Industrial production and manufacturing production exceeded consensus (0.6% vs. 0.3%, 0.7% vs. 0.2%, respectively) yielding the following graph of key indicators.
Figure 1: Nonfarm payroll employment (bold dark blue), civilian employment (orange), industrial production (red), personal income excluding transfers in Ch.2012$ (bold green), manufacturing and trade sales in Ch.2012$ (black), consumption in Ch.2012$ (light blue), and monthly GDP in Ch.2012$ (pink), all log normalized to 2021M056=0. Source: BLS, Federal Reserve, IHS Markit (nee Macroeconomic Advisers) (8/1/2022 release), NBER, and author’s calculations.
The six plotted series are those focused on by the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee, and IHS Markit’s monthly GDP (not currently on the list). Of the key six, nonfarm payroll employment (black) and personal income ex-transfers are given more weight.
Interesting pattern comparing GDPNow mid-2Q and mid-3Q:
May 18 estimate: 2.4%
May 25: 1.8%
August 10: 2.5%
August 16: 1.8%
Is 3Q tracking 2Q? And what will the “Don’t worry, be happy crowd” do if 3Q GDP comes in negative?
Of course, anyone not rooting for recession could find examples of other quarters when similar mid-month changes in GDPNow estimates led to a gain in reported GDP. In fact, since most quarterly GDP readings show gains, ups and downs in GDPNow followed by reported GDP gains would be the more common pattern.
But then, Johnny has never been very good at figuring stuff out.
Sorry Macro, but GDPNow has made six estimates. Average estimate has been tracking 0.28% lower. The main bright spot was the jobs reports, the effect of that jump has been reversed.
As one observer, who follows GDPNow closely, noted: “ The economic trend is down, and GDPNow has a big history of high early estimates that sink as the quarter progresses.
1.6 percent is not a big cushion, with over two-thirds of the data for the quarter still to be seen.”
https://mishtalk.com/economics/a-third-quarter-of-negative-gdp-is-now-highly-likely
Are the ‘don’t worry, be happy crowd’ engaged in economic analysis or just more wishful thinking?
Johnny, I understand why you would be sorry. What I don’t understand is why you think you’ve responded to my point. It’s not clear you actually know what point you’re trying to make, or even if you’re trying to make one.
So much of your writing is mostly emotion, hardly any meaning.
So come on, do it for your 8th grade English teacher. Write something with a clear denotative meaning. Look up “denotative” if you need to.
“mishtalk” is a garbage conservative website with loose ties to ZeroHedge in case you were wondering. Far-right. Always running on and on about U.S. government deficit, and then when a Republican makes the deficit worse (donald trump) he has nothing to say about it.
I used to casually read mish years ago, but haven’t been to his site since. I recall him to be a conservative gold bug, but mostly a one sided political hack like moses described. Not a good source of information or analysis.
With the fed continuing to raise rates, did you not expect the economy to slow down?
Thanks for this little silliness brought to us by Don’t Worry Putin will only kill half of the Ukrainians crowd.
Revisions will probably revise up 2020-21consumption growth. Once that happens, inventory growth will likely look more a culprit. 1.8% growth +missing 7% of growth(annualized) growth in inventories to balance consumption. See the problem with government accounting when it got distorted by lockdowns???? Then the shipping crisis.
Slightly off topic –
Jay Powell has suggested the Fed may be near neutral. Larry Summer’s (who dearly wanted to be appointed to the Fed but hasn’t been) says Powell is wrong. Ed Yadeni agrees with Powell:
https://www.ft.com/content/9289b1c7-9cdb-41c9-9c0d-3d9226fed03d
Yardeni’s argument is based on how much various effects of Fed policies and other factors are worth in tightening monetary conditions. That’s one way of thinking about it, but it isn’t enough to tell us where we are relative to neutral. Yardeni doesn’t tell us explicitly where his neutral is, only how much we’ve moved toward neutral. He also doesn’t say that we are at neutral, only that we’re getting close.
The FOMC’s Summary of Economic Projections indicates a real fed funds rate of 50 basis points is neutral (ignoring the size and characteristics of Fed asset holdings). How close we are to real 0.5% depends on which measure of expected inflation one uses:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=SUPe
We could be 100 bps away or 150 or some other distance. If we give Yardeni his 100 bps for additional effects, we could be only 50 bps from neutral, or already there.
We also don’t know whether or how much the Committee thinks rates need to surpass neutral because of inflation running above target. That is likely to be a big issue in coming policy discussions.
https://www.aap.org/en/pages/2019-novel-coronavirus-covid-19-infections/children-and-covid-19-state-level-data-report/
August 11, 2022
Cumulative Number of Child COVID-19 Cases
Nearly 14.3 million children are reported to have tested positive for COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic according to available state reports; almost 371,000 of these cases have been added in the past 4 weeks. Approximately 6.4 million reported cases have been added in 2022.
