As usual we must look offshore to gain understanding of that transpiring at home, from the WSJ:
As forecasts predicting endless growth in China’s appetite for raw materials became a matter of industry faith, mining companies borrowed extensively to build networks of pits, railway lines and port terminals. Megadeals abounded as a merger-and-acquisition frenzy took hold. Cheap borrowing costs, thanks to low global interest rates, fueled the splurge.
Now, as China’s hunger for resources ebbs and mining companies’ profits suffer amid falling commodity prices, those debts have become an albatross around the industry’s neck. Amid a slump in Chinese share prices last week, metals such as copper and aluminum fell to near six-year lows. Iron ore at one point hit its weakest level for a decade.
“There’s been a colossal misjudgment of future demand,” said Dali Yang, professor of political science at the University of Chicago. “That long boom made it especially difficult for people to expect anything otherwise. Many bought the big story about urbanization, instead of thinking how things could go bad.”
Yep. So far yet to fall.
