Institutional Investor (March 10)
“China’s red-hot growth inevitably has to cool given that it has already overbuilt and overborrowed. China’s debt load has exploded four-fold since 2007, largely on the back of shadow banking and a real estate boom.” China’s total debt load (estimated at 282% of GDP by McKinsey) now “tops debt loads in the U.S., Germany, Australia and other developed countries. China’s corporate debt amounts to 125 percent of GDP.”
Tags: Australia, Boom, China, Debt load, GDP, Germany, Growth, McKinsey, Overborrowed, Overbuilt, Real estate, Shadow banking, U.S.
Financial Times (August 26)
“China’s tottering property market presents one of the greatest threats to the global economy.” The reverberations would be felt around the globe, particularly by nations reliant on natural resource exports. “The size of China’s property boom–and therefore the fallout from any crash–is awe-inspiring. In just two years, 2011 and 2012, China produced more cement than the US did in the entire 20th century.”
Tags: Boom, Cement, China, Crash, Exports, Fallout, Global economy, Natural resources, Property market, Threats, U.S.
Euromoney (August Issue)
In the U.S., it seems everyone is becoming an entrepreneur. “Some 6 million businesses were created in the U.S. in 2012. The country is experiencing a start-up boom…. Since the financial crisis, the number of businesses being started has rocked.”
Tags: Boom, Businesses, Entrepreneur, Financial Crisis, Start-ups, U.S.
The Economist (July 27)
“After a decade of surging growth, in which they led a global boom and then helped pull the world economy forwards in the face of the financial crisis, the emerging giants have slowed sharply.” This slowdown in emerging markets “is not the beginning of a bust. But it is a turning-point for the world economy.”
Tags: Boom, Bust, Emerging markets, Financial Crisis, Growth, Slowdown, Turning-point, World economy
Washington Post (July 17)
With China’s economy decelerating, “ the world waits to see if it will make hard reforms. “Most big developing countries — China, India, Brazil, South Africa — have slowed down in the past few years. In almost all cases, the cause was the same. When their the economies were booming, these countries’ leaders avoided tough decisions. China had been the exception to this rule. But now it faces its biggest test…. If it fails, well, China becomes just another emerging market with a model that worked for a while.”
Tags: Boom, Brazil, China, Decelerating, Decisions, Developing countries, Economy, Emerging market, India, Leaders, Reforms, South Africa
Wall Street Journal (July 7)
Amid a North American oil boom, “shipments of crude by rail have shot up sharply, as producers race to get all their new oil to market and as pipeline companies scramble to build new lines or reconfigure old ones to handle the growing volumes.” This may change. “The deadly weekend explosion of a runaway crude-carrying train in Quebec threatens to ratchet up scrutiny of rising crude-by-rail shipments on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border.”
Tags: Boom, Canada, Crude, Explosion, North America, Oil, Pipeline, Producers, Quebec, Rail, Scrutiny, U.S.
Financial Times (June 24)
“It is too early to say, but with the credit intensity of China’s slowing economic growth surging back this year to levels last seen in the 2009 credit boom, a severe credit squeeze could precipitate a big drop in investment, accentuate the downturn in growth and lead to financial and banking sector instability.”
Tags: Banking, Boom, China, Credit, Downturn, Economic growth, Instability, Investment, Squeeze
Wall Street Journal (May 21, 2013)
“Today the U.S. is the world’s largest gas producer and amid the hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling boom could become a global supplier.” Recent approvals have allowed some exports to proceed. “Regulatory indecision,” however, has created a backlog of export proposals, some involving Japanese firms, awaiting approval. “Such deals will wither if regulatory uncertainty grows.”
Tags: Boom, Drilling, Gas producer, Hydraulic fracturing, Japan, Regulatory indecision, U.S., Uncertainty
Financial Times (May 14, 2013)
In the UK, the state-owned Royal Mail may be taken public this fall in line with legislation passed in 2011. In marked contrast to the U.S. Postal Service, which is hemorrhaging money, the Royal Mail’s “fortunes have been improving as a result of modernisation and the boom in internet-related packet deliveries,” leading observers to value it at £2bn-£3bn.
Tags: Boom, Internet, IPO, Legislation, Royal Mail, UK, USPS
Institutional Investor (February Issue)
“Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is releasing huge new supplies of natural gas and promising to revive the American economy with cheap energy. The U.S. energy boom may “create 3 million jobs and boost economic growth by 1 to 1.5 percentage points a year between now and 2020.” Chemical and agricultural companies are also poised to benefit from the lower cost of raw materials and energy.
