China has failed to curb excesses in its credit system and faces mounting risks of a full-blown banking crisis, according to early warning indicators released by the world’s top financial watchdog.
A key gauge of credit vulnerability is now three times over the danger threshold and has continued to deteriorate, despite pledges by Chinese premier Li Keqiang to wean the economy off debt-driven growth before it is too late.
The Bank for International Settlements warned in its quarterly report that China’s "credit to GDP gap" has reached 30.1, the highest to date and in a different league altogether from any other major country tracked by the institution. It is also significantly higher than the scores in East Asia's speculative boom on 1997 or in the US subprime bubble before the Lehman crisis.
Studies of earlier banking crises around the world over the last sixty years suggest that any score above ten requires careful monitoring. The credit to GDP gap measures deviations from normal patterns within any one country and therefore strips out cultural differences.
It is based on work the US economist Hyman Minsky and has proved to be the best single gauge of banking risk, although the final denouement can often take longer than assumed. Indicators for what would happen to debt service costs if interest rates rose 250 basis points are also well over the safety line.
China’s total credit reached 255pc of GDP at the end of last year, a jump of 107 percentage points over eight years. This is an extremely high level for a developing economy and is still rising fast .
Outstanding loans have reached $28 trillion, as much as the commercial banking systems of the US and Japan combined. The scale is enough to threaten a worldwide shock if China ever loses control. Corporate debt alone has reached 171pc of GDP, and it is this that is keeping global regulators awake at night.
The BIS said there are ample reasons to worry about the health of world’s financial system. Zero interest rates and bond purchases by central banks have left markets acutely sensitive to the slightest shift in monetary policy, or even a hint of...
A dramatic video has emerged of the moment a police robot accidentally detonated one of five explosive devices left outside a train station in New Jersey.
Officials said the bomb squad robot cut a wire on the mechanism in a bid to defuse it - but instead set off an explosion.
The device had been left in a backpack and placed in a bin outside the train station in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
It was reported by two men late on Sunday evening, who said they saw wires and a pipe coming out of the bag. When it was emptied, as many as five potential...
A bomb injured over two dozen New Yorkers tonight in the Chelsea District.
Another explosive device in the form of a pressure cooker was discovered by police blocks away.
Hillary Clinton spoke to reporters on her plane and looked like she was going to pass out.
Get this poor woman home to bed!
At least she didn’t blame it on a YouTube video!
Hillary delivered one speech today to the Black Caucus members in Washington DC.
Donald Trump held four events in three states: Texas, Oklahoma and Colorado. (video Linked)
London’s Muslim Mayor continued his pro-Hillary tour recently by telling Americans that immigrants shouldn’t have to assimilate.
The problem with that?
Need I go into detail? Seems self-explanatory.
If you come to a new country, you need to adapt to said country’s way of life.
Here’s a chilling story about a teenager in Paris who was gang raped by a group of illegal immigrants.
Pretty horrendous.
From Express:
A TEENAGER in Paris has been found tied up and gagged after being gang raped by a group of illegal immigrants next to the Eiffel Tower.
The 19-year-old French girl was lured to the monument on the proviso of a ‘date’ set up through Facebook.
She responded to messages from who she thought was a 17-year-old Tunisian boy and initially met him close to her home in the Paris suburbs.
Last Sunday evening she turned up for another date where she expected to have a picnic with the boy at the Champs des Mars, the park where the Eiffel Tower is, and was attacked.
A source close to the case, said: “It was a warm night, and she expected to eat strawberries and grapes, and to drink Coke, but then the attack took place.”
The woman was dragged under a bush behind where a blanket had been laid out.
She was then assaulted by three men who then gagged, beat her up and tied her up.
None of them had any official papers and all claimed they were 17 year olds from Tunisia and were...
