(ZEROHEDGE) – When the U.S. economy crashed in a deflationary vortex during the global financial crisis (and just after the time giant yen carry trade imploded), it seemed to many that another great Depression was assured. However, after a brief period of pain, both the U.S. and the world economy staged a remarkable rebound which, we learned after the fact, was thanks to a unprecedented releveraging undertaken by China, which issued trillions in new debt and used the proceeds to not only build countless ghost cities, but to spark an inflationary tsunami around the world which helped the world economy recover from its depression on very short notice.

Fast forward 17 years when, with another massive yen carry trade collapsing, the world on the verge of a deflationary tsunami, central banks are either cutting rates or preparing to do so, and global growth starting at another recession (if not depression) in the face. “Deja vu,” some would say (it would have been even more symmetric if the bank failures from last March been delayed until now), but there is one major difference: unlike 2008, this time China is not coming to save the world. The reason why is the same reason why China’s economy and markets have been in a downward spiral for the past 5 years: the world’s second largest economy (soon to be overtaken by India’s economy just as it recently lost the crown for most populous nation) simply has too much debt, and unlike 2008, Beijing has no more capacity to taken on the unlimited debt need to bootstrap the global economy.

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Or maybe we – and consensus – are dead wrong: maybe despite pessimism that China simply has too much debt to do stimulate with even more new debt, this time Beijing will do what the Fed did in 2009 and launch helicopter money.