowing down, and that could be a preview for a period of much higher unemployment with concomitant political instability.

If Hillary Clinton runs for President of the United States  in 2016, see the video about the book that warned back in 2008 what a second Clinton presidency would mean for the USA:

Hillary Clinton Nude

Hillary Clinton Nude

HILLARY CLINTON NUDE

Time magazine has just run a cover story about Hillary Clinton with the ominous title, “Can Anyone Stop Hillary?”  The cover has a peculiar graphic; rather than Hillary Clinton’s face, only a leg clad in navy blue pants, foot shod in black leather kitten  heels revealing a clinging tiny man, representative of the increasingly feeble field of Republican men seeking to challenge the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Hillary Clinton has come a long way since her defeat at the hands of Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential primaries. Though a final, official decision is likely a year away, the smart money in Washington D.C. is betting on the former First Lady, Senator and Secretary of State to campaign for the presidency and to handily win the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, with no serious contenders standing in her way. That leaves the GOP as the only barrier to her returning to the White House, this time as America’s commander-in-chief.

The recent and ongoing Bridgegate political scandal appears to be the kiss of death to the once promising presidential aspirations of New Jersey Republican governor Chris Christie. Pundits have, until recently, proclaimed Governor Christie as the only serious GOP challenger who could defeat Hillary Clinton. His now almost certain political extinction prompted the Time magazine cover story, no doubt.

Americans and the whole world better start getting acclimated to the prospect of a President Hillary Clinton. What would the implications of a second Clinton presidency be for America and the world? Read my book, “Hillary Clinton Nude,” and you will have a better grasp on why  a President Hillary Clinton is NOT the solution to the political malaise now gripping the USA.

If Hillary Clinton runs for President of the United States  in 2016, see the video about the book that warned back in 2008 what a second Clinton presidency would mean for the USA:

Hillary Clinton Nude

Hillary Clinton Nude

HILLARY CLINTON NUDE

The December 2013 jobs reported recently released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics  shows, on paper, a steep decline in the unemployment rate, to 6.7 percent, versus 7 percent for November. Yet, not even the usual happy chorus was cheering what, on the surface, was positive economic news. The BLS also showed that a mere 74,000 jobs were created in December by the U.S. economy.

Depending on various statistical measurements, the American economy must produce at least 150,000 jobs per month, and more realistically 200-250,000 just to keep even with the normal flow of new entrants into the U.S. labor market, based on natural population growth. In other words, based on the statistic of 74,000 jobs created in December, the actual unemployment rate in the United States should have increased rather than decrease. The reason why the official U.S. unemployment rate dropped to 6.7 percent is that a large number of long-term unemployed Americans have left the job market, either voluntarily, or arbitrarily based on the BLS statisticians deciding not to count them among the officially unemployed.

The official numbers can be ignored; in truth the United States continues to suffer the ravages of high unemployment-and underemployment-nearly six years after the onset of the global economic crisis.

If Hillary Clinton runs for President of the United States  in 2016, see the video about the book that warned back in 2008 what a second Clinton presidency would mean for the USA:

Hillary Clinton Nude

Hillary Clinton Nude

HILLARY CLINTON NUDE

While much of the discourse on public debt and deficits among economists and media pundits has been related to  the Eurozone Crisis, especially regarding Greece, or major developed economies such as the United States and Japan, much less has been heard about China’s fiscal status. Yet, one of the most rapidly growing factors of public debt is occurring right now, in China, largely under the radar of the so-called fiscal prophets of doom.

At present, according to always questionable  official statistics from Beijing, China’s total public debt represents 58 percent of the nation’s GDP. This is significantly lower than is the case with Japan and the United States. However, it is the rate of growth of that debt, particularly in connection with Chinese local governing authorities, that may begin to sound alarm bells. It appears that following the global economic and financial crisis of 2008, cities across China embarked on a massive borrowing and spending binge in a super-charged Keynesian effort to sustain China’s traditional  high annual rate of economic growth.

China’s  National Audit Office (NAO), following directives from the national authorities in  Beijing, undertook an extensive accounting and auditing of the books of all of  the nation’s local spending authorities. What they discovered was that in only three years, China’s local public debt grew by a staggering 70 percent, reaching a total of 17.7 trillion yuan, equivalent to nearly three trillion U.S. dollars. Another statistic is sounding alarm bells in China; up to 80 percent of all bank lending in China during the period following the onset of the global economic crisis was to local governments.

The vast spending spree by city governments across China has erected vast quantities of housing stock and commercial edifices that are unoccupied and infrastructure projects that are underutilized. Some economists, particularly outside of China, may defend this massive and largely uncontrolled public debt expansion as enlightened public policy, aimed at preventing high rates of unemployment in China. However, China’s national leadership is clearly worried about this stunning rate of growth in public debt at the local level, far outstripping real economic growth rates.  Beijing knows that seeding official GDP growth rates with an  unrestrained tidal wave of red ink is not a sustainable economic path to pursue. The dilemma for Beijing’s economic policymakers is this; now that they know  they have a serious problem of exploding public debt, what options are open to them that impose the least degradation to their cherished high rate of annual GDP growth? Their ultimate answer will inevitably have profound implications for the entire global economy.

If Hillary Clinton runs for President of the United States  in 2016, see the video about the book that warned back in 2008 what a second Clinton presidency would mean for the USA:

Hillary Clinton Nude

Hillary Clinton Nude

HILLARY CLINTON NUDE