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...chief investment officer at SRM Realty Advisors in New Delhi. China, where construction of commercial and residential projects has been especially rampant, may be facing "an imminent bust of a real estate bubble," Merrill Lynch warned in a September report. A recent survey of households by China's central bank found only 13% were planning to buy property, the lowest figure since the survey started in 1999. In the wealthy industrial city of Shenzhen, reports suggest property prices may have fallen 30% from recent highs...
...Thousands of Indians like the Reges are having similar doubts. Just as credit-happy Americans are being brought low by a housing-market meltdown and slowing economic growth, so too are Indians learning the downside of personal debt. Over the past five years, Indian banks, finance companies and retailers introduced a Western-style banquet of financial products to the country's rising middle class, whose members began tapping credit cards, consumer loans and installment plans to buy automobiles, washing machines, vacations - all those trappings of upward mobility that the few who could afford them once proudly purchased with cash...
...people are in similar straits. Out of India's middle class of about 90 million people, some 20-30 million have taken on more debt than they can handle, he estimates. Rising rates of loan defaults appear to back up the claim. For example, nonperforming assets at ICICI Bank, India's largest private lender, rose to 1.8% of total assets in the quarter ending in June, compared with 1.35% a year earlier...
...predicting a wave of bad debts will crash the Indian financial system and economy. That's because commerce on the subcontinent still runs mostly on cash. Dheeraj Dikshit, the head of consumer assets in India for U.K.-based bank HSBC, reckons that credit cards are used for only about 2% of all retail transactions. But cash-strapped consumers will still hurt economic growth. Many spend half their salary on car and house payments and will be forced to cut discretionary spending. Some sectors are already getting hurt. New car sales - 80% of which are financed - are slowing. Tata Motors reported...
...they collapsed under their own weight. But that was not to be our story. American greatness--the vision of the founders, the courage of the pioneers, the industry of the nation builders--reflected a mighty faith in the power of sacrifice as a muscle that made young nations strong. Banks were like gyms for the soul: the first savings banks in Boston and New York were organized as charities, where "humble journeymen" could exercise good judgment, store their money and not be tempted to waste it on drink. Architect Louis Sullivan carved the word THRIFT over the door...