How weak is China’s economy? Recent data suggests it has slowed sharply.

It may not even be growing at all, given the unreliable nature of China’s domestic statistics. Most observers say the slowdown is due to the government’s attempt to stamp out Covid trib.al/klMMp5J
The property sector’s travails are more a symptom than a cause of China’s problems.

The nation’s economic model is probably broken, much like Japan’s was three decades before — and for similar reasons trib.al/8hiC5nn Image
Japan’s problems started when markets began to be liberalized in the early 1980s.

The corporate sector’s financial deficit started to balloon, meaning it spent much more than it earned.

The gap was filled by borrowing trib.al/8hiC5nn Bank credit to non-financia...
Then the virtuous circle turned vicious. First stock prices crashed, then land prices. Companies were forced to start saving.

The corporate financial deficit rapidly turned into a surplus and stayed that way, becoming a huge drag on the economy trib.al/8hiC5nn Japanese stocks have yet to...
China’s working-age population peaked 10 years ago, and its overall population is probably already contracting.

Japan’s underlying demographic drag came after its economic bubble popped. China’s has been a drag for years already trib.al/8hiC5nn China's population has been...
Deregulation spurred Chinese corporate spending.

Chinese bank lending growth has been even more rapid than Japan’s.

According to @BIS_org, credit to GDP ballooned by 65 percentage points, to 205% of GDP, in the 10 years to 2019 trib.al/8hiC5nn Lending to Chinese companie...
China's economy will struggle – perhaps more so than Japan’s.

The nation’s property sector is much more important to growth, and regulators have been struggling to contain property speculation for years without much success bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
The Chinese banking system — and everyone that relies on it — is likely to be crippled for years.

Many Chinese banks are already struggling to fund themselves. In Japan, most corporate debts were denominated in yen trib.al/8hiC5nn
President Xi Jinping’s “Common Prosperity” drive should be seen as an attempt to spread wealth but to pool losses, with the richest having to pay much more.

That will help China guard against financial crisis and economic implosion trib.al/8hiC5nn Image

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More from @bopinion

20 Nov
Good news: The supply-chain crunch appears to have already peaked in the U.S.

Evidence keeps piling up to suggest that the U.S. is slowly but surely making progress in easing freight congestion and supply shortages bloom.bg/3oIZ4l3
🚢Average ocean freight rates for a 40-ft container have declined for 8 weeks
🚢Spot pricing for the Shanghai-Los Angeles trade route is down about 19% from its September peak
🚢There are fewer containers lingering for more than 9 days at the Port of L.A. bloom.bg/3oIZ4l3 container ship unloading at port of los angeles
The threat of fines for excessive dwell times at the port seems to have led to a meaningful improvement.

The ports of L.A. and Long Beach have delayed the penalties (which start at $100 a day and rise in $100 increments) until at least later in November bloom.bg/3oIZ4l3 container ship with evergreen written on the side unloads at
Read 10 tweets
19 Nov
India may appear to be stalling on climate goals, having fought to maintain coal use at the COP26 summit.

🚗 But it is successfully building awareness about electric vehicles trib.al/m5x7IDu
In Glasgow, India unveiled a government-run portal — E-Amrit — that’s a one-stop shop for all your EV questions.

From subsidies for drivers and manufacturers to charging facility locations and financing options, the goal is to boost consumer knowledge trib.al/xhYCkxw Image
⚡️🚗 This will shape the EV adoption story globally.

The more drivers know about their options — and the more governments can address worries about how far EVs can travel — the less likely they are to resort to old, fossil-fuel driven habits trib.al/xhYCkxw Image
Read 8 tweets
13 Nov
It's conventional wisdom that the U.S. economy is built on Americans' endless appetite to buy lots of stuff.

Household consumption makes up 67% of GDP. When the economy falters, we're told spending is our patriotic duty. But it doesn't have to be this way trib.al/gIDH2vV
Suddenly, Americans can’t spend like they used to. Store shelves are emptying, and it can take months to find a car, refrigerator or sofa.

If this continues, we may need to — gasp! — live more like the Europeans. That actually might not be a bad thing trib.al/gIDH2vV
Americans haven't always acted like this.

Consumption per capita grew about 65% from 1990 to 2015, compared with about 35% growth in Europe. Household consumption makes up only about 50% of GDP in Germany trib.al/gIDH2vV
Read 12 tweets
11 Nov
The total value of all cryptocurrency assets has just exceeded $3 trillion.

This means the entire crypto sector is around 20% more valuable than the equity of the two biggest tech companies -- Apple and Microsoft -- put together trib.al/VUnXork
The previous crypto bull run peaked at the end of 2017 at about $800 billion.

In 2018, crypto crashed almost 90%. But over the next three years, crypto recouped the lost ground and is back at its peak valuation compared to tech companies trib.al/p8LQVoz Image
One way to analyze crypto valuation is to consider the sector like a tech company.

There are thousands of ideas out there: Some are traditional services that crypto can arguably deliver cheaper and better than centralized finance, others are entirely new trib.al/p8LQVoz Image
Read 9 tweets
10 Nov
In the U.S., 23% of women return to work within 10 days of giving birth, and 40% percent of maternal deaths occur in the six weeks following birth.

Paid leave can help solve the maternal mortality crisis trib.al/Nkq1Ju1
The U.S. ranks last among high-income nations in maternal mortality rates, despite spending more than $111 billion on maternal and infant health care per year.

A closer look at the data shows that Black women lead these numbers trib.al/IOXN7ph A mother speaks with her da...
Black women are two to three times more likely than White women to die in childbirth or from pregnancy-related complications.

Solving this crisis is essential for bringing down America’s high maternal mortality rate trib.al/IOXN7ph Image
Read 11 tweets
8 Nov
💉 If only we had a vaccine for cancer, people have said. Oh, wait, we do.

And now a major study has shown just how effective it is trib.al/R1YsHor
In 2008, the U.K. began offering girls ages 12 and 13 an immunization against the human papillomavirus -- which is the cause of nearly all cervical cancer.

The vaccine was later rolled out in a catch-up program to older girls and, since 2019, to boys trib.al/OrKqUJs
The HPV vaccine had a dramatic effect on rates of cervical cancer, with an 87% reduction in those who were offered the vaccine at ages 12-13, according to data from a population-based cancer registry taken from 2006 to 2019 trib.al/OrKqUJs
Read 9 tweets

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