Talk of an economic slowdown in China has become so loud and persistent that it now has its own slang: ghost cities, ghost fleets, rocket eggs, naked officials. The downturn has even led to the invention of a new financial algorithm, something called the China Stress Index — and the index remains high. Some of the stresses were mentioned over the weekend by Prime Minister Wen Jiabao as he spoke of “huge downward pressure” on the world’s No. 2 economy, due principally, he averred, to slackening consumer demand in Europe and real estate speculation at home. As my colleague Keith Bradsher reports, housing construction ... (full story)