Este Blog é dedicado a Economia, sob os olhos da Escola de Salamanca e do Distributivismo. Veremos a Economia do ponto de vista do "ser humano permanente", como disse GK Chesterton se referindo aos personagens de Charles Dickens.
Que São Maximiliano Kolbe, do Bloco 11, Cela 18 de Auschwitz, nos ilumine na continuação das doutrinas de Francisco de Vitória e Hilaire Belloc!
Já vi muita gente boa assumir que os conservadores religiosos americanos eram pessoas burras e que eram os esquerdistas que conheciam mais o que se passa no mundo científico. Sempreachei esta teoria completamente sem base, e no meu entender, pela minha experiência de vida, eu tendo a achar quanto mais esquerdista é uma pessoa menos estudiosa ela é.
Hoje eu vi um paper que trata deste assunto. O paper é de James Lindgren, professor de Direito,, diretor do Departamento de Demografiada Northwestern University.
Lindgren pesquisa sobre conhecimento científico básico e sobre quem acredita em astrologia (considerada uma não ciência). Advinha quem sabe mais ciência e quem não acredita em astrologia? Ora, os conservadores (religiosos) republicanos, claro. Eles conhecem ciência e não acreditam em astrologia.
Vejamos os dois resultados da pesquisa.
O primeiro resultado dá capa a este post. Lindgren quer saber quem sabe que a Terra gira em torno do sol e leva um ano para que gire completamente. Vejam que apenas 48,6% dos esquerdistas responderam certo, enquanto 62,1% dos republicanos (de direita) responderam certo. Quem mais respondeu certo foram os republicanos conservadores (religiosos) com acerto de 67,2%.
Sobre Astrologia, a mesma lógica, quem mais acredita em astrologia são os esquerdistas (12,9%) e quem menos acredita são os concervadores republicanos (4,9%).
Ontem, saiu um bom texto no Valor Econômico sobre a influência cada vez maior dos bancos nas economias. Isto é bom ou ruim ?
A conclusão do artigo em poucas palavras é que o avanço do setor bancário pode ser catastrófico em caso de falência e no mínimo traz sérios ricos para a produtividade da economia.
Bom, o distributismo também acha péssimo o avanço irrestrito do setor financeiro, então o texto é bem relacionado com a teoria distributista que tem fonte na Doutrina Católica. A Igreja, inclusive, tem tradição de crítica a usura, apesar da própria Igreja não falar mais disso, infelizmente.
Eu vou coloar aqui o texto original, pois é este que está aberto livremente na internet. O texto no Valor Econômico é aberto apenas para assinantes ou para quem se cadastrar. Quem quiser ler o texto em português, deve se cadastrar no site do Valor Econômico.
Bank of England Governor Mark Carney surprised his audience at a conference
late last year by speculating that banking assets in London could
grow to more than nine times Britain’s GDP by 2050. His forecast represented a
simple extrapolation of two trends: continued financial deepening worldwide
(that is, faster growth of financial assets than of the real economy), and
London’s maintenance of its share of the global financial business.
These may be reasonable assumptions, but the estimate was deeply
unsettling to many. Hosting a huge financial center, with outsize domestic
banks, can be costly to taxpayers. In Iceland and Ireland, banks outgrew their
governments’ ability to support them when needed. The result was
disastrous.
Quite apart from the potential bailout costs, some argue that financial
hypertrophy harms the real economy by syphoning off talent and resources that
could better be deployed elsewhere. But Carney argues that, on the contrary,
the rest of the British economy benefits from having a global financial center
in its midst. “Being at the heart of the global financial system,” he said,
“broadens the investment opportunities for the institutions that look after British
savings, and reinforces the ability of UK manufacturing and creative industries
to compete globally.”
That is certainly the assumption on which the London market has been
built and the line that successive governments have peddled. But it is coming
under fire.
Andy Haldane, one of the lieutenants Carney inherited at the BoE, has
questioned the financial sector’s economic contribution, pointing to “its
ability to both invigorate and incapacitate large parts of the non-financial
economy.” He argues (in a speech revealingly entitled “The Contribution of the Financial Sector:
Miracle or Mirage?”)
that the financial sector’s reported contribution to GDP has been significantly
overrated.
