Chinese home prices are soaring. In fact, according to the latest data, the bubble among China's top, or "Tier 1" cities has never been bigger entirely at the expense of all other cities.
And while this appears at first glance a positive, for central-planners and leveraged speculators, we wondered what the man on the street of Beijing thought of it.
Submitted by David Stockman via Contra Corner blog,
The desperate suzerains of the Red Ponzi are incorrigible. There appears to be no insult to economic rationality that they will not attempt in order to perpetuate their power, privileges and rule.
So now comes the most preposterous gambit yet. Namely, a veritable tsunami of state handouts to foster, yes, capitalist entrepreneurs!
As the world came to depend increasingly on China for growth in the wake of the financial crisis, scrutiny around the economic numbers emanating from Beijing began to build.
Authored by Steve H. Hanke of The Johns Hopkins University. Follow him on Twitter @Steve_Hanke.
Beijing can be big and bold when it meets reality. Remember when Zhu Rongji, China’s former economic tsar, gave 30 million workers pink slips, privatized hundreds of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and swept many others into the dust bin?
Back in early 2014, we warned that the Chinese housing bubble has burst, promptly followed by official confirmation by China's National Bureau of Statistics which showed that in the subsequent several months Chinese home prices and transactions plunged. Since then, however, China - whose economy has been on a steep downward spiral - has desperately scrambled to reflate this most important to its economy bubble, because as a reminder in China three quarters of all household assets are in Real Estate...