China

Authored by Pepe Escobar via Asia Times,

While the US-backed 'Hunger Games' in South Korea plow on, a 'new strategy' for Afghanistan is really all about business. But China is already there...

There are more parallels between an unfinished 1950s war in Northeast Asia and an ongoing 16-year-old war in the crossroads between Central and South Asia than meet the eye.

Let’s start with North Korea.

Once again the US/South Korea Hunger Games plow on. It didn’t have to be this way.

As wages for Chinese workers’ skyrocket, the country’s manufacturers are scrambling to replace humans with machines, in many cases to preserve thin profit margins that have been choked by debt service.

But according to a report from Bloomberg Intelligence, China’s embrace of automation – its companies are installing machines faster than in any other country – could have unintended consequences for the global economy, as the robots force wages to sink, inequality to balloon, and consumption to collapse.

Besides the hilariously fabricated economic data and the whole central planning bit - both of which are now everywhere these days - the one most notable feature about China's economy and capital markets are the constantly rolling, bursting and resurrecting asset bubbles: from housing, to stocks, to bonds, to commodities, to cryptocurrencies, to pretty much anything that isn't nailed down and can be traded, and back to housing again, the lifecycle of a Chinese assets is best expressed in terms of its "tulipness": how long before the swarming horde of Chinese bubble-chasers, armed wi

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• Trump defends response to Charlottesville violence (Reuters)
• Trump Assails Media in Angry Defense of Charlottesville Response (BBG)
• North Korea presses rocket program, but amid signs of drama easing (Reuters)
• Military conflict with North Korea can be avoided: Germany's Merkel (Reuters)
• ECB chief Draghi: QE has made economies more resilient (BBC)

Authored by William Hongsong Wang via The Mises Institute,

Dr. Per Bylund’s recently published article poignantly states one of the core problems in the Chinese economy and its the state-manipulated Keynesian foundation. I do agree with his opinion. And if we dig deeper into the exact situation of Chinese economy, we will find that it’s a typical failing of the Keynesian, cronyist system.