(04-30-2014 03:08 PM)Samseau Wrote:  

(04-30-2014 03:06 PM)clever alias Wrote:  chinas biggest problem (mot.that its huge) is civil.unrest. the government has to keep growth high or people (most of whom are still rather poor) will get a little rowdy

And what if they do? Chinese soldiers have no compunction with mowing down their own. They've proven they can do it before in the Communist days and they will do it again.

China also has control over their own internet. They can stop resistance movements from forming.

This is patently false.

The Fed in China can barely control provincial political leaders, who walk a fine line between doing everything Beijing tells them to do and appeasing local business entities in order to maintain the status quo.

There are protests regularly, usually over working conditions. They just aren't widely publicized and you don't hear about them.

The last thing Beijing wants is another T-min. The damage control necessary in such a situation would probably be impossible with the Internet now available to the masses...they only have so many individuals tasked with monitoring Internet communications.

There truth is that China is a large geographical country and a massively populated country and there is only so much that Beijing can keep tabs on, even with their massive bureaucracy, just due to sheer size and numbers.

(04-30-2014 11:03 AM)Swagger Wrote:  As a student of Macro Economics I will say this..GDP measures ONLY the market value of the goods and services a nation produces. It should come as no surprise to you all that China has a rising GDP. The GDP cannot account for the quality of life, standard of living or happiness of a nation's citizens. There is no cost benefit analysis that is included in the GDP equation that accounts for the nation's smog, pollution or environmental problems. And thus CHina has an inflated score. Other than the obesity epidemic, broken immigration and healthcare US nationals have very little to complain about. If you worked hard to build a career, applied game to choose the right kind of women, you still have it better than over 90% of the world out there. IMO still the land of dreams

you don't consider the US to have an inflated score due to government borrowing and spending ?

(04-30-2014 08:41 PM)Suits Wrote:  

(04-30-2014 03:08 PM)Samseau Wrote:  

(04-30-2014 03:06 PM)clever alias Wrote:  chinas biggest problem (mot.that its huge) is civil.unrest. the government has to keep growth high or people (most of whom are still rather poor) will get a little rowdy

And what if they do? Chinese soldiers have no compunction with mowing down their own. They've proven they can do it before in the Communist days and they will do it again.

China also has control over their own internet. They can stop resistance movements from forming.

This is patently false.

The Fed in China can barely control provincial political leaders, who walk a fine line between doing everything Beijing tells them to do and appeasing local business entities in order to maintain the status quo.

There are protests regularly, usually over working conditions. They just aren't widely publicized and you don't hear about them.

The last thing Beijing wants is another T-min. The damage control necessary in such a situation would probably be impossible with the Internet now available to the masses...they only have so many individuals tasked with monitoring Internet communications.

There truth is that China is a large geographical country and a massively populated country and there is only so much that Beijing can keep tabs on, even with their massive bureaucracy, just due to sheer size and numbers.

This is false. The Chinese government can do whatever it wants. China is not too big. The government is simply too strong to need to change. It's practically lawless out in China. Their population is uneducated. Their population is poor. People who do get educated either a.) get the fuck out of the country or b.) exploit the system in place, and make enough money that they have no reason to change.

I was in China during the Jasmine revolution. China takes things like that very seriously. It was squashed. Reporters got murdered. Fire hoses were brought out at the first sign of unrest.

Additionally, citizens are not allowed to own guns. How can a government with almost total control over its country's internet be overthrown, especially when its own citizens cannot own guns?

(04-30-2014 02:46 PM)Samseau Wrote:  If China is not rich, then why do they have more GDP than us?

Because they have a population 4 times the size of our own. There are similar explanations as to why Mexico has a higher GDP PPP than Canada and Italy, and why Indonesia has a larger GDP PPP figure than Australia. GDP PPP is not in and of itself a great tool for evaluating the wealth of a country. GDP PPP per capita can tell you quite a bit more about where the real wealth is concentrated on this planet.

Quote:How will a demographic collapse effect a population of 1 Billion strong? They can feed on the corpses of their citizens and make GDP if they need to. There's no worry for China. Even if China loses half of its population, they've still got 200 million more citizens than America does.

China has a large population, but that does not insulate them from the realities of population aging and decline. In your hypothetical here, for example, China has lost half of its population. You are correct to note that this still leaves them with a larger raw number of citizens than the USA, but it is not merely the number of citizens that matters: it is the qualities those citizens have (work ethic, age, education, etc) that make them economically valuable.

