chinese debt problems unsustainable, page-2

Ive got to wonder about their buying spree in commodities last year too.

This extract from a Feb 2 Bloomberg story 'Copper Market Set for Catastrophe':

"Three-month copper futures on the London Metal Exchange, which surged 140 percent last year after governments spent billions of dollars to lift their economies out of recession, traded today at $6,750 a ton. China, the world?s largest user, imported a record 3.2 million tons of the refined metal in 2009, up 119 percent from the previous year."

119% percent! And this:

"The way the figures are being reported is anything that?s shipped to China is assumed to be consumed, which is clearly ridiculous,? Threlkeld said. Stockpiles monitored by the Shanghai Futures Exchange totaled 101,210 tons last week, more than three times the level a year ago."

Absolutely! These guys - whether by accident or design - have amassed a huge inventory of copper here. I believe they have stockpiles of a lot of other base metals and energy resources too. Theres no way - no way! - they have increased their consumption of commodities to this extent in '09 in the face of reducing worldwide demand for their products everywhere else.

I expect Australia & other so-called commodity nations to join the rest of the developed world soon in some substantial asset-price deflation. And then the monetary spigots really get turned on.