
S&P Cuts China’s Credit Rating, Citing Risk from Debt Growth - rayuela
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-21/s-p-lowers-china-s-rating-to-a-from-aa-says-outlook-stable
======
indescions_2017
Timing is key, as China party leadership head into their fall meeting. Expect
some face-saving "reset" rather than outright default. But still, very bullish
for dollar vs emerging markets. And adding to already deflationary picture for
global macroeconomy.

Kyle Bass' original analysis of the China credit bubble is also worth
revisiting.

The $34 Trillion Experiment: China’s Banking System and the World’s Largest
Macro Imbalance

[http://im.ft-
static.com/content/images/42972ca8-d72e-11e5-88...](http://im.ft-
static.com/content/images/42972ca8-d72e-11e5-8887-98e7feb46f27.pdf)

~~~
baybal2
I want people to remember US in late sixties. If somebody has good enough
memory, he will recall that US citizens were legally forbidden from owning
gold and even simple golden jewelry until 1974 (Nixon struck the gold standard
just 3 years before).

The schizophrenic policy was "We redeem FX dollars in gold, but not let any of
our own citizens have it. Instead, the treasury will own your own gold for
you."

China tries to do the same trick with savings and assets of its citizens and
companies.

Except that for gold and silver, we have luxury apartments, lumps of jade,
exotic industrial commodities stockpiles, bitcoins, FX certificates, and other
novelties.

~~~
nerfhammer
gold jewelry was not illegal until 1974. It was "hoarding" of gold coins or
bars worth over $100 (1933 dollars = ~$2000), and rarely enforced. any actual
use of gold as a part of something was exempt.

~~~
baybal2
>actual use of gold as a part of something was exempt.

Certainly not in its entirety, the same "articles containing gold clause" was
used very creatively by courts to issue confiscation orders for jewelry for
sure. That was my BLAW101 essay subject, something I spent few hours on
digging court records.

The "rarely enforced," does not mean that it had no effect. Effectively,
people were forced to sell their trinkets, and buy stuff on the market with
that money if they didn't want to loose all of the value of their savings.

~~~
nerfhammer
so you agree that when you said US citizens were legally forbidden from owning
simple golden jewelry you were telling less than the whole truth?

~~~
Top19
A good book on a similar topic was “The Chastening” by Paul Blustein. This was
about the currency disasters of the late 90’s, which interestingly also took
place at a time people thought we were in a tech bubble (we were).

This time period was also known as the “Southeast Asian Financial Crisis”. To
this day there are still empty 60 story skyscrapers in Bangkok because of how
bad it was.

A big lesson from that event are that foreign currency reserves are never
enough.

Korea had something like $300 billion in foreign currency reserves and was
wiped out in days. $3 trillion is a lot, but adjusted for China’s population,
and the fact that they will need to use those reserves to last 1 year maybe 2,
and they start to look much smaller.

Also this kind of a crisis would not be like a tech bubble. Tech Bubbles are
bad, but they do not invoke the banking system. If the banking system falls,
the general rule of thumb is a minimum 10 year recovery.

It’s worth noting that this is the position adopted by George Friedman in his
book “The Next 100 Years” where he predicts the fall of China and also North
Korea by 2030 at the very latest.

Also check out “This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly” by
Carmen Reinhart from Princeton University Press.

The Chastening: Inside The Crisis That Rocked The Global Financial System And
Humbled The Imf
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/1586481819](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1586481819)

The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/0767923057](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0767923057)

This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/0691152640](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0691152640)

------
xutopia
Now do you understand why the Chinese government is attempting to ban Bitcoin?
Chinese people are scared of their currency and want an easy way to convert
theirs into a non-traceable one in case the country descends into a
depression.

~~~
Laforet
Why does anything and everything has to do with bitcoin? There are hundreds of
trillions of CNY in circulation compared to ~1 billion USD worth of bitcoin
being traded everyday. Compared to forex the volume of all cryptos combined is
a drop in the bucket.

>Chinese people are scared of their currency and want an easy way to convert
theirs into a non-traceable one in case the country descends into a
depression.

