Quake3World

I visited China at the time and witnessed mobs of poor migrant workers packing all their possessions, including infants, on their backs and heading back to their villages. It was alarming for the government, and threatened to smash the implicit contract between the ruling Communist Party and Chinese people - namely, that they give up their democratic rights in order to become richer.

So with encouragement from the US government (we interviewed the then US Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson), the Chinese government unleashed a stimulus programme of mammoth scale: £400bn of direct government spending, and an instruction to the state-owned banks to "open their wallets" and lend as if there were no tomorrow.

What is more, the current building splurge so enriches many thousands of communist officials, from a system of institutionalised kickbacks, that there are concerns about the ability of the central government to force the changes through.

There are no exceptions to the lessons of financial history: lending at that rate leads to debtors unable to meet their obligations, and to large losses for creditors; the question is not whether this will happen but when, and on what scale.

scared? wrote:We are fucked... Well... More like... Y'all are fucked... thankfully my wife is employed in a recession proof industry...

Good luck poorons...