China real estate bubble

The Shanghai Composite is as close to a proxy for public firms in China as investors can get, and indexes are believed to reflect where markets think a nation's economy is headed. So what does it mean that, despite China's white-hot growth, the Shanghai Composite has been seriously lagging the S&P 500?

In most respects, China is a world away from the oil-dominated autocracies in the Mideast now seething with anti-government unrest. But it faces similar issues: high inflation and a troubling wealth gap that could fuel social upheavals, if Beijing doesn't make some big changes soon.

The dollar is looking mighty attractive, thanks to a reviving U.S. economy and eurozone woes, and it will only get stronger as traders who gambled that it would fall buy dollars to unwind their bad bets. Add in China's desperate need to get its overheated economy in check, and commodities prices look like they have nowhere to go but down.

Hong Kong took a new step this week to let some air out of its real estate bubble, levying a heavy tax on property flippers -- a move that has already sent asking prices there downward. But Hong Kong's real estate risks are dwarfed by those in Mainland China.

Asian markets were mixed Monday. In Japan the Nikkei 225 Index rose 1.1%, helped by new numbers showing the nation's economy outpaced economists' predictions and grew more than expected in the third quarter. In China the Shanghai Composite Index advanced 1% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index slid 0.8%.

China surprised international markets Tuesday by raising key interest rates for the first time in three years. The move sparked a worldwide sell-off on worries that it could cause the Chinese economy to slow down.

Politics and finance factor in to China's nosebleed real estate prices, but the most surprising inflator of housing costs is the relative lack of brides and the male competition to woo them.