Shanghai, after a long absence

I woke up early to catch the first flight to Shanghai this morning for a client meeting. It's been about a year since I last set foot in Shanghai and I saw new buildings under construction with familiar acronyms. The strange thing is, I didn't see crowds of workers around the site like I expected. When I looked more closely at those fancy river-side apartment buildings in Pudong, there was no sign of occupancy.

My first reaction was whether I was looking at distressed properties. My way of thinking is no matter how low the price I pay for an investment, if I cannot sell it or rent it out at a price that justifies my return profile, it's not a good investment. The scariest thing was, I could not tag a figure to the developments.

I had a chat with my neighbour on a flight back in February. We both wondered whether the economy is really that bad or our spending and plan to spend was influenced by the picture drawn by the media?

If I go out to splurge, I could be wrong about my read of the economy and ended up wasting my bullets to carry me through this downturn. If people don't spend, it's almost certain that the economy won't get adequate support to recover. I don't believe in stimulus package by the government alone can save the world. To spend or not to spend and that's the question!