There is a lot of talk of potential deflation cycle coming in, and in that
case holding fiat is clearly the wiser option.

~~~
ng12
Legally a Chinese citizen can only move up to $50k USD out of China per year
(and they have to report those expenses) [1]. There are various techniques
wealthy Chinese use to get around this but BTC had the ability to be the one
of the easiest and least-traceable. Not everything traces back to BTC but it
is a telling sign of a larger trend.

1\. [https://www.inman.com/2017/01/03/new-rule-china-may-
affect-o...](https://www.inman.com/2017/01/03/new-rule-china-may-affect-
overseas-real-estate-purchases/)

~~~
cepp
As someone who has lived in China I can testify that this is a falsehood.

The issue is getting the money out of the bank into some other asset in the
first place. If you have that much purchasing power in a Chinese BTC exchange
you probably already have a number of other means by which you can extract
your money.

The hard part isn't what to do with your money -- it's what to do with your
money to get it out of the bank and get it into another asset.

AFAIK it is not trivial to purchase that much BTC in China, so the level of
attractiveness isn't as you assume.

------
cromwellian
Lots of people in this thread failing to understand why the US has a higher
credit rating. The US has had a stable political system for 200+ years
(leaving aside the Civil War), and has a court and political system that
investors have confidence in can respond to financial crises.

It's not even about the US government's assets which it could sell, it's about
the awesome ability of the US government to raise revenues by raising taxes.

For example, US taxes as as a percentage of GDP have mostly fluctuated between
a ~22-17% window. Right now, they're at 17%. They were almost 20% during WW2.
That 3% respresents a half-trillion of revenue it could collect per year.
Current US interest payments are $266 billion per year. There is ZERO chance
of a default and everyone knows it. The situation with China is way more
opaque. No one knows what their long term ability is to make continuing
payments, nor does anyone know if what would happen to their political
stability if there were a financial crisis.

And as a last resort, since most world debt and trade is conducted in US
dollars, the US government can literally print money to settle its debts, both
domestic and international.

If US tax receipts went to 25% of GDP, that's $1.4 trillion per year of
interest payments, or paying off the debt in less than 20 years.

Now, the common response would be to claim that raising taxes would reduce GDP
growth, but the data doesn't show a strong correlation (higher growth has
occurred during times of higher taxes and vice versa) and in any case, it's a
lagging signal. All in all, US fundamentals are reasonably good, and the
country is well equipped to deal with its debt relative to other aging social
democracies. Moreover, if the Trumpsters don't screw up immigration with their
xenophobia, the US fertility rate and immigration rate protect it against the
kind of demographic inversion you seeing in other countries which poses a huge
problem for entitlements.

I have optimism for China's long term outlook, but there's way too many
unknowns from lack of transparency to trust investing money in it.

------
Iv
"China is a country with a huge store of domestic savings and a still tightly
controlled capital account. China doesn’t rely on foreign funding."

'nuff said.

~~~
ryandamm
This explains why there aren't external forces that can check the growth in
credit.

But there has been an explosion in debt within China, financing ultimately
non-productive investment. Even with a positive external debt outlook, you can
get wild economic imbalances within a country via uncontrolled credit
creation. The hangover could be profound.

To put it another way: why do you think centrally-planned economies are
frequently outpaced by capitalist economies? Misallocation of resources. Debt
binges are similarly distorting.

~~~
AlexCoventry
What specific misallocation of resources are you referring to? The housing
developments? I'm not convinced those are wasteful, yet, even if the
developers go under.

------
ShabbosGoy
The fact of the matter is, having a dirty float exchange regime and beggar-
thy-neighbor trade policies will eventually come back to haunt the country
that engages in these practices.

