Author: Mike

There is a fascinating web site put up by the consortium of journalists working with the Mossack Fonseca papers. The home page is at panamapapers.icij.org with a signup page for new updates. The files they have go back 40 years, and the information contained in them has already led to the resignation of the Prime… Continue reading The Panama Papers →

March 21, 2016 Press Release: IMF Managing Director Concludes Visit to China March 20, 2016 Opening Remarks at the 2016 China Development Forum: China in the New Five-Year Plan March 20, 2016 Accelerating Reforms to Establish a Risk Prevention System March 17, 2016 Tax Administration Reform in China John Brondolo | Zhiyong Zhang: Series: Working… Continue reading Recent IMF resources →

See this 2013 snippet in which the author is visiting a “ghost city” publicized on 60 Minutes. He shows the program segment to bemused residents – the same day it first aired! It’s not just an exercise in debunking, because it includes the “why” of new but deserted cities, and the track record of what… Continue reading Followup on Ghost Cities →

Please watch the three part “Heart of the Dragon” series. The total length is just under an hour. For those into classic technology – do any of you actually have a videocassette player? – Leyburn has the entire series in VHS (Call number: Video DS799.23 .H42 1985 Tape 7). Here are the YouTube links to… Continue reading Video for next week →

I have a (Google blogspot) blog called Autos and Economics. My latest post (of a few minutes ago) is on a pending shakeout in the Chinese auto industry. The origins of the industry’s excess capacity include the government’s “import substitution industrialization” policies of the 1980s and 1990s, and – since 2001 – a rush by… Continue reading China’s Automotive Shakeout →

Our session with Leland Miller of the China Beige Book highlighted the lag between the received view of the structure of China’s economy (= Wall Street), which highlights manufacturing through the lens of financial markets, and the structure we emphasize using the framework of economics. Manufacturing is down, the stock market is down, the sky… Continue reading Chinese Growth vs Chinese Imports →

See the earlier post on Ordos. Further to that, the Priceonomics blog has a nice item on ghost cities, including a map of where various ones are located. They have a neat twist, including a chart from the Baidu travel service of which cities are destinations and which points of departure. That helps track whether… Continue reading Ghost Cities →

Here I discuss the end of China’s one-child policy. In my weekly WREL economics segment I also discussed , the auto industry in China, Yellen and the Donald and interest rates, and gave an update on the United Way of Rockbridge. I provide only a paragraph one each at the end. This past week China… Continue reading One-child policy: Reposting from my blog →

See the memo here [or go to Memos & Notes, where you’ll find it as well as other ancillary materials].

Here is the location of the village. Zoom out to get a sense of the dikes along the river, and the (current) level of river-borne transport. Zoom out more to see where the Yangtze River is, and the Pacific Ocean coast. Zoom in along the river and you will see canals on a periodic basis.… Continue reading Qindong Village – google satellite view →