China

Overnight China released its latest monthly credit data which showed that even as China is trying to choke off its shadow banking sector, something we showed most recently last month when we discussed the biggest crash in net bond issuance on record, credit to the broader economy continues to flow, although it comes as M2 crashed to a new all time low and has prompted some nervous analysts to say that even this "crazy" loan creation number may not be enough.

Via Disobedient Media

At China's largest online retailer, TaoBao, customers can now buy literally everything from discounted groceries, apparel and pet food to defaulted loans on their favorite bankrupt steel company or that awesome condo complex in that unoccupied 'Ghost City' they've always adored. 

As an example, you could purchase this lovely snack(?)....

...or this portfolio of 118 non-performing loans from some companies in Yunnan province....

Authored by Valentin Schmid via The Epoch Times,

When the economy started to cool in the beginning of 2016, China opened up the debt spigots again to stimulate the economy. After the failed initiative with the stock market in 2015, Chinese central planners chose residential real estate again.

China has a peculiar habit of taking the latest and greatest financial innovation available, and then taking it too far. The latest example is the startup Sharing E Umbrella, which hoping to follow in the footsteps of successful bike-sharing startups, decided to - as the name implies - provide shareable imbrellas. There was just one problem: as the Shanghaiist writes only a few weeks after starting up operations in 11 cities across China, Sharing E Umbrella announced that it had lost almost all of its 300,000 umbrellas.