China’s Monetary War Against Hedonism and Extravagance

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The interbank lending rate in China has spiked over the past couple of weeks. “China’s interbank market is basically frozen — much like credit markets froze in the United States right after Lehman failed,” Patrick Chovanec told the New York Times. Is this because China’s economy has overheated and its credit bubble is now bursting? Maybe. But the Financial Times says there’s more to it:

In the midst of the extreme market stress, a statement issued late Wednesday by the central bank raised the possibility that politics are also playing an important role.

Bankers had been calling for the central bank to ease the pressure and a few investors had even predicted that it might cut interest rates. Instead, the People’s Bank of China ordered a thorough implementation of the new “mass line education” campaign launched this week by President Xi Jinping — a campaign that in its propaganda-style and potential scope carries echoes of the Mao era.

The Communist party cadres that run the central bank were told to attack the “four winds” of “formalism, bureaucracy, hedonism and extravagance”, as demanded by Mr Xi.

….In monetary policy terms, the central bank could certainly be said to be waging war on hedonism and extravagance. The seven-day bond repurchase rate, a key gauge of liquidity in China, surged 270 basis points to more than 10.8 per cent on Thursday — a punitively high rate that could force cash-hungry banks to call in the riskiest of their loans.

Andrew Mellon would be proud! But if this really is what Xi is doing, he’d better be careful. As you may recall, things didn’t turn out the way Mellon hoped.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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