After fretting for the past five years or so about how to keep the economy from overheating, Beijing is now faced with the novel problem of how to keep it from cooling. “If you’re sitting in Beijing, you’re saying, ‘We’ve already lost two percentage points of economic growth. How much more are we going to lose?’” said Nicholas Lardy, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute of International Economics in Washington.

“That’s a big turning point for the Chinese economy. That means questions of profitability, questions of unemployment, questions of social stability.”

China’s gross domestic product growth peaked at a frantic annualized 12.6 per cent in the second of quarter of 2007. Since then it has eased to 10.6 per cent in the first quarter of this year and 10.1 per cent in the second. Most economists are predicting growth in the coming year of between 8 and 10 per cent – still a breakneck pace compared with most economies, but a comedown for China.

http://www.reportonbusiness.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080829.wcover30/BNStory/Business/home

You know my thinking on this already: apocalyptic as usual.