SHANGHAI — James S. Chanos built one of the largest fortunes on Wall Street by foreseeing the collapse of Enron and other highflying companies whose stories were too good to be true.
Now Mr. Chanos, a wealthy hedge fund investor, is working to bust the myth of the biggest conglomerate of all: China Inc.
As most of the world bets on China to help lift the global economy out of recession, Mr. Chanos is warning that China’s hyperstimulated economy is headed for a crash, rather than the sustained boom that most economists predict. Its surging real estate sector, buoyed by a flood of speculative capital, looks like “Dubai times 1,000 — or worse,” he frets. He even suspects that Beijing is cooking its books, faking, among other things, its eye-popping growth rates of more than 8 percent.
“Bubbles are best identified by credit excesses, not valuation excesses,” he said in a recent appearance on CNBC. “And there’s no bigger credit excess than in China.”… continue here.>>
China
by ilene - January 7th, 2010 11:19 pm
So is China the next best thing since sliced bread, or another bubble in the baking?
Contrarian Investor Sees Economic Crash in China
By DAVID BARBOZA, NY Times
See also
Zero Hedge’s China Begins Liquidity Tightening, As Bubble Threat Looms
While the domestic money printing syndicate refuses to accept the glaring reality that endless money printing causes unavoidable hyperinflation (the only question being when), China has decided it is time to start closing the spigot. Bloomberg reports that, "China’s central bank began to roll back its monetary stimulus for an economy poised to become the world’s second-biggest this year, seeking to reduce the danger of asset-price inflation after a record surge in credit. The People’s Bank of China yesterday sold three-month bills at a higher interest rate for the first time in 19 weeks." Ah the benefits of a planned economy: controlling the supply and the demand at the same time. And further, being pegged to the dollar, China receives all the secondary benefits of the Chairman’s endless dollar printing. Ain’t life grand in Beijing…
“It’s a signal toward the commercial banks, because the commercial banks allocate their lending at the