Rising China Bests a Shrinking Japan

[Saltbag]

Wall Street Journal:

The Japanese government made official the long-expected flip Monday morning in Tokyo, reporting that the economy shrank at a 1.1% annual rate for the last three months of the year, a period when China's gross domestic product surged 9.8% from a year earlier. With those figures, Japan's full-year GDP was $5.47 trillion—about 7% smaller than the $5.88 trillion China reported in January.

[clearvision]

At the rate raw materials and fuel prices are increasing in price I wonder if the impact of "cheap" labor is going to start to have less impact, at least for consumer goods.