Why do we fear a rising China?

Business jobs are diverse in practice but share a common denominator: money.

Yesterday, Acting Secretary Blank met with a group of Brazilian CEOs to hear their priorities for doing business with the U.S. and to propose possible areas for close collaboration with American businesses. One area in which U.S. and Brazilian firms can work together is on infrastructure development, which is one reason why Acting Secretary Blank is currently leading a trade mission of 20 U.S. firms in a wide range of infrastructure industry sectors to Brazil, Colombia and Panama. These companies offer everything from cutting-edge technologies to top-notch services in engineering, management consulting, and more -- and they are well equipped to help Brazil meet its robust goals for infrastructure improvements. Acting Secretary Blank emphasized the importance of a strong bilateral investment relationship -- many global manufacturers, including some in Brazil, are now looking to return manufacturing operations to the U.S., to expand operations here, or to invest in the U.S. for the first time. That´s because there are a host of factors that make America a very attractive place to do business: low domestic energy costs and a stable supply of energy, high labor productivity, strong research institutions that can serve as partners in developing new products, intellectual property protections, and a stable business investment environment.

About a year ago we warned that in a world devoid of bond vigilantes, long emasculated by the Fed's relentless attempt to bring inflation back or go bust trying, the only forces left willing to stand up to Bernanke are the Brent Vigilantes TM, who succeed in crushing every recent reflation attempt whenever Brent reaches $130 or above (and US gas at the pump rises above $3.80) yet which are rather leery and susceptible to the CME's surprise margin-hike counterattacks, and of course China, th

Andrew West, citing Charlie Stross, sends along a question: What is the minimum number of people you need in order to maintain (not necessarily to extend) our current level of technological civilization? I'll treat this as a steady-state question and not commit to any particular time frame.  Stross wrote:

During the middle of the last decade, it seemed as though Chinese and Indian stocks were only heading higher. Between 2005 and 2008, China’s equity markets soared 219% while Indian markets rose 181%. However, from 2009 through 2011, impaired by a volatile global economy, Chinese equities floundered in negative territory and, over the same period, Indian equities were barely in the black.

The timing of China's exchange rate move is hardly accidental. The Chinese have said they will "increase the flexibility" of the exchange rate "to benefit the domestic economy". But in the very short term, it is in Toronto where the benefits will most clearly be felt.

It is not often that early sentiment is defined by developments out of Asia but this is precisely what has happened overnight.