Backtrackin' with Deng Xiaoping

A quick refresh on the precepts of Chinese State Capitalism for anyone really taken aback by China's interest rate move today:

Economic planning is not tantamount to socialism, because economic planning is also practiced in capitalist countries

The market economy is not tantamount to capitalism, because a socialist country can also have a market economy.

Both economic planning and the market economy are economic means.

The essence of socialism is to emancipate and develop the productive forces, destroy exploitation, eliminate polarization, and attain common prosperity in the end.

Deng Xiaoping, 1987

Burger View of the Currency War

I have had burgers on my mind since watching Adam envelop some kind of juicy, spice bomb burger at Super Pan this afternoon.  A perfect day for the latest installment of The Economist's Big Mac Index.

James Fallows on the RMB

After the Obama Administration avoided declaring China a "currency manipulator" this spring, the Chinese government let the RMB start appreciating again. This was assumed to be a pre-greased understanding: as long as the Chinese government wasn't forced to "knuckle under" to foreign pressure, it could start moving in the right direction. Then, after a very short time, the appreciation stopped -- this chart shows the movement over the past year:


What we're seeing here: the essentially frozen exchange rate until June of this year, then the brief strengthening of the RMB's value through June and until early July -- and then the reverse trend, through much of the summer, of the RMB weakening again against the dollar. Finally, starting about a month ago, the Chinese government let the RMB's value starting rising once more.

On the RMB