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0 pointsfennecfoxen10y ago0 comments

This, incidentally, is why people in China riot about inflation from time to time: if you have to support yourself and several family members, you'd better have yourself a lot of savings, but it's really hard when your bank pays negative real interest rates. (And what's your alternative to the bank? Invest in the property bubble? Ha!)

Then the banks loan out this savings to the party's preferred business partners (still at negative real interest rates) which can be incredibly profitable (cheaper-than-free money will do that) and spend their wealth on a privileged few.

Some day it's all going to come crashing down (and if push comes to shove, the property rights of foreign investors will probably be pretty low on the priority list).

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hga10y ago

and if push comes to shove, the property rights of foreign investors will probably be pretty low on the priority list

Then I suppose it's good they don't let us invest very much in the country!

This makes it unlike e.g. Greece, where we're told there are a number of European banks outside with dangerous exposure, although there's been plenty of time to mitigate that. So conventional contagion might not be such a problem, I myself am worried about various goods and raw materials that the PRC has a current lock on. E.g. lots of pharmaceutical precursors.

molyss10y ago

I feel like there's 2 sides to the story : 1st, as you mentioned, external investors would have money in the country that they couldn't get back because of the low position on the priority list. On the other side, I feel like china investing in your business makes you own them money. And i their economy comes crashing down, what prevents them from asking for their money back, which you might not have in full, or that you need for planned investments. Is there anything I'm missing ?