China – Mr. Hart manages Corriente Advisors. He set up a bearish sub-prime fund in 2006 and a bearish European debt fund in 2007. Needless to say he has been doing very well! The anomalies he sees in China are somewhat familiar to what brought European nations and the US:
Excess floor space exceeds 3.3 billion square meters and there are still 200m being built this year
The price to rent ratio is 39.4 times versus 22.8 times in America before the housing crises
Banks are hiding their exposure in Local Investment Vehicles
On a Sovereign level, China’s debt to GDP comes out at 107%, five times published numbers.
China has consumed just 65% of the cement it has produced in the last six years
There are 200m tons of excess steel capacity, more than the EU and Japan’s total production this year.