China's Middle Class Doing it Tough

If there's one U.S. industry that's found a home in China, it's the lodging business.

Here is an interview of Michael Pettis by Lauren Lyster from the Wine Country Conference. Pettis says China faces a decade of slower growth. “I don’t think it’s either averting a disaster or heading for one,” Pettis says. “What I think we’re going to have is a decade or more of much, much lower growth.”

Here is an interview of Michael Pettis by Lauren Lyster from the Wine Country Conference. Pettis says China faces a decade of slower growth. “I don’t think it’s either averting a disaster or heading for one,” Pettis says. “What I think we’re going to have is a decade or more of much, much lower growth.”

With a middle class that could to balloon to 1.4 billion people by 2030, China has become a lifeline for automakers looking to keep their profits afloat in a weak global economy. Through October 2011, more than 15 million new vehicles have been purchased in China, according to ChinaAutoWeb*. That’s about 3 percent higher than a year ago.

Roger Nusbaum submits: Earlier this week on CNBC Asia, they had a reporter doing a live segment during the first hour of Asia Squawk Box somewhere in Beijing above a highway that was packed with rush hour traffic.

Peter Morici submits:Google’s (GOOG) censorship struggle with Beijing crystallizes the challenge China poses to American global leadership.Until the Google imbroglio, we heard much about China’s undervalued currency and subsidized exports, rough treatment of foreign investors and purchases of US debt, but not enough about Beijing’s restrictions on unfretted access to information, expression and self determination.Americans

By Tom Copeland: As the number of middle class workers in China continues to surge, some interesting trends are emerging, according to analysts and economists the world over.

By Dimitry Smirnov:The Asian middle class is slowly expanding and is beginning to partake in some of the financial experiences already shared by the middle class of developed countries. One such experience is car ownership. Let's check out the numbers; they are indeed staggering.