by Jeffrey P. Snider
Alhambra Partners
Industrial production for the combined January/February period in China fell to just 5.4%, matching the lowest growth rate of the past fourteen years. Only the January/February 2002 IP rate was lower, but that was a single data point giving way to the rising financialization of the late eurodollar period. In 2016, these decelerations are commonplace, determined, and have no end in sight. At 5.4%, industrial production matches China’s worst level of the Great Recession, that of November 2008.