This is John Bachelor, conversation with my colleague Chris Regal of scholar.com about the Chinese consumer

as seen in luxury goods in Shanghai.

Chris takes that and shows us the Chinese economy, brittle, deteriorating.

The consumer frightened. Even the rich consumer.

Here's Chris Riegel.

More of this tonight.

John, in China, prior to COVID,

it was very common for Chinese of a wealthy status to buy the $6,000

Loubiton bag, the $25,000 Rolex. And there was always a very big secondary market

for the real products in China

because they were seen as somewhat liquid investments.

You could buy that bag, hold on to that as a status symbol, and then trade it in the future or sell it in the future because the Chinese are very status-centric culture.

That being said now, in China the larger demographic of the housing market is

completely frozen up is now in decline that was the only other real tangible

area for investment for Chinese consumers.

So the Chinese consumer is under very substantial pressure to say, where can I spend money,

where can I save money, where do I put that money to try to sustain that or grow that and it's certainly not in the Chinese stock market.

So luxury goods showing that depression is a big indicator of the health of the Chinese consumer.