Jim Chanos is skeptical about China's economy . . .
. . . and he has been significantly right--about Enron, for one example--before.
Its surging real estate sector, buoyed by a flood of speculative capital, looks like “Dubai times 1,000 — or worse,” he frets. He even suspects that Beijing is cooking its books, faking, among other things, its eye-popping growth rates of more than 8 percent.
And Mr. Chanos has company in his skepticism about the current and future health of the Chinese economy.
"China's record debt has economists worried".
"Hold the Champagne on China’s Economy".
"Brace for a decade of lower Chinese growth".
Here is a report on the "cargo cult" attitude a teacher of English finds in her Chinese university students:
"Exams. Grades. China. Oh my!
"Today my post-grad students saw their English grades and had the chance of a re-do of their oral. Showing them the grades was mistake number one. Leaving the disk in the drive was mistake number two.
"Since the exam was intended to test their English orality, the grades were a reflection of their abilities. [That's a nasty habit I have—grading based on my assessment of ability.] The grades ranged from 60-95. Nevertheless, whilst engaged in the oral re-dos (a walk and talk with each student), according to one of the other students, several of them changed their grades on my Final sheet. Unbeknownst to them, I kept a SCORE sheet (including comments) for each student, so reverting to the original grade is no problem.
"The thing about the Chinese system is that it is EXAM oriented but not necessarily MERIT-based. The kids (young adults, rather) don't much care if they can speak English; they want a high grade. So, I had two men who could not understand English or answer my basic opening question (What have you been doing with yourself?) angry because they got a 60 and 63 respectively on their oral presentations; if the original exam had been an interview or a conversation, they would've failed outright. They seem to think that frequent retesting will improve their score. Hmm.
"Anyway, that's the local system: outcomes-based, win at all costs. Lie. Cheat. Steal. It doesn't matter as long as your numbers show you with a winning hand. What the hell!?! Nobody really expects you to talk English anyway!"
Not a very productive attitude toward the nuts and bolts of competency.
Posted by: dilys | January 11, 2010 at 08:56 AM