14,282,482 total child COVID-19 cases reported, and children represented 18.4% (14,282,482 / 77,488,876) of all cases
Overall rate: 18,976 cases per 100,000 children in the population
American Academy of Pediatrics
Children’s Hospital Association
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-08-17/Chinese-mainland-records-637-new-confirmed-COVID-19-cases-1cz1CALMSC4/index.html
August 17, 2022
Chinese mainland records 637 new confirmed COVID-19 cases
The Chinese mainland recorded 637 confirmed COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, with 566 attributed to local transmissions and 71 from overseas, data from the National Health Commission showed on Wednesday.
A total of 2,399 asymptomatic cases were also recorded on Tuesday, and 14,626 asymptomatic patients remain under medical observation.
The cumulative number of confirmed cases on the Chinese mainland is 236,898, with the death toll from COVID-19 standing at 5,226.
Chinese mainland new locally transmitted cases
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-08-16/Chinese-mainland-records-591-new-confirmed-COVID-19-cases-1cxm8irxuBG/img/e6e41e9051444c68bcffca4cabd29392/e6e41e9051444c68bcffca4cabd29392.jpeg
Chinese mainland new imported cases
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-08-16/Chinese-mainland-records-591-new-confirmed-COVID-19-cases-1cxm8irxuBG/img/1c517be174d04d79abca54b09c2ca487/1c517be174d04d79abca54b09c2ca487.jpeg
Chinese mainland new asymptomatic cases
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-08-16/Chinese-mainland-records-591-new-confirmed-COVID-19-cases-1cxm8irxuBG/img/521325f58d8448089f8d4467bbd698ef/521325f58d8448089f8d4467bbd698ef.jpeg
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
August 16, 2022
Coronavirus
United States
Cases ( 94,788,022)
Deaths ( 1,062,770)
94,869,9361,063,087
Deaths per million ( 3,197)
China
Cases ( 236,261)
Deaths ( 5,226)
Deaths per million ( 4)
Before ltr posts a long string of useless pro-China comments to draw attention away from the big news, China engages in slavery:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/un-report-points-to-modern-slavery-practice-in-chinas-xinjiang/ar-AA10L4fJ
In a separate report, China has been found to imprison dissidents in psychiatric facilities to silence them:
https://www.newagebd.net/article/178691/china-accused-of-using-psychiatric-hospitals-to-punish-activists
Is the manufacturing and trade sales drop a function of the China shutdowns?? OR would be there anyway??
Civilian employment has fallen by 170,000 since March. So we’re seeing more multiple job holders, not more people working, if I understand the numbers correctly.
“If I understand the numbers correctly”
See how he’s baiting us to insult him now??
He has so many bizarre rightwing interpretations of basic macroeconomic data I am wondering why he is not a standard feature on Fox and Friends by now.
Some people just aren’t telegenic.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=lpNZ
January 30, 2018
Multiple Jobholders as a percent of Employed, 1994-2022
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=lpO2
January 30, 2018
Multiple Jobholders as a percent of Employed, 1994-2022
(Indexed to 1994)
Gee – it did not rise that much. Of course Stevie will find some other means of spinning the data. He always does.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12026620
One could always look up the FRED data on the percent of the workforce who are holding multiple jobs. But that is not how an incompetent lying consultant would do this. Why do research when one can just make up BS as one goes.
Let’s see Princeton Steve really wants us to believe a very noisy household SURVEY because the more reliable payroll survey does not give him the RECESSION call he needs to get invited back to Fox and Friends.
I really want to see how our host takes down the latest bloviating BS from our favorite troll!
You don’t understand the numbers correctly.
The share of multiple job holders has been quite steady this year, following some pretty big swings. The share of multiple job holders is down substantially from before the Covid recession:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=SV3k
This issue has been addressed recently in comments and the data are available to anyone interested in facts. Don’t know why Stevie has trouble with this.
“Don’t know why Stevie has trouble with this.”
He has trouble spinning we are in a RECESSION. So he has to find some way of spinning the employment data to say so even if it does. Stevie never has been encumbered by basic integrity which is par for the course for consultants.
With payroll employment rising by 1.7 million over your period, your “logic” would require an increase in multiple job holdings near 2 million over the same period. But I checked and this series rose by a mere 280 thousand. Once again a Princeton Steve guess went incredibly awry. No – you do not under labor market data.
Of course the key term here is SURVEY. If you ever bothered to read what smart people here have said about that – you might avoid making such incredibly dumb comments.
Is this what they call being ratioed?
Steven,
Below is the best that I can find to help explain the differences in the employment data.
From what I understand the differences in the data are a result of the data being derived from surveys.
https://www.stlouisfed.org/open-vault/2022/feb/four-reasons-job-growth-numbers-do-not-match
Nice share, thank you.
Reason No. 1: Where the Data Come From
“All of these numbers come from surveys or samples of the population, so they are not as precise as they appear at first glance,” Gascon said.
The 2nd reason admits estimating developments in the labor market is difficult.
But hey Princeton Steve does not care about as he actually thinks he is smarter than the good folks at BLS even though he knows NOTHING about labor economics.
“nonfarm payroll employment (black) and personal income ex-transfers are given more weight.”
No, no, no. VMT and some obscure NY State manufacturing sentiment are the only things that carry any weight per head RECESSION CHEERLEADER Princeton Steve and his new side kick JohnH. After all – nonfarm payroll employment is being reported by those socialists at the BLS!
