China hits Parkinson's Wall

 50% Crash: Shocking Reports on Wages, Land & Debt | Chinese Economy |

Tony, on his China Update YouTube channel, gives quite level-headed assessments of the Chinese economy. So if he headlines "Shocking Reports," then the reports are shocking to, you know, level-headed commentators. Which doesn't include me. For a while I've thought a few "lost decades" (an extended period of slow growth) going forward was the best-case scenario for China.

Back in 1964, my ninth-grade glee club ushered at a lecture by C. Northcote Parkinson, a humorist, satirist, and inventor (discoverer?) of Parkinson's law. Here it is, as far as I can remember:

1. Bureaucracies expand, regardless of the amount of work.
2. Officials seek to multiply subordinates and neutralize rivals while creating work for each other.
3. Work expands to fill the time available.

Well before Hong Kong returned to China I gave it 20 years (out of the agreed-upon 50) as an international financial center. The CCP wouldn't immediately kill the golden goose because, after the first Cultural Revolution, it needed the eggs. Over time, the "private economy goose" would grow into a rival to the CCP's official economy, where inefficiency is in the self-interest of those in charge. Add in the shake-up and uncertainty at the top of the CCP -- the start of a second Cultural Revolution? -- and stemming the flight of international capital is not a high priority (if it's a priority at all). This is not a peaceful period of "Work Expands" but an ongoing  CCP purge and "Survival Demands."

Economists can propose but Parkinson's law will dispose.