------
fspeech
I think there is one fundamental point people should understand when pondering
macro issues: for a closed system the amount of savings is equal to the amount
of debt. Every dollar of debt is a dollar of savings for the debt holder and
vice versa (the first part is always true; for the second part to be true we
can either take a narrower view of what savings are or we can view "debt" a
little more expansively to mean all financial assets -- the key is that claims
are always matched by obligations). So China having a lot of debts is
equivalent to Chinese having a lot of savings since most of the debts are held
domestically. With that in mind maybe people can get a better perspective on
the "what if" the credit boom stops.

~~~
fludlight
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional-
reserve_banking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional-reserve_banking)

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Ya, my thoughts exactly. I think the reserve ratio for Chinese banks is less
than 20% ATM; and that doesn't include off the book shadow loans.

A lot of the extra liquidity is being sopped up directly into real estate. It
never even hits the real economy.

~~~
fspeech
"A lot of the extra liquidity is being sopped up directly into real estate"

It doesn't really work that way. People who buy lose liquidity but people who
sell gain liquidity. Cash just changes hands. The question is what are the
side effects of these transactions. In this case lots of apartments get built.
Many of them empty. You may not regard that as the real economy. But is
digging up gold to put in a vault or mining bitcoin any more real?

~~~
seanmcdirmid
No, they aren't. It isn't doing anything useful, just acting as a speculative
asset. It isn't developing the economy so that production is increased later
on. Gold and bitcoin mining similar don't create value either (for gold's
usage as a speculative asset).

~~~
fspeech
With their real estate boom people will eventually live in larger and more
modern housing units. The process to get there may be more wasteful than
necessary but it can be eventually productive even from a very utilitarian
perspective.

During the dotcom boom much more fiber capacity than needed were built but
they were eventually absorbed. It was a misallocation of capital at the time
and companies went bankrupt for that. But it was eventually not all waste.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Ha! The last time I looked at apartments in Beijing (late 2015) was
depressing. Rents for 10k RMB/month, sells for $1 million USD, has one
bathroom with a crappy wet floor shower (rental, the for sale places were
completely unrenovated of course). Those buildings are also not meant to last
more than 20 years without extensive maintenance (Chinese overbuild on
concrete to take adavantsge of unskilled migrant labor, this leads to serious
maintenance problems, but the CCP sees it as a feature rather than a problem),
they start looking depilated after 5.

My wife owns a villa in a tier 88. It is a nice place, but the standards are
so different, the lack of indoor heating makes me wonder how it could ever be
livable.

Also, China lacks a property tax, so housing is seen as a speculative asset.
It is really just like gold or bitcoin. Lots of house aren't even lived in
(e.g. See ghost cities that have completely sold out but no one wants to
actually live there).

~~~
fspeech
Right. And keep in mind that Chinese GDP per capita is about one fifth of the
U.S. If everything in China were up to US standards Chinese GDP would be 3
times that of US.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Wait, we are talking about a $1 million apartment here, even in SF that would
get you something ok, but in Beijing, you would hardly get anything at all, it
is just insane.

China already has developed world real estate prices even in tier 3s, while
the quality is still developing world. it is definitely in a huge bubble that
will pop eventually.

~~~
fspeech
How much of the $1 million apartment is the price of the land? How much of the
land price can be accounted for by things like very large investments in
infrastructure such as the subways and preferred access to top universities
that are still relatively low cost?

Anyway yes if they overbuild then one day they will have to build less.
Remember the labor supply that are willing to do construction jobs will also
be decreasing rather quickly. Right now they still have a generation of
construction workers who are relatively skilled and who are still cheap to
hire. Overbuilding now is not super stupid considering the demographics.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
These are all tall apartment blocks, so land is involved, but is amatorized
ofer many units.

