China

A record-setting 115,831 Chinese people lined up for Hubei province's civil services exam on Friday... all knowing that the 6,500 open positions meant the chances of acceptance were lower than that of getting into Princeton or Yale...

Up from 106,000 last year, China People's Daily reports this year's applicants the most numerous ever...

Applicants across 25 cities sat for China's national exam for access to the civil service, comprising tests of professional ability and language.

Submitted by Andrew Zeitlin of Moneyball Economics

Semiconductors Tell the Real Story of Global GDP

The industrial slowdown predicted by semiconductors is coming true.

Less than a week after the official launch of the Chinese Yuan-denominated gold fix on the Shanghai Gold Exchange, a historic move which represents "an ambitious step to exert more control over the pricing of the metal and boost its influence in the global bullion market" and which will gradually transform the market of paper gold trading, in the process shifting the global trading hub from west (London) to east (China), overnight Hong Kong's Chinese Gold and Silver Exchange (CGSE) Society revealed plans to do something similar for physical gold when it announced plans for what may

Submitted by Tho Bishop via The Mises Institute,

On Wednesday, Jack Lew announced that the US Treasury was following Ben Bernanke’s advice and keeping Alexander Hamilton on the $10, instead deciding to bring Harriett Tubman to the $20. While Lew’s news left America distracted in debate over whose portrait should grace the Federal Reserve’s most popular bank note, Zerohedge was highlighting how China was taking important steps to distance themselves from the dollar.

In the aftermath of China's gargantuan, record new loan injection in Q1, which saw a whopping $1 trillion in new bank and shadow loans created in the first three months of the year, many were wondering where much of this newly created cash was ending up.

We now know where most of it went: soaring imports of crude oil.

We know this because as the chart below shows, Chinese crude imports via Qingdao port in Shandong province surged to record 9.86 million metric tons last month based on data from General Administration of Customs.