In China's case, those citizens are going to be substantially older, leaving a shortage of productive labor (age 18-55 or so). The productive laborers that will remain are going to become substantially more expensive, eroding the cost advantage China has built its entire economic model on. China will have a hard time trying to create the kind of growth it has been creating for the last several decades when its population is aging rapidly, the number of productive citizens is declining quickly relative to less productive (and much more expensive) older dependents, and the productive labor that is left has become pricier. This is on top of the other serious political, social and economic issues China must deal with internally. These things limit growth (as we have seen in the west) and make it difficult to close the remaining gap between China and the west and actually get rich.

Rest assured that China has plenty to worry about.

Quote:America, meanwhile, is losing it's productive white population at a breakneck pace and replacing it with cheap immigrants that do not speak the same language or pay even half of the taxes white people do.

America has a much younger, more fertile population and is a much more attractive destination for educated, productive, young migrants from across the planet. Many immigrants are quite valuable to the USA and do their fair share when they arrive.

America has some serious issues, but it has more going for it than you let on here.

Quote:America is between a rock and a hard place. China has plenty of options still open to them, including the immigration option. China can print money. China can do all the things Western countries already have in the past 50 years to stave off collapse. China can delay for a long ass time but America's day of reckoning is no longer preventable.

Like I said, I'm not willing to bet against the USA at this point in time. There's reason to have more cautious optimism than you show here.

anyone who's lived in china, especially outside beijing would tell you its the most overblown police state in the world

Quote:USA is running on fumes. This is why I am on the deflation side of the arguments vs hyperinflation that you side on Samseau. USA has to spend $100 in debt to just get a penny of growth.

But this is where you are mistaken. When governments default on their obligations, the currency loses value.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_so...n_defaults

^ Read any example from this list, the currency in every case became shit trash overnight.

Umm, the PPP bit, purchasing power parity, is not an absolute measure, it's a relative measure. It's more to do with the material that can be bought at local prices.

Chinese local costs are lower, hence can be acquired more easily. If US prices went down to parity, or Chinese prices rose to parity, the GDP figure for China would reduce. As stated above, GDP measures aggregate transaction clearance prices, so bring chinese prices up to US values, the re-aggregate that way.... then they do that with 4 times the population.

GDP is a dodgy figure as it is, it was introduced by Keynes solely to explain debt deflation. Even he explicitly stated that outside of a depression, it's not that a meaningful figure.

GDP PPP is an even more dodgy figure, with assumptions based on numbers that can only ever be guessed, not quantified.

Raw GDP per capita is the most meaningful figure of you're ever going to use it.

Random thoughts:

Exporting/importing with regard to China
Trying to get the average Australian to get off his arse and produce something of quality to export to China would always be a hard ask because you'd get stuck in union disputes for six months every other year. People don't just off shore their businesses due to lower labour costs. They do it because the locals are a pain in the arse to deal with.

I've thought about exporting things from Taiwan to Australian hipsters for the kitsch value. I might still. A decade ago, I noticed in Europe that it was quite popular for people to go around wearing shirts with the names of former Eastern Bloc countries, cities or sporting teams on them for kitsch value. I've thought about purchasing local school bags with the schools' names on them (in Chinese) and selling them in Australia for similar kitsch value.

Soveriegn debt
Obviously, this is a problem, and I don't think it would be too nice to live through a default. That said, upon examining that list provided by others, one would note that the U.S. would be in esteemed company if it defaulted (indeed, it has before). Default is not the end of the world if an individual or nation own productive land and facilities. Civilisation rebuilds, and often quite rapidly, so long as the farm isn't literally sold off or destroyed. In the past one hundred years, Japan and Germany have gone through all sorts of problems, and yet each have several companies that have been around for at least five hundred, or even one thousand, years. Pretty much every single major conflict in continental Europe for the past few hundred years has, at some point, taken place in both Germany and France. Armies have swept through, governments have fallen, and currencies have been destroyed. Yet both France and Germany still have some of the most productive farmland on the planet, and there is some old, old money that owns it. Onwards they've always gone. In that regard, I would say that China is at a disadvantage to other countries because of the deep degradation that it is inflicting upon itself.

