The New York Times writes about factories in China sitting idle, in a sign that an economic slowdown has hit:
It is happening faster than most anyone predicted: China’s economy, long the world’s fastest-growing major economy, is slowing down. Economists are forecasting that after growing nearly 12 percent last year, China’s economy could slow to 5.5 percent in the fourth quarter of this year — a stunning retreat for a country accustomed to boom times.
Last week, banking regulators began warning about the risk of bad loans accumulating, and labor officials publicly worried about the possibility that mass layoffs would lead to unrest.
[…] The American recession is one big reason China’s epic economic growth is imperiled: as Americans buy less, China sells less. And China’s own efforts to keep its economy growing, through a stimulus package worth nearly $600 billion, may not replace a falloff in American demand as the United States’ recession deepens.
