June 5, 2007
China's college graduate glut
The joke floating around college Internet chat rooms is that college students nowadays are like cabbages: There's an abundant supply of them and their price never goes up.
The cabbage joke is wearing thin.
April 17, 2008
China's Rising Food Prices Cause Pain
In Beijing's largest wholesale food market, Xinfadi Primary Product Market, even the price of cabbage has risen 50% in the past two months alone.
At least one economic joke appears to be holding up well (and the joke appears to be on us).
February 6, 2007
Bernanke: Education can help with income gap
Bernanke, in prepared remarks delivered to the Omaha Chamber of Commerce, said disparities in education and training is “likely the single greatest source of the long-term increase in inequality.”
For example, a typical robotic arm is SO much smarter than the factory worker of yesteryear. Want really smart though? Look at a recent Chinese college graduate hand assembling plastic toys for Wal-Mart. That's genius I tell you.
More Americans are going to college than ever before. Meanwhile, the inequality gap continues to increase. Perhaps Bernanke's solution is that we all have PhDs.
April 2, 1973
The Ph.D. Glut
In recent years, universities have been graduating far more students with doctorates—a record 32,000 last year—than there are jobs for them.
January 24, 2006
The Ph.D. Glut Revisited
The Ph.D. glut has existed ever since the fall of 1969. The number of entry-level full-time professorial positions has remained stagnant. Few new universities have been constructed. Legislatures have resisted additional funding.
This has led to a reduction of the number of tenure-level positions. Universities and community colleges have been able to staff their entry-level positions with inexpensive instructors.
Stag,
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aDZej7GJjpjM&refer=home
I think we have a glut of speculation. Yield starved investors are hungry for super sized returns. Unfortunately, the asset inflation is no longer benign as it appears likely to create real hunger.
MAB,
ReplyDeleteI think we have a glut of speculation.
Which leads to a leverage glut?
http://illusionofprosperity.blogspot.com/2007/09/certainty-vs-uncertainty-animated.html
It may simply reflect our overleveraged society and the fact that people are carrying more debt on everything and it doesn't take a lot to affect a small percentage of them in terms of moving them from homeownership to not. - Bob Curran, Fitch Ratings analyst, April 2005
That quote was supposedly a reason NOT to worry, lol. He went on to say...
It's hard to make a case, based on what I see here, that all of a sudden it's become an enormous trend.
Simply OVERLEVERAGED. People are carrying MORE DEBT ON EVERYTHING. It didn't appear ALL OF A SUDDEN though. It doesn't appear to be an ENORMOUS trend.
Behold the power of shock and awe uppercase.
Stag,
ReplyDeleteYou've touched on this before.
http://www-tech.mit.edu/V109/N60/china.60n.html
Discontent grew, however, as inflation aggravated agricultural problems, leading the government to give peasants IOUs instead of cash for their grain
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but haven't we also been giving the Chinese peasants IOUs for their stuff. Oh well, I guess they can now exchange those same DEVALUED IOUs for some of OUR grain. Did I mention that the price of OUR grain soared? That should keep a cap on Chinese food prices.
What are the odds that Chinese peasants hedged their grain purchasing power?
Let's hope it's like Vegas - what happens in China, stays in China.
MAB,
ReplyDeleteWhat are the odds that Chinese peasants hedged their grain purchasing power?
I suspect that they used the Chinese stock market as an anti-hedge under the mistaken belief stocks were a good buy (at any price) UNTIL the Olympics.