Inquiring minds should take a look at FT Alphaville article Chinese Real Estate, Charted. Here is the key chart.
According to Chanos, global credit expanded by $1.5 trillion in the first quarter of 2018, and China provided $1 trillion of it.
Chinese Real Estate Single Most Important Asset Class
In February, Jim Chanos told Business Insider that Chinese real estate to be the most important single asset class in the world.
There’s an excellent video interview in the BI article where Chanos discusses the surge in credit fueled by unwarranted residential real estate speculation.
Inflation Deflation
Note the decline in US credit expansion in 2010. Mark-to-market, the recovery began in 2009 when Bernanke suspended mark-to-market recording of business loans.
My definition says inflation is an increase in money supply and credit, marked-to-market. With rules suspended in the midst of stress test lies, what’s going on can only be estimated.
It’s clear, for now, that we are in a period of global inflation. The markets act as if this credit can be paid back. It won’t, and that is the fallacy of expecting an inflation boom in the future. The boom has been underway for a long time, fueled by FED, ECB, and BoJ QE accompanied by a surge in Chinese credit.
A bust will come, and it will not be inflationary.
