This might be China's 'babaru' moment; China and Evergrande Ascended Together. Now One Is About to Fall; The fourth (and likely final) wave of the pandemic is declining; Pictures from the Acropolis in Athens

1) Here's Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman with a provocative comparison between China today and Japan at the peak of its real estate and stock market bubble 30 years ago: This might be China's 'babaru' moment. Excerpt:

While China is vastly different from Japan in many ways, China's macroeconomic situation bears a striking resemblance to that of Japan around the time the Japanese bubble burst.

On one side, Chinese demography is looking remarkably Japanese. The working-age population peaked in 2015, and although the one-child policy that suppressed births is no longer in effect, this downward trend won't be reversed, if at all, for many years.

On the other side, China, like Japan in the bubble years, has a highly unbalanced economy, with weak consumer spending and extremely high investment:

2) And here's another insightful article about China: China and Evergrande Ascended Together. Now One Is About to Fall. Excerpt:

Evergrande's struggles have exposed the flaws of the Chinese financial system – unrestrained borrowing, expansion and corruption. The company's crisis is testing the resolve of Chinese leaders' efforts to reform as they chart a new course for the country's economy.

If they save Evergrande, they risk sending a message that some companies are still too big to fail. If they don't, as many as 1.6 million home buyers waiting for unfinished apartments and hundreds of small businesses, creditors and banks may lose their money.

"This is the beginning of the end of China's growth model as we know it," said Leland Miller, the chief executive officer of the consulting firm China Beige Book. "The term 'paradigm shift' is always overused, so people tend to ignore it. But that's a good way of describing what's happening right now."

I also have a China-focused e-mail list, which you can subscribe to (roughly one e-mail per week) by sending a blank e-mail to: china-subscribe@mailer.kasecapital.com.

3) I sent another e-mail to my coronavirus e-mail list on Tuesday (you can sign up for it by sending a blank e-mail to: cv-subscribe@mailer.kasecapital.com).

Here's the first item from it (you can read the entire e-mail here):

A month ago in my August 26 e-mail, I wrote: "I could be wrong, but I think the nasty (and completely needless) fourth wave we're experiencing may soon peak." For the sake of our country, I'm pleased to say that I was exactly right, as you can see in this chart (source):

I was also (thankfully) correct that "hospitalizations and deaths will likely peak roughly 1-2 weeks and 3-4 weeks, respectively, after cases do":

I'm going to stick my neck out even further and say that this fourth wave will be the last. To be sure, there will still be cases, hospitalizations, and deaths – almost entirely among the folks who've been so misled/misinformed as to refuse the miraculous Trump vaccines – but I think it will be at low levels similar to the trough last June.

I don't think there will be another major wave because enough Americans have gotten vaccinated or will be vaccinated in the near future, as various mandates kick in (for example, I saw a huge line outside Mt. Sinai Hospital yesterday because it was the deadline for unvaccinated healthcare workers to get the jab or lose their jobs – click here for more on this; also, my analyst Kevin, who works in a Long Island hospital, said that 9 of the 10 holdouts in his department just got vaccinated).

It continues to boggle my mind that 60-plus million Americans who could be quickly and easily be almost entirely protected against this terrible virus are instead resisting – prolonging the pandemic, endangering all of us, and most tragically, continuing to die at a rate of more than 2,000 people EVERY SINGLE DAY! That's one 9/11 every 36 hours... Madness!

Here are the headlines from other topics I covered in my email:

• Freedumb
• We're No. 28
• Michael Moore Answers All Your Vaccine Fears
• Reading feedback
• Ivermectin
• Dr. Maki on various topics
• Memes
• Articles

Again, to read it, click here.

4) Susan and I flew to Athens, Greece, yesterday. After we checked into our hotel, we took a short walk to see the famous Acropolis, "an ancient citadel located on a rocky outcrop above the city. It contains the remains of several ancient buildings of great architectural and historical significance, the most famous being the Parthenon."

Here are three pictures (I've posted more on Facebook here):

Best regards,

Whitney

P.S. I welcome your feedback at WTDfeedback@empirefinancialresearch.com.