{"id":17820,"date":"2016-02-15T11:11:31","date_gmt":"2016-02-15T16:11:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=17820"},"modified":"2016-02-15T11:11:49","modified_gmt":"2016-02-15T16:11:49","slug":"17820","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=17820","title":{"rendered":"Convenient Beliefs"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Convenient Beliefs\u00a0<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cMassive Deterioration\u201d \u2013 Worse Than 2008\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n
\n

BALTMORE \u2013 \u201cStocks still not finding bottom\u201d warned a headline at\u00a0Investor\u2019s Business Daily. On Thursday, the Dow ended down 255 points \u2013 or 1.6%. The index is down by almost 9% since the start of the year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese developments, if they prove persistent, could weigh on the outlook for economic activity\u2026\u201d proffered a nervous-looking Janet Yellen in her testimony on Capitol Hill. She was signaling to investors.<\/p>\n

\"Yellen_cartoon_02.27.2015\"Smoke signals\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t worry about us,\u201d she may as well have said. \u201cIf we can get away with a big U-turn, we\u2019re not going to raise rates anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Maersk Group, the world\u2019s largest container shipping company, said it was suffering a \u201cmassive deterioration\u201d in its business.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is worse than 2008,\u201d its CEO, Nils Andersen, told the\u00a0Financial Times. But this is not even near the bottom for the world economy. Hedge fund manager Kyle Bass warns that the other shoe is a big one\u2026 and it hasn\u2019t dropped yet.<\/p>\n

\"TheA Maersk container ship\u2026the line is feeling the pinch \u2013 the Baltic Dry Index has collapsed to just 291 points (from approx. 11,800 at the 2008 peak) and container shipping rates have declined sharply as well. \u00a0Photo credit: Michael Kooren \/ Reuters<\/p>\n

China\u2019s economy is heavily dependent on capital investment. It puts its money into building factories, highways, offices, apartment blocks, railroads, ports, and airports.\u00a0What do all these projects require?\u00a0Rebar!<\/p>\n

Concrete is reinforced with steel bars. As the pace of building slows, the price of rebar goes down.\u00a0In 2008, a ton of rebar cost about 5,500 renminbi ($836). Now, it costs barely 2,000 renminbi ($304) \u2013 the lowest price in at least 15 years.<\/p>\n

\"Steel<\/a>Shanghai steel rebar futures, weekly in RMB \u2013 click to enlarge.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Convenient Beliefs\u00a0 \u201cMassive Deterioration\u201d \u2013 Worse Than 2008\u00a0 BALTMORE \u2013 \u201cStocks still not finding bottom\u201d warned a headline at\u00a0Investor\u2019s Business Daily. On Thursday, the Dow ended down 255 points \u2013 or 1.6%. The index is down by almost 9% since the start of the year. \u201cThese developments, if they prove persistent, could weigh on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5728,1200,67,6190,216],"class_list":["post-17820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-acting-man","tag-belief-systems","tag-beliefs","tag-bill-bonner","tag-dow"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17820"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17822,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17820\/revisions\/17822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}