How Chinese Real Estate Became the Biggest Bubble in History
Odd Lots10 Nov 2025

How Chinese Real Estate Became the Biggest Bubble in History

Land is a weird asset. We need it to be affordable because everyone needs somewhere to live. But for many people, real estate is also their biggest store of wealth — a kind of national piggybank that fuels both personal fortunes and broader economies. Nowhere is that tension sharper than in China, where housing affordability remains a major challenge even as real estate has been a huge driver of wealth for households and companies alike. China's policymakers have now spent years trying to let the air out of China’s property bubble — without causing it to burst completely. In this episode, we speak with Mike Bird, The Economist’s Wall Street editor and author of the new book, The Land Trap: A New History of the World’s Oldest Asset. We talk about how much of China's economic progress has been tied up in real estate, different models of land ownership around the world, and why this particular asset is unlike any other.

Read more:
New World, Vanke Debt Moves Shake Up China’s Property Sector
CapitaLand Is Said to Mull Merging Non-China Assets With Mapletree

Only http://Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots

Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(1217)

The Hidden Plumbing of Commodity Finance

The Hidden Plumbing of Commodity Finance

We talk about the commodity supply chain all the time. We talk about the ports and the trucks and the ships and all of that. But there's another dimension to moving commodities all around the world, w...

1 Jun 46min

How the Invention of Rope Gave Us Modern Civilization

How the Invention of Rope Gave Us Modern Civilization

Rope is easy to take for granted. It seems obvious and straightforward. But of course, it had to be invented. Early humans discovered that by twisting fibers around each other, the resulting structure...

30 Mai 36min

Gita Gopinath on Why Interest Rates Have Surged All Around the World

Gita Gopinath on Why Interest Rates Have Surged All Around the World

There's been a massive selloff in the bond market and rates are rising all around the world. Japan, Korea, the UK... You name it. Gita Gopinath, Harvard economics professor and the former first deputy...

29 Mai 51min

Brendan Greeley on the Real 500-Year History of the Dollar

Brendan Greeley on the Real 500-Year History of the Dollar

We love talking about money. And of course, we love talking about the dollar, in all its varieties — from bank deposits to eurodollars to stablecoins. But what fundamentally is a dollar and who actual...

28 Mai 55min

What It Takes to Run One of London's Most Popular Pubs

What It Takes to Run One of London's Most Popular Pubs

As our listeners know, restaurants are great microcosms for macro-economic trends. They sit at the intersection of everything from consumer confidence to commodity costs to the labor market. So on our...

25 Mai 1h 8min

Architect Norman Foster on Why the West Struggles to Build Big

Architect Norman Foster on Why the West Struggles to Build Big

Not many people think of designing buildings as an exercise in economics, but the entire process is defined by constraints around resources (both physical and financial), and an iconic building can al...

23 Mai 54min

'The Assassin' Fahmi Quadir on How to Survive as a Short-Seller

'The Assassin' Fahmi Quadir on How to Survive as a Short-Seller

A short seller is a gumshoe who roots out a particular story about a specific company and brings it to light. And Fahmi Quadir, the founder and CIO of Safkhet Capital, has been labeled "The Assassin" ...

22 Mai 31min

Why Cerebras CEO Andrew Feldman Built The World's Largest Computer Chip

Why Cerebras CEO Andrew Feldman Built The World's Largest Computer Chip

Size is the name of the game for the AI chipmaker Cerebras: Their chips are truly massive, about the size of a dinner plate. According to Andrew Feldman, CEO and founder of Cerebras, that is about 58 ...

21 Mai 51min

Populært innen Business og økonomi

stopp-verden
dine-penger-pengeradet
lydartikler-fra-aftenposten
e24-podden
rss-penger-polser-og-politikk
rss-borsmorgen-okonominyhetene
rss-skravla-gar
utbytte
finansredaksjonen
pengepodden-2
livet-pa-veien-med-jan-erik-larssen
rss-pa-konto
pengesnakk
stormkast-med-valebrokk-stordalen
tid-er-penger-en-podcast-med-peter-warren
morgenkaffen-med-finansavisen
liberal-halvtime
okonomiamatorene
rss-markedspuls-2
lederpodden