Two recent papers raise further doubts. In “The Growth of
Modern Finance,”
Robin Greenwood and David Scharfstein of Harvard Business School show that the
share of finance in US GDP almost doubled between 1980 and 2006, just before
the onset of the financial crisis, from 4.9% to 8.3%. The two main factors
driving that increase were the expansion of credit and the rapid rise in
resources devoted to asset management (associated, not coincidentally, with the
exponential growth in financial-sector incomes).
Greenwood and Scharfstein argue that increased financialization was a
mixed blessing. There may have been more savings opportunities for households
and more diverse funding sources for firms, but the added value of
asset-management activity was illusory. Much of it involved costly churning of
portfolios, while increased leverage implied fragility for the financial system
as a whole and imposed severe social costs as over-exposed households
subsequently went bankrupt.
Stephen G. Cecchetti and Enisse Kharroubi of the Bank for International
Settlements – the central banks’ central bank – go further. They argue that rapid financial-sector growth
reduces productivity growth in other sectors. Using a sample of 20 developed
countries, they find a negative correlation between the financial sector’s
share of GDP and the health of the real economy.
The reasons for this relationship are not easy to establish
definitively, and the authors’ conclusions are controversial. But it is clear
that financial firms compete with others for resources, and especially for
skilled labor. Physicists or engineers with doctorates can choose to develop
complex mathematical models of market movements for investment banks or hedge
funds, where they are known colloquially as “rocket scientists.” Or they could
use their talents to design, say, real rockets.
Cecchetti and Kharroubi find evidence that it is indeed
research-intensive firms that suffer most when finance is booming. These
companies find it harder to recruit skilled graduates when financial firms can
pay higher salaries. And we are not just talking about the so-called “quants.”
In the years before the 2008 financial crisis, more than a third of Harvard
MBAs, and a similar proportion of graduates of the London School of Economics,
went to work for financial firms. (Some might cynically say that keeping MBAs
and economists out of real businesses is a blessing, but I doubt that that is
really true.)
The authors find another intriguing effect, too. Periods of rapid growth
in lending are often associated with construction booms, partly because
real-estate assets are relatively easy to post as collateral for loans. But the
rate of productivity growth in construction is low, and the value of many
credit-fueled projects subsequently turns out to be low or negative.
So, should Britons look forward with enthusiasm to the future sketched
by Carney? Aspiring derivatives traders certainly will be more confident of
their career prospects. And other parts of the economy that provide services to
the financial sector – Porsche dealers and strip clubs, for example – will be
similarly encouraged.
But if finance continues to take a disproportionate number of the best
and the brightest, there could be little British manufacturing left by 2050,
and even fewer hi-tech firms than today. Anyone concerned about economic
imbalances, and about excessive reliance on a volatile financial sector, will
certainly hope that this aspect of the BoE’s “forward guidance” proves as
unreliable as its forcasts of unemployment have been.
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphLONDON – Bank of England Governor Mark Carney surprised his audience at a conference late last year by speculating
that banking assets in London could grow to more than nine times
Britain’s GDP by 2050. His forecast represented a simple extrapolation
of two trends: continued financial deepening worldwide (that is, faster
growth of financial assets than of the real economy), and London’s
maintenance of its share of the global financial business.
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphThese
may be reasonable assumptions, but the estimate was deeply unsettling
to many. Hosting a huge financial center, with outsize domestic banks,
can be costly to taxpayers. In Iceland and Ireland, banks outgrew their
governments’ ability to support them when needed. The result was
disastrous.
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphQuite
apart from the potential bailout costs, some argue that financial
hypertrophy harms the real economy by syphoning off talent and resources
that could better be deployed elsewhere. But Carney argues that, on the
contrary, the rest of the British economy benefits from having a global
financial center in its midst. “Being at the heart of the global
financial system,” he said, “broadens the investment opportunities for
the institutions that look after British savings, and reinforces the
ability of UK manufacturing and creative industries to compete
globally.”
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphThat
is certainly the assumption on which the London market has been built
and the line that successive governments have peddled. But it is coming
under fire.
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphAndy
Haldane, one of the lieutenants Carney inherited at the BoE, has
questioned the financial sector’s economic contribution, pointing to
“its ability to both invigorate and incapacitate large parts of the
non-financial economy.” He argues (in a speech revealingly entitled “The Contribution of the Financial Sector: Miracle or Mirage?”) that the financial sector’s reported contribution to GDP has been significantly overrated.
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphTwo recent papers raise further doubts. In “The Growth of Modern Finance,”
Robin Greenwood and David Scharfstein of Harvard Business School show
that the share of finance in US GDP almost doubled between 1980 and
2006, just before the onset of the financial crisis, from 4.9% to 8.3%.
