Is There a Plan to Insulate China From the Western Economy?

Philip Pilkington came of age in the shadow of the great Irish property bust of 2008 - it was one of the key reasons he became a macro-economist.

Now, as he warns, history is about to repeat itself. The market indicators are flashing red on both sides of the Atlantic. As we hurtle down the real estate rollercoaster for a long-overdue correction, can the West deal with this reversal? Or are we now too over-leveraged to have any financial. weapons left in our arsenal?

Meanwhile, in China, as the rest of the world founders, the challenge to growth is growing more acute.

We dive deep into recent Chinese economic history, to locate a golden zone in the 1990s, to which the country may be about to return, and explain why the gamified approach of AliExpress may be finally reversing decades of sluggish domestic consumption.

Finally, Andrew Collingwood picks up news of a major new investment pact between Russia and Iran that aims to outflank traditional trade routes by building a series of roads, rails and ports connecting Russia to India, via Iran and Azerbajain.

As Philip Pilkington points out, longer-term, the economic implications may be dwarfed by the cultural ones.