[revel]

It's like 2007/2008 again. Everyone savvy knew there was fraud in the mortgage market at the retail level but they didn't know how pervasive it was. To some extent the Chinese commercial real estate market is the same way: nobody trusts the numbers but no one is sure how bad it is. The author is right that there is this pressure to win the money back and that this is where things can get really out of control. Of course, there is a remote chance they can pull a rabbit out of a hat and make enough money legitimately to pay back all the people they owe, but I doubt it.