In a dramatic text message sent in June, China’s financial insiders likened the trends marring the Shanghai Stock Exchange to an earth-shattering natural disaster. “More than 100 million investors have been buried in the ruins of the stock market by the earthquake in China's capital markets,” the text message read. “Most of them are dying.”
In a country exuding yuan — or so it seems — from the banks of the Yangtze River, such a debacle might seem surprising, even out of character. Especially in the wake of this summer’s Olympics for which China spent a whopping $42 billion, making history as the biggest Olympics budget to-date. Greece’s $16 billion expenditure on the 2004 games, in comparison, left the country ridden in dept.