Shanghai's economy is doomed. The researchers at Dresdner Kleinwort Benson have published a report showing that the city has committed an act of great folly and set itself on the path to ruin.
It is erecting the world's tallest skyscraper.
'Almost all the tallest buildings have heralded a major financial correction,' said the Asia Property research report entitled the Skyscraper Index.
'If this continues, beware the world's next tallest building . . .' Shanghai's harbinger of doom is already under construction, and should be completed in three or four years time.
The Shanghai World Financial Centre will stand 1,509 feet high. That's 26 feet higher than the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur.
But when buildings of the past have scraped the sky, the sky has fallen.
'An unhealthy 100-year correlation exists between building the world's next tallest building and an impending financial crisis,' says the Skyscraper Index.