they have had real estate bubbles burst in the past decade (Island of Hainan is a good example), but their were mostly localized. After I returned I did some research and found out that these "ghost towns" are very common, and Guangzhou was actually not as bad as other (some people at least were there), they have built entire cities that have almost no occupants.

I know, I have been very critical of China because of their actions in the West Philippine Sea (even though I miss living there) but I'm very alarmed on what is happening there, especially when I saw how much they lost in 2 days ($3.25 trillion).

Stocks did rebound today, if I'm not mistaken but will it hold or are we all headed to another 2000 and 2008 collapse?

Stocks "rebounded" because selling and shorting became "illegal" for a lot of players, and over half the market has suspended trading, and because Beijing was buying a bunch of stocks by itself.

One of my colleagues (I work in finance) calculated that Beijing has set aside enough cash to boost markets for around 10 days, given expected volumes.

It's no longer a "market" so it's hard to say whether it'll hold "long term" or whether spurgeonryan should jump in (why I didn't respond to his question). The entire Chinese market is now based on political capital (whether Beijing has the repuation or will to continue the cherade).

The rest of what I said I'm confident in, though, regarding USD, US Treasuries, and property in the locations I listed in my OP.

I honestly cannot explain gold's movements without getting into the realms of conspiracy theory. Although I don't take the same view of gold as a lot of people. Gold is a store of wealth, but it's very easy to control. Just ask FDR.

In other news, bitcoin has done very well in the past couple of weeks.

Yeah, it really is quite worrying.

:O . Its already so expensive in those cities! 

I understand the frustration. It wouldn't be so bad if they occupied the buildings, or, hell, even rented them out. A lot of these Chinese buyers just seem to be buying entire apartment complexes and leaving them empty.

If I had the money, I'd be in the Australian construction business right now. It's pratically zero risk. Most developments are sold before they've even broken ground.

Seems to me that such a massive population in such a small area cannot sustain massive grovvth.

US is in a good position population vvise, other then the baby boomers. Unlike Japan and Germany, US has good population grovvth to keep up vvith the elders. But also it isn't a booming grovvth like African countries vvhich simply cannot be sustained.

China has done vvell to curb the boom, but novv has an aging population in a lose-lose situation. And as has been seen in the US a big population at a certain age leads to massive grovvth then the bubble pops.

Hmmm, not sure I agree with this. It's pretty well understood that larger populations, and greater population density, results in greater wealth. Hence why people flock to cities.

Boom-bust economic cycles have occurred in countries of all different population sizes and densities. In the modern world*, they're typically the result of Government (or central bank) policy causing misallocations of wealth. They artificially make something cheaper/more profitable, so everybody floods in to that market, and then it becomes unsustainable and *pop*

*In the past, and in undeveloped countries, boom-bust can be more easily tracked alongside agricultural output. They have/had boom period during good harvests, and bust periods during bad harvests.

I should mention grovvth rates need to be proportional to size of country. If a country is city sized and has a population boom then it should be fine. As most city economies are fine. A population boom in a city leads to expensive housing vvhich can lead to more money being circulated.