That Decoupling Feeling

From Bloomberg: China Industrial Profits Fall First Time on Record.

Chinese industrial companies’ profits dropped for the first time on record as the global recession cut demand for exports from the world’s third-largest economy.

Net income sank 37.3 percent in the first two months of 2009 from a year earlier to 219.1 billion yuan ($32 billion), the statistics bureau said today. Profits expanded 16.5 percent in the same period last year. Records began in February 2007.

You know,if you had asked any 19th-century economist, they would've told you that the fate of borrower and borrowee hung in tandem.

Only in this absurd 21st-century did we come up with the equally absurd notion known as "decoupling".

Now that Brazorussia-Chindia have "decoupled", how's that working out for them, huh?