China

Her 90-year-old Majesty Queen Elizabeth II has been heard making unguarded remarks on tape about China during a garden party at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday. The Queen was not pleased with Chinese officials in their dealings with their British counterparts. Her Majesty gave the thumbs down to certain Chinese officials who accompanied President Xi Jinping during his first state visit to Britain last year, calling them “very rude.” Her comments were picked up by a microphone.

Via PandaHedge.com,

Overnight the People’s Daily published an interview with “anonymous authorities” on the topic of China's economy.  It’s a very important article as the “anonymous authorities” is considered to be Mr. Liu He, who is the economy brain of President Xi Jinping.  The interview sends strong signals that China policy will shift from its aggressive easing in Q1 to a conservative position which focus on structural reforms.

With the collapse of China's smoke-and-mirrors commodity bubble comes the post-mortem as the horde of Chinese gamblers flood from one government-appointed market to another as the American dream of get-rich-quick schemes appears to have been adopted by the burgeoning middle classes now disillusioned with real work. As Bloomberg reports so shockingly, from the Dutch tulip craze of 1637 to America’s dot-com bubble at the turn of the century, history is littered with speculative frenzies that ended badly for investors; but rarely has a mania escalated so rapidly, and spurred s

Submitted by John Rubino via DollarCollapse.com,

Something interesting has happened. China earlier this year responded to falling stock prices by borrowing a trillion dollars and spending it on commodities, boosting the prices of iron ore, oil, copper, etc., and giving the global economy a patina of recovery.

Nothing unusual so far. China did the same thing in response to 2008’s Great Recession, and the world breathed an appreciative sigh of relief, ignoring the massive new leverage that the policy required.

Following the latest escalation in South China Sea territorial tensions, which culminated with China refusing to grant the Stennis aircarrier group access to the Hong Kong port, overnight the US decided to provoke some more Chinese anger when it sailed the guided missile destroyer the USS William P. Lawrence within 12 nautical miles of Chinese-occupied Fiery Cross Reef, according to U.S. Defense Department spokesman, Bill Urban said. This was the third warship the US has sent into contested waters in the South China Sea in less than seven months.