China In Dire Straits
Just two days after China's cabinet tipped the "timely and appropriate" use of monetary stimulus -- including reductions to the amount of cash banks are required to hold in reserve -- to bolster the flagging Chinese economy, the PBoC followed through with a 25bps RRR cut.
It was the first cut since April (figure below), when the country was groaning under the weight of the Shanghai lockdown.
The cut takes effect on December 5 and should free up 500 billion yuan of liquidity.
Let me just dis
Unbelievable. China Lost all Common Sense. That’s what you get for loving Xi.
To my mind, it’s amazing that China made it almost to 2023 before this sh*t hit the fan. Watching the virus spread everywhere so thoroughly, I couldn’t see how China could manage to keep it out, to keep levels down. It just goes to show how little I knew about how tightly controlled the place really is. Of course, I also knew little about how ridiculously silly my fellow citizens could be about masking and public health and all the things. Nothing should surprise me anymore, but it still does.
More and more reports of anti-lockdown protests, demonstrations, and quasi-riots in China over last few days. Interesting that Chinese censors are not managing to suppress this. I imagine that what gets out to the West is only a small part of what is circulating on social media in China.
H-Man, if China has a resurgence of some type of Covid that spreads to the world ala 2020, we all know the playbook.
Protests in major cities with chants of “step down Xi Jinping” . . .