China is now heading toward Japan-style economic paralysis if it doesnt change course | Quartz

Jack Rodman, president of Global Distressed Solutions LLC, spent 1999 to 2011 living in Japan and China, packaging and disposing of nonperforming loans and distressed assets. He writes on the problems facing China:

At the end of 1989, Japan’s bubble economy burst and its economic miracle came to an abrupt end. The Nikkei exchange fell from nearly 40,000 to its current 10,000 range. Over the course of 20 years, what appeared to be “unstoppable” economic growth proved to be anything but.

Today, China, in some ways, appears to be closer to following Japan than to sustaining its own economic miracle. China’s Shanghai Index (stocks) has fallen from a high of 7,000 in 2007 to a low of 2,000 for the past few years, and Chinese domestic investors have little confidence in their domestic stock market. The Japanese bubble, and its aftermath, was the result of a series of domestic financial and economic imbalances, many of which China faces today—to varying if not greater degrees….

Read more at China is now heading toward Japan-style economic paralysis if it doesnt change course – Quartz.

Economists React: How Likely Is QE3 Following Jobs Data? – WSJ

CAPITAL ECONOMICS: QE3 will depend on second-quarter GDP and July’s ISM data because the jobs report was not bad enough to make QE3 “a done deal.” Both GDP and ISM numbers will be released just ahead of the Fed’s next policy meeting.

via Economists React: How Likely Is QE3 Following Jobs Data? – Real Time Economics – WSJ.

Comment:~ The range of opinion canvassed by WSJ leans toward the Fed holding off QE3 for the present because jobs numbers aren’t bad enough to warrant drastic intervention. In the long run QE appears inevitable — and not only in the US. There are three options: (1) stagnation with low growth and high unemployment; (2) debt-deflation as in 2009; and (3) inflation. Option (3) would reduce the public debt load by raising nominal GDP and rescue underwater homeowners and banks by lifting real estate values. Those on fixed incomes would suffer but they do not appear a powerful enough lobby to deter politicians from this course.