Courtesy of: Visual Capitalist
No one knows if it’s a hand grenade or a nuclear warhead…
The ramp up in Chinese debt accumulation has been a leading concern of investors for years. The average total debt of emerging market economies is 175% of GDP, and skyrocketing corporate non-financial debt has launched China far beyond that number.
The real question is: by how far? Continue reading
There are increasing reports from credible sources that the Chinese economic miracle may be collapsing. This has enormous implications for the rest of the planet. To some, this may be simply a natural transition as the Chinese economy matures, as suggested in a report from Financial Times.
To others, this is the collapsing of a debt-induced bubble, the failure illustrated by an actual Ponzi scheme that recently unraveled. While not everyone agrees China is in trouble, there is increasing concern that things are getting out of control. Capital flows out of China have gotten substantially worse as those with money are attempting to get it out of China as quickly as they can. Continue reading
Earlier this month, Kyle Bass asked a funny question in a discussion with CNBC’s David Faber. To wit: “If some fund manager in Texas is saying that your currency is dramatically overvalued, you shouldn’t care on a $10 trillion economy with $34 trillion in your banks. I have, call it a billion – it’s so small it should be irrelevant and yet somehow it’s really relevant.”
Bass was referring to China’s penchant for firing off hilariously absurd “Op-Eds” in response to anyone who suggests that the country may indeed be experiencing the dreaded “hard landing” or that a much larger yuan devaluation is a virtual certainty. The People’s Daily literally laughed at George Soros when the aging billionaire said he was short Asian currencies in Davos. “Declaring war on China’s currency? Ha ha,” PD wrote. Chinese media also called Soros a “crocodile,” a “predator,” and said his yuan gambit “cannot possibly succeed.” Continue reading
Over the past year, we have frequently warned that the biggest financial risk (if not social, which in the form of soaring worker unrest is a far greater threat to Chinese civilization) threatening China, is its runaway non-performing loans, which at anywhere between 10 and 20% of total bank assets, mean that China is one chaotic default away from collapsing into the post “Minsky Moment” singlarity where it can no longer rollover its bad debt, leading to a debt supernova and full financial collapse. And as China’s total leverage keeps rising, and according to at least one estimate is now a gargantuan 350% of GDP (incidentally the same as the US), the threat of a rollover “glitch” gets exponentially greater. Continue reading
Global Geopolitics 