This week’s EIA numbers:
– US demand had a good week, with both gasoline and distillate (diesel) consumption close to normal (2019 levels) and the 4 wma averages showing some life.
– The media has run stories about crashing crude inventories, but this is overstated.
– Any reduction comes from an exceptionally low week for crude imports, almost certainly due to one-off technical factors.
– US crude and condensate production fell 0.1 mbpd to 12.1 mbpd
– Oil prices languish, suggestive of weakness in demand.
– Incentive to store analysis shows that balances are even softer than before the war
– The EIA sees US and China oil consumption down since the start of the war but recovering now.
– By contrast, the EIA sees European oil consumption declining to the forecast horizon at year-end 2023.
– Thus, recent weak China and US oil consumption are contributing to lower oil prices, and Europe will exert negative pressure from here on out, as the EIA sees it.
– Views on oil prices are divergent, with Goldman seeing Brent reviving to $130 in Q4, and Citigroup seeing just the opposite. It all depends on whether recent economic weakness proves lasting or transient.
– It is important not to fully equate the US with Europe and China.
– The US is independent in oil consumption and therefore resistant to an oil shock recession.
– China and Europe, both large crude importers, are fully exposed – China for the first time in its history.
China and Europe, both large crude importers, are fully exposed – China for the first time in its history.
[ China is actually completely secure in terms of energy. China has been working, remarkably productively, on energy exploration, production, storage and transmission. There is no significant Chinese “exposure.” ]
Exposure is not the term I would use. But despite the fact that China can produce a lot of energy, it consumes/
Net imports after all = consumption – production by definition.
China produces much of the world’s solar, wind, hydro, pumped-hydro, tidal, green hydrogen, 3rd and 4th generation nuclear and chemical battery capability for a range of new energy vehicles (road, sea and air) or in-place machines. China has ample in-country coal, oil and natural gas resources which are readily accessible with Chinese developed techniques and equipment. China has energy supply contracts with and secure paths from quite a number of foreign suppliers.
Also, China researches and learns about energy production. Already in use for the Chinese space station:
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2120557119
April 19, 2022
Self-adaptive integration of photothermal and radiative cooling for continuous energy harvesting from the sun and outer space
By Xianze Ao, Bowen Li, Bin Zhao, Mingke Hu, Hui Ren, Honglun Yang, Jie Liu, Jingyu Cao, Junsheng Feng, Yuanjun Yang, Zeming Qi, Liangbin Li, Chongwen Zou and Gang Pei
China consumes about 15 mbpd of oil; it produces 5 mbpd of oil. China is by no means self-sufficient in oil. Or coal or natural gas for that matter.
Thus, the quest to conquer Taiwan essentially pushes China largely into the strategy of Tojo Japan, that is, the conquest of all Asia, including large parts of China (in this case Japan) and effectively all of East and South East Asia. The conquest of Indonesia (Dutch East Indies at the time), for example, was motivated in significant part to secure its oil production. (Indonesia is a net oil importer today.)
That means China has to be prepared, as a practical matter, to fight a war all the way back to Basra if it is to secure its oil supply, assuming the US blockades the South China Sea, which seems probable. Thus, a blockade of Taiwan, much less a war of invasion, is likely to imply a world war, certainly from the Bering Strait to the ports at Basra.
The paradox, of course, is that China — more specifically, Xi — is looking to destroy the very system which has brought China prosperity and international power. Consider: 4,000 years of Chinese imperial and then Communist rule brought China’s per capita GDP to $165 / year in 1976 (in today’s dollars), the last year of Mao’s reign. Today, it is $12,500 / capita, an increase of 75 fold. Liberal economic policies and integration into the world trading system is responsible for 98% of China’s prosperity.
This is what Xi is seeking to undo, and what surely would happen in the event of a war over Taiwan, much as it is in Russia.
Fully exposed for the first time in history? China has been a net importer of energy for years.
WTF is “fully exposed”? I guess it is the new hard reset or the old suppression.
You might do everyone a favor if you used the English language to inform rather your usual stupid habit of going hyperbolic.
Once again, we are above your pay grade.
Until 1994, China’s oil production exceeded its consumption. Therefore, China was not exposed, in terms of trade, to an oil shock. Further, China’s oil consumption was very small, less that 3 mbpd until 1995. China was a poor and backward country not dependent on automobiles and aircraft as it is today.
Since 1994, we have had two oil shocks. The first of these was 2005-2008, 2011-2014 (one oil shock punctuated by a necessary recession). However and uniquely, this oil shock was a demand-shock, not a supply-shock — the only one in the historical record. And that shock was caused by demand from…China. Indeed, much of the story of the Great Recession (the China Depression) is the reallocation of the world’s oil supply away from the advanced economies and towards China and its orbit (East Asia) and its commodity suppliers. Hence the name ‘China Depression’ for this period. It is not that China somehow willingly caused the Great Recession, but rather than the rapid integration of a country of China’s size into the global economy led to massive dislocations and distortions in all of energy, capital and labor markets, and these shocks took the better part of a decade to digest, hence the ‘China Depression’.
