Submitted by Tyler Durden on 06/23/2012 09:46 -0400
China
Copper
Goldman Sachs
goldman sachs
Lehman
Reality
The Economist
In what may come as a shocking surprise to exactly nobody, the next great discovery as more and more layers of the global ponzi onion are exposed, is that China was, in fact, lying about everything. Yes, we know, stunning.
From the NYT:
As the Chinese economy continues to sputter, prominent corporate executives in China and Western economists say there is evidence that local and provincial officials are falsifying economic statistics to disguise the true depth of the troubles.
Record-setting mountains of excess coal have accumulated at the country’s biggest storage areas because power plants are burning less coal in the face of tumbling electricity demand. But local and provincial government officials have forced plant managers not to report to Beijing the full extent of the slowdown, power sector executives said.
Even that lonely indicator that some, even us, had considered somewhat realistic: electric output, is a mirage.
Electricity production and consumption have been considered a telltale sign of a wide variety of economic activity. They are widely viewed by foreign investors and even some Chinese officials as the gold standard for measuring what is really happening in the country’s economy, because the gathering and reporting of data in China is not considered as reliable as it is in many countries.
...
But an economist with ties to the agency said that officials had begun making inquiries after detecting signs that electricity numbers may have been overstated.
...
Another top corporate executive in China with access to electricity grid data from two provinces in east-central China that are centers of heavy industry, Shandong and Jiangsu, said that electricity consumption in both provinces had dropped more than 10 percent in May from a year earlier. Electricity consumption has also fallen in parts of western China. Yet, the economist with ties to the statistical agency said that cities and provinces across the country had reported flat or only slightly rising electricity consumption.
In other words, the chart we showed a month ago showing already collapsing Chinese power production is far, far worse in reality.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/turns-out-china-lying-about-everything?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+zerohedge%2Ffeed+%28zero+hedge+-+on+a+long+enough+timeline%2C+the+survival+rate+for+everyone+drops+to+zero%29
So... let's see here: huge disparity between what is represented and what the reality is... a crucial political election... and a regime that many have accused of misreporting critical data for years (even if others captured media outlets accuse the former of being conspiracy theorists)...
Why... could this possibly mean that every piece of data out of the US is just as made up and just as meaningless? Now that would be truly unpossible.
Realist - Everybody in America is soft, and hates conflict. The cure for this, both in politics and social life, is the same -- hardihood. Give them raw truth.
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