China train crash prompts anger at reckless growth (Chicom high-speed rail debt - $300 billion)

Fox 12 Idaho ^ | 8/02/11 | JOE McDONALD

[Libloather]

China train crash prompts anger at reckless growth
Updated: Aug 02, 2011 8:53 AM EDT
By JOE McDONALD
AP Business Writer

BEIJING (AP) - China's bullet train was supposed to signal its arrival as a high-tech leader. Instead, a crash that killed at least 40 people has made it a lightning rod for anger at the human cost of recklessly fast development.

**SNIP**

The cost of building the bullet train also is adding to concern over the Ministry of Railways' high and rising debt level and whether it will have to be bailed out by Chinese taxpayers. The ministry's publicly reported outstanding debts are 2 trillion yuan ($300 billion), equal to 5 percent of China's annual economic output.

The ministry is probably not making enough money to pay that debt, Standard Chartered economist Stephen Green said in a report .

The railway ministry, a bureaucratic behemoth that employs 3.2 million people, might be more susceptible to change than other portions of China's government because it already was reeling from scandal before the crash.

The former minister, Liu Zhijun, the bullet train's main official booster, was dismissed in February amid a corruption investigation.

Following warnings by Chinese train experts that the bullet trains' planned top speed was dangerously fast, his successor, Sheng Guangzu, announced in April it would be cut from 350 kph (220 mph) to 300 kph (190 mph). Sheng said slower trains with lower-priced tickets also would be added.

[Libloather]

would be cut from 350 kph (220 mph) to 300 kph (190 mph).

That should save a few lives in the next wreck.

[Dilbert San Diego]

And here I thought that, under communism, the state would wither away, and that economic considerations, or anything to do with money, would be a non-issue.

I wonder if Chairman Mao is turning in his grave to see the capitalist changes and accomodations in Communist China in recent years. What would he think of Wal-Mart, McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried, and other evil capitalists in his worker’s paradise??????

[DBrow]

In debt? Who does China borrow from?

[roadcat]

The cost of building the bullet train also is adding to concern over the Ministry of Railways' high and rising debt level and whether it will have to be bailed out by Chinese taxpayers.

Oh, those Chinese taxpayers, living in a communist country, don't have a choice about bailing out the free-spending habits of their government. Yup, we sure are lucky we're not socialist under Obama. /(sarc.)