Graph Porn on China's Property Bubble, Brazil's Boom Coming to An End Soon, and Portugal's Credit Reaches Junk Status

The Big Picture has a post on some great charts on China's growing property bubble aptly titled bubblelicious:

Despite some China bulls who keep telling themselves, this time is not gonna be different and China is going to be in for a hard landing sometime in the near future.

Speaking of countries in for a hard landing, take a look at this Financial Times article on Brazil:

Back in February, in an earlier Insight column, we highlighted the major build up of consumer debt at extremely high rates of interest, putting a significant cash flow burden on the repayment capacity of borrowers.
Since then, the situation has deteriorated further. Pressures are building in the Brazilian credit cycle.

The average rate of interest on consumer lending has jumped from 41 per cent in 2010 to 47 per cent most recently in May 2011. This rise from an already elevated level reflects the cumulative effect of tightening by the Brazilian central bank in order to contain inflation.
The consumer debt service burden, which stood at 24 per cent of disposable income in 2010, is now slated to rise to 28 per cent in 2011.

Meanwhile, delinquencies in Brazil (defaults in excess of 15 days) have begun to move up rapidly, from 7.8 per cent to 9.1 per cent of total loans between December 2010 and May 2011. Delinquencies are now rising at a very hectic rate. They have risen at 23 per cent in the first five months of this year in absolute terms or at an annualised rate of 55 per cent.

Mish does a great job of pointing out the key statistics from the article:

• Average rate of interest on consumer loans 47%, up from 41% in 2010
• Consumer debt service burden was 24 per cent of disposable income in 2010, slated to rise to 28 per cent in 2011. This compares with 16% for an “overburdened” US consumer and a mid-single digit reading for other emerging markets such as China and India.
• Debt service burden for the so-called “middle class” in Brazil has now breached 50% of disposable income
• Delinquencies in Brazil (defaults in excess of 15 days) have begun to move up rapidly, from 7.8 per cent to 9.1 per cent of total loans between December 2010 and May 2011.
• Delinquencies are now rising at a very hectic rate. They have risen at 23 per cent in the first five months of this year in absolute terms or at an annualised rate of 55 per cent.
• Normally credit indicators cyclically lag the economic cycle. When they begin to deteriorate before any economic weakness it usually represents a structural problem relating to underlying cash flow or underwriting weakness in the quality of credit – Brazil has both problems.

Wasn't Hillary Clinton praising Brazil just a year ago for their economic progress?  This is why politicians make crappy economic forecasters.  See for yourself in this Investors Business Daily article on comparing right to work states to non-right to work states:

The U.S. unemployment rate is 9.1%. In right-to-work states the average is 7.9% — 8.6% adjusted for population. Between 1977-08, employment grew 100% in right-to-work states vs. the national average of 71% and 56.5% in non-right-to-work states. That's according to a January study that Ohio University economics professor Richard Vedder did for the Indiana Chamber of Commerce.
In this period, real per capita income in the right-to-work states grew 62.3% vs. the national average of 54.7% and 52.8% for non-right-to-work states.

Between 2000-09, about 5 million people moved to right-to-work states from other states. The population of 25- to 34-year-olds in right-to-work states has grown 16%, according to an American Legislative Exchange Council study, indicating that they "attract the most productive members of society."

And the big news today is Moody's downgrading Portugal credit rating to that of junk.

(Reuters) - Moody's on Tuesday cut Portugal's credit standing to junk in the first such move by a ratings agency and warned the country may well need a second round of rescue funds before it can return to capital markets.

My question of course is why did it take so long?  And when is the U.S going to be downgraded?  Look for more threats as the U.S. continues to play the charade of not dealing with the debt ceiling but no concrete action.

I will end by pointing out this video on strip mall blood tests in Michigan:

Eat your heart out Obamacare.