I received a lot of flak email concerning my thoughts about the Main Stream Media, including the local paper The Bend Bulletin. I won’t argue my case out right, instead I will point you to one of my all time favorite blogs, that also happens to be about China.
Right now, there is a lot of talk concerning our landlord neighbor to the east. And it is hard to decypher what is the truth. How can we answer questions like;
- Is the rapid expansion of lending in 2009 leading to a catastrophic bubble in China?
- Are the growth numbers that came out for Q4 acurate or are they simply puff?
- How committed to understanding China should I be?
The only one of these that I can out right answer is the last one. Yes. You should be very committed to learning all you can about our owners friends. Which brings me to Michael Pettis. He is an author and professor at the Peking University Business School and with this position, he has the unique advantage of working/learning/living in the country of interest.
The depth of his knowledge is vast. And when I first started my self motivated education five years ago, on real estate and world markets, Michael’s blog would have been a challenge to read. But I encourage everyone, to read his stuff. It is just that good.
Take his post on currencies.
Already some of my students whose parents own their own businesses have been telling me that Chinese speculative money held abroad is flowing back into the country. One of my students from rich coastal city Wenzhou, the most free-wheeling and business-savvy city in China, and perhaps the world, just rolled his eyes when I asked him if his family and friends were tying to bring money into the country. “Of course,” he said. I didn’t get the impression that he thought mine was an especially astute question.
That is the type of “on the ground” perspective that Michael can offer. Which helps me out a lot. For a while I watched the dollar as it tanked into the 70’s. Wondering if we were going to break lower. Michael’s post on the dire straights of other world economies and their fiat currencies was enlightening. It made me realize that holding US dollars (right now) is not that absolute worst position in the world (though not the best). Maybe I should own more RMB.
Also, I personally would love to go to a school like this.
a) Economics and fianance are a real passion/hobby of mine
b) The Chinese market will be an area of continued growth
Learning from a school in China would be extremely insightful into how the Chinese people think. Also, learning the language would be a great tool towards anyone’s career.
And now I will bring up someone who is a buddy of mine. The dude is totally brilliant. His name is Tony Bivens and he is currently completing a degree in linguistics from a University in Thailand (Tony, I know you read this, so post in the comments about the University if you get time).
I think his degree will be highly effective in his future career. As the world drifts from the US being the sole super power, we will have a great need for accurate communication with many emerging countries. So I am envious of Tony a wee bit. I see him as having a ton of opportunity. I only wish he blogged a tad more so I could read up on his thoughts. Though I really enjoy our skype conversations. 
Jared.Out()