The two main factors driving that increase were the expansion of credit
and the rapid rise in resources devoted to asset management (associated,
not coincidentally, with the exponential growth in financial-sector
incomes).
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphGreenwood
and Scharfstein argue that increased financialization was a mixed
blessing. There may have been more savings opportunities for households
and more diverse funding sources for firms, but the added value of
asset-management activity was illusory. Much of it involved costly
churning of portfolios, while increased leverage implied fragility for
the financial system as a whole and imposed severe social costs as
over-exposed households subsequently went bankrupt.
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphStephen
G. Cecchetti and Enisse Kharroubi of the Bank for International
Settlements – the central banks’ central bank – go further. They argue
that rapid financial-sector growth reduces productivity growth in other
sectors. Using a sample of 20 developed countries, they find a negative
correlation between the financial sector’s share of GDP and the health
of the real economy.
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphThe
reasons for this relationship are not easy to establish definitively,
and the authors’ conclusions are controversial. But it is clear that
financial firms compete with others for resources, and especially for
skilled labor. Physicists or engineers with doctorates can choose to
develop complex mathematical models of market movements for investment
banks or hedge funds, where they are known colloquially as “rocket
scientists.” Or they could use their talents to design, say, real
rockets.
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphCecchetti
and Kharroubi find evidence that it is indeed research-intensive firms
that suffer most when finance is booming. These companies find it harder
to recruit skilled graduates when financial firms can pay higher
salaries. And we are not just talking about the so-called “quants.” In
the years before the 2008 financial crisis, more than a third of Harvard
MBAs, and a similar proportion of graduates of the London School of
Economics, went to work for financial firms. (Some might cynically say
that keeping MBAs and economists out of real businesses is a blessing,
but I doubt that that is really true.)
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphThe
authors find another intriguing effect, too. Periods of rapid growth in
lending are often associated with construction booms, partly because
real-estate assets are relatively easy to post as collateral for loans.
But the rate of productivity growth in construction is low, and the
value of many credit-fueled projects subsequently turns out to be low or
negative.
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphSo,
should Britons look forward with enthusiasm to the future sketched by
Carney? Aspiring derivatives traders certainly will be more confident of
their career prospects. And other parts of the economy that provide
services to the financial sector – Porsche dealers and strip clubs, for
example – will be similarly encouraged.
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphBut
if finance continues to take a disproportionate number of the best and
the brightest, there could be little British manufacturing left by 2050,
and even fewer hi-tech firms than today. Anyone concerned about
economic imbalances, and about excessive reliance on a volatile
financial sector, will certainly hope that this aspect of the BoE’s
“forward guidance” proves as unreliable as its forecasts of unemployment
have been.
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphLONDON – Bank of England Governor Mark Carney surprised his audience at a conference late last year by speculating
that banking assets in London could grow to more than nine times
Britain’s GDP by 2050. His forecast represented a simple extrapolation
of two trends: continued financial deepening worldwide (that is, faster
growth of financial assets than of the real economy), and London’s
maintenance of its share of the global financial business.
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphThese
may be reasonable assumptions, but the estimate was deeply unsettling
to many. Hosting a huge financial center, with outsize domestic banks,
can be costly to taxpayers. In Iceland and Ireland, banks outgrew their
governments’ ability to support them when needed. The result was
disastrous.
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphQuite
apart from the potential bailout costs, some argue that financial
hypertrophy harms the real economy by syphoning off talent and resources
that could better be deployed elsewhere. But Carney argues that, on the
contrary, the rest of the British economy benefits from having a global
financial center in its midst. “Being at the heart of the global
financial system,” he said, “broadens the investment opportunities for
the institutions that look after British savings, and reinforces the
ability of UK manufacturing and creative industries to compete
globally.”
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphThat
is certainly the assumption on which the London market has been built
and the line that successive governments have peddled. But it is coming
under fire.
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphAndy
Haldane, one of the lieutenants Carney inherited at the BoE, has
questioned the financial sector’s economic contribution, pointing to
“its ability to both invigorate and incapacitate large parts of the
non-financial economy.” He argues (in a speech revealingly entitled “The Contribution of the Financial Sector: Miracle or Mirage?”) that the financial sector’s reported contribution to GDP has been significantly overrated.
