China Holds Tons of US Debt and They Have all the Vegetables

Every day brings more amazing news and pictures from the Phoenix Mars Lander. Hard to believe we can send a robot that far out into space and land it within 20 meters of where it was meant to land but we still cannot figure out that you cannot spend more than you make for long. Humans are a strange species indeed. In all the buzz of the new lander, do not forget the two little rover robots Spirit and Opportunity that are still rolling around Mars gathering data long after they should have ceased to function.

The Markets Need Daily Reassurance and Explanations To Function
It started with the FED way back in time when they started their BSC bail rigging followed by the lending of cash to banks of all kinds. As if as sea of cash swapped for toxic mortgage paper was not enough, no attacks are being levied at the evil of high oil prices.

Things are so bad right now that daily explanations of data and reassurance on a constant basis seems to be the only way to keep the markets from imploding. That's bullish, right?

Today there was a reported drop in oil inventory numbers that was significant in size while the expectation was for a slight increase. Of course, we can't have a panic so we get the following snippet from this AP story( http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080529/oil_prices.html):

"In its weekly inventory report, the department's Energy Information Administration said crude oil inventories fell 8.8 million barrels last week, while gasoline supplies fell 3.2 million barrels. Analysts surveyed by energy research firm Platts had expected slight increases in supplies of both.
But the EIA also offered a rare explanatory note on the Gulf Coast tanker problems. Gulf ports have closed many times in recent months due to fog, said Phil Flynn, an analyst at Alaron Trading Corp. in Chicago."

Got that? The huge drops were due to recurring fog! Why not issue fog alerts ahead of time? Can we expect the fog to "moderate over the coming quarters" or is it here to stay? Will there be fog futures? Who knows. What I do know is that when every piece of good news needs to be pumped hard and every piece of bad news has to be explained away, delusion is running high. That means that right now risk is high. Very high. Higher than Jeff Spicoli.

China Holds Tons of US Debt and They Have all the Vegetables
We all know the deal. China is sitting on so much US debt that they cannot reasonably expect to ever get paid back. HaHa! I have written before that the price of this debt being called will one day cost the US by having to agree to a China invasion/takeover of Taiwan at some point. Sorry guys!

While I was looking into what kinds of things to plant in the garden, I kept coming across the same data tidbit; China produces most of the vegetables that are eaten worldwide. Think about that for a moment. Look at this list of Chinese production (all from 2005 stats on Wiki):

• Carrots and Turnips - China accounted for at least one third of the global output
• Tomato - 125 million tonnes of tomatoes were produced in the world in 2005, with China, the largest producer, accounting for about one-fourth of the global output
• Lettuce - China is largest world producer
• Potato - China accounted for one-fourth of the global output
• Cucumber - China produced at least 60% of the global output of cucumber

I was too freaked out to research any more. As you can clearly see, China holds the most US debt and they also hold all the vegetables! I would rather have the veggies than the debt, but that is just me.

What does this mean? Maybe nothing at all. China has the most people so it makes sense that they produce tons of well, produce. Or maybe it is a good spot to be in to hold a bunch of debt and have a strangle-hold on veggie production. Who can say. One can guess though.

Have a good night.