I don’t know if the large insurers have priced this in yet. I might be wrong, but I think the reinsurance problem has just begun the process of unwinding. While the big players like AIG own their own reinsurance companies, quite a few of the other larger players don’t. If the reinsurance companies suffer from the same opacity as the banks, there will be quite a scramble to ascertain who is holding what in terms of bad debt and liabilities.

A friend of mine works for Intel, and was recently in China. He echoed what you said, and also mentioned how quickly the consumer culture has sprung up. They are apparently minting millionaires at a frenetic pace.