World View: Egypt Anti-Muslim Brotherhood Protests Fall Flat

This morning’s key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com:

• Anti-Morsi demonstrations in Cairo Egypt turn into a dud
• Fatal bridge collapse in China prompts public uproar
• Inventories of manufactured goods piling up in China
• Jean-Claude Juncker meets Antonis Samaras

Anti-Morsi demonstrations in Cairo Egypt turn into a dud

Organizers had hoped to match the crowds of hundreds of thousands ofpeople who rallied early last year in Cairo’s Tahrir Square tooverthrow former president Hosni Mubarak. But Friday’s protests,called to protest President Mohamed Morsi, drew a very small crowd ofonly several hundred people, while there were only a few thousand inall at different venues. It was mostly peaceful, but there wasscattered violence between pro- and anti-Muslim Brotherhooddemonstrators. Al Arabiya (Dubai)

Fatal bridge collapse in China prompts public uproar

A $3 million bridge that only opened 10 months ago collapsed onFriday, causing four trucks to plunge to the ground below, killingthree people and injuring five. Chinese bloggers are becomingincreasingly contemptuous over shoddy construction practices. As I reported in July 2011, bloggerswere furious at another bridge catastrophe, when one high-speed trainrear-ended another on a bridge, causing four coaches to fall off thebridge, killing 35 and injuring 200. Apparently the two trains wereadministered by two different government agencies, and there was nocoordination whatsoever. Since then, there have been six major bridgedisasters, indicating that shoddy construction is a pervasive problemthroughout China. Let’s hope that their missiles are equally shoddy.Xinhua and China Daily

Inventories of manufactured goods piling up in China

China’s economy has been slowing down since fall of last year, and newdata confirms the slowdown has been accelerating rapidly in recentmonths. Inventories of everything from steel and household applicansto cars and apartments have increased to a massive glut. The hugeinventories are caused by a kind of reverse supply and demandequation: Sales are falling by as much as 50% in some industries, butinstead of cutting back on production, the government is using fiscalpolicy to encourage increases in production and building of more andmore factories and apartment buildings. Car manufacturers, forexample, refuse to cut production, and are pressuring dealers toaccept delivery of so many cars that there’s no place to park them.At the same time, the government is carefully hiding the problem. ThePublic Security Bureau, for example, has halted the release of dataabout slumping car registrations. (This is reminiscent of China’sGreat Leap Forward in 1958. Mao Zedong dismantled the CentralStatistical Bureau, which was responsible or keeping track ofagricultural data. Mao was completely blindsided until it was toolate, and tens of thousands of people died of starvation.) CNBC / NY Times 

The China experience shows that “printing” lots of money does notresult in hyperinflation in a generational Crisis era, sincepeople and businesses hoard cash during this era, and refuseto spend or lend it.

Jean-Claude Juncker meets Antonis Samaras

Eurogroup finance committee chairman Jean-Claude Juncker metwith Greece’s prime minister Antonis Samaras on Thursday. Kathimerini

Juncker and Samaras

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