Morning Reading – Thursday, February 3, 2011

The Infrastructurist: China To Create World’s Largest City

China is going for all the records these days. It recently completed the world’s longest high-speed rail line, only to follow that up with the world’s fastest train. For an encore, the Chinese are now preparing to create the world’s largest mega-city.

The plan will merge nine existing cities across 16,000 square miles of the Pearl River Delta — creating a new boundary that encompasses China’s manufacturing core and, all told, accounts for almost 10 percent of the country’s economy.

FT BeyondBRICs: Chinese property bubble: a myth?

Citigroup’s calculation that residential property investment in China has soared to 6.1 per cent of gross domestic product – a level last seen in the United States shortly before the global financial crisis – has intensified fears of a property bubble in the country.

The Big Picture: How U.S. Income Groups Get Squeezed By Food Prices

Take a look at the chart above constructed from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics 2009 Consumer Expenditure Survey. It conveys a sense of how Egypt’s poverty combined with the sharp rise in food prices sparked the political revolt against the Mubarek government.

The Big Picture: Watch yields here

We are again approaching a key spot in the 10 yr benchmark note. The yield at 3.49% is at the highest level since Dec 15th on a closing basis and just 3 bps from matching the highest since May ’10. The 30 yr bond yield at 4.64% is now at the highest since late April ’10.

The Big Picture: Blogonomics: A New Chapter

The Google revs starts me athinkin’: The entire economic model of blogs needs a reboot. There is enormous traffic, tremendous intellectual firepower, budding influence — all gravitatating to the blogosphere, and yet for most bloggers, the economics of blogging are dismal. Ad networks are okay, but only if you are one of the top 2% of blogs, and even then, they can be inconsistent.

The Big Picture: Microsoft the Innovator: Bing Copies Google Search Results

When it comes to Microsoft, I have long argued that they got lucky int heir deal with IBM. Aftewr that, pretty much everything they ever did was either ripped off from someone else — as in stolen — or a very obvious “inspired by.” (They did occasionally buy stuff as well, but not if they could avoid it).

The Slope of Hope: Nope. No Inflation Here. Not At All.

 

 

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 3rd, 2011 at 7:46 am and is filed under Daily Reading. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Comments are closed.

 

Get Adobe Flash player