Funny you should ask that. Back in November (I think) the Portland Alternative Investment Association hosted an education event where
John Fichthorn was the guest speaker. Topic of the event was "China's Banking System: Out of the Shadows" and man...it scared the hell out of me! What's even scarier is that I missed half of it because a rookie board member didn't buy enough beer and we ran out before the presentation even began. So I had to wrangle up some more, missing a lot of his presentation. Despite that, what I saw was alarming.
When I finally sat down midway through his presentation, he was showing us a video of a giant city in China that was essentially vacant. It was very eerie. He was driving around the entire city filming it and there was literally nobody on the streets. Giant, brand new buildings and infrastructure were everywhere, yet nothing was moving, nothing was happening. While it was startling to see this video during daylight hours, it REALLY had an impact when he filmed at night. The giant buildings were dark. Not just the office buildings, but the residential buildings. Maybe one or two rooms lit among thousands of dark windows.
And this isn't limited to just one city in China. His contention was there were several of these massive cities sitting vacant, with no real catalyst for an influx of people and commerce. The banks are lending money to build, the builders are building, and nobody is moving in to pay the bills to pay off the loans. Now granted, Fichthorn is very bearish, but he's also incredibly brilliant and has done his homework for sure. He thinks it's only a matter of time before the dominoes fall, so to your point, I am very well aware of it and agree, it definitely bears watching (no pun intended). Because if China's banking system falls, look the hell out.
hear:
The amount of pessimism and sky-is-falling outlook is just going to keep this market going.
