Glenn Beck

And from a distance, it looks like a giant skyline.

But the closer and closer you get to it, you see this is just reflections, stacked on reflections.

None of this is real.

That's China's debt story.

And if you think our debt is bad, you ain't heard nothing yet.

China built a modern miracle.

We saw all of these things they were building.

We're like, look at what China is doing.

But it was built at speed and the speed of desperation.

And the foundation of all of it is just borrowing and crazy borrowing.

The simplest hard fact that can explain China is China's total borrowing.

Government plus households plus companies

has gotten enormous relative to the size of its economy.

One estimate, we only can work on estimates because you can't trust what China says.

One estimate, reputable, says China's overall debt to GDP is around 290% by the end of 2024.

And what is secret and nobody talks about is the local government hidden debt, okay?

Also, the data shows China's credit to the private non-financial sector, about 200% of GDP.

Okay, but that's not the real story.

The numbers are not the story.

It's the structure.