We have recently also been in oil shock territory, in the latter case caused by a rebound from the pandemic and, for a time, some loss of Russian supply. Today, the driver of the oil shock is not China’s incredible growth, but rather supply failing to keep up. That is, it is a traditional oil shock.
In 2021, according to the BP Statistical Review, China consumed 15.5 mbpd of crude and condensate, and produced just under 4.0 mbpd of crude and condensate, with production in decline since 2014 and representing import dependence of a colossal 74.1% per BP’s data, far greater than the US peak of 60% on the eve of the Great Recession.
Thus, this is the first time in history of supply-side oil shocks that 1) China is a net importer of oil; 2) its oil consumption is large and China’s economy and society are highly dependent on oil and 3) China has exaggerated dependence on on oil imports.
https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy.html
China engages in ——-
[ This is of course false. This is false and malicious. This is definitive prejudice, meant only to harm 1.4 billion thoroughly benign people. ]
“thoroughly benign people”
The government, not so much. Beijing regularly crushes dissent, jails hundreds of thousands of ethnic minorities, heavily controls what citizens see and hear and actively spies on its people. It also threatens war against its neighbors and outright rejects the obvious legitimacy of their democratic government. It’s the USSR of the 21st century.
Would love to hear any evidence that the slavery story is made up or based on bad reporting or a mistranslation or something. Otherwise, it’s just your blind faith in your government vs. everyone else’s hard-earned skepticism. No better than Trump defenders.
Also, would it kill you to respond to Macroduck directly? You know how to do that, right?
Slavery. The word you left out is “slavery”.
It’s the United Nations which concluded that China engages in slavery, by the way .
China practices slavery.
Ever read the ltr authored History text?? It starts off with “The Holocaust was the deliberate murder of six million ——- ” Lots of dashes. Strangely during “The Great Leap Forward” portion of the text, the word famine is never used.
China engages in slavery.
And as long as you remain a mouthpiece for a regime which practices slavery, don’t you ever invoke the words of America’s great abolishionists and civil rights leaders again.
One might add the US used to engage in slavery and if the MAGA hat types had their way – we would allow “The South Shall Rise Again” types to rule.
I saw a comment somewhere responding to a GOP mouthpiece complaining that the Republican Party doesn’t get enough credit for freeing the slaves. The retort was that today’s Republican Party wouldn’t free them at all.
Sing it with me now. As I sing this duet together with Barbara Streisand, you guys need to tell me who has the better voice, ok??
“People…….. people who need people…….. Are the luckiest people in the world, We’re children, needing other children, And yet letting a grown-up pride, Hide all the need inside, Acting more like children than children.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/watch-shoppers-shanghai-ikea-flee-sudden-covid-lockdown
Thank you….. thank you…… No~~you can stop slow-clapping now, please. OK, I’ll be making an appearance and singing this same song at the “Cubicle Losers’ Hangout With Lounge Acts” (long name for a dive bar aye??) this coming Saturday. I’m still in negotiations with “Cubicle Losers’ Hangout” to see if they will let me use these IKEA videos as my stage background as I sing.
https://english.news.cn/20220817/9b6537d7d8384ee98aa7151c91686de3/c.html
August 17, 2022
China takes solid steps to foster stronger sense of community for Chinese nation
BEIJING — Solid measures have been taken in China to foster a stronger sense of community for the Chinese nation over the past decade, according to Zhao Yong, deputy head of the National Ethnic Affairs Commission.
The country has implemented different supportive policies in different regions, made good use of the development funds for ethnic minority groups, carried out a number of high-quality industrial projects, and taken more actions to bring prosperity to border areas. As a result, people of all ethnic groups can share the fruits of reforms and development, according to Zhao.
Zhao said, over the past 10 years, the per capita disposable income of urban residents in areas with large ethnic minority populations increased by an annual average of 7.7 percent, and that for rural residents increased by 10.2 percent.
In the meantime, life expectancy in those areas has greatly increased, with the life expectancy in Tibet Autonomous Region increasing by four years compared with 10 years ago, said Zhao, adding that a large amount of infrastructure has been built in these areas, including railways and industrial parks.
Zhao said, “Over the past 10 years, the exchanges, interactions and integration among different ethnic groups have reached an unprecedented level in depth and breadth.”
Referring to legislative measures, Zhao said that fostering a stronger sense of community for the Chinese nation has been written into the organic law of the local people’s congresses and governments.
China has demonstrated the sense of community for the Chinese nation with openness, Zhao said, adding that, while telling the stories of China and the Chinese nation well, the country has also endeavored to participate in international dialogues and exchanges on human rights….
https://english.news.cn/20220817/fef55877f35d4c409656743e885e1665/c.html
August 17, 2022
Pairing-up scheme propels medical care in Tibet into higher level
LHASA — Since 2015, hospital departments in relatively developed municipalities and provinces in China have paired up with their counterparts in southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region to provide better medical services to residents on the plateau.
Different from the previous individual assistance, the department pairing-up scheme has proved more efficient in raising the medical level of local hospitals.
Xuan Hanqing, a physician in the department of urology of Shanghai-based Renji Hospital, began his work in the city of Xigaze with an emergent surgery of ureteral calculi.
