Word: surpluses
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...Crow About So much for the hen that lays the golden egg. The Chinese year of the chicken - which dawns this week - has brought hard times for vendors of the nation's New Year toy mascots. 2004's year of the monkey saw huge demand for toy simians. But surplus plastic roosters and terry-cloth chicks are still crowding store shelves in Beijing . Some blame the problem on the inadequate cuteness of domesticated fowl; others point to the fact that the Chinese word for chicken is slang for prostitute...
...even left invested to continue growing. By most estimates, if a personal account earned annualized investment gains of 3% (after inflation was factored in), it would produce roughly the same retirement income as Social Security provides under existing rules. Investment gains above that level would give you a surplus in your private account; smaller gains would leave you with less to live...
...past decade, according to a recent survey by the Ministry of Labor and Social Security. Factor in inflation over roughly the same period, and average pay in real terms has declined by as much as 30%. The reason: China's rise as a manufacturing power has contributed to a surplus of global production capacity for all kinds of goods, from sneakers to DVD players to plastic lawn chairs. With the price of raw materials rising and factory profit margins shrinking, blue-collar workers are at the losing end of a long chain of supply and demand...
...sounds pretty scary--except that it's not true. What will actually happen in 2018, according to the Social Security trustees who oversee the program, is that the money paid out in benefits will begin to exceed the amount collected in taxes. And since Social Security will run a surplus until then (and has been running one for some time), it has billions available that it can tap to fill the gap. Even under conservative estimates, the system as it stands will have enough money to pay all its promised benefits until 2042 and most of its obligations for decades...
...result one day could be a huge surplus of Chinese-made cars looking for markets elsewhere. Chery aims to lead the way. Americans in the 1980s turned up their noses at the ultracheap Yugo, which Bricklin introduced from Yugoslavia, and Chery still has to meet U.S. safety and emissions standards. The real threat will come from foreign makers in China with nowhere to sell their cars. "If they can compete on price, Ford and Nissan will likely start exporting" to America within a decade, predicts Eric Harwit, a professor at the University of Hawaii who researches China's auto industry...