Biden is talking about ending tariffs on China. I guess we can raise taxes on ourselves but can't tax China at all. That's why China is paying Hunter the big bucks I guess.
The China Thread. (Warning: Political Discussion).
- Thread starter The-Hack
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China just lowered their interest rates, due to "alarming" slowdown of their economy, per this article from Yahoo News
That's a great sign for the US as we should see reduced demand for oil and reduce inflationary pressures (the US is dealing with negative GDP growth as well, we are "officially" in a recession as we have had negative GDP growth in the last two quarters). Despite the recession and high inflation, we still have low unemployment and (despite recent increases) historically low interest rates.
That's a great sign for the US as we should see reduced demand for oil and reduce inflationary pressures (the US is dealing with negative GDP growth as well, we are "officially" in a recession as we have had negative GDP growth in the last two quarters). Despite the recession and high inflation, we still have low unemployment and (despite recent increases) historically low interest rates.
Not nearly at the level of the “ghost cities” in China...but can someone explain to me why they have built/are building 8 (might be more now) big new apartment complexes over the last 3-4 years on the east end of Louisville. Just when I think it’s maxed out...they break ground on yet another complex. Where are all of the people coming from that are going to inhabit those new units?
Also odd that it all started just before Covid hit, ramped up during the lockdown (the construction industry wasn’t locked down) and is still in overdrive right in the middle of a recession.
Some of it can be explained by renters fleeing the downtown area after the riots/uptick in violence downtown and by some people selling houses & renting instead...but that doesn’t explain it all unless I have considerably underestimated those aspects. It doesn’t seem sustainable at the rate they are being built. Seems like there will be a ton of empty units.
Am I missing something? Anyone have any insights?
Also odd that it all started just before Covid hit, ramped up during the lockdown (the construction industry wasn’t locked down) and is still in overdrive right in the middle of a recession.
Some of it can be explained by renters fleeing the downtown area after the riots/uptick in violence downtown and by some people selling houses & renting instead...but that doesn’t explain it all unless I have considerably underestimated those aspects. It doesn’t seem sustainable at the rate they are being built. Seems like there will be a ton of empty units.
Am I missing something? Anyone have any insights?
Yes but I don’t think it is entirely true.
They have also been building houses at break neck speed on the east end of Louisville as well. New subdivisions have gone up at just about the same pace over that same time period. Just don’t think it is sustainable.
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Here's a really good read about some economic policy indicators that may, or may not, signal something w/r/t China's intentions towards Taiwan.
https://www.csis.org/analysis/economic-indicators-chinese-military-action-against-taiwan
https://www.csis.org/analysis/economic-indicators-chinese-military-action-against-taiwan
China is in a downward trajectory starting now & going forward. Their young population has collapsed & the old is rapidly expanding. They either kill off the old or will need to divert more & more to them vs. production. Insulating themselves from other economies shuts them off from technology advancements. Fortress China is want some here want for the US - dumb. Net, they need to attack soon or the Taiwan ship will sail. JMO.
Read a linked story about the billions China has spent on a Pakistani port city. It sounds freakishly similar to the ghost cities China has built in China proper:
“Arriving in the city on Pakistan’s Indian Ocean coast, Chinese and Pakistani flags are ubiquitous, and Chinese-financed construction projects loom, but the city is spookily devoid of economic activity. Near the seafront, broad avenues are curiously empty of vehicles.”
This is a major part of China’s Road and Belt initiative, or what I call the “Red Brick Road,” initiative.
A sinister plan to waste trillions of dollars by mismanaged and corrupt investments where there is neither great need or use of the facilities. All to replace the international system of free trade viewed as the Anglo-American world hegemony.
The Chicoms have leveraged a large workforce and the willingness of Western countries to invest to the max.
It is “easy” to build a factory, but development of new products is hard;
It is “easy” to build a city, or dozens of them, in the middle of nowhere, but hard to build humans to live in them.
It is easy to build a bank, but hard to build a banker.
Ultimately, as the Century progresses and China fades, there might be a great awakening in the Middle Kingdom; one that tells them that a Century of mass murder, reproductive repression, and economic mismanagement can be cast aside to allow the Invisible Hand to cure the ills of centralized rot.
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China is in a world of hurt economically and it is only going to continue. A combination of Covid and Climate issues has decimated their economy. They grew too fast and didn't have the infrastructure to support it. Now, with extreme drought conditions like we are having in the Southwest, they have huge industrial areas that can no longer sustain themselves and that are having to shut down. I expect civil unrest to get really bad in the next year or so.