China vs the U.S.
Firstly, talk of Chinese triumphalism is premature, in my mind. Historically, China has gone through centralisation and dissolution/weakening of the Chinese state several times. Every dynasty has always had a tenuous grip on power, and why wouldn't they when covering such a large population spread across such a huge and diverse landscape? China as one, highly centralised state is not a certainty within the next century. What's more is that the Chinese people, from the top to the bottom, are very, very aware of their own history in this regard. Whereas the average Westerner couldn't tell you shit about the Reformation or the Dark Ages, the average person in Greater China is very aware of his own people's history and can put the Warring States Period or the Song Dynasty in historical context and talk about them.

I think both countries have looming problems and the wheels could come off either, and will to a certain extent. I don't think it's an either/or situation, however. I think what is more likely is that life is going to range between sucking big time and sucking somewhat for most people in the world. Nationality will have something to do with it, but not as much as people suggest. The entire world, save a few very clever and prosperous countries with very small populations (thus allowing them to be far more manoeuvrable), is going to become much more M-shaped. Thus, the issue is making sure you're on the right side of the M distribution, and leveraging what you have via geoarbitrage/location independence/three flags theory/perpetual traveller theory and/or in being able to own (and hold onto) the means of production.

I get a kick out of people talking about "Chinese GDP" as if anyone has the least idea what that is.

Official Chinese economic stats are essentially worthless. The IMF may try to estimate it this or that way, but the reality is that no one has the least idea about what Chinese GDP really equals to in any units.

When you see a number, it's worth asking -- how exactly is it measured and how do people know it's right?

In the US, the BEA (Bureau of Economic Analysis) invests an enormous amount of effort in trying to come up with a good GDP estimate. Even so, it's necessarily a fairly crude estimate deriving from surveys and subject to multiple revisions. In China, no such careful procedures are in place, the government distorts data in whatever ways it wants and the same is true of provincial governments, and the whole country is huge, chaotic and absurdly complicated. So the GDP numbers that come out of China are almost completely worthless.

Just something to keep in mind about the whole discussion. There is more to say about the actual economies but Excelsior's posts earlier in the thread are basically reasonable so there is no need to repeat them.

(04-30-2014 09:00 PM)Excelsior Wrote:  

(04-30-2014 02:46 PM)Samseau Wrote:  If China is not rich, then why do they have more GDP than us?

Because they have a population 4 times the size of our own. There are similar explanations as to why Mexico has a higher GDP PPP than Canada and Italy, and why Indonesia has a larger GDP PPP figure than Australia. GDP PPP is not in and of itself a great tool for evaluating the wealth of a country. GDP PPP per capita can tell you quite a bit more about where the real wealth is concentrated on this planet.

All that really says is the wealth hording in China is astronomical compared to most countries.

Just means it's easier for China to control things from the top.

Quote:

Quote:How will a demographic collapse effect a population of 1 Billion strong? They can feed on the corpses of their citizens and make GDP if they need to. There's no worry for China. Even if China loses half of its population, they've still got 200 million more citizens than America does.

China has a large population, but that does not insulate them from the realities of population aging and decline. In your hypothetical here, for example, China has lost half of its population. You are correct to note that this still leaves them with a larger raw number of citizens than the USA, but it is not merely the number of citizens that matters: it is the qualities those citizens have (work ethic, age, education, etc) that make them economically valuable.

This is a strong point and China does seem to be screwing itself over by not relaxing the one-child policy. They keep talking about relaxing the rules but if they probably should have started this process at least 10 years ago.

Quote:In China's case, those citizens are going to be substantially older, leaving a shortage of productive labor (age 18-55 or so). The productive laborers that will remain are going to become substantially more expensive, eroding the cost advantage China has built its entire economic model on. China will have a hard time trying to create the kind of growth it has been creating for the last several decades when its population is aging rapidly, the number of productive citizens is declining quickly relative to less productive (and much more expensive) older dependents, and the productive labor that is left has become pricier. This is on top of the other serious political, social and economic issues China must deal with internally. These things limit growth (as we have seen in the west) and make it difficult to close the remaining gap between China and the west and actually get rich.

I thought China doesn't have a huge welfare state? Why would a large aging population effect them?

Old people aren't going to revolt either, because old people are weak and easy to control. Indeed, I think the entire rationale behind the one-child policy was to make sure there couldn't be a large uprising of disaffected youths.

It's young men that shape a country's future, so if there is a shortage of young men to fight relative to the existing standing armies there is nothing that can be done to stop the state's control.

Quote:

Quote:America, meanwhile, is losing it's productive white population at a breakneck pace and replacing it with cheap immigrants that do not speak the same language or pay even half of the taxes white people do.

America has a much younger, more fertile population and is a much more attractive destination for educated, productive, young migrