"Last month, the dog was eating what I eat. Last week, I was eating what the dog eats. This week..."

....This week, I think I’ll eat the dog.

(sour joke doing the rounds in China after stock market swings)


The Chinese government is permanently terrified. It is terrified of climate change, of slowing economic growth, even of a fall in the stock market — of anything that might cause the population to turn decisively against it. When you are running a 66-year-old dictatorship, and your only remaining credibility in the public’s eyes is your ability to keep living standards rising, any kind of change is frightening. <snip>

But the Chinese government intervened in a very big way. First it cut interest rates to the lowest level ever. When that didn’t stop the slide in prices, it banned large investors (holding more than 5% of a listed company’s shares) and all foreign investors from selling their shares for six months. It encouraged about 1 300 Chinese companies — half the stock market — to suspend trading in their stocks. It forbade any new listings on the markets. It even ordered a state-backed finance company to make new loans to people who want to make bigger bets on the stock market than they can afford. <snip>

China is around the 30-year point now, and its regime is doing all the same things that the Japanese government did just before the collapse there.

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Link to article:
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/2015/07/31/china-following-path-to-economic-ruin/