Also, expect pricing and shortages to get worse. They are way behind on production. Start shopping early for Christmas.
Also, expect pricing and shortages to get worse. They are way behind on production. Start shopping early for Christmas.
You seen some of the videos of those ghost cities being torn down? Kinda surreal looking, TBH.
Will be pretty wild to see what happens over the next ten years. Will more manufacturing move to America, making everything more expensive, and necessitating increased wage growth for the average American for the foreseeable future? Will we simply shift to India and other countries causing another massive economy to emerge? Will China rebound? Seems we became so focused with cheap Chinese manufacturing that we basically became dependent on them, curious how things will change. I don’t see China letting go without a fight. Personally I see it as a positive for the USA however it shakes out.
I’m unaware of them being torn down, but here is my favorite video of two Westerners riding their motorcycles through dozens of these cities.
China suffered from a delusion: real estate prices for decades increased rapidly as their population grew from 600 million to 1.2 billion, but the reverse must come true when the population shrinks from 1.2 billion back to 650 million.
They are at their population apex, right now, and have millions upon millions of unoccupied structures, now. How many more will be unoccupied in 50 years?
By the year 2050, the need for human workers, innovators, song writers, doctors, etc. will have essentially ceased, as AI will allow machines to build the next generation of machines, write the books, songs, and develop new programming, etc.
Hence, the cost of labor will be meaningless. We will all be May Tag repairmen in 30 years, wherever we live, unless in a field where humans insist on relying on humans (medical?).
Buy everybody a Case XX knife, a Zippo lighter, or a Henry repeater for Christmas, and China can go to Hell!
I won’t likely be around to collect, at my age.
If you are younger than 30, you might well live to see the great showdown with out-of-control AI!!
Well, more productive activity for the Chinese economy!!
Pay ‘em to build ‘em; pay ‘em to blow them up!
There are estimates that 30 percent of China’s GDP annually, for decades, has been spent on building these shells. Hence, what is their real GDP??
Nobel Laureate economist Paul Krugman would argue that the first two sentences of your post are good macroeconomic policy, especially in a recession. Of courde, I know you're joking, which makes Krugman a complete chucklehead IMHO.
Yep, your last paragraph is spot. China's official be statistics have been cooked for years. I remember several years ago reading an academic study that looked at other economic indicators to try and estimate what the real growth was. Hell if I can recall who did it, but the end result was that the official numbers inflated the overall size of the economy by 1/4 to 1/3 when all was said and done.
I got my wake up call when I read their estimates of corn production. They claim rough parody with the US in corn production.
That’s pure Bullsh!t!!
Iowa produces more corn than Ukraine!! And then there’s Nebraska, etc.!!
Yeah, that's def BS. I've been to Shandong Province, which I think is one of their main corn growing areas, several times. I remember riding in a car along rural roads, and the farmers/peasants would dry their corn crop by spreading it out along the asphalt that comprised the shoulders and the outer part of the lanes. This was in the early-mid 2000s, mind you.
I can lean a little toward rock busting in recession, but these wasted trillions in China had nothing to do with lack of growth for two consecutive quarters, or a real recession.
When the economic sh!t h!ts the fan in China, it could cause a worldwide recession.
Or maybe if they stop wasting trillions on ghost cities, basic commodities get cheaper for us.
Wow. I just read this on a post citing Yahoo:
“At the same time, a worsening property slump is being felt at home and abroad as commodity prices such as iron ore and copper plummet.”
It looks like all chickens are coming home to roost at one time!
Seems like China should be trying to attract people to come and live in their "great nation." They could be the next "Great American melting pot!"
You know, if you enjoy totalitarian rule and like to have no privacy and don't like owning anything.
You know, if you enjoy totalitarian rule and like to have no privacy and don't like owning anything.
Maybe the year 3050, that shit ain’t happening in 20 something years.
Moore's law + 28 years = A whole lot of change and technological advancement. I don't believe Hack's that far off.
The reason you are not seeing a mass selloff (and a huge drop in prices) of homes in China is because they are severely restricting sales. If the sale price is too low, they simply don't approve the sale. Still with their thumb on the scales...
Here I think everyone expected China to assume the throne as a world leader like the US has been since WW2, when they have this ticking time bomb waiting to decimate their entire economy and send them into their own personal Great Depression.
