2015-08-20forbes.com

At a superficial level, the 2008 crash had it all: the index quadrupled in one year only to fall right back down over the following year. And yet it didn't lead to a sustained economic slump, because one of the key ingredients of such a slump was absent: there had not been an explosion of private debt. While the Chinese economy had been sundering along at over 8% growth per year, private debt was effectively constant at 100% of GDP.

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As I have argued for a decade now, crises begin when the rate of growth of credit slows down in heavily indebted countries. China was not heavily indebted in 2008, which is why it could take the credit growth path out of the Global Financial Crisis. But now it is more heavily indebted than America was when its crisis began--even relying on official statistics which undoubtedly understate the real situation--and the momentum of debt may well carry it past the peak level reached by Japan after its Bubble Economy collapsed in the early 1990s



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