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphTwo recent papers raise further doubts. In “The Growth of Modern Finance,”
Robin Greenwood and David Scharfstein of Harvard Business School show
that the share of finance in US GDP almost doubled between 1980 and
2006, just before the onset of the financial crisis, from 4.9% to 8.3%.
The two main factors driving that increase were the expansion of credit
and the rapid rise in resources devoted to asset management (associated,
not coincidentally, with the exponential growth in financial-sector
incomes).
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphGreenwood
and Scharfstein argue that increased financialization was a mixed
blessing. There may have been more savings opportunities for households
and more diverse funding sources for firms, but the added value of
asset-management activity was illusory. Much of it involved costly
churning of portfolios, while increased leverage implied fragility for
the financial system as a whole and imposed severe social costs as
over-exposed households subsequently went bankrupt.
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphStephen
G. Cecchetti and Enisse Kharroubi of the Bank for International
Settlements – the central banks’ central bank – go further. They argue
that rapid financial-sector growth reduces productivity growth in other
sectors. Using a sample of 20 developed countries, they find a negative
correlation between the financial sector’s share of GDP and the health
of the real economy.
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphThe
reasons for this relationship are not easy to establish definitively,
and the authors’ conclusions are controversial. But it is clear that
financial firms compete with others for resources, and especially for
skilled labor. Physicists or engineers with doctorates can choose to
develop complex mathematical models of market movements for investment
banks or hedge funds, where they are known colloquially as “rocket
scientists.” Or they could use their talents to design, say, real
rockets.
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphCecchetti
and Kharroubi find evidence that it is indeed research-intensive firms
that suffer most when finance is booming. These companies find it harder
to recruit skilled graduates when financial firms can pay higher
salaries. And we are not just talking about the so-called “quants.” In
the years before the 2008 financial crisis, more than a third of Harvard
MBAs, and a similar proportion of graduates of the London School of
Economics, went to work for financial firms. (Some might cynically say
that keeping MBAs and economists out of real businesses is a blessing,
but I doubt that that is really true.)
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphThe
authors find another intriguing effect, too. Periods of rapid growth in
lending are often associated with construction booms, partly because
real-estate assets are relatively easy to post as collateral for loans.
But the rate of productivity growth in construction is low, and the
value of many credit-fueled projects subsequently turns out to be low or
negative.
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphSo,
should Britons look forward with enthusiasm to the future sketched by
Carney? Aspiring derivatives traders certainly will be more confident of
their career prospects. And other parts of the economy that provide
services to the financial sector – Porsche dealers and strip clubs, for
example – will be similarly encouraged.
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphBut
if finance continues to take a disproportionate number of the best and
the brightest, there could be little British manufacturing left by 2050,
and even fewer hi-tech firms than today. Anyone concerned about
economic imbalances, and about excessive reliance on a volatile
financial sector, will certainly hope that this aspect of the BoE’s
“forward guidance” proves as unreliable as its forecasts of unemployment
have been.
Sem justificar o porquê, Dilma também já disse que a crise da Veneezuela não é semelhante à crise na Ucrânia. Não sei se ela é capaz de esclarecer seu ponto de vista sem ser rechaçada, no entanto.
Eu sempre acho este tipo de argumento é idiota, pois uma coisa só igual à própria coisa, mas admito que algo pode ter semelhanças profundas com outra coisa.
No caso de Venezuela e Ucrânia pode-se dizer que os dois grupos de manifestantes tendem a derrubar as estátuas de Lenin (como fizeram na Ucrânia, foto acima), mas os países têm culturas e políticas muito diferentes.
The political protests roiling Venezuela have led some to wonder
whether its government would collapse like that of Ukraine's. It won’t
-- at least, not yet.
What makes Venezuela’s government so
different is its absolute dominance of all the main levers of political
power. President Nicolas Maduro’s administration wields unquestionable
control over the Supreme Court, the Congress, the military and the oil
industry -- the very institutions that could threaten his regime.
Generously
compensated oil worker unions support the Maduro administration, which
means that a replay of the strike that paralyzed the industry in late
2002 in hopes of unseating former President Hugo Chavez seems highly
unlikely.
To see why, consider the petroleum workers' march that
Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez led to the presidential palace last week to
express support for the government in the face of opposition protests, a
demonstration that conveniently coincided with the signing of a new
labor contract for the workers. Ramirez made plain the dual purpose of
the staged event when he said: “This is not just about the contract, it’s against fascism that promotes violence in the country.” Workers got a 67 percent raise in daily pay, plus an increase in other benefits.
