That’s how you grow the economy. People have to borrow to make it grow.
do they borrow to buy in the US? probably not 
Article shows lack of understanding of China or even basic economics.
What’s wrong with the article, Gents? Yes, a level of borrowing is certainly needed in any economy to get growth but over borrowing is the issue, right? Too much leverage…
Over borrowing compared to who? The article is just comparing China now vs China in the past, and even he said China borrowed too little in the past. At least he should have showed what other countries’ levels of borrowing are.
But he didn’t. Because if he did there will be no story.
Clickbait.
The amount of borrowing in China since 2008 is INSANE. The same can be said for the US. Does anyone think any government will actually payoff it’s debt? As long as they can issue new bonds to payoff the existing bonds the party will continue. Once they can’t, then the party will be over and 2008 will seem like a small blip. Investors have too much to lose from a total collapse, so they are likely to keep the party going for as long as possible.
China is still growing close to 7% and they need to spend to raise their capital stock. Most of the debt after 2008 went into infrastructure building. So China today has 1st world class high speed rail and airports. They also built a ton of power plants.
It’s ok to borrow to install infrastructure when the country is growing fast.
Now that most of the infrastructure has been built China needs to look for efficiency gain instead. The central government has been doing exactly that.
But aren’t we talking more about from an individual’s point of view, not government level???
Do you think an average Chinese has more debt than an average American?
Honestly I don’t know since one needs to take into consideration income, etc to really have a good feel of the situation, but I found this slightly dated article that was helpful. Again, maybe the author of this story is overreacting or not…
Your new article talked about how unsustainable American consumer debt was.
American debt has always been too high. That’s what drives the work force. Have to keep working to pay for shit you don’t need.
Perhaps, but the intent was to provide some background on China mainly to get a feel of any relative change from before to now. You want to worry about how a school impacts your home value, this author wants to worry about China…