Tag: consumer goods

Despite disruptions, holiday spending may shatter records

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The forecast is a continuation of strong consumer demand since the second half of last year which is exacerbating port congestion and other supply chain disruptions as a record number of containerized imports pour into the nation’s ports.

The NRF’s forecast for this season is calling for holiday sales (during November and December) to grow between 8.5 percent and 10.5 percent, compared to 2020, to between $843.4 billion and $859 billion. The numbers compare to the previous high of $777.3 set last year despite the pandemic…

Last year saw extraordinary growth in digital channels as consumers turned to online shopping to meet their holiday needs during the pandemic. This year, however, the NRF said that while e-commerce will remain important, households are also expected to shift back to in-store shopping for a more traditional holiday experience.

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In its latest update addressing supply chain disruptions, the world’s top shipping company Maersk said the challenges the United States is facing with its supply chain is a byproduct of its growth and that more needs to be done to keep pace with increasing consumer demand…

The disruptions in manufacturing and ports in the Far East in early 2020, due to COVID-19, disrupted the normal flow of trade. But now that life is returning to normal in much of the United States, with people returning to offices and schools back in session, there’s been renewed demand from American households that is contributing to the rise in U.S. imports. After all, 70% of U.S. GDP is linked to consumer buying so it’s the U.S. consumer driving the economy, according to Maersk…

“The current situation is a growth story in the U.S. – and the supply chain disruption you are seeing is a byproduct of this growth. The challenge is every part of the U.S. supply chain needs to build more resilience and capacity to keep pace with consumer demand,” said Phol.

No surprise to me. I keep a listing on a major head-hunting site mostly to stay in touch with their economic research. I’m quite clear in letting folks know I’ve been retired for a couple of decades. That hasn’t inhibited folks trying to lure me back into logistics with green bits of paper. :-]

Fortunately, my wife and I are quite happy with our situation. Still, it’s the best kind of compliment in the Western World…getting job offers in both sales and logistics.

Trump fiddles while China leads World Trade Recovery

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Bloomberg’s Tom Keene displays the performance of the renminbi against the U.S. dollar in 2017. He speaks with Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics, on “Bloomberg Surveillance.”

Often appearing on Bloomberg TV, Dr. Weinberg is one of several economists who wastes no time on the ideological blather coming out of the Washington Beltway. Regardless of which of the two Tweedledee/Tweedledumb parties we’re allowed – is in power.

I think if you asked the average American college graduate about the Silk Road or the Silk Route – you’d get a profound silence. Listen to what Dr. Weinberg says in passing about the increase in trade this year. Understand that this is a startup barely in its beginning. Understand that regardless of Trump’s compounded ignorance and lies, the United States isn’t China’s biggest customer and consumer of goods exports. The European Union is. And they don’t consider his whines and wailing important enough to be anything more than a footnote to American electoral gullibility.

The Europeans, workers and investors alike do not suffer the disparity in income and distribution we have in the United States. Europeans get income – not fear and trembling – from global trade. Their trade with China is leading to greatly expanded trade for all the Euro nations with all the nations in between China’s hubs and the industrial centers of the European Union.

What the Taliban buy when shopping for themselves

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140 pairs of tidy whities, bro’

An army offensive in Taliban-dominated tribal areas of Pakistan has caused large numbers of people to flee to safer regions. Among them is shopkeeper Rasheed Rehman, who until recently counted Taliban fighters among his best customers…

Miranshah is the administrative capital of North Waziristan, close to the Afghan border. Rasheed says he had a large shop in the main market there, selling all manner of cosmetics, socks and stockings, and a few electronic items.

He says he used to earn between 100,000 and 115,000 rupees a day, and that Taliban militants were the biggest spenders. According to Rasheed, they would buy plenty of goods on every visit – and they wouldn’t haggle to get prices reduced.

“They used to prefer foreign or branded perfumes and imported body sprays. They liked the ones with a strong scent.”

In fact, Rasheed would travel especially to Islamabad and Lahore in order to procure the kind of imported merchandise the Taliban preferred…

The perfumes they bought for their womenfolk included one called Secret Love, and Blue Lady by Rasasi.

They would ask for Head and Shoulders or Clear shampoo and Dove soap.

When it came to underwear, they preferred it white – briefs or Y fronts…

Another shopkeeper from Miranshah, Sohail Masih, a tailor, confirms that the Taliban would invariably be the best customers in the market, spending 2,000 to 3,000 rupees at a time – for many people that would be two weeks’ salary.

“They would drive to my shop in big white cars with black-tinted windows and had no qualms about doling out wads of cash,” he says.

“The kind of things they would buy, well people like me can’t even conceive of buying them.”

Pointing out once again that we’re dealing with run-of-the-mill bandits, folks. Neither the average Pashtun or Pakistani nor fixated Tea Party Islamophobes have their history or facts straight. Just because gangsters and thugs claim their mission is grounded in some variant of a religion doesn’t make it so.

And that ain’t new. Petty despots have claimed their mission is one of fighting for religious freedom, ethnic liberation, sectarian justice – time and again. A significant part of the trouble is the “other side” of the conflict is often just as willing to accept that crap lie as advocacy because it fits their own matrix of hate.

Xi says GDP not China’s officials’ sole focus

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Xi Jinping

China’s President Xi Jinping said officials shouldn’t be judged solely on their record in boosting gross domestic product, the latest signal that policy makers are prepared to tolerate slower economic expansion.

The Communist Party should instead place more importance on achievements in improving people’s livelihood, social development and environmental quality when evaluating the performance of officials, the Xinhua News Agency reported June 29, citing Xi at a meeting on personnel management on the eve of the 92nd anniversary of the party’s founding.

Xi’s comments follow remarks he made in May that China won’t sacrifice the environment to ensure short-term growth, and take place as the world’s second-largest economy undergoes its worst cash crunch in at least a decade as the government seeks to wring speculative lending out of the banking system.

“Xi is further legitimizing the case for slower growth,” said Andy Mantel, chief executive officer of Pacific Sun Advisors, an asset manager in Hong Kong that invests in Chinese stocks. “It is important to let local government officials know there is less importance of non-stop economic growth. There will be less pressure for local government officials to pump up their economic growth forecasts.”

China needs growth of about 7 percent to double per capita gross domestic product by 2020 from the level in 2010, Premier Li Keqiang said May 27 in Berlin after meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. That’s down from an average pace of 10.5 percent a year over the past decade, with growth driven by surging credit, government investment, and exports…

“Xi’s speech includes a forward-looking recognition that obsessive emphasis on economic growth targets is obsolete and must now be balanced against vital environmental and social concerns,” said William Overholt, a senior research fellow at Harvard University…

Any number of economists and financial analysts worth anything, from Stephen Roach to Barry Ritholtz, who bring experience and study to bear on questions of national and international economics agree on this.

And, then, there are the talking heads of American TV and journalist lapdogs.

Germany’s future turns from the U.S. to China

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Germany is bettering its European rivals in the race to harness Chinese growth as exports to the Asian nation begin to outstrip those to the U.S.

With its consumers and companies sating their appetite for power turbines, cars and electronics, China became Germany’s largest non-European customer at the end of last year, helping drive up share prices from BASF SE to Bayerische Motoren Werke AG…

“This is a turning point in Germany’s economic history,” said Andreas Rees, chief Germany economist at UniCredit Markets and Investment in Munich. “China could become the largest export market of all by 2015.”

The U.S. has been Germany’s most important trading partner beyond European borders since the end of World War II, a relationship that helped turn the country into a pillar of economic and political stability for the west. Now, with China becoming the main impulse for world growth, Germany’s exporters of machinery, consumer goods and luxury cars are increasingly turning to the east.

“The theme for this decade is that millions of people in China want to live like Europeans,” said Herbert Perus, head of equities at Raiffeisen Capital Management in Vienna, who helps oversee about $36 billion. “The ‘Made in Germany’ brand is going to be very strong in this market…”

While exports to the U.S. reclaimed the top non-European spot in January, Rees said that will likely be temporary. Sales to mainland China surged 44 percent last year, more than to any other destination. They have more than quadrupled in the last decade, tripling China’s share of Germany’s exports to 5.6 percent. By contrast, the U.S. share dropped to 6.9 percent in 2010 from 10.3 percent in 2000…

Chinese demand is soaring for exactly the goods German firms specialize in — industrial machinery, cars and consumer products. The Chinese middle class could double its 2008 size to 400 million people by 2014, Societe Generale predicts, fueling growth for European firms that make the goods they want…

“We are undoubtedly seeing a shift in the centre of gravity,” said Fred Irwin, President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Frankfurt. “But with German firms opening factories both in the U.S. and in China, it’s a win-win situation for them.”

RTFA for beaucoup details. No need to revisit the silliness of American industrialists. Especially those whose only loyalty has been to the flow of dollars – not the people who produced their profits for so long.

The Future lies ahead, economy-wise

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OK. So, I only stuck 2 cliches into the headline. You get the idea.

The U.S. economy grew at a 3.5% annual rate in the third quarter, ending a string of declines over four quarters that resulted in the most severe slide since the Great Depression…

The positive GDP report is one more sign that the economy has likely pulled out of the deep recession that started in December 2007…But the stronger-than-expected growth is likely to lead more economists to declare that the economy hit bottom earlier this year and turned higher at some point in the summer…

Bill Hampel, chief economist of the Credit Union National Association, said it’s encouraging that the economy was able to grow at all without businesses actually rebuilding inventory. He said that is a positive sign of growth yet to come.

“The inventories still need to be replenished, and when they are, it will give us an even bigger lift,” he said. “I don’t think this report is a sign of a booming economy, but it does seem to be setting down roots that will be sustainable.”

There are negatives included to balance each of the positives in the article. Fact is, most economists are positive.

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