The
armed forces also signaled where their loyalty lies. Defense Minister
Admiral Carmen Melendez in a televised address last week said
that the military would “never -- listen carefully -- accept a
government that doesn’t emerge from constitutional procedures.” As if to
dispel any lingering doubts, Melendez added: “Our president and
commander in chief Nicolas Maduro, the people and the armed forces are
working together, more than ever, and we won’t allow” attempts to unseat
the existing government.
Since coming to power almost a year ago, Maduro has named 386 members
of the military to political posts, and they now run almost a quarter
of all government ministries. To further ensure the military's loyalty,
Maduro in November said he would raise
the salaries of the army and gave out special Christmas bonuses. This
came on top of salary increases of as much as 60 percent that went into
effect in October.
Venezuela’s congress, dominated by Maduro loyalists, in November approved special powers
so the president can pass laws by decree without consulting lawmakers
for as long as a year. This means the current congress would be far from
willing to support those who want Maduro out. And for those hoping
Maduro would be forced to resign in the face of protests, Cilia Flores,
the current first lady and former member of congress, spelled it out at a rally over the weekend: “Venezuela is not the Ukraine. Fascism and violence won’t prevail here.”
Discontent with Maduro is undeniable. Annual inflation is running at 56 percent and product shortages are common. The central bank’s product-shortage index touched a historic 28 percent
last month, which means one out of every four products tracked is
missing from store shelves. Almost half of voting Venezuelans opposed
Maduro’s administration in December’s municipal elections, though that
isn't enough to threaten his grip on the country.
Venezuela has
seen worse economic troubles in the past. Inflation in the 1990s at one
point topped 100 percent. What’s more, Venezuelans have a history of
disliking their presidents and being co-opted for long periods of time
by generous government patronage.
The question is which is
stronger: Venezuelans’ sense of dependency on handouts or their
frustration with a deteriorating economy that offers few job prospects,
few goods and services, and few outlets to denounce government
inefficiency. So far -- for a large portion of the population --
dependency has won. The success of Chavez’s movement lies in its ability
to convince the poor that receiving a paycheck or government subsidy
with inflation is better than being dispossessed, which is what
Chavistas say would happen if they leave office.
During the last
15 years, Chavez and his heirs have shown that they know how to squeeze
enemies and use short-term solutions to ease political tensions when
needed. Maduro’s government may do the same.
The president partly gave in to demands from businesses last week when he eased
foreign-exchange restrictions so companies and individuals could more
easily access dollars, a decision that could temporarily help ease
product shortages. He disguised his move in revolutionary rhetoric when
he said: “We seek to twist the arm of the perverse, phantom market called the parallel dollar.”
Maduro’s
call to meet opposition leaders this week is another opportunity to try
to appease in private the anger Venezuelans express in public. Mindful
of the people’s need to blow off steam the president even declared
a public holiday on Thursday in a bid to send angry Venezuelans off for
the Carnival vacations early. Still, in a last-minute decision,
opposition leaders canceled yesterday’s scheduled talks with Maduro's
government.
Opposition leaders may gain political capital from the
current discontent. But only broad unrest among the poorest members of
society could shake Maduro’s control. Former presidential candidate
Henrique Capriles Radonski made that clear
when he declined to support the recent opposition led protests earlier
this month: “Where are the poor in all of this? There’s none, and we
won’t participate because we won’t fall for this, we won’t let ourselves
be carried away” by events.
(Raul Gallegos is the Latin American correspondent for the World View blog. Follow him on Twitter @raulgallegos.)
Texto da Reuters de hoje mostra que a dívida das empresas na China atingiu um nível recorde em dezembro do ano passado, calculada em mais de 120% do PIB (o maior nível do mundo), e que as empresas estão se desfazendo de ativos e se fundindo para evitar default, mas que muitos irão declarar falência.
O nível de endividamente das empresas subiu 260% desde dezembro de 2008.
Bom, isto parece ser uma bomba relógio para a economia mundial.
BEIJING/HONG
KONGTue Feb 25, 2014 4:21am EST (Reuters) - China's
corporate debt has hit record levels and is likely to accelerate a wave of
domestic restructuring and trigger more defaults, as credit repayment problems
rise.
Chinese non-financial
companies held total outstanding bank borrowing and bond debt of about $12
trillion at the end of last year - equal to over 120 percent of GDP - according
to Standard & Poor's estimates. Growth in Chinese company
debt has been unprecedented.
