To fully understand what China is doing and why, we must first understand the scope of the problem or what they are trying to contain. But as is the case with any bubble, Chinese bubble is uncontainable. The problem is, we have never seen the extent of such a miss allocation before. Here is what China is dealing with…..
- Massive stock market bubble.
- Collapsing trade data.
- Chinese corporate borrowers owed $14.2 trillion at the end of 2013 Vs $13.1 trillion owed by U.S. corporations.
- This means that as much as 10 percent of global corporate debt is exposed to the risk of a contraction in China’s informal banking sector.
- Cash flows and leverage at Chinese corporations are the worst among global peers, having deteriorated from being the best in 2009.
As I have mentioned in the past, most of China’s economic growth over the last 5-6 years has been financed by massive credit expansion. The likes of which we have never seen before. The result?
- $21 Trillion Debt Mountain. Roughly the same size as the entire US Banking Sector. It took the US 220 years to get to that number, it took China just 5 years of explosive credit growth.
- $6 Trillion In Shadow Banking. Actually, no one knows how large this number is. I have read good data/reports putting this number at $10-15 Trillion range.
- Empty cities, shopping centers, massive speculative bubble in real estate, built out infrastructure, rising cost of labor and export driven economy.
How much longer can this go on? Well, that’s a Trillion dollar question…..or a $40 Trillion dollar question. Apparently, it is already unraveling. Either way, one thing is for sure, this will not end well nor will it end in an orderly fashion.
Part 2 Tomorrow…..
