China’s Growth Slows to Three-Year Low

China’s growth slowed for a sixth quarter to the weakest pace since the global financial crisis, putting pressure on Premier Wen Jiabao to boost stimulus to secure a second-half economic rebound. Gross domestic product expanded 7.6 percent last quarter from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said today in Beijing. The pace, a three-year low, compares with an 8.1 percent gain in the previous period and the 7.7 percent median forecast of economists. Industrial production increased at a slower pace in June while retail sales growth decelerated.

Today’s data painted a mixed picture from a pickup in fixed-asset investment that could signal the economy is stabilizing to the warning sign that electricity output failed to increase in June from a year earlier. Singapore reported an unexpected economic contraction as China’s slowdown undermines a global recovery already threatened by Europe’s debt crisis and limited U.S. job growth.

“The fact that the data shows persistent weakness --rather than a precipitous plunge -- means policy makers are likely to continue incremental monetary accommodation but not embrace a more aggressive fiscal stimulus policy response in the immediate term,” said Ramin Toloui, Singapore-based global co-head of emerging-markets portfolio management at Pacific Investment Management Co., which manages the world’s largest bond fund. Read more >>

Psychoanalyst Says Western Society Is Sick And Heading For Collapse

Gus Lubin
Business Insider
June 14, 2012

Western society has behaved neurotically for the past twenty years and needs to be cured. Professor Mark Stein draws this conclusion in a psychoanalysis of the financial crisis (via Steve Keen).