China Confronts Mounting Piles of Unsold Goods

[jsr]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/24/business/global/chinas-economy-besieged-by-buildup-of-unsold-goods.html

GUANGZHOU, China — After three decades of torrid growth, China is encountering an unfamiliar problem with its newly struggling economy: a huge buildup of unsold goods that is cluttering shop floors, clogging car dealerships and filling factory warehouses.

The glut of everything from steel and household appliances to cars and apartments is hampering China’s efforts to emerge from a sharp economic slowdown. It has also produced a series of price wars and has led manufacturers to redouble efforts to export what they cannot sell at home.

The severity of China’s inventory overhang has been carefully masked by the blocking or adjusting of economic data by the Chinese government — all part of an effort to prop up confidence in the economy among business managers and investors...

[a geek named Bob]

1. jsr

How do you see this one ending?

[jsr]

6. A mess

China has always competed on price and they've gotten themselves in their own race to the bottom.

[nc4bo]

2. I guess China's realizing that a global economy is only doing what a global economy can do best.

Ride the wave of international 99%ers who either are no longer able to afford buying much of anything or have gotten tired of the cheaply made shit they're selling.

[BOG PERSON]

13. i don't think the avg consumer buys directly from chinese manufacturers

in this case it must be the retailers that have stopped buying? because civilization is coming to an end.

[nc4bo]

17. if we didn't buy it, it wouldn't be purchased by the Walmarts and Family Dollars of the world.

Still dependent on the 99% to move their junk from their trunks.

[Systematic Chaos]

3. Stories like this are always good for a chuckle...

...when your sense of humor is as dark and cynical as mine.

[nc4bo]

5. Yea they are.

How long did anyone with a piece of brain think this wonderful outsourcing, low wage, slaver fantasy going to last before the bottom falls out?

Ha. Ha. Ha. nothing lasts forever.

[FreakinDJ]

4. How do you spell "Deflation" China

[TalkingDog]

10. Like this:

Last edited Fri Aug 24, 2012, 05:07 PM - Edit history (1)

通货紧缩

通

tōng, tòng: pass through, common, communicate

货

huò goods: commodities, products


紧

jǐn: tense, tight, taut; firm, secure


缩

suō, sù:contract, draw in, reduce

[CrispyQ]

7. The ghost cities are eerie.

This is a couple of years old.

http://www.businessinsider.com/pictures-chinese-ghost-cities-2010-12

This looks like a bigger bubble than anything we had in this country.

[redqueen]

15. They gambled on unending growth at a steady pace. nt

[leeroysphitz]

8. Maybe they should have a garage sale.

[Egalitarian Thug]

9. K&R So many people are willing to simply forget that the global economy collapsed.

Collapse: to break down; come to nothing; fail

One of the most significant events in modern history went almost completely unreported, in January 2008 the global shipping rate fell to 0. Zero, zip, nada, nothing. There was no downturn, no correction, contraction, or adjustment. It collapsed.

Can you wrap your head around that? Literally nothing was moving around the world. Container ships and tankers were sitting idle in the middle of the ocean while others were lined up at ports with no place to put any of the products they were loaded with because the docks, rail yards & warehouses were choked beyond their capacity with product. Complete and total economic collapse.

And in response we dumped trillions of actual dollars and guarantees into the financial system so that the numbers would move, but we have never even talked about addressing the causes of this catastrophe. We believe (wish?) that making unreal numbers, digital computer symbols with no relation to the real physical world, move from screen to screen, database to database, and balance sheet to balance sheet, are the economy, but that is a fantasy. A fantasy that is used to convince you that they are in charge, that everything is going to be fine, and most mportantly that we must leave the powerful in power.

I repeat. What was not done, what is not even spoken of, is to identify and address the systemic failure that brought this event about.

So, they dropped a tarp over the rubble so it can't be seen and went on doing exactly the same things they did before and pretend that there is still a structure behind that tarp.

This article is only one sign of pretending that pretending is the same as reality.

[hunter]

11. They've got more than a billion consumers of their own.

All China needs to do is raise minimum wages and welfare benefits a bit, build a modern banking system, and all those "piles of unsold goods" will vanish.

Frankly, we should be scared to death of that. It will be an ugly day at the American Wal-Mart when China stops supporting the dollar.

But maybe they can't build a banking system that isn't corrupt.

The U.S.A. can't do it anymore either.

Then again, for all we know the entire international monetary system is held together by well-organized criminal masters of false accounting.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

12. "masked by the blocking or adjusting of economic data by the Chinese government"

Someone forgot to tell them free market reforms only work when the market is free.

[BOG PERSON]

14. n/t

[johnd83]

16. This has been predicted for years

It is not going to be pretty when the huge bank bubbles finally bursts.

[SoCalDem]

18. Maybe they should raise wages in China

so their own people can afford these goods.

[CrispyQ]

19. Henry Ford has been dead been for a long, long time, & evidently,

so has his common sense philosophy.