This Will Finish Obama Off Next Year

[anvi]

Makes for very fun writing, I'd say. 
"American Housing Collapse Fails to Bring Down Obama---
But China's Housing Downturn Succeeds!"

There has been an unmistakable swelling in the Chinese housing market in the course of the past decade, and it is causing worries both among Chinese economists and at S&P and the World Bank. Actually, it's provincial and municipal banks in China that have been relying on real estate investment and fueling more demand for construction in recent years.  But measures have been taken to tighten that up in order to mitigate the possibility of a crisis in the past several years.  The national government has responded to World Bank calls to raise interest rates, which they've done three times in the past year (so now the World Bank is worried about to too-precipitous planned downturn--go figure).  They've shut down home buying deductions and raised deposit requirements for second-home buyers, and even introduced property taxes in some cities. They've raised bank-reserve requirements to slow down lending.  Plus, lending practices in China require substantially larger deposits from buyers than the often do here.  Even in the event that construction experiences a slowdown, we don't seem to be looking at a scenario that will cause massive defaults in home ownership.  In addition, the growth in construction may very well prove to be a boon in the coming years, as recent reports forecast dramatic increases to urban populations as well as rising income levels during the next decade.  In any event, I don't see cause for that much worry yet; in the past year, the Chinese economy has slowed from 10% annual growth to 9% annual growth; construction slowdowns might create a drag in the near-term, but that economy still has a lot of game.

If it's Obama's presidency coming to an end next year we're worried about, domestic economic conditions are already bad enough to accomplish that, provided the GOP nominates a decent candidate.