In any case, the editors at Wall Street Journal throw some cold water on the Chinese economic system. See, "China's Hard Landing":
China is a poster child for the Austrian school of economics' theory of the business cycle. After undertaking the biggest stimulus program the world has ever seen in response to the global financial crisis, the country is drowning in unproductive investments financed with credit.
The government spent 15% of GDP largely on public works projects in inland regions, financed with loans from the state-owned banks. Investment as a share of GDP soared to 48.5% in 2010, and the M2 measure of money supply ballooned to 140% that of the U.S.
Now comes the hangover. The public works projects are winding down, unleashing a wave of unemployment and an uptick in social unrest. The banks' nonperforming loans are rising, and local governments are insolvent. The country is littered with luxurious county government offices, ghost cities of empty apartment blocks, unsafe high-speed rail lines and crumbling highways to nowhere.
One effect of negative real interest rates was a nationwide bubble in private housing, with the average price of an urban apartment reaching eight times the average annual income. Real estate is the most popular investment for the wealthy, according to a central bank survey in September. Millions of luxury apartments are vacant, even as there is a shortage of affordable housing for the poor....
There is no easy way to avoid the bust that is coming. The silver lining is that China's increasingly state-led growth model will be discredited, and a debate will begin on restarting the reforms that stalled in the mid-2000s. A financial sector that allocates credit based on politics rather than price signals led China into this mess. Popular pressure to dismantle crony capitalism is building, and the Communist Party would be wise to get in front of it while it can.
1 comments:
A glimpse of our future, post-Porkulus? So much for a recovery.
The thing is, hitting a wall when it comes to growth was/is inevitable in a system where individual liberty is subordinated to the diktats of the State.
The ability of the few at the top to continue progress is exhausted, while the ability of hundreds of millions of people to do so remains untapped ... because they have no incentive to productively engage that power in ways that go beyond the limits of the few at the top.
Until China secures the liberty and ability to pursue happiness of all her people -- even at the expense of keeping "order" -- this wall will remain insurmountable.
But once she moves to free her people -- Katie-bar-the-door, for they will leave us in the dust of economic mediocrity, having become complacent in securing our own future through belief in our elites' Biggest Lie of All:
All you need to do is show up for work or go to school; we have experts who have the answers to your housing needs, your health care needs, your financial needs … no need to plan for your future or actively manage your career, since we can do a better job than you can; just trust us to solve those problems FOR you.
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