Vox Sentences: The US' early stock crash probably isn't a big deal. But China's probably is.

Both the US' and China's stock markets slumped today — but one of them mostly recovered. Hint: it's the same country where a pair of panda cubs were born over the weekend.

Vox Sentences is written by Dylan Matthews and Dara Lind.

TOP NEWS

The stock market crash that wasn't

Scott Olson/Getty Images

• The Dow Jones average plunged 1000 points in the first few minutes the stock market was open today, before mostly rebounding and partially un-rebounding (it finished the day down 588 points).

  [CNN Money / Matt Egan]

• This wasn't a weird fluke. But it wasn't necessarily an indication of any serious underlying problem, either. Matt Yglesias explains what happened.

  [Vox / Matthew Yglesias]

• The fall might have been tempered by the New York Stock Exchange's decision to impose the ominous-sounding "Rule 48" at the beginning of trading. Rule 48 actually speeds up trading at the beginning of the day, by waiving the requirement that everyone announce stock prices before trading begins — which also inhibits panic selling when people hear the abnormally low prices.

  [Wall Street Journal / Saumya Vaishampayan and Bradley Hope]

• On the other hand, the fall might have been steeper than it would've been in the days before widespread automated trading. Some analysts think that "traderbots" make the market more volatile by creating feedback loops.

  [The New Yorker / James Surowiecki]

• This probably doesn't matter to you if you're not a rich person. For normal people, the stock market doesn't cause problems. It might reflect them. But we just don't yet know if that's happening here.

  [Vox / Matthew Yglesias]

• And whatever you do: don't sell.

  [Vox / Matthew Yglesias]

The crash you should actually be worried about

ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images

• Remember what we just said about the stock market sometimes reflecting bigger problems with the economy? It sure looks like that's happening in China right now, as Vox's Ezra Klein and Max Fisher explain.

  [Vox / Ezra Klein and Max Fisher]

• China's stock-market bubble (inflated by years of people using borrowed money to buy stock) is popping. The government's efforts to prop it up haven't stopped the slide. And the real economic problems go way beyond stocks.

  [Vox / Timothy Lee]

• The good news for China is that the stock market isn't that big. The bad news is that, unlike in the US, the people who own stock are regular people.

  [Fortune / Scott Cendrowski]

• The worse news is that the stock market boom was disguising the fact that the fundamentals of the Chinese economy are weak — and now the crash is exposing them.

  [Vox / Ezra Klein and Max Fisher]

• The even worse news is that China's stock crash could strengthen political factions in China who want to block vital economic reforms. This interview with China expert Damien Ma explains why the struggle over reform is so vital to China's future.

  [Vox / Zack Beauchamp]

• China's slump is dragging other markets down with it — especially from countries that supply commodities (which China has been gobbling up). Brazil is in pretty tough shape, for example.

  [The Economist ]

• Bloomberg View's Mark Whitehouse says the US doesn't have much to fear from the global slump, but banks in Spain, the UK and Taiwan might be vulnerable.

  [Bloomberg View / Mark Whitehouse]

Two good old American panda babies

STR/AFP/Getty

• On Saturday night, Mei Xiang, a panda at the National Zoo in Washington, DC, gave birth to two (!) cubs.

  [Washington Post / Michael E. Ruane, Elizabeth Koh and Martin Weil]

• The second cub was a total surprise; it hadn't shown up on the ultrasound. But before the ultrasound, taken only a few days before the birth, it wasn't clear whether either cub actually existed — or whether Mei Xiang was merely undergoing a pseudo-pregnancy, which is a thing pandas do.

  [San Diego Zoo / Suzanne Hall]

• The cubs' survival is still up in the air.

  [New York Times / Katie Rogers]

• The twins might have different fathers. Mei Xiang was artificially inseminated with the sperm of a panda living in China, as well as the sperm of fellow National Zoo panda Tian Tian — who the zoo more or less gave up on breeding naturally with Mei Xiang, famously describing him as "a clueless breeder with flawed technique."

  [Washington Post / Michael E. Ruane]

• Pandas in captivity are famously resistant to mating, forcing zookeepers to resort to tactics that wouldn't be out of place in a Judd Apatow movie.

  [The New Yorker / David Owen]

• Alas, the US-born cubs are still the property of the Chinese government — and can be (and are!) taken away if the US displeases China.

  [Vox / Dara Lind]

• This is an obvious violation of the United States' proud tradition of birthright citizenship. American-born pandas are American pandas, period.

  [Vox / Matt Yglesias]

MISCELLANEOUS

Americans like to eat stuff on sticks. The BBC was confused and wrote an entire article expressing wonder and bafflement at our customs. [BBC / Vanessa Barford]

• Zapping food with radiation is an awesome idea. No, really.

  [Mother Jones / Kiera Butler]

• This GQ piece on Stephen Colbert is probably the most moving, and definitely the most theologically dense, celebrity profile I've ever read.

  [GQ / Joel Lovell]

• This is a surprisingly dead-on cartoon explanation of Wittgenstein's "private language" argument.

  [Existential Comics]

• My favorite part of this Quentin Tarantino interview is when he dismisses True Detective and goes on a rant about how great The Newsroom — The Newsroom! — is.

  [NY Mag / Lane Brown]

VERBATIM

"I knew I was half man, half bee, but I didn’t realize the kind of subtleties that would be explored." [Sean Bean to Screenrant / Kara Warner]

• "I am not making this up. This is a space opera where the most high-stakes action you can take is to transfer a title to another person by invoking tax code."

  [Washington Post / Alexandra Petri]

• "Once a woman asked to leave her baby at the coat check. When the maître d’ explained that dinner lasted at least three hours, she stared back at him, unfazed. 'Yes, I know.'"

  [NYT / Edward Frame]

• "In order to properly reject a guy, we're supposed to be forceful enough that they take our rejection seriously, but nice enough that they don't immediately start plotting our demise."

  [NY Mag / Jessica Roy]

• "Social media turns out to be another tool to reinforce the idea that celebrities occupy a completely different sphere of existence from everyone else. These Instagram accounts are like postcards from Famous Land, where everyone’s on a first-name basis, everyone’s having a blast, and you’re invited, sort of — at least to watch from behind the glass."

  [Vulture / Adam Sternbergh]

WATCH THIS

Vox / Spencer Macnaughton and Joe Posner

• The unseen face of meth use

  [YouTube / Spencer Macnaughton and Joe Posner]

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