Looking past all of the major events transpiring in Ukraine, Iraq, Ferguson, and other hotspots, there's still plenty of worrisome smoke emanating from the global economic engine compartment.
The most recent installment comes from what appears to be abundant signs of bursting housing bubbles in several major markets.
Looking East: China
The one that everyone is most keyed on is the one in China, arguably the most potent bubble of them all because it could easily have global repercussions when it bursts.
Well… indeed it just might be in the process of bursting. No, I'll go further than that. It has been bursting for a while.
And the Chinese authorities have been fighting that process vigorously somewhat successfully so far. But that success looks like it's coming to an end:
China's Housing Slump
Jul 23, 2014
Sales volumes across the country have fallen close to 10% from a year ago and new housing starts are 20% lower.
Prices of new apartments fell in 55 out of 70 major cities across China in June. Prices nationwide are still 4.2% higher than a year ago, but the trend is down.
(Source)
What we have here are the classic signs of a bursting bubble: sales volumes dried up a while back, and now prices are falling. In fact, in the vast majority of Chinese cities, the prices are now falling.
Knowing what we do about ghost cities and the extraordinary price-to-income ratios that these cities entertain — sometimes as high as 20:1 (Beijing) or 14:1 (Shanghai) when anything over 5:1 is a sign of trouble — there was never any doubt that the Chinese property bubble was going to someday burst.
The only question was When?
What's really fascinating here is that the sales and price statistics are sagging badly even after enormous efforts by Chinese monetary and government authorities to keep both of those metrics elevated:
Chinese banks step up property lending
Aug 18, 2014
New home prices in China fell 0.9 per cent in July from June, government data showed on Monday, the third straight monthly drop.
by pgp 
