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Overproduction Swamps Smaller Chinese Cities, Revealing Depth of Crisis Beijing had hoped small cities like Suizhou would help drive the expansion of the middle class and sustain economic growth By James T. Areddy Updated Feb. 17, 2016 10:16 p.m. ET SUIZHOU, China--Even in China's remotest places, relentless overproduction—here it is mushrooms and cement trucks--is clouding the country's path to prosperity and jolting the global economy. When 48-year-old farmer Yang Qun began trading at Suizhou's bustling morning mushroom market a half decade ago, the fungus industry was expanding, even attracting a rural lending arm of British financial giant HSBC Holdings PLC....

In May 2009, four months into the Obama presidency, retail gasoline prices averaged $2.32 per gallon. Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA) wrote Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to express concern about the impact that the Administration’s budgeted changes in tax policy would have on the oil and gas industry. Secretary Geithner clearly laid out the Administration position in his letter of response (pdf link). That was then, this is now. In just three years’ time, retail gasoline prices are up 68%. $4.00+ gasoline prices loom as a key reelection vulnerability for the President; in response, the Administration’s rhetoric has shifted to “energy...

Economy Strains Under Weight of Unsold Items By Annys Shin Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, February 17, 2009; A01 The unsold cars and trucks piling up at dealerships and assembly lines as consumers cut back and auto companies scramble for federal aid are just one sign of a major problem hurting the economy and only likely to get worse. The world is suddenly awash in almost everything: flat-panel televisions, bulldozers, Barbie dolls, strip malls, Burberry stores. Japan yesterday said its economy shrank at an 12.7 percent annual pace in the last three months of 2008 as global demand evaporated for...

Chinese demand a wobbly bulwark By Robert M Cutler MONTREAL - China's economy requires a minimum annual growth rate of 8% to maintain production levels sufficient to prevent unemployment from increasing, according to a general consensus inside and outside the country. Until recently, collective wisdom held that such a level of growth was likely to be maintained through 2009, easing the threat of social unrest as migrants, newly qualified university students and less-skilled school-leavers struggle to find work, while cushioning the global impact of declining demand for industrial metals and related natural-resource commodities. No longer. China increasingly appears no more...

MORE than eight million litres of this season's production of Beaujolais wine is being turned into near-pure alcohol for use in disinfectants, cleaning products or fuel additives, as French vineyards face up to a massive overproduction crisis.A chronic wine glut, falling domestic consumption and fierce overseas competition have converged to create a wine crisis on an unprecedented scale. With "lakes" of unsold wine threatening to undermine prices, the European Union has resorted to paying vintners to destroy some of their stock each year, distilling billions of bottles of perfectly drinkable wine into pure alcohol. Sceptics say the measure, which cost...