The China Bubble By William CateBubbles are good speculations. They are terrible long-term investments. If you sold your DotCom shares by March 2000, you did well. If you still own those shares, you are reading this article from
Poor House. If you cash out of
PRC before
Bubble bursts, you can watch
PRC economic failure from a safe haven. If you ride it to
end, you could find yourself little better off than many people in North Korea today.
Bubbles develop because there is a gulf between investor expectation and reality. As more investor lemmings jump into
investment,
gulf grows. Business decisions are made on perception. In time,
perception gulf is recognized and
bubble bursts. Currently,
American Media is questioning
perception gulf in U.S. Real Estate. In due course,
American Real Estate Bubble will burst. Eventually, economic reality will overtake
Chinese Economic illusion. You don't want to be invested or living in
PRC when this happens.
The People's Republic of China (PRC) phenomenal economic growth of
past decade came as a byproduct of an unlikely marriage between Capitalism and Maoist Communism. China's economy is based upon an "Export to
West" strategy. However, both
European Union and
United States are objecting to
tactics used to create a massive favorable PRC trade balance. This trade-based conflict of interest can only get worse over
next few years. As it grows worse,
PRC favorable trade balance will contract. In turn, this contraction will slowly reverse
PRC's economic growth curve.
Wedding Capitalism to Communism is dangerous. The expectation of Communism is that
wealth created by Capitalism will be equally distributed to
masses. The expectation of Capitalism is those who make
money will keep
money. The Beijing Government cannot distribute sufficient wealth to
countryside. The Government risks rebellion. Distributing
Capitalist wealth evenly in any country offers little financial benefit to
majority of citizens in that country. This share
wealth axiom applies equally to
United States as it does to
UK or PRC. So,
peasants will eventually conclude that Beijing has failed in keeping
promise of Communism. The peasants won't have two cars in every garage and a chicken in every pot. The reason is there aren't enough cars or chickens to meet
peasants' expectations.
China's development of hydroelectric energy has already reduced some major rivers to a dribble. The resulting reservoirs flood millions of hectares of peasant farmland. Beijing's environmental policies are based upon development at any cost. Eventually,
bill for those costs will become due. It can't be paid.