As a member of the eighth batch of Shanghai’s medical team to Tibet, he has been tasked with improving the medical level and service of the department of urology at Xigaze People’s Hospital.
In the meantime, Sun Shuxue, head of Beijing’s seventh medical team to Tibet and a doctor with Beijing Friendship Hospital, has been coordinating high-quality medical resources in Beijing over the past three years, increasing the number of assisted departments in Lhasa People’s Hospital from four to nine.
Orthopedics, neurology, respiratory medicine, neurosurgery, and general surgery are the five departments assisted.
Thanks to increasing medical talents and resources, the hospital has introduced many new therapeutic projects such as correction of hip deformity in children. Over 30 technologies were the first to be applied in Tibet.
A large number of local doctors, with the help of assisting experts, have independently carried out various complex operations such as stent implantation for acute myocardial infarction….
https://english.news.cn/20220725/f2347350e67f4507afff062ca5bf8cb9/c.html
July 25, 2022
A herdsman starts new life at relocation site in SW China’s Tibet
LHASA — With an average altitude of over 5,000 meters, Tsonyi County is China’s highest county located in southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region. The county started the relocation of its second batch of residents on Tuesday, as part of the region’s plan to improve people’s living conditions and protect the fragile local ecosystem.
On July 19, Shera Gyataso, along with more than 300 residents, left his hometown in Doima Township of Tsonyi, moving nearly 1,000 km southward to their new home Singpori, with an altitude of 3,600 meters and 10 km from the airport of the regional capital Lhasa.
After 14 hours, 18 buses arrived at Singpori.
In Singpori, Shera Gyataso and his family have been allocated a house and an apartment totaling over 120 square meters equipped with flush toilets and gas stoves.
There are a newly-built hospital, a kindergarten, a primary school, a market and a recreation center in the community….
I have the strong suspicion that no one, not a single person, comes to this website, reads your spammy propaganda posts, and has their minds changed about China’s government. I suspect it’s never even happened once.
So what exactly is the point?
AndrewG,
Readers’ minds may be changed, but I doubt it is in the direction Itr and other propogandists would like.
Does Itr post elsewhere or have Professor Chinn and his readers won a negative lottery?
I am not active commenting at many other places (econ or not – so yes, Econbrowser is a negative lottery winner!) so I don’t know how far ltr’s propaganda spamming is spread. But I can’t say I’ve ever seen that distinctive style anywhere else. Maybe she gets deleted/blocked often?
“Readers’ minds may be changed, but I doubt it is in the direction Itr and other propogandists would like.”
You’re probably right. Macroduck’s scathing posts don’t help either! Seriously … SLAVERY.
(Aside: Maybe we should all spend more time at Barkley Rosser’s blog – it’s a good one.)
Wasn’t Barkley insistent that “ltr” was a he??
No, he’s been pretty consistently claiming ltr is a she (Anne).
Moses,
You and you alone have been the person claiming that ltr is a “he,” although ltr has never commented specifically on the various discussions regarding her gender here. In any case, many of us are pretty convinced that indeed “ltr” is the same person who long posted on the old Economists View as “anne.”
WOW, I even got TWO PhDs to bite on a hook, with zero bait it was just kinda shiny in the pond water. 1 PhD surprised me he bit, the other one didn’t. Guess which of the two PhD surprised me……
HINT: The MAN who says I’m “sexist”, who HATES “Anne” and INSISTS Anne is a WOMAN, yup…… I’m neutral on my feelings to “Anne” and IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII’m the “sexist”. Clear on that folks????
Do the two PhDs want to know what I do for a living?? I gave 1 of the 2 major hints… the other I didn’t. But after the two of them bit on my non-baited shiny fish hook…. I don’t think either one of them want to know what I do to earn my bread. And that’s the biggest hint these two will ever get.
And NOW, I’m gonna say something that will surprise many people. Professor Chinn, I STILL admire you and hold you in high regard……,. BUT…….. unless you were lobbing up the ball near to the basket for me just now in above comment ……… you disappointed me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NWd8HL-mXk&t=535s
Here’s “another one” I’m about to prove I’m completely drunk now….. I care about both of these PhD ……. whatever….. one’s a douche in my eyes. But I care about both of them, but I particularly care about some Virginia guy’s grankids, I’d throw myself in front of a bus or a bullet for his grandkids.. That’s the closest he’ll get to a compliment from me in this lifetime, and 100% proof I’m near the end of this bottle now.
1 of 1,000,000 things I would agree with braindead in Virginia on: “although ‘ltr’ has never commented specifically on the various discussions regarding ____ gender here. ”
Interesting….. can we deduce what from that??? Uh-oh, asking two PhDs to think without a regression or OLS. Major challenge. (I’m slightly, mildly punching your ribs Menzie, relax)
Interestingly and importantly, just this June there was 23 million domestic and foreign tourist trips made to Xinjiang. What with the new international airport, new high speed rail line, new international freight rail line, new cross-desert highway, new around-desert highway, there will be ever so many more travels to and from Xinjiang. Xinjiang, after all, is a remarkably attractive year-round tourist region and Xinjiang is a Belt and Road port.