A Thomson Reuters analysis of 945 listed medium
and large non-financial firms showed total debt soared by more than 260
percent, from 1.82 trillion yuan ($298.4 billion) to 4.74 trillion yuan ($777.3
billion), between December 2008 and September 2013.
While a credit crisis isn't
expected anytime soon, analysts say companies in China's most leveraged
sectors, such as machinery, shipping, construction and steel, are selling
assets and undertaking mergers to avoid defaulting on their borrowings.
More defaults are expected,
said Christopher Lee, managing director for Greater China corporates at
Standard and Poor's Rating Services in Hong Kong. "Borrowing costs already
are going up due to tightened liquidity," he said. "There will be a
greater differentiation and discrimination of risk and lending going
forward."
China rarely allows
corporate failures, particularly of state-backed companies, partly out of fear
that widespread layoffs could lead to social unrest. In cases where firms have
effectively gone bankrupt, domestic bondholders tend to be paid off ahead of
other debtors.
HIGHER BORROWING COSTS China Erzhong Group (Deyang)
Heavy Industries Co (601268.SS), a loss-making manufacturer of equipment for
the steel and power industries, faces higher borrowing costs after a wholesale
restructuring, said Huang Guozhan, an executive at the company's board
secretary's office.
The Sichuan-based firm,
which expects to report a 2013 loss of 3.15 billion yuan ($516.5 million) and
may see its shares suspended, held debt of 11.4 billion yuan in September,
according to stock market filings. In July, China's
State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission ordered China
Erzhong, together with its parent company, to merge with China National
Machinery Industry Corp, another Beijing-controlled enterprise group.
A management reshuffle
followed, while a proposed 1.9 billion yuan asset sale was cancelled.
Accumulated losses may drive up the cost of the company's loans, Huang said,
should banks cut the company's ratings. "Tight credit growth
and higher borrowing costs will make it a tough year," said Stephen Green,
head of China research at Standard Chartered Bank.
ASSET SALES China's massive holding
companies, power producers and construction materials firms are among the most
highly levered in the world's second-largest economy, with each sector
reporting twice as much debt as equity at end-September, Thomson Reuters data
show.
Leverage in freight and
logistics services reached 85 percent in September, forcing a wave of asset
sales. Changjiang Shipping Group Phoenix Co (000520.SZ), one of five listed
companies under Sinotrans & CSC Holdings Ltd SASACG.UL, another central
government company, has been selling ships and borrowing money from its parent
after its 4.9 billion yuan investment in new vessels turned sour.
The dry bulk goods shipper,
which is in bankruptcy restructuring, has been sued for loan repayment by five
banks, including China Merchants Bank Co (600036.SS) and China Minsheng Banking
Corp (600016.SS). It also faces lawsuits by the leasing arm of the Industrial
and Commercial Bank of China (601398.SS) and China Petroleum and Chemical Corp
(600028.SS) for unpaid bills.
Other state-backed firms,
including China Cosco Holdings (601919.SS) (1919.HK) and Angang Steel
(000898.SZ) (0347.HK), have returned to nominal profitability by turning to
their corporate parents to sell assets.
OVER-INVESTED? Exacerbating China's
corporate troubles has been the questionable use of 4 trillion yuan in stimulus
that Beijing pumped into the economy following the onset of the global
financial crisis in 2008, explained Lee of Standard & Poor's.
"Many companies
invested heavily into competitive and low-return projects because funding was
readily available," he said. "These investments aren't doing well and
are making little contribution to profitability."
Although leverage at
China's mid-sized and large companies started to decline in the second half of
last year, building down debt positions will be difficult, said Merrill Lynch
analyst David Cui. "The beast grew so fast you can't control it easily
now. A sense of urgency will develop only if there is significant disturbance
to the financial system."
China's bonds, which in the
past behaved more like pure interest rate products, have started to price in
credit risk, with the coupon gap between AA and AAA-rated companies for 5-year
bonds doubling in recent weeks.
Last month, AA-rated
Ningxia Baota Petrochemical raised 800 million yuan, offering to pay 242 basis
points more than a coupon paid by AAA-rated Beijing State Owned Asset when it
raised 3.5 billion yuan. The gap between two similarly rated 5-year bonds in
December was 132 basis points.
($1 = 6.0984 Chinese yuan)
(Agradeço a informação do texto da Reuters ao site Zero Hedge)
