Thursday, December 11, 2008

CHINA now more capitalist than the US?
In response to the financial crisis of 2008, the United States has responded by nationalizing industries and electing a president who promised to raise taxes on entrepreneurial efforts.  China, the nominally Communist nation, has responded by cutting business taxes to stimulate growth.  Remind me which nation supposedly supports capitalism and free enterprise.
Although, on the other hand:
Chinese exports registered their largest drop in nearly a decade last month, suggesting that the global recession could be far worse than many economists had previously predicted.

According to statistics released by the Chinese government Wednesday, exports fell 2.2 percent from November 2007 to November 2008 — the largest year-over-year monthly decline since April 1999.

Even at a time of increasingly dour economic news, the Chinese trade numbers stunned many economists. They struck an ominous note for China, where labor unrest has increased markedly as the economy has slowed in the last month.

Many analysts had anticipated that the monthly trade figures would show China’s export machine slowing along with the global economy, but few had expected it to slip into reverse. In October, exports surged 19.2 percent year-over-year.

“We were expecting a slowdown, but the magnitude is a bit shocking,” said Wang Tao, an analyst at UBS Securities.