Xinjiang is also a national energy resource and transmission origin. Xinjiang is an international new energy resource. Xinjiang is also an immensely productive agricultural region….
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-08-11/New-8-000-m-deep-oil-gas-reserve-drilled-in-northwest-China-1cpqNDfmtwI/index.html
August 11, 2022
New 8,000m-deep oil, gas reserve drilled in northwest China
China Petrochemical Corp, or Sinopec, the world’s largest refiner by volume, has acquired crude oil and natural gas from a newly-drilled oil reserve about 8,000 meters deep in the Tarim Basin of Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
The high-yield reserve in Sinopec’s Shunbei oil and gas field is estimated to be capable of producing 244 tonnes of crude oil and 970,000 cubic meters of natural gas each day, the company said Wednesday.
Located in the central and western regions of the Tarim Basin, Sinopec’s Shunbei project has an average reservoir burial depth of more than 7,300 meters. It has 41 ultra-deep drilling wells with a vertical depth exceeding 8,000 meters….
“Interestingly and importantly, just this June there was 23 million domestic and foreign tourist trips made to Xinjiang.”
We call that “dark tourism.”
Dark tourism is China’s version of “blood diamonds”.
Oh, but aren’t clothing and computer parts the “blood diamonds” of China?
Dang, China has a lot of “blood diamond” products.
I’ve made comments about this before in comments section of this blog, probably hard to track down, but the way they count the numbers is totally inaccurate, double counting and I suspect sometimes triple counting the same person on the same trip. Totally intentional exaggeration. Lies.
China Numbaw one!!!! China Numbaw One!!!! No other subset of thoughts from mainlanders.
This is part of their “We have tourism, so everything here must be angelic and docile, or how could we have tourism” argument. Which BTW our resident foreign affairs expert Barkley took to this argument. I showed him multiple WaPo links and things compiled by experts on fabricated travel numbers in Tibet, to no avail. Barkley is convinced the Dalai Lama left Tibet because of his fascination with Indian cuisine.
Moses,
Wow, you are now propounding some totally new fresh set of lies about me? Just how far off the deep end into total sickness are you, Mose?
I do not think i have ever commented here or anywhere else at all on internal Chinese tourism, and if somehow I have it was not to defend official numbers on how large that tourism is. You provided links from WaPo on this issue? Fine. I never defended or said anything about the scale of internal Chinese tourism. Frankly, I do not give a damn about it. I do not know, but I suspect you are right that these numbers ltr has just put out are exaggerated, and even if they are not, they do not prove everything is great in Xinjiang. Of course they do not take tourists to see the labor camps, duuuuh.
I have long wanted to visit Kashgar, but do not think that will happen now. Fascinating place, but, well, there are lots of places I would like to visit I shall not make it to. As it is, I have given professional lectures in 34 different countries, in several of them in the local languages, so I have gotten around a bit.
As for the Dalai Lama, more total insulting lies out of you, Moses, or do you just think you are being cute with this wisecrack you made? As it is, I have been close for many decades to people very close to the Dalai Lama, although I have not met him in person, including one of the two people he selected a long time ago to translate Tibetan Buddhist manuscripts into English from Tibetan. No, not going to say any names, as that would probably set you off on yet another frenzy of bizarre searches and fabrications. But, yeah, boy, this is more of me just plain knowing a whole lot of people, including a lot of famous and important people, and getting along well with nearly all of them.
BTW, on thinking about it, I suspect that the reason you appear not to have a current career or full time job is that you end up getting in trouble with female co-workers, either attacking older ones in positions of authority, or harassing younger ones you think are “hot.”
You have some interesting fixations, Moses. They kind of get in the way of talking to you like a normal person, though.
I notice Andrew has a similar “trait” to Virginia Idiot Rosser……. Hyper sensitive to criticism. I’ll let Andrew “carry on”, hoping he’s not as shallow, “over the curve” of time. I actually WANT to like Andrew, so I’ll take the mild punches.
You give me so many unintentional laughs Junior. Like if you knew pgl’s name how many seconds would it take you to give his name out on the blog??~~ the moment he made any minor criticism of you?? I think pgl never told you, for obvious “he’s a psycho” reasons,
Bruce Hall recently made the dumb comment that the very high natural gas prices in the EU might drive up US natural gas prices. It took me a while but back in February of this year, Dr. Chinn made some important points about why natural gas is not exactly a world market:
https://econbrowser.com/archives/2022/02/would-pumping-more-natural-gas-in-america-have-countered-russian-pressure
The funny thing – Dr. Chinn was addressing a similarly dumb comment from Bruce Hall.
Seriously – does Bruce ever read anything? If he does, he certainly seems to not grasp even the most basic concepts.
Natural gas prices are impacted by our ability to export lng. When the freeport facility in texas blew up this summer, prices dropped because supply could not be exported. As the lng plant came back online this summer, it reduced domestic supplies and prices went up.
