Closer to the Economic Collapse: The "Roach Motel"

I believe the recent stock market crash in China was a forewarning of what is in store for the rest of the world, only worse. About a week ago, China's four-week-long stock market rout had wiped out nearly 30% off the Shanghai Composite Index since its highs of June 2015.

The most remarkable thing about the Chinese crash is that our media are now reporting that the situation is "normalised" and the crash has stopped. The only reason the crash has stopped is because Beijing has ordered (1) shareholders with more than a 5-percent interest must stop selling shares; (2) directors, supervisors, and senior management personnel are barred from reducing their holdings; (3) there is the threat of imprisonment for those who may have been contemplating a short in the Chinese markets; and (4) trading in two-thirds of the stocks on the exchange have been halted.

In short, China took measures that equate to nothing less than an abandonment of a market economy. The value of the current stock market - effectively frozen - is now completely artificial and grossly inflated. At the end of the day China is still a one party state with a communist government that plays around with free market economics, but at heart China remains a command economy as recent events have proven.

Michael Pento has aptly described the Chinese market as now being nothing more than a "roach motel". No sane person would invest in the Chinese stock market now: "A market is a place where buyers and sellers freely meet and price is discovered. What China has now created is a roach motel where money moves in but it can’t easily move out, if it can move out at all. So all technical and fundamental analysis goes out the door. And those who choose to participate in this charade are left waiting for Beijing’s next decision on how to direct the market."

While not as bad as China, Western stock markets are increasingly manipulated, and propped up by central bank money printing. The entire world is now drowning in debt, and when the crash comes to the West is the only option to "do a China" and abandon the market economy?  Will we be reduced to a "roach motel" as well?