International Investing

How can doctors get fat off the tax payer if the tax payer has a choice? MD lobbyists are preemptively shoring up their bottom line under the guise of safety. Add this to the existing list of readymade excuses to steal from the tax payer whose greatest hits already include, “it’s for the children,” and [...]

From Whiskey & Gunpowder:
China added more to global economic growth in 2007 than the U.S. That’s the first time a country other than the U.S. has contributed more to global GDP since at least the 1930s. This little history-making milestone typifies a growing list of Chinese economic achievements… and American shortcomings. “On [...]

From The Daily Reckoning. This headline was the most important thing I read today. The follow with:
On the basis of credit default swaps, which are used to speculate on a government’s ability to repay debt, the 10-year note reached a record high of 16 basis points on March 12. German bonds traded at [...]

China was once the largest economic superpower in the world. This excerpt from The Malay Archipelago by Alfred Russel Wallace could have been written last week:
In the Chinese bazar are hundreds of small shops in which a miscellaneous collection of hardware and dry goods are to be found and where many things are sold wonderfully [...]

The new leader is going to make some tough political choices. Very likely this will cause the currency to strengthen. Bloomberg has the details:
Merrill Lynch & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Deutsche Bank AG predict gains of as much as 4 percent in the next six months. They say pressure will mount on the [...]

Today’s WSJ has the story. The other surprise here is the large equity decline in China and India:
…the only booming stock markets are those in the most emerging of emerging markets: Pakistan, Peru, and Chile. Those stocks markets have risen, respectively, 9.5%, 7.1%, and 6.6% this year, according to data provided to Deal Journal by [...]

A staggering amount:
China’s foreign exchange reserves jumped $61.6 billion in January to reach $1.5898 trillion compared with $1.5282 trillion at the end of 2007, two sources familiar with the data told Reuters on Wednesday.

Gartman crunches the numbers and finds that China’s purchases of new treasuries fell off a cliff in 2007:
Chinese Net Purchases of Treasuries in billions of dollars
2002 34.1
2003 47.9
2004 77.4
2005 84.9
2006 63.2
2007 -4.1
Chinese Purchases As A Percentage of New Treasuries Issued
2002 12.7%
2003 11.8
2004 21.3
2005 29.6
2006 35.8
2007 - 2.5 (through Sept. 30th)
In other words, last year, China [...]

This tip from the Daily Reckoning:
For the first time in years, the dividend yield on Japanese stocks (as measured by the Topix index, which is broader than the Nikkei) moved higher than the yield on government bonds. This is a very big deal.”
Now, you can get more yield from a Japanese stock than from a [...]