A rather startling op-ed appeared in the South China Morning Post on Sunday suggesting that the entire Chinese economy is just one giant Ponzi scheme that will inevitably collapse. It's no secret that there are two wildly divergent views on China's economic prospects , but Jake Van Der Kamp's is among the harshest, freighted as it is with inevitability and having the appearance of almost mathematical elegance and simplicity. The only thing keeping the Chinese economy going, apparently, is the determination to keep the Chinese economy going. The updrafts of hot credit needed to pay for all this expanding, self-replicating economic activity have created the most enormous economic storm clouds just waiting to unleash an unprecedented correction on an unsuspecting population. Capital markets would open up in "about five years" but be fully open in "between ten and fifteen years."

Source: Forbes August 30, 2017 03:05 UTC