Construction workers are unskilled by design (farmers from the country side,
not even high school educations, construction is basically a jobs program for
them). The techniques they use to compensate will result in higher maintnence
costs later on down the line. It isn't stupid considering what they have, but
the resulting buildings become dipilated rather quickly, why pay $1 million
for that? And if I can rent that place for a cheap 10k rmb/month anyways, why
would I bother buying?

~~~
fspeech
I agree it is not a good investment based on the cap rate, unless the rent
will be rising quickly to much higher levels. But as Keynes has pointed out
long ago, investment for most people is like the beauty pageant. "It is not a
case of choosing those [faces] that, to the best of one's judgment, are really
the prettiest, nor even those that average opinion genuinely thinks the
prettiest. We have reached the third degree where we devote our intelligences
to anticipating what average opinion expects the average opinion to be. And
there are some, I believe, who practice the fourth, fifth and higher degrees."
(Keynes, General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, 1936).

What I found interesting is that many bubbles have some rational elements
otherwise they would not have formed in the first place. Take Beijing real
estate: do apartments with convenient access to subways sell for a lot more?
do apartments in districts with better ranked schools sell for a lot more? If
yes you see people are still pricing utilities and the market is functioning
at the micro level. It is just hard to pin down why the overall price level is
so high:

\- for most people who live in their own apartments, the price is quite
irrelevant (they don't want to sell as they need a place to live);

\- people who hold empty apartments probably subscribe to the "beauty contest"
theory of investments (they may rationally think the price high but they
couldn't think of a better way of investing);

\- as far as the government is concerned the wealth redistribution caused by
the high real estate price is in the right direction esp. when compared to a
stock market bubble: high land auction price means more money to build
infrastructure; high ownership ratio means older people who are less educated
with lower income benefit more and while the young suffer they are more
educated and can expect their income to rise rather quickly.

Despite the high real estate price Beijing population had been increasing
rapidly (would have been even higher growth if not for government control in
place). If China on a whole eventually stalls out at Taiwan's level (where
Taipei suffers from similar real estate phenomenon) China would have succeeded
beyond what most people expect.

------
coliveira
Does it have anything to do with the fact that Russian, China and other BRICS
are banding together to have Oil sold in Chinese currency?

[http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2017-09/01/content_314...](http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2017-09/01/content_31408818.htm)

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _Does it have anything to do with the fact that Russian, China and other
> BRICS are banding together to have Oil sold in Chinese currency?_

No. If there's an industry S&P has a conflict of interest with, it's bankers.
Derivatives, how Wall Street mostly trades commodities, don't care what their
underlying asset is denominated in.

I believe your question arises from what I refer to as the petrodollar
fallacy. The U.S. dollar is used, globally, because Americans buy lots of
stuff. Exporters who sell to Americans naturally end up with U.S. dollars.
They could sell those dollars for their own currency, or they could invest
them in U.S. dollar denominated assets. (Or they could hold them to further
buy stuff from other people.) Our deep, liquid and largely politically
indifferent financial markets, huge base of consumers and lack of capital
controls underwrite the U.S. dollar's global popularity [1].

Given the United States is, again, a major oil producer, what other people
trade their oil in is largely irrelevant to American financial interests.
Would certain 3-letter agencies prefer Iran have to sell for dollars? Sure. Is
that of even the most vanishing concern to Wall Street? No.

[1] _Historically, the U.S. dollar supplanted the pound sterling after World
War II. The U.S. Treasury, through Harry Dexter White, hard coded the dollar
into the Bretton Woods system [a]. He could do this because the United States
was the only industrialized power untouched by the war. (We also had a nuclear
monopoly.) Either way, nothing to do with oil._

[a]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_system)

~~~
coliveira
What you forget in your analysis is that oil producers are not necessarily
happy to exchange oil for dollars. They do that out of necessity, for the lack
of an alternative. After all, any holder of wealth would be more than happy to
diversify their holdings instead of "trusting" on the miraculous power of the
dollar. The petrodollar is just the canary in the coal mine. Once countries
are able to create an alternative to the dollar in that very crucial market,
other industries will follow, especially at a moment when China is becoming
the number one market and offsetting the industrial production of the US.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _oil producers are not necessarily happy to exchange oil for dollars. They
> do that out of necessity, for the lack of an alternative_

The U.S. dollar is not the world’s sole reserve currency [1]. At 65% it’s
dominant, but Euros, pounds, yen and francs are also used and freely traded.
Nobody _has_ to accept dollars. It’s just the easiest [2]. (Because we consume
a lot and have deep, reliable financial markets.)