I’ll grant that we are exporting some LNG to Europe to take advantage of the enormous price differential. But the transportation costs are huge which keeps the supposed Low of One Price from operating smoothly. Dr. Chinn post some very interesting research on this the last time Bruce Hall start chirping his usual BS. Now since the post was directed specifically at Brucie one would think he would have read it. But apparently not.
Aren’t we all tired of Trump’s ever evolving excuses for stealing national security secrets. Well we need to check out how George Conway turned this into who broke into the cookie jar. Too funny!
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/i-am-not-cookie-monster-george-conway-crushes-donald-trump-in-satirical-op-ed/ar-AA10Jamn
https://abcnews.go.com/US/weeks-mar-lago-search-trump-dod-official-vowed/story?id=88461618
In June of this year, seven weeks before the FBI raided former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in search of classified materials, former Defense Department appointee and outspoken Trump loyalist Kash Patel vowed to retrieve classified documents from the National Archives and publish them on his website.
Trump had just issued a letter instructing the National Archives to grant Patel and conservative journalist John Solomon access to nonpublic administration records, according to reporting at the time. Patel, who under Trump had been the chief of staff for the acting defense secretary, claimed in a string of interviews that Trump had declassified a trove of “Russiagate documents” in the final days of his administration. But Patel claimed Trump’s White House counsel had blocked the release of those documents, and instead had them delivered to the National Archives.
Yea it seems Trump is still mad that his scheming with Putin in 2016 to get this traitor in the White House is something law enforcement took seriously. Why don’t just let Putin know all of our national security secrets? MAGA!
Patel is one of the most dangerous Trump loyalists right now. But I suspect he’s also among the most vulnerable legally – judging by his rapid rise in the DoD after the 2020 election, and how feverishly he’s defending Trump’s handling of the sensitive documents today. I don’t think those are coincidental.
I have a strong suspicion that a lot of people are going to jail.
We call that “dark tourism.”
[ That is precisely the racism that characterized European anti-Semitism. European anti-Semitism was all about repeatedly falsely characterizing Jewish communities through Europe. No matter the falseness, the attacks would continue. Entire Jewish communities were forced to leave Spain and Britain…. There is a reason that the Chinese always memorialize the anniversary of the Shoah. After all, the Chinese rescued and sheltered European Jews during the Shoah. There is a museum in Shanghai memorializing the sheltered Jews. A Jewish physician who escaped Europe and came to Shanghai, formed the health service of the PLA and is memorialized with a statue and an anniversary remembrance.
The Chinese people are incapable of the horridly termed “— tourism.”
The expression “—- tourism” is shameful, shameful, shameful. There could be no such shameful practice in China. ]
Dark tourism is when:
1) something terrible happens somewhere, say, oh idunno, genocide, and
2) tourists go there *because* of that dark history
So you’re right, it’s not quite “dark tourism”. I bet the Han tourists going to Xinjiang totally believe the government’s propaganda about how it’s treating the Uighurs.
But here’s the thing: The reason *you* are posting about Xinjiang is because other commenters point out China’s atrocities in the region. It’s *your* comments that are “dark.”
Now I’m glad we’ve had this conversation, my snarky attempt at humor included. It’s not that I want to give you mental stress. It’s: what triggers you shows us who you really are.
The whole point of *most* of your posts is to defend atrocities. And not just this particular set of atrocities.
“The Chinese people are incapable of …”
You’re going to speak for all 1.4 billion people?
I see the Chinese people like I see all other groups of people: a diverse mass, each individual with their own minds. It’s called liberalism.
Are you really rejecting the idea that individual Chinese people are capable of making up their own minds about things? Bizarre.
—– has a lot of “blood diamond” products.
[ This is falseness, racist falseness. ]
Racism would be the terrible treatment of ethnic Uyghurs by China. Pointing out racsm is not racism.
Also, pointing out that the majority-Han Taiwanese are the victims of the majority-Han Chinese government’s violent threats is not racism. Just sayin’.
No other subset of thoughts from ———–.
[ Repeated falseness, repeated shameful prejudice.
Precisely the sort of stereotype through which the Inquisition was pursued in Spain. Spain continues to apologize and try to make amends. ]
As China should apologize to Uyghurs and Tibetans and Inner Mongolians. And make amends.
It’s the United Nations which concluded…
[ This is of course false, completely false and completely malicious. Such is prejudice. ]
Liar.
Forced labour taking place in China’s Xinjiang region, UN’s top slavery expert says | ABC (Australia)
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-18/xinjiang-forced-labour-china-un-slavery-expert/101347992
It is “reasonable to conclude” that forced labour of members of minority groups has taken place in China’s western Xinjiang region, the UN’s top expert on slavery said in a report released this week.
The findings were “based on an independent assessment of available information”, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, Tomoya Obokata, said in a report that he shared on his Twitter account on Tuesday.
“The Special Rapporteur regards it as reasonable to conclude that forced labour among Uighur, Kazakh and other ethnic minorities in sectors such as agriculture and manufacturing has been occurring in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region of China,” the report said.
China rejects all accusations of abuse of Uyghurs and other Muslim minority groups in Xinjiang.
The report, dated July 19, is publicly available in a UN documents library.
…
Mr Obokata’s report is separate from a highly anticipated report on human rights in Xinjiang being prepared by United Nations High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet.
