The Asian Dream/Nightmare - China's turn soon?

The Shanghai Composite Index has fallen more than 60 percent from its peak and the Hang Seng almost 40 percent. When an over-heated economy contracts, cracks soon appear. And a crash inevitably follows тАФ normally led by an over-extended banking sector. The latest economic miracle may well follow earlier precedents: Japan in the 1980s; the Asian tigers of the early 1990s; and the US economy of the 1920s

I have several times attended presentations by senior officials of the PRC, one a member of the standing committee of the People's Congress where the new trajectory economics were used to explain why the middle kingdom would shortly intercede once again between heaven and earth. I was often tempted to ask why Western cyclical economics were no longer a basis for explanation or prediction but one was mindful that the speaker's minders cameras might actually be guns.

Bubbles have a tendency to burst. The bigger the bubble the wetter they get.

I have several times attended presentations by senior officials of the PRC, one a member of the standing committee of the People's Congress where the new trajectory economics were used to explain why the middle kingdom would shortly intercede once again between heaven and earth. I was often tempted to ask why Western cyclical economics were no longer a basis for explanation or prediction but one was mindful that the speaker's minders cameras might actually be guns.

Bubbles have a tendency to burst. The bigger the bubble the wetter they get.


?

Would it help if I said the "Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China".

The Emperors of China believed their Kingdom, the Middle Kingdom, was civilised to talk to the Gods and exlain the wishes of the Gods to the Barbarians. (Some say they discovered America too).

I've become more than a little tired of hearing the Chinese explain the predicted never ending growth of their economy. Limiting factors are simply ignored.

I have been in an elevator in Washington in which I believe a PRC minder was holding a gun disguised as a camera. He didn't look like a photographer.

If the Chinese economic bubble is bursting the flooding is going to be widespread.

Which reminds me to go and read some of the excellent poetry of William McGonagall.