China could soon overtake Japan as the world’s second largest economy. Full story here

This comes as no surprise to me thanks to the work of the AMAZING anonymous artist at my office, previously exhibited in News ARTicles here and here. This artist had purposefully left soy milk to rot in our fridge to represent Japan (soy loving country) and its decaying politics as the milk was timed to go off just as the Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama was forced to resign.

I had then mistakenly interpreted the new fridge as possibly the new Japanese cabinet of Naoto Kan. However I recently realised it represented the looming economy of China as it began to emerge as a serious contender for Japan’s number 2 position. The growing popularity of the new fridge as it filled up with all manner of lunches and milk for the coffee has mirrored China’s phenomenal growth rates.

Japan's Neighbour China Close Rival In World Economic Standing

Some of the space that was being rapidly filled up, however, was with cakes for employee birthdays or Wednesday Cake Club. This indicated, of course, the centrally planned economy of China and how a great deal of its growth came artificially from government stimulus programs rather than organic business. How would China/the fridge fare once these stimulus measures were unwound/the birthday season died down?

What resulted, we now know, was the worldwide headlines today of the second quarter results that showed a surprise  slowing in China’s economy… also the fridge looked markedly bare today. But is this a bad thing? David Cohen and Maya Sen, analysts at Action Economics, said the moderation in GDP growth reflected government efforts to avoid overheating. David clearly understands that an overworked fridge can cause the motor to overheat and break down.

There had been warnings of late that China’s rapid growth needed to pay attention to the lessons of Japan’s economy and avoid a hard fall. Or rather, China’s Premier Wen Jiabao needed to reflect on the fridge that was so successful and so overpacked that nobody had noticed the soy milk sitting at the back and expiring rapidly. Wen seemed uninterested in my email warnings about this but luckily I do not give up that easily. To aid China I took my old tomatoes out of the new fridge and moved the mayonnaise I had put in there to the fridge door. This lessened fridge clutter/economic pressure substantially. I also purchased a FANCY jar of pesto and wholemeal wraps, indicating the recent wage rises and increased standard of living for the Chinese people also affecting economic growth.

So, in conclusion, I think that China’s slow growth announcement today is not only nothing to worry about but is actually good news as the increased space means I can now bring bulk yoghurt packets to work. Well done Chinese finance ministers!

One more point… Richard Fairgrieve of Blackfiars Asset Management said today on Bloombergs Countdown that for investors China still remains a bit risky. He may here be referring to the frozen millk incident but I feel it is my duty, on China’s behalf, to point out that  I have since then experienced nothing but exemplary service from the fridge. The only risk I see now is from some ham I ate today that was within expirary and looked delicious but I soon found it smelt funny and was sadly lacking in flavour (just like The Agricultural Bank of China’s highly anticipated listing on the stock exchange yesterday which resulted in disappointing results). However, should this stomach investment reap poor results/salmanella, I feel this cannot all be blamed on the market/fridge and I as an investor/tight-arse-who-won’t-go-out-and-buy-new-meat must be held partly responsible.

NB:: Because of China’s rigid control of media within the country, I was unable to get a photo of the insides of both fridges to show the discrepancies in food layout. I will try again tomorrow to get this insider info.