Couple of things from the recent papers.
1. A study in the UK says that the average office worker looks at his/her email at least 30 times every hour. (So what about social networks and texts?)
2. New mothers spend 90 mins a day on line in the UK. (Is that all?).
3. A report by the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) says that RBS clients should hedge against a sovereign debt default…by China. The concern here, and it’s a concern I’ve been talking about for a while, is that the leadership “will have to puncture the credit bubble before it reaches levels that threaten social stability.” Inflation is currently running just below 5% in China but for some food items it’s hitting 20%. Anyone in China care to comment?
BTW, thanks to Matthew for this last one. I missed the article despite reading the paper this morning. Probably spending too long also looking at email!
Actually China’s strategy is to raise the salaries of lower- and middle classes rather than to intervene in the credit market. Although inflation is very high, so has been the rise in salaries.
“The promised tomorrow of the Chinese Dream is the delivery of the Xiao Kang * shehui — literally “small comfort society”, but generally translated as “well-off society”. The government may be letting some people get rich first, but this only as a prelude to everybody getting reasonably rich. The greater transition is toward the attainment of a fully developed and fairly distributed level of modernisation and prosperity. At the core of this is the creation of a large Chinese middle class.”
Besides too many government officials and party members have interests in rising property prices and cheap credit.