Ethics Efficiency and Macroeconomics in China

<p>This book tells the story of how China’s leaders from Mao to Xi have sacrificed ethics to promote either macroeconomic performance or microeconomic efficiency. This story includes Mao’s collectivization of land the Great Leap Forward the Great Cultural Revolution Deng’s opening China to international trade Tiananmen Square the freeing of prices food and medicine scandals the 2015 surge and collapse of the Chinese stock market the falling of China’s foreign reserves and so on. In 2008 China’s leaders correctly identified the best strategy as a consumption-driven growth strategy because the current world is suffering from a glut of savings. However for that strategy to work the Chinese need to be able to trust China’s economy and leaders. In the absence of trust people will make decisions based on extremely short time frames which will hurt China’s long-run potential and continue to generate a series of speculative bubbles. In the absence of trust wealthy Chinese will continue to move their assets abroad putting tremendous downward pressure on the Chinese yuan. The Chinese will develop a long-run perspective and invest in China only when they can trust China’s future. In today’s world trust is necessary. Trust is built on ethics. </p>