China: The mirage of the ‘new economy’

As most hot businesses have gained market share with cheap financing and without profit, it is doubtful that the demand re-slicing is entirely due to a more efficient channel of distribution. Cheap financing, i.e., a liquidity bubble, may have been the main engine for the Internet boom.

The bubble may not inflict much damage on its own because the amount of financing is small relative to the overall size of investment in the global economy. The danger to China is that it offers false hope that it can revive the economy. The false hope becomes an excuse not to implement painful structural reforms. If one envisions a rising tide to lift the economy ahead, where is the incentive to reform?

How a product is sold is insignificant compared to the product itself. Steve Jobs had the iPhone to sell. Whether the phones are sold online or through posh Apple stores is not important. A sustainable economy is based on businesses that make better products at lower costs over time. An economy full of colorful middlemen and no unique or high-value products cannot go far.

China’s only path forward is to increase efficiency on the supply side and shift the savings to the household sector as an increase in real purchasing power. This requires major reductions in government and state-owned enterprise spending, and boosting competition by eliminating government-approved market access. A necessary condition is for the high-yield debt bubble to burst.

Read the whole article here.