This is John Bachelor, conversation with a colleague Andrew Collier,

orient capital research about Chinese banks being told by the

central government the Chinese Communist Party

not to buy Chinese government debt, instead to buy the debt of

consumers, mortgages, home loans, loans for consumers or startups. The challenge of course is that no one's

borrowing. China's economy is in tatters. I ask Andrew can they force the consumer to borrow? Can they force the banks to loan

to consumer? Here's his answer with the twist about corporate borrowing and

corporate debt.

China's bond market is troubled because the central government is the Chinese Communist

Party.

Here's Andrew.

No, no, they can't order people to do that and particularly since mortgages now are a death

now because you know what are you buying? You're buying something that's probably going to go down in price.

They can't make people do that.

And of course, in a place like America, you could have credit cards that suddenly offer free coffee makers or points on an airline, that kind of thing.

But they don't have that kind of system and the credit card industry is not very well

advanced.

They tend to do everything through online transactions.

So there's not a lot that they can do on the consumer side.

It's the corporate side, as Gordon has indicated, where you could force them to lend.

But there, the banks are balking.