China’s “Terminal Phase” of Credit Bubble Excess

" It’s my view that 2009 marked the onset of China’s “terminal phase” of Credit Bubble excess. The China Bubble is enormous and it is historic. It’s poised to make Japan’s late-eighties Bubble era appear rather petite - and to perhaps even rival the scope of the U.S. Credit Bubble. Importantly, “terminal” phases of excess notoriously create acute financial and economic fragilities. They tend to foment perilous asset market distortions; distribute wealth poorly/inequitably; foster systemic malinvestment and structural impairment; and create a financial/economic structure dependent upon unrelenting Credit expansion and speculation. Only determined policymaking – with a willingness to pierce Bubbles and live with the consequences – can stem what evolves into powerful Bubble momentum and an expanding constituency supporting uninterrupted monetary accommodation."