I've met a lot of Australians on this journey so far. Most have been relatively sanguine about the state of the Aussie economy. I haven't had the heart to tell any of them they are living in a fantasy world. And here is some anecdotal evidence as to why:

Wang Denggui, father of three, arrived more than a year ago in the palm-lined streets of this southern town with a single goal: toil in a factory to save for his children’s school tuition.

But the plans of Mr. Wang and thousands of co-workers unraveled at noon on Nov. 1, when the Taiwanese chairman of their ailing shoe factory climbed over a factory wall to flee the country and his debts. That left several American shoe companies with unfilled orders and 2,000 workers without jobs.

“He just ran without telling anyone,” Mr. Wang said.

For decades, the steamy Pearl River Delta area of southern Guangdong Province served as a primary engine for China’s astounding economic growth. But an export slowdown that began earlier this year and that has been magnified by the global financial crisis of recent months is contributing to the shutdown of tens of thousands of small and mid-size factories here and in other coastal regions, forcing laborers to scramble for other jobs or return home to the countryside.

What does a shoe factory in China have to do with the Aussie economy?

Raw materials. Raw materials exports to China have been propping up the Aussie economy. And now with Chinese factories being shuttered, it doesn't take a genius to figure out what will happen to the Aussie economy, another Anglo-Saxon economy that lived high on the credit bubble.