World hasn’t learnt lesson
CULPRITS: China’s Evergrande Group in Shenzhen, Guangdong
FOURTEEN years ago our world was literally dumped on its head when the global financial crisis struck.
Basically big banks lent billions to smaller banks at very cheap rates who lent out the money which then for various reasons wasn’t paid back — and the financial world went into meltdown.
And we were particularly prone to disaster because the government ignored all the warnings, had hollowed out the tax base and relied heavily on stamp duty revenue from house sales.
And we went bankrupt and had to be rescued by the Troika and the people of Ireland were forced
to suffer ten years of severe hardship while we bailed out the banks.
But at least the world’s governments and financial institutions learnt a bitter lesson.
Not on your Nelly. They’re at it again — starting in China.
The country’s biggest property firm — Evergrande — currently owes
$305 billion and has just failed to make its interest payment.
And because Evergrande is so enormous, it’s feared now that there will be global repercussions.
Here we bloody well go again.