Ms Bachelet has pledged to publish it before leaving office at the end of this month.
Reuters reported last month that China had sought to stop Ms Bachelet from releasing her report, citing a Chinese letter reviewed by Reuters and diplomats who received it.
—–
Isn’t it great that this slav– oh, excuse me, *special labor operation* falls precisely on ethnic minorities? We might call that “racism.”
OK, back to work for me, ltr. I’m not paid to comment here.
Thanks for providing the news link on this, Andrew G. Yes, ltr really has herself so far out on a limb with this matter she has fallen completely off.
Macroduck provided the original (from another source but the same story). I just went out of my way to paste the text here because it really warranted emphasis due to the specific factual claims made here.
The UN’s top slavery expert indeed has concluded that forced labor (which IS slavery) has happened in China’s west.
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-08-07/Diplomats-from-30-Islamic-countries-visit-Xinjiang-1ciXFznlizm/index.html
August 7, 2022
Diplomats from 30 Islamic countries visit Xinjiang
Diplomats from 30 Islamic countries visited northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region from August 1 to 4, at the invitation of the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
The diplomats from the countries including Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Yemen and Pakistan visited the regional capital city of Urumqi, Kashgar Prefecture and Aksu Prefecture, learning about the region’s economic and social development.
They witnessed Xinjiang’s achievements in social stability, economic development, the improvement of people’s livelihoods, religious harmony and cultural prosperity, expressing their hopes that exchanges and cooperation with the region would be deepened.
“The fruit here is so sweet, just like the life of the people here,” said Hassane Rabehi, Algerian ambassador to China, adding that during this visit, he got to know the real situation of Xinjiang, where the rights of people of all ethnic groups are well protected.
Hassane Rabehi said that Algeria hopes to conduct more cooperation with Xinjiang on infrastructure construction, modern agricultural development, education and scientific research.
Abdulrahman Ahmad H. Alharbi, ambassador of Saudi Arabia to China, said that Xinjiang’s achievements are remarkable and its ties with the world are growing closer.
According to the ambassador, Saudi Arabia is willing to continue to strengthen cooperation with Xinjiang, make good use of the advantages of both sides, and invest more in technology, knowledge and other fields.
Bruneian ambassador to China Pehin Dato Rahmani said that after years of effort, Xinjiang has made remarkable achievements in development. People of all ethnic groups here are living together in harmony and enjoying the freedom of religious belief. People’s livelihoods have also been improved.
“We hope to work with China to jointly defend the multilateral system with the United Nations as the core, adhere to the values of peaceful development, and further strengthen people-to-people exchanges,” said Anyin Choo, Guyana’s ambassador to China.
ltr,
You already posted this, and it proves nothing. I do not know about Brunei, aside from that its leader claims absolute power, but both Algeria and Saudi Arabia have pretty bad human rights records. So they are not exactly great sources for claiming everything is hunky dory in Xinjiang. And, as I commented in response to a totally nonsense post above by Moses Herzog, I am sure tourists are not being taken to the labor camps there.
OK, I’m about to have one of my rare once in a decade “original” thoughts here. At least I haven’t seen this from Bloomberg etc yet. If Germany and other parts of Europe are short on natural gas this winter, having issues with a drought etc, slow growth, higher inflation, and China keeps on having “fits and starts” in important export cities having Covid shutdowns, and solvency problems with banks and housing construction, is it possible China and Europe “sneeze” and lead America into a recession?? Thinking more into the 2023 time frame here, but a credible chance this happens?? That America is ok otherwise, but gets “drug into” a recession??
Excuse me, “dragged into”. My midwest white trash genes slipping out there. Or too much time around Okies?? IBM presents, “You Make the Call” deeh deh deh deh.
Yes. Entirely possible.
In the figure, personal income ex-transfers (shown in inflation adjusted terms) is worrying. It’s more or less sideways so far this year. July and August are likely to produce gains, due to the fall in petroleum prices. The real engine behind income is hiring, which remains strong, but we have to expect hiring to slow.
In a sense, our village idiots have been highlighting the right issues, even though they’ve gotten them all wrong. We need hiring to generate enough income to outpace inflation. Both are set to cool. Trend changes are often choppy, and the chop obscured the new trend. No doubt recession-worshipping hacks will continue to claim every style is the end of the world. The rest of us will continue to have our hands full making sense of the twin transitions.
Meanwhile, the Fed has its thumb on both inflation and hiring. Sadly, the supply-side problems behind a good bit of recent inflation aren’t as responsive to monetary policy as hiring might eventually be.
“We need hiring to generate enough income to outpace inflation.”
That’s a strange way to put it, if the marginal bit of labor hired is very expensive and actually contributing to inflation high enough to hurt purchasing power. Lots of indications that that’s the case. This is one reason why just looking at personal income ex-transfers only (which I know you’re not doing!) might be misleading. Related to this, the composition of real gains may be unequal, and so far most indications from the retail sector show that inflation is hurting people at the bottom most (as you’d expect for people who spend a larger share of their income on necessities).
Every wiggle is the end of the world. Gotta get this auto-correct thingies sorted out.