What I find surprising about the big shift in market sentiment the past few months is not that some players have resumed their Reckless Myopia-- humans always come back to speculative madness eventually. But the surprising part this time is that it has resumed so quickly. Usually it takes at least a few years for market mania to resume; this time crazy has gone from zero to 60 in a few short months.

Another thing I have always found fascinating about market history is how universal human behaviour is through distant cycles and distant lands.

This next series of interviews with independent Chinese Economist Andy Xie draws these remarkable parallels between China and America and our present credit bust cycle and the Asian credit bust of 1998 as well as the Japanese banking crisis of the 90's and thereafter.

What I really like about Andy Xie is that he is a pragmatist. He has lived in America and is on the ground in China. He knows both countries and cultures well. He makes the real life, big picture points to help us understand the incredible economic links between China, America, our consumption habits and reckless behaviours.

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