In any case, who do you think is pushing for more reserve currencies? Hint:
the people who make money when people have to convert between reserve
currencies.

[1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_currency](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_currency)

[2] _Anecdote: friend, former treasurer for a major European airline, found it
easier to buy planes from Airbus in U.S. dollars than Euros. They would sign a
contract denominated in euros and settle in dollars. Even if that meant
swapping euros for dollars and then back again. Why? Because everyone had
loads of dollars and is this familiar and comfortable with dollar mechanisms
for moving large sums. Nobody forced anyone to do it this way. It was just,
strangely, easier._

~~~
coliveira
This is not different at all from the situation of the pound sterling at the
beginning of the 20th century. Of course it is easier to deal with US dollars,
this doesn't mean anything for the health of this currency in the long term.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _This is not different at all from the situation of the pound sterling at
> the beginning of the 20th century_

Nothing is permanent. My point is arguing (a) S&P cut China’s credit rating to
defend dollar hegemony is absurd on multiple levels.

------
eighthnate
Hasn't the S&P credit ratings lost all credibility? They were the ones
lableling worthless deritatives triple A ratings during the financial crisis?
had

------
wdn
So let me get it, China, the biggest producer in the world and with a culture
of saving a lot of money by it's citizens get a downgrade to A+. While at the
save time, the US government's debt passed 20 trillions and American in debt
with no savings got AAA rating.

Yea, it makes a lot sense

~~~
alexanderstears
_China, the biggest producer in the world_

Of what? Sneakers? Its GDP is smaller than America's (though maybe not with
PPP corrections).

 _a culture of saving a lot of money by it 's citizens_

Too bad the savings go to malinvestments. Good luck securing ROI from ghost
cities: [https://www.wired.com/2016/02/kai-caemmerer-unborn-
cities/](https://www.wired.com/2016/02/kai-caemmerer-unborn-cities/)

And Sri Lankan airports:
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/07/31/china-
to...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/07/31/china-to-sri-lanka-
we-want-our-money-not-your-empty-airport/#633074ba1beb)

 _American in debt with no savings got AAA rating_

The Federal Government has tremendous assets:
[http://business.time.com/2013/02/05/the-federal-
governments-...](http://business.time.com/2013/02/05/the-federal-
governments-128-trillion-stockpile-the-answer-to-our-debt-problems/)

We could pay off the debt with a land and spectrum auction tomorrow and people
would clamor for more.

I'd rather hold dollars than yuan and that's not just because I speak English.

~~~
daxorid
> Of what? Sneakers?

If trade with China stopped today, how quickly can the United States re-tool
up to supply the enormous demand for PCBs, basic electronic components like
SMD resistors and capacitors, microcontrollers, transformers, chokes, cables,
wifi chips, antennas, power transistors, PLAs, LCD displays, OLED displays,
solar modules, and the myriad other goods on which our modern society
increasingly relies?

"Sneakers" is a cute little jab, but A GDP predicated on the consumption of
televised football and mocha lattes is qualitatively different from one
predicated on the production of goods upon which reliance the profligate NFL
viewers are blissfully unaware.

At some point, even if that point is measured in centuries, the producers and
savers eventually win over the gluttonous consumers. China is playing a long
game with a long-term vision, securing rights over natural resources around
the world, acquiring critical control over global supply chains, and
artificially pegging the Yuan down to fool us into thinking that the value of
passively watching Netflix is (as measured by GDP) greater than that of the
construction of ever-faster pick-and-place machines.

Meanwhile, we look only to the next quarter and goose our EPS with low-
interest stock buybacks, and realistically believe that mindless consumption
of pixels is a more solid foundation for an economy than producing the "picks
and shovels" used to deliver those pixels.

~~~
flachsechs
> _China is playing a long game_

the majority of people in the west, the US especially, thinks all china does
is make cheap walmart crap. it's perfectly fine to say horrible, racist things
about the chinese. nobody seems to care.

what's really happening is the chinese government runs the show and
facilitates the dumping of cheap stuff into the west to manage
expectations/anxiety about their rise, and to fund the real manufacturing and
mineral extraction empire. if your competition doesn't take you seriously,
that's a net asset, not a liability.

