Agreed, @pastperformer.Time will tell whether the stimulus...

Agreed, @pastperformer.

Time will tell whether the stimulus measures are just 'feel good' wallpaper or whether more meaningful and effective measures will be end up being rolled out.

Keen students of economics (and history) know that when enough of a population is hungover with debt beyond its comfort (confidence) zone, pursuant to the last cracker debt-fueled party, they will, more often than not, choose to use the savings from reduced debt service (via lower interest rates) to pay down debt, rather than behave as they did before they were bitten by the downturn with much higher gearing levels. It takes much longer to work off a debt than draw it down in the first place. My guess is there is, unfortunately, more than one generation of regular average Chinese citizens concurrently learning this the hard way for the very first time. The younger generation of adult Chinese don't necessarily have the benefit of learning from their parents because their parents were only exposed, in earnest, to this great(?) thing called 'loose lending' around the same time as their adult children. There has not been enough time for the lessons of previous mistakes to be passed down from one generation to the next -- notwithstanding a similar version of the same phenomena occurring in The West. (Here, I'm essentially referring to the vast cohort of financially conservative citizens who would normally take on the lessons of their parents in adulthood, but have not had the benefit at this juncture. The 'set-your-hair-on-fire' hot-money crowd will always do what they're gonna do, regardless.) I see this as one of the growing pains of the reasonably young hybrid market-based communist system.

So, depending on the level of indebtedness and the severity of the downturn, it can take a while for confidence to return en-masse, potentially rendering the efficacy of traditional monetary policy levers somewhat impotent. The "pushing on a string" analogy is a great place to start for those looking for more info via Google.

The traditional stimulus playbook:
1) Deploy monetary policy (i.e. lower interest rates and ease gearing rules(??)*);
2) Jawbone about it and trickle out more;
3) Jawbone about it and trickle out some more;
...
4) If the desired effect is still lackluster/ellusive, deploy fiscal policy (i.e. gov't spending) to stimulate the demand side and an eventual return of larger scale confidence.

If the patient still fails to recover satisfactorily, or you become sufficiently concerned of impending financial disaster, break the glass and 'go nuclear' by deploying non-traditional measures like QE, direct asset purchases, yadda, yadda (aka 'Gangnam GFC Style').

They're currently at Stage 1. And today's presser was a fizzer. What a shock (not).

(*Special note on easing gearing rules in this instance suggests an inability by Beijing to read the room, which suggests a bit more pain to come until it eventually wakes up.)