We take comfort in knowing that the US government isn’t the only one to lie to its citizens about the state of the economy. The apparatchiks in the Communist Party of China do too!

Most Chinese economic reports can be taken with a fistful of salt. The one proven indicator that shows how the Chinese economy is doing is power usage. When the economy expands, factories, consumers and businesses use more energy. When the economy is slowing, the opposite happens. From ChinaStakes:

Power generation in China dropped again in April, indicating that the macroeconomic rebound the market has expected is yet to appear.

According to the State Grid’s latest statistics, April’s national power generation totaled 274.763 billion kwh, a fall of 3.55%, year on year, and a decline of over 3% from the previous month.

This isn’t exactly a bullish indicator for the great China-will-lead-us-out-of-economic-stagnation theory.