the_unlettered_tellurian

An short article titled Experts Divided Over China’s Post-Olympic Hangover has just appeared in The Korea Times. Key points in the article are listed below…

1. China is bound to suffer the post-Olympic “valley effect”; what is important is how long the slowdown will last.
2. The Chinese government has been taking some steps (like increasing garment export tax rebates) to boost confidence.
3. Moderate pullback in the Chinese stock markets are good for the country in the long run.
4. Beijing accounts for just 4% of China’s GDP. So any direct “Olympic Hangover” in the Chinese capital can be offset by overall growth in other parts of the country.
5. Earlier host cities like Seoul, Barcelona, and Sydney were bigger in proportion to their national economies resulting in bigger setbacks to their nations’ economies after the Olympics.

Activity on the Olympic Bubble seems to be picking up again. I came across this post on Seeking Alpha that stresses that the Chinese Olympic Bubble is the next “true” bubble after the Nasdaq Tech bubble and the Japan Nikkei Bubble.

Talking about those two bubbles, the author says “Valuation was in the stratosphere. Participants were fully convinced on the ideas of the Technology Miracle and Japanese Miracle respectively. And resources were severely misallocated.”

He thinks the same is happening in China now “Here we have all of the ingredients for a classic bubble – massive hysteria on faulty facts.”

Don’t forget to go through the comments on the post… they are as interesting (if not more) as the post itself.

Your might also be interested in what the pro-China folk had to say (back in 2007, kind of in response to Alan Greenspan’s comment) about the possibility of a post-olympic crash in this post I made earlier.

This New York Times graphic gives an unique perspective on the percentage of income spent by Americans on fuel across various counties.

Titled The Varying Impact of Gas Prices it says that the counties where motorists spend the highest percentage of their income on gasoline tend to be in poor, rural areas.

Found this page that refreshes itself every 10 seconds showing a new Olympic trivia.

I found the list a bit sparse and repetitive… but the info is interesting, so I have listed below most of what I could get out from the site after about 10 minutes of 10 sec refreshes.

1. Communist China entered its first games in 1984-Los Angeles.
2. The idea of an Olympic Flame burning from the start of the games to the closing was first introduced at the 1928 Amsterdam games.
3. Who won the first women’s Olympic marathon? Joan Benoit in Los Angeles in 1984
4. Aleksandr Ditiatin of the Soviet Union earned 8 Gold medals in gymnastics at the 1980-Moscow games.
5. The first games to be held in the southern hemisphere were the 1956 Melbourne Australia games.
6. American Mildred “Babe” Didriksen won medals in high-jumping, hurdling, and the javelin in 1932-Los Angeles. She is the only athlete to ever medal in all three events.
7. Aleksandr Ditiatin of the Soviet Union earned 8 Gold medals in gymnastics at the 1980-Moscow games.
8. Hungarian Aladar Gerevich won medals in 6 consecutive Olympic games.
9. More athletes than spectators attended the 1900-Paris Games.
10. Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci scored perfect 10’s seven times at the 1976-Montreal games.
11. Ethiopian marathoner Abebe Bikila was the first man to successfully defend the marathon title. (1960 and 1964). He only wore shoes for the second victory.
12. Holland’s “Fanny” Blankers-Koen won 4 gold medals in track and field at the 1948 London Games. Fanny was 30 years old and the mother of 2 at the time.
13. Ice hockey made its first appearance at the 1920 Antwerp Games.
14. In 1972 American Frank Shorter pulled the US into the running boom by winning the gold medal in the marathon at the Munich Olympics. Where was Shorter born? Munich
15. The first Latin American host for the Olympic games was Mexico City, Mexico in 1968.
16. Emil Zatopek of Chechoslovakia is the only man to win gold metals in the 5000 meters, the 10,000 meters, and the marathon in the same Olympiad. What an accomplishment!
17. Hungarian Aladar Gerevich won medals in 6 consecutive Olympic games.
18. The idea of an Olympic Flame burning from the start of the games to the closing was first introduced at the 1928 Amsterdam games.
19. The first games to be televised were the 1936 Berlin Games.

I have not verified any of these trivia… have just put them down as they appear on that page.