Here comes the China liquidity post-sugar high crash. In comments published tomorrow (no, not an Art Cashin brain teaser), a senior government economist said that surging money supply is leading to inflation. Yet, since in China apparently you can be half pregnant (preferably with one and a half boys), the recommendation from the government is to increase reserve requirements instead of interest rates. The implication is that it is only a matter of time before both end up getting hiked.

Market News reports that National Bureau of [True and Unmanipulated] Statistics chief economist Yao Jingyuan said "Money supply is too big and that's leading to excess liquidity." Yet Yao Jing said he would "prefer reserve hikes to rate hikes because rate hikes could cause hot money to flow back."

 

 

Consumer price inflation ticked up to 1.9% y/y in December, only the second month since the outbreak of the financial crisis that consumer prices have been in positive territory.

The People's Bank of China raised the reserve requirement on January 18, the first time since June 2008 that it has done so, in response to the massive volume of credit extended by banks in the opening weeks of the year.

Another reserve hike is certainly imminent, very likely soon to be followed by an interest rate increase as well. Yet look for the dollar peg to continue until the bitter end: ironically, the Yuan lost value on Monday, as China set the parity from 6.8272 to 6.8273.

And as if this was not disturbing enough, in other news, the TimesOnline reports that "more than half of Chinese people questioned in a poll believe China and America are heading for a new "cold war." 

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