Fortune Magazine: Ticking Time Bomb
Here I think everyone expected China to assume the throne as a world leader like the US has been since WW2, when they have this ticking time bomb waiting to decimate their entire economy and send them into their own personal Great Depression.
Fortune Magazine: Ticking Time Bomb
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And being told when and wether to breed.
They are suffering a brain drain, too. Anybody with any gumption and an opportunity is fleeing to Western nations.
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There is zero chance all that manufacturing is returning to the US. We are already in a massive labor shortage, and even if we had the people, we don't have the infrastructure. We don't have enough truck drivers to get materials moved around now. The only way this would work would be for us to develop some sort of specialized work visa with Mexico and the Central American countries that would encourage folks from those countries to come to the US to legally work. Unfortunately, our politicians have gone all in on the culture wars and they would have no interest in a solution that takes immigration off their talking point list.
It's also unfortunate that Mexico is no longer a reliable trade partner, The Opium wars have destroyed that country and it is only going to get worse. Personally, I think we should make it a matter of national security and we should start working with the Mexican govt. to send our military in to solve the problem. Don't think it happens, but one can dream.
It's also unfortunate that Mexico is no longer a reliable trade partner, The Opium wars have destroyed that country and it is only going to get worse. Personally, I think we should make it a matter of national security and we should start working with the Mexican govt. to send our military in to solve the problem. Don't think it happens, but one can dream.
OT:
I, personally, think we've hit a bit of a snag in automation. We've scalped the top 1 or 2% of jobs over the last decade with automation. Easy button pushing jobs that were MADE to be automated. An example is a toll booth collector.. or a cashier. And while yes, cashiers have dwindled.. the self-checkout system... for as simple as it seems, is still far too complex and no where near without flaw. It's a system that should be so perfect and simple in our minds, but isn't. Who can help the old lady? What about shrinkage? What if it's a bigger issue and breaks? Who makes the parts? What about trickier orders that self checkout can't handle? What about those who want to talk to someone?
It's why I think back to above. And that, for now, and for a while, we've kind of automated everything we can. There will be jobs here and there over the next several decades that go away... but so many of them still require a human element. For every cashier that gets let go in favor of self-checkout, another job (or two) is created to.
I'm sure the day will come where humans don't need to work, but still think it's far off. I think automation is far more complex than we realize. We're still far off from driverless cars becoming something that the general public will be using.
I think he misses the mark, badly. He openly says China will drop to 650m by 2050. That would require half of them to die in 28 years, meaning the median age would have to be about 55/65 years old right now.
Most estimates I have seen show them rapidly regressing in population between 2050 and 2100.
Either way, it is inevitable, and is a slippery question given the ever present Chicom lies about population and production numbers.
Peter Zeihan does OK when he sticks close to the data, but he even gets that wrong a lot of the time, as Señor Hack pointed out with respect to his silly prediction about China's population. It'll decline, sure, but not by 50% by 2050!
Some of his other predictions are downright bizarre, like Argentina coming to dominate South America. LOL.
He gives a good interview, but I wouldn't regard him as authoritative in any way. Knowledgeable? Ehh, kinda.
You need to consider how big of a collapse he sees coming. He doesn't see just a normal recession with a couple month bounce back. China is facing an economic collapse. Europe is facing an economic collapse. The US is facing losing our special monetary status globally. You are going to see capitol move to new places. You already see wealthy Americans moving to other countries out of fear of collapse and conflict. China would be seeing that if they were free to travel.
Mexico city residents are complaining of Americans driving up property prices.
I'm (somewhat) familiar with his work, hmt. Much of it isn't worth paying attention to. He's an extremely well-spoken doom monger with a penchant for hyperbole. I think there's certainly a possibility for a higher amount of "churn" in the next couple of decades than what we've been used to as the world system adjusts, but nothing approaching the level of what he's saying. And anyway, as to your point about wealthy Americans fleeing because of the fears of collapse and conflict, they must not listen to Zeihan, as he says the USA will fare far better than most countries. Because of our fortunate geography and natural resources, we're naturally well-insulated from conflict.
Im not saying he's absolutely right. I try to get a few different opinions on stuff like that that goes against the commonly accepted "truth".
China may collapse or they may think they can help crash the world economy and outgrow everyone coming out of it... or they may just be that bad at top down economies..
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