[With apologies to Rene Magritte.] Not the sexiest topic in the world, but certainly important: on Wednesday, the US Department of Commerce into whether or not to impose anti-dumping and countervailing duties on imports of steel pipes from China. This follows upon the mostly symbolic mid-September imposition of duties on Chinese tire imports, and recent…
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Baseball merchandising around the world, ep. 1
Due to unexpected but very welcome events in Minneapolis, Shanghai Scrap has baseball on his mind, and thus – while running errands earlier in the day – I was stopped in my tracks by the Major League Baseball stall at a busy shopping mall in Xujiahui. It’s not your average American MLB shop, that’s for…
“Why have prices of Chinese antiques remained buoyant if not speculative?”
Earlier this week I blogged about the now-notorious mid-September auctions in Chinese antiques that took place at Christie’s in New York. As described by Souren Melikian in the New York Times, the event was a speculative frenzy, with even middling-to-poor antiques bid up many times their conservative estimates. In my post, I compared the Christie’s…
“Who likes Chinese art?”
There’s this Cantonese restaurant out in Shanghai’s Putuo District where my friend G., a Shanghai school teacher, and I used to go for dinner on a semi-regular basis. It’s one of those massive places you only find in China – maybe 200 – 300 tables spread out over the entire third floor of an office…
Resumption of Hostilities: The Scrap is Back! [Updated]
Posted on Author AdamPosted in Appreciations and Recommendations, Business and Trade, Labor, US-China Policy4 Replies
[UPDATED: Not sure how I did it, but somehow I managed to delete this entire post – including the comments – earlier this morning. Thanks to the generous help of an anonymous citizen at NFG World (who read my tweeted cry for help!), the full post has been restored – minus the half-dozen comments that…
Why is this recession (potentially) different from all other recessions?
A small but significant set of data points in the ongoing discussion of how – potentially – China’s economy has altered the global economy, especially as it impacts the current economic downturn. I received this first one last week from my pal Bob Garino, Director of Commodities at the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries [ISRI] in Washington, D.C.…
Why are 40,000 containers of scrap metal idling in Hong Kong and Guangzhou?
Unless you trade in non-ferrous scrap metals, you probably weren’t aware that this was a problem. But let me assure you that it is a big problem, indeed, and if you have any interest in how business works in south China, the origins of this mess should interest you. First, a bit of background. Ever…
Plywood Infernal.
Generally, I never turn down the opportunity to visit a factory. At a minimum, they’re invariably interesting, especially if – like me – you’re at all interested in how the things that one takes for granted are created. At best (in my case, at least), factory visits might lead to new stories. So I was…
Dept. of Atrocious China Journalism, Evans-Pritchard Edition
In today’s Daily Telegraph, (h/t danwei), Ambrose Evans-Pritchard notes that China’s State Reserve Board has been importing large volumes of copper “beyond the usual rebuilding of stock for commercial purposes” and speculates – without resorting to a single Chinese source – that China must be replacing its dollar reserves with metals (possibly with the long-term…
What constitutes a Best Buy?
This afternoon, for the first time in months, I stopped by the Best Buy in Xujiahui (which happens to be the first Best Buy in China). And, while riding an escalator to the second floor, I saw something unexpected: roughly ten racks of CDs and DVDs. Real ones, not pirated ones. And they seem to…