"All warfare is based on deception."

~~~
Dylan16807
> it's perfectly fine to say horrible, racist things about the chinese.

No it's not. The common criticisms have absolutely nothing to do with race.

~~~
flachsechs
well sure, you can falsify my statement by simply not classifying anything as
racism. i think the gleeful enthusiasm shown by people relentlessly china-
bashing is telling, especially since they seem to do it all the time, as if
they've found a loophole to freely express their hatred.

if nothing else it's a great little vehicle for racists to hop onto guilt-
free.

------
dis-sys
S&P? the one which repeatedly offered triple-A ratings to those junk
securities before the GFC? It was sued by both US federal and state
governments, eventually had to pay $1.5 billion fine for its wrongdoings.

Maybe S&P should fix its own credibility debt first?

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-03/s-p-
ends-...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-03/s-p-ends-legal-
woes-with-1-5-billion-penalty-with-u-s-states)

China has over $20 trillion saved, S&P calls it a debt problem and downgraded
their credit rating.

US has about $20 trillion debt, S&P is totally happy about it and gives it a
triple-A rating.

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-25/with-21-t...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-25/with-21-trillion-
china-s-savers-are-set-to-change-the-world)

[https://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/debt/current](https://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/debt/current)

S&P is still the same old S&P, it didn't change in the last decade.

~~~
tinfins
How do you think they should do that, and why are you responding so
defensively? It seems to me that the only way for them to build up credibility
is to never repeat the mistake they made last decade - but you seem to think
that they should respond to their mistake by ... never downgrading a credit
rating despite seeing issues? That doesn't make sense.

~~~
dis-sys
China has over $20 trillion saved. S&P choose to downgrade its credit rating.
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-25/with-21-t...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-25/with-21-trillion-
china-s-savers-are-set-to-change-the-world)

US has a real debt problem, yet S&P choose to give it a triple-A rating.

This is not credit rating, it is an IQ test.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _China has over $20 trillion saved_

From where did you get $20 trillion? The data I see show $3.5 trillion for the
United States versus $5.4 trillion for China [1]. U.S. depository institutions
hold over $9 trillion in savings [2]; this doesn't count savings held in
stocks and bonds, the majority of Americans' savings.

In any case, private savings aren't really relevant to a country's credit
rating. Ability and willingness to pay are. If the U.S. Treasury defaults, one
can sue. If China defaults...you're just screwed.

[1]
[https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GNS.ICTR.CD?location...](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GNS.ICTR.CD?locations=US-
CN)

[2]
[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WSAVNS](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WSAVNS)

~~~
dis-sys
> From where did you get $20 trillion? The data I see show $3.5 trillion for
> the United States versus $5.4 trillion for China

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-25/with-21-t...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-25/with-21-trillion-
china-s-savers-are-set-to-change-the-world)

[http://www.smh.com.au/business/china/with-28-trillion-in-
sav...](http://www.smh.com.au/business/china/with-28-trillion-in-savings-
chinese-are-set-to-change-the-world-20150625-ghy4x1.html)

> If the U.S. Treasury defaults, one can sue. If China defaults...you're just
> screwed.

which government got recently shutdown for its debt problems?

~~~
JumpCrisscross
The Sydney Morning Herald article you cite [1] measures “deposits”. The
comparable figure in the United States is $12 trillion [2]. The comparison is
misleading, however, since few U.S. institutions, financial or non-financial,
“save” in deposit accounts. (This is true in a China, too.) All this comes
down to the murky definition of “savings,” which are in the end largely
irrelevant to national credit concerns since “credit” is trying to quality
their probability of seizure (through default, expropriation or other means).

[1] [http://www.smh.com.au/business/china/with-28-trillion-in-
sav...](http://www.smh.com.au/business/china/with-28-trillion-in-savings-
chinese-are-set-to-change-the-world-20150625-ghy4x1.html)

[2]
[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DPSACBW027SBOG](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DPSACBW027SBOG)

