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Once again, greed has reared its ugly head after a hiatus of 18 months. Investors are tripping over themselves for a piece of the action in the world's second best performing stock market. Recently, about half a million new trading accounts are opened in China and the index went up to 3296, a level not seen since June 2008.
Many are optimistic that the country can attain the government-set goal of 8% gross domestic product (GDP) growth for the whole year. Due to the emphasis of the government on the GDP growth, officials are ignoring other aspects of development and environment protection. Funds and efforts have been mainly devoted to sectors that could have an immediate impact in boosting GDP growth.
Since China began to suffer a serious economic slowdown last year, there are lingering fears that massive unemployment will result in widespread social unrest. As such, Beijing gave up its five-year-old macro-economic control policy and set out on its political task of ensuring a 8% GDP growth for this year. Read more...