Wall Street Journal, May 1, 2013

choi

(1) James Marson and Joe Parkinson, In Reversal, Neighbors Squeeze Russia Over Natural-Gas Prices. (front page)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB ... 14912310902382.html

Quote:
(a) "Europe is Gazprom's most lucrative market. The company supplies about one-quarter of the European Union's natural gas via a network of pipelines. Gazprom said Tuesday its net profit declined by $6.5 billion, or 15%, in 2012, as sales to the EU fell by about 9%.

(b) "In January 2009, Gazprom again cut gas flows to Ukraine, the main transit route to EU nations, amid squabbles over contract terms. * * * At around that time, the ground began shifting in the energy world as the effects of surging shale-gas production in the US rippled around the world. By 2010, the US unexpectedly had supplanted Russia as the world's largest gas producer.

"Supplies of liquefied natural gas—supercooled and shipped by tanker—that had been earmarked for export to the US were redirected to Europe. Qatar, the world's largest exporter of liquefied natural gas, quadrupled its share of EU imports between 2008 and 2011, to more than one-tenth of supplies, EU data indicates. Russia's share of the EU import market dropped over the same period.

"Amid plentiful supply and weak demand for gas, the price on the freely traded spot market plunged. Gazprom continued to peg its gas rates to the stubbornly high price of oil. Norway's Statoil was more flexible and saw its gas sales surge last year at Gazprom's expense.

"In the US, power companies began shifting from coal to cheap gas. As a result, more US coal was shipped to Europe, where power companies switched from expensive gas to coal, eating into demand for Russian gas.

(c) Before shale gas exploration, "Poland, for example, was saddled with an unfavorable contract with Gazprom. * * * Since then, Poland found it could be sitting on the largest shale-gas reserves in Europe and set about finding ways to get it out of the ground.

My comment: Poor Russia, which is being adversely affected by natural gas boom in US (which China has, since 2008, derided as in decline).

choi

(2) Charles Wolf Jr, A Truly Great Leap Forward; By the early 1980s, self-employed barbers and street vendors in China earned more than surgeons and nuclear scientists.
(book review on Ronald Coarse and NBing Wang, How China Became Capitalist. Palgrave Macmillan, 2013)

Quote:

"But as the authors demonstrate, China's dramatic economic growth over the past three decades hasn't been a top-down process engineered by party leaders in Beijing. Instead, China's rise has been a bottom-up process driven by what the authors call the 'four marginal revolutions.'

"The Communist Party's role in bringing this to pass, the authors say, consisted mainly in getting out of the way. Messrs Coase and Wang [book authors] conclude that 'the gradual withdrawal of government from the economy, rather than the strength or omnipresence of the political leadership . . . explains the success.'

My comment:
(a) This book--more accurately, the book review--talks about economic reform of late 1970s and early 1980s, that we are familiar with. The reform can not be replicated elsewhere (there are few communist regimes nowadays), or serve as guidance to China itself (those dates were far behind China).
(b) Ning WANG  王 宁/ Chinese Language Flagship Program, Arizona State University 亞利桑那州立大學 中文領航項目, undated.
http://chineseflagship.asu.edu/p ... -%E7%8E%8B%E5%AE%81

Arizona State University
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_State_University
(Established 1885; Location  Phoenix metropolitan area)
(c) household responsibility system  家庭联产承包责任制
(d) "'individual economy'—'a euphemism for private economy'"
个体经济

choi

(3) Edward Niedermeyer, Welcome to General Tso's Motors; Long an important growth market, China is becoming GM's global export base. (op-ed)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB ... 51410328454302.html

Quote:

"At last week's Shanghai Auto Show, GM announced it would spend $11 billion on new production facilities in China by 2016, creating some 6,000 new jobs there. By contrast, GM has invested only $8.5 billion in US operations since its 2009 bankruptcy, and since 2005 the number of workers it employs in North America has fallen by 76,000, according to the industry publication Automotive News.

"According to statements to the press made by company officials at the Shanghai Auto Show, GM is targeting 100,000-plus exports of Chinese-made cars this year, a record

"GM China President Bob Socia says that Americans 'could very well' soon find Chinese-made GM cars on showroom floors.

"Currently America is a net auto exporter to China * * * the U.S. is a net exporter only because Japanese, German and Korean auto makers with plants in the American Midwest and South are delivering units abroad. * * * even as 'domestics' 國內公司 like GM move toward Chinese imports.

My comment: Rather than praising China's economic might, the essay argues, sardonically, that having received US bailout, GM is shifting its vehicle production to China, from which to export vehicles back to US.

choi

(4) Kathy Chu, Not Made in China; As labior costs keep rising, more factories flee to Vietnam and India.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB ... 53073103566416.html

Note:
(a) Stanley SZETO  司徒 志仁, chairman and CEO of Lever Style Inc  利华成衣集团
http://www.leverstyle.com/aboutus/index.htm
(b)
(i) Crocs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocs
(founded in 2002 by three friends -- Scott Seamans, Lyndon "Duke" Hanson, and George Boedecker, Jr; Headquarters        Niwot [in Bulder County], Colorado)
(ii) crocs. undated
http://company.crocs.com/brands/crocs/
("The company was given the name Crocs™ after the multi-environment, amphibious nature of Crocodiles")