Inflation Slowing China’s Export Engine

This is the force that ‘naturally’ brings the currency into line, and then can make it a lot weaker.

And the only way China knows to ‘fight it’ is probably with moves that will will result in a recession.

Inflation Slowing China’s Export Engine
Published: Sunday, 30 Jan 2011 | 10:46 PM ET

Inflation is starting to slow China’s mighty export machine, as buyers from Western multinational companies balk at higher prices and have cut back their planned spring shipments across the Pacific.

Markups of 20 to 50 percent on products like leather shoes and polo shirts have sent Western buyers scrambling for alternate suppliers. But from Vietnam to India, few low-wage developing countries can match China’s manufacturing might — and no country offers refuge from high global commodity prices.

Already, the slowdown in American orders has forced some container shipping lines to cancel up to a quarter of their trips to the United States this spring from Hong Kong and other Chinese ports.

Clinton presses OAS solution to Haiti impasse

So we send our Secretary of State to Haiti at the height of the Egyptian crisis?

Maybe it’s to highlight that we can’t even get it anywhere near right with Haiti, so don’t expect anything out of the US with regard to promoting human rights and representative government in Egypt.

Nor, of course, do we have any idea regarding improving the lives of majority of the citizens of the world, including our own, as we continue to believe the US govt. has run out of money and is dependent on borrowing from the likes of China and leaving the tab to the grandchildren.

Meanwhile, the risk of oil and trade disruption from the Egyptian crisis remains, however markets are today telling us they don’t think it will be much of an economic event, as the world watches to see if it spreads to other ‘non democratic’ regimes in the region.

Clinton presses OAS solution to Haiti impasse
Published: Sunday, 30 Jan 2011 | 9:27 PM ET

 
PORT-AU-PRINCE – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged Haiti’s leaders on Sunday to adopt an internationally backed solution to untangle an election dispute, saying the poor, earthquake-battered country needed a stable government to rebuild.

 
Clinton held talks in Port-au-Prince with outgoing Haitian President Rene Preval and leading presidential candidates on a visit overshadowed by the unfolding political crisis in Egypt.

 
She said she delivered the message that Washington wants Haitian authorities to enact recommendations by Organization of American States experts that revise contested preliminary results from chaotic November 28 elections in the Caribbean nation.