Gone Shopping-

Americans aren't shopping, but guess who are - them Chinese folks.

Am catching up on all the major econ news from this week and got to read deeper into the Chinese data from earlier in the week. I don't put much faith in their official data. Hiell, it's hard enough to figure out what US numbers are saying and how they're put through the sausage maker, data released by Chinese government?

One thing that has surprised me about China is the continuing strength in consumption. Granted that they come from much a lower base and do not have anywhere near the room to cut back as they do in OECD, I am surprised the reduction in exports hasn't trickled down to hurt consumption and retail sales.

One explanation might be (from Bloomberg):

``This [retails sales number] is encouraging,'' said Sun Mingchun, an economist at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in Hong Kong. ``But it's too early to say whether it can be sustained, because part of the increase was supported by the stock market.''


Households are switching money from bank deposits to the share market.

``I make about 5,000 yuan a month investing in stocks,'' said Peng Li, 25, a student eating at the food court of the Mix C Shopping Mall in Shenzhen. ``I spend most of my money on eating and shopping with friends.''

I am probably not the only person thinking shiet might hit the fan over there. People using an asset bubble as an ATM for spending? I have seen this movie before. When is the billion dollar question. I ain't shorting yet.