Miscellaneous Thoughts on Christmas eve in the USA
The pictures of trees around, etc. WILL be coming soon, though I will
need to link one earlier post as it has been about a week since I first drafted it!!! Double link: Christmas is now into high gear in Shanghai! Laughing!
Food:
I was walking around last night with Lui Kai, a student working on his English, talking about whether India or China had a larger density of people, etc. and picked up 5 bananas, two tangerines and an apple for 8 yuan = $1.09
Economics:
Now that interest rates were again raised by the People's Bank of China (like our Federal Reserve System, it is the central bank of China), there is even MORE pressure on the yuan to appreciate!!! YIKES! The Chinese are doing just about everything they can think of to lower the pressure: limiting the banks ability to loan money (stops money supply growth and potentially limits inflation), cutting subsidies on grains, steel for export, for example.
ALSO they ARE allowing the yuan to appreciate - if the RMB (yuan) increases in value, imports are less expensive and therefore domestically competing goods must also lower prices to stay competitive. So the lower prices of imports also decreases inflation.
$1 = 7.34 rmb today December 24, 2007!! That's down from 7.6 when I arrived, though I would still argue that the exchange rate needs to be more like 6 (or even 5 according to parity with the Euro and Canadian dollar). That kind of appreciation would definitely vastly alter the Chinese economy...
Music from San Diego that's totally enjoyable, in my humble opinion.
bill - click on the player at their website and you can listen to their album "Birthday Suit" - Watercolors is an awesome song!
Skiing:
I have my tickets to ski: Leave on Jan. 24 at 5:05 pm from Pudong airport, Shanghai, China arrive in Chicago at 4:04 pm, Jan. 24!!! I lose an hour!!! Fly on to SLC and then back to Shanghai on Feb. 15. I am excited - make sure to keep that snow falling!
Off to enjoy relaxing in the office, grading and preparing for tomorrow's (and Saturday's) lecture!
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Food:
I was walking around last night with Lui Kai, a student working on his English, talking about whether India or China had a larger density of people, etc. and picked up 5 bananas, two tangerines and an apple for 8 yuan = $1.09
Economics:
Now that interest rates were again raised by the People's Bank of China (like our Federal Reserve System, it is the central bank of China), there is even MORE pressure on the yuan to appreciate!!! YIKES! The Chinese are doing just about everything they can think of to lower the pressure: limiting the banks ability to loan money (stops money supply growth and potentially limits inflation), cutting subsidies on grains, steel for export, for example.
ALSO they ARE allowing the yuan to appreciate - if the RMB (yuan) increases in value, imports are less expensive and therefore domestically competing goods must also lower prices to stay competitive. So the lower prices of imports also decreases inflation.
$1 = 7.34 rmb today December 24, 2007!! That's down from 7.6 when I arrived, though I would still argue that the exchange rate needs to be more like 6 (or even 5 according to parity with the Euro and Canadian dollar). That kind of appreciation would definitely vastly alter the Chinese economy...
Music from San Diego that's totally enjoyable, in my humble opinion.
bill - click on the player at their website and you can listen to their album "Birthday Suit" - Watercolors is an awesome song!
Skiing:
I have my tickets to ski: Leave on Jan. 24 at 5:05 pm from Pudong airport, Shanghai, China arrive in Chicago at 4:04 pm, Jan. 24!!! I lose an hour!!! Fly on to SLC and then back to Shanghai on Feb. 15. I am excited - make sure to keep that snow falling!
Off to enjoy relaxing in the office, grading and preparing for tomorrow's (and Saturday's) lecture!
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
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