China’s economy hits the wall

FT ^ | 12/15/08 | Gideon Rachman

[TigerLikesRooster]

Ping!

[Flavius]

s/t like this started conflicts major ones like the 39’s give people something else to worry about

[the invisib1e hand]

wuddaya mean, it’s not growing by 25% a quarter no more?

[Travis McGee]

I see 50 million “excess” Chinese males marching across Asia to take what they need.

[TigerLikesRooster]

War is bad enough. Hope it is not coupled with prolonged crop failure or pandemic.

[Thunder90]

I wonder if China and Russia will go into a militaristic mode to deal with this. This happened in the past with other recessions/depressions, and massive wars happened as a result.

[Thunder90]

I see countries like China, Russia (and its Soviet satellites), and others embracing their communist past and going very militaristic in the very near future.

[Cicero]

I’ve been predicting this for some time. The Chinese economy is tremendously distorted, as all central command economies are. There was admittedly at least $500 billion in bad loans from the government central bank—probably closer to $1 trillion if the truth were known. There has been zero effort to clean up pollution, which is worse that it was in East Germany before the Berlin Wall fell. And Chairman Mao pretty much destroyed the traditional Chinese culture that had stabilized the country in the past.

That was before the economic tsunami hit. With their overseas customers drying up, what will China do now? My guess is that we’ll see the country break up, as it did sometimes in the past when the emperors grew weak.

[eyedigress]

According to recent meetings my company is still willing to go big-time into China next year. My personal responsibility will double. We’ll see.

[Thumper1960]

I see 50 million Chinese corpses rotting in the sun should they be so foolish.

In fact, I can really see uncounted numbers of rotting Chinese leaders corpses when the peasantry is no longer fooled by the Marxist line.

[Zhang Fei]

Non-subscribers, read the whole article here.

[TigerLikesRooster]

The Chinese economy is tremendously distorted, as all central command economies are. There was admittedly at least $500 billion in bad loans from the government central bank—probably closer to $1 trillion if the truth were known.

Yeah, we know that sort of financial problems, however catastrophic it is, would not make its full impact until economy goes south, based on what has transpired in U.S. economy for last several years. Chinese and U.S. economies have been tied up closely. If one goes down, the other, too. It was not a healthy coupling, though. It is ending.

[Army Air Corps]

That, frankly, worries me far more than any economic pitfalls. Not so much for us as much as for China’s neighbours. If China decides to go on an “adventure”, millions could perish in Asia.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Are you working for oil or mining company?

[Eagles6]

"I see 50 million “excess” Chinese males marching across Asia to take what they need."

'Zactly. There are not enough wives for them anyhow. I could also see them in sudan and zimbabwe which "zero" would get us into in a heartbeat.

[Army Air Corps]

Possibly. It would be logistically easier for them to pick more local fights like SE Asia. Possibly a clash with India or a move to take bits of Siberia. Who knows? I just sense some baaaaad mogambo comin’.

[unkus]

I could see them marching into the Middle East.

[eyedigress]

We are in the management of industrial power consumption.

[TigerLikesRooster]

That makes sense. They have real problem with that.