The basic outcome of that article is that any country is bankrupt on paper if you apply the right criteria and filter them through some historical information super-imposed onto what may or may not be happening now.
The fact they picked China gives it a high propaganda rating in my eyes.
weego: excellent point! The countries with the worse problems (at least that will also badly effect the rest the world) are the UK and the USA. In making predictions we should be informed by chaos theory: things are basically unpredictable because small events can have such large unexpected consequences. That said, I expect the UK to pop sometime in the next several years and then my country to pop sometime after that.
We _know_ that the UK, and while it isn't within my direct sphere of knoweldge, it seems common knoweldge the US too are in a fairly dire financial situation, though their AAA credit rating and various other orchestrated advantages cover that for them (oil bought in Dollars for example). Also we can see that plenty of other countries that don't have similar advantages are closer to real trouble (Greece being propped up by massive EU funding, Spain also are cutting a very fine line).
What exactly is there to find calming about this smoke-screen information? That China might not be in as much trouble as us? I guess considering the incredible amounts of Dollars they hold that might be comforting incase they start to sell them off. Or that if they aren't in so much trouble then perhaps we aren't either? I can assure you that that isn't the case whatever the truth about China.
The question at hand is essentially: What is the truth about China? I am not sure why you are bringing up US and UK finances and itching to make the comparison.
Sure, making China look bad might further interests in the west, but it says nothing as to the article's accuracy. It is good to note that the article may be biased against China, but I think the focus should be on the facts and analysis provided.
> What exactly is there to find calming about this smoke-screen information?
I don't think berntb was saying the article made him feel calm -- I think he was calling into question your credibility, just as you have called into question the journalist's:
>> I would have felt calmer if that assuring voice wasn't the third comment from a month old account.
>>I don't think berntb was saying the article made him feel calm
Right, I meant that weego's comment were calming, since China and the West are connected economically. If one gets big problems it will probably spread to the other.
I've just seen too many new accounts argue positions like defending China's behavior in Tibet, etc to trust unknown voices about things that can look bad for China's government.
I'll take that -4 as a notice to try to write better/clearer. :-)
Debt is only ever a problem for a country if a) it is trying to maintain a fixed exchange rate or b) the debt is denominated in gold or a foreign currency. Neither of these is true for China, so it's level of debt is not a problem. In fact, under a fiat currency system the entire concept of "debt" is a misnomer for sovereigns. Sovereign debt is must better thought of as interest bearing currency.
This is why China is going through all of the effort to keep the debt hidden. One really big problem with state-backed business is that the credit-worthiness of the business is fundamentally tied to it's backer.
If your doing business in China, massive debt heightens the risk that you simply won't be paid. The real risk here is ever tightening controls on Chinese borrowing and investment dollars flowing in. That would have a crippling effect on overall growth.
Sort of, but China's main concern is to prevent its currency from appreciating too much. The danger of too much debt is the opposite problem - too much debt forces a devaluation. So again, the level of debt is not a problem for China.
