No one will confuse China with the United States, but Treasury Secretary John Snow is working on it.
Based on the secretary’s comments on his latest trip to the Middle Kingdom, China’s consumers are spending fast enough to buy TVs, cars, and other goodies. And that irks America’s Treasury chief. “Developing a stronger consumer credit system in China will be important in helping to facilitate the further development of the country,” Snow advised reporters last week, according to ChinaDaily.com. How magnanimous of him to say so. Indeed, he suggested that China’s “extraordinarily high” savings rate wasn’t being deployed as productively as it might be.