Commentary Weeks ago China released a bunch of economic figures for June and the second quarter. Despite beating expectations, most series continue to show a downtrend after the unusual rebound due to exceptionally low base effect in the first quarter. While countries of BRICS belong to the same class, India, Brazil, Russia, and South Africa had first-quarter GDP growth rates at only 1.64 percent, 0.95 percent, –0.7 percent, and –3.2 percent respectively. Yet China’s was an unbelievably high 18.3 percent. It was funny that none of the stock markets reacted to that. The even funnier thing was the fixed assets ex rural year-to-date year-on-year (YTD, YoY) growth; the June number was +12.6 percent. What an outstanding number widely admired in the local media. However, guys with clear minds found that the assets levels for June 2020 and June 2021 were 28.16 and 25.59 respectively, both YTD in trillion Yuan. One …