China's goal is to eliminate social upheaval, mostly centered on the concept of full employment. Without it, the country risks social upheaval.

Their second goal is a growing economy, so that the people can be richer, on the thinking that richer people have more to lose, and less like to cause social upheaval.

The end result of this is that China will continue to contort itself to satisfy its goal. Just like the Thanksgiving Turkey, this works great...right up until it doesn't.

What I hope HN people are doing in the background is contemplating what happens on that Day of Reckoning, and how it impacts them and their lives.

If that day happened tomorrow, commodity prices would drop across the board. Oil would drop, as would gas, coal, grains, livestock. That would be great (unless you are employed in those industries).

Then, real estate prices will drop, as the Chinese trying to get money out of the country won't be able to (it likely will be devalued, and possibly near worthless). Vancouver, and Canadian real estate in general will have price collapses. This will cause Canadian bank failures, and dry up credit in Canada.

Meanwhile, companies with significant exposure in China will see their stock drop. Cash flow will be reduced, and for some, significantly. Assets may have to be marked-down to lower book values.

Further, the companies that depend on the aforementioned firms will endure hardships of product logistics - manufacturing, inventory, and quality control will all go a little haywire.

Firms that can move their supply chains out of China quickly will do so, helping various other countries.

But countries that have significant percentages of their GDP devoted to raw materials production (such as Africa, the Arabian peninsula, Russia, and Australia) will go into recession, and some into depression.

That will result in a drying up of global capital (probably quickly, as bankers run faster than most when they hear canaries chirp), and global shipping.

I could go on, but you get the idea. So much of our lives (wherever we live) depend on supply chains that either run through China, or are significantly affected by China (like concrete and steel), that we are all going to be effected, and economically speaking, it won't be pretty for the world.