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I have to say I am quite worried about China's economy if I'm honest. Everytime you build a big black box that sucks in and spews money but nobody is entirely s
by dageshi 16y ago
I have to say I am quite worried about China's economy if I'm honest. Everytime you build a big black box that sucks in and spews money but nobody is entirely sure how it works (think American mortgage market/banking system circa 2008) and anytime you try and question why it works your told to shut up because you just don't "understand the new way" I think you should be deeply suspicious. China is in most respects one giant black box. My main concern is that they've done a fairly similar thing to what Britain did back around 2000. When the US hit a recession from the .com bust we responded by opening up the credit taps and made doing anything and everything on cheap credit very easy. We avoided recession but in doing so we caused one hell of a banking/housing/credit bubble ten years later. I suspect the chinese have unfortunately done the same, they've opened up the credit taps hugely in order to glide through the slowdown in the west, but with that much credit sloshing around there will always be problems. I think those problems are China's regional and local governments, who more or less run their own little fiefdoms and have been financing much of their operations from land sales and off balance sheet investments vehicles...
- vorg 16y agoWhenever I walk into a hole-in-the-wall shop here in China on a weekday, the PC screens are alight with share trading graphs. As they said 10 years ago in the US, "when the taxi drivers are giving share tips, it's time to get out." Both the Chinese housing and stock markets could blow at anytime, and the Chinese don't have the institutional memory to deal with it.
- dageshi 16y agoAnd ironically this is around the time of the "new leader" coming to the fore. Since the last two were preordained by Deng Xiaoping and this one won't be I expect they will try very hard to paper over any cracks in order to maintain an orderly succession. I do not like that particular mix of politics/economics all coming together in one time period.