China's National Bureau of Statistics revealed data on August 13th that the nation’s credit plunged by a dramatic and wildly unexpected 86% plunge in July, down to the slowest pace since the 2008 bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and the start of the global financial crisis. With a collapsing housing sector and falling exports, China now faces a brutal credit crunch.   The collapse in Chinese credit from $320 billion in June to $44.3 billion in July is causing panic across the nation as anecdotal stories from local officials indicate the credit contraction is being “policy-driven”. This would mean that the Chinese central government told its state-owned-banks and 144,700 state-owned-enterprises that control 43% of China’s total industrial output and business profit to stop expanding. Since the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in 2008, China’s state-sponsored export economy has significantly lost competitiveness. As exports fell from 39% of GDP in...(Read Full Article)