Daily commentary about China by TIME correspondents.

Shout Out: China's Consumers to the Rescue?

And here is our take --by my colleague Jessie Jiang-- on whether the Chinese consumer is going to ride to the rescue of the country's economy. (Hint: racking up huge personal debts isn't a popular habit in China, to put it mildly, except maybe in gambling capital Macau, and even there things have quietened down a lot because of the crisis.)

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  • 1

    Recently, I acted as the God-mother borrowing money via my line of credits in order to buy a pumpkin-red “Cinderella's pumpkin carriage”. My friends wondered why I had not taken a loan from a car dealer. The most dealers offer reasonably low interests. “Because (pause, pause…), he lives in China. There is no such a thing of financing a car by a car dealer” So, who is rescuing whom?

  • 2

    "Save the world"?! absurd!

    According to this article, even though a family like Gong's, who earn 150000 yuan a year, are leaving no stone unturned to save their money for living, and have ever been chipped in by their parents when buying their house. Imagine how many people can make 150000-yuan's annual income in China! They are just a tiny group of CCP officials, official-colluded businessmen, very few managers like Gong's and so on. Besides, the rest, more than one billion people, are really living in poverty without any social security and welfare! they even can't save themselves, How can they save the world?

  • 3

    They can save the world by selling T shirt and jeans well below 1$ apiece to harmonize the whole world.

    I really miss those guys like Nanheyangrouchuan and Majong blah blah..., and want to know what they'd say about current situation.

    China's economy is in a free fall already. 2 of my friends in pearl river delta closed their factory last month, another 1 fleed from his sweatshop in Zhejiang with the money and my official-colluded buddy in Shanghai decided to close his boutique near Huaihai road right now.

    So where is CCP's 4000billion RMB portfolio? Up in the clouds? Guess what? CCP is gonna raise currency supply by 17% in 2009. Do you know what dose that mean?

    http://www.forbes.com/afxnewslimited/feeds/afx/2008/12/14/afx5818635.html

  • 4

    Thanks for your precious information, John2008obama. It terribly shocked me! You have anticipated it before, you are great! Printing money must induces more horrified inflation, which has ever caused the convulsing "6.4"! The CCP is really crazy! they are suiciding!A nd we grassroots have to save ourselves now.

    I'll follow it on this subject.

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