Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Glad I Don't Own: Chinese Railroad Ministry Bonds

Missed this last week. A Bloomberg story describes the massive debts of (and investment of resources in) high speed rail in China.

Here's a scary quote: “[W]e should remember that the Ministry of Railways is part of the national government and the risk that the national government will allow the ministry to fail is low.

Oh boy! Too big to fail! Shades of Fannie and Freddie.

China's GDP per capita is about $7500. It's never been clear to me why everyone there needs to travel cross country at 200 km/h.

When a government spends money excessively on infrastructure, it is not "good for the economy", it is wasteful.

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