Ron,
it seems that every day someone on CNBC talks about how the Asian economies are recovering. While most of the stock markets have indeed "recovered", I just don't see it in the respective economies.
China, since the days of Deng, has taken a chapter off the US strategy: "its the economy, stupid." Zhu's rise to fame was largely due to his role as the economic czar during the past 8 years. It is quite clear that the economy of China is severely stressed. Whether all the Taiwan rhetoric and the Falun Gong crack down are pure diversion tactics remain to be seen.
Over capacity problem in China has to imply same for competing countries such as Thailand, Indonesia, etc etc.
As for taxing bank deposits, it may be a different issue in China. I remember was I was doing some business in GuangZhou area about 10 years ago, I was shocked to find the average individual savings account in the city was over US$3000. Considering income averaging around $50 per month at the time, that is an astonishing amount of money. May be the tax on bank deposits is just their version of taxing the "rich", a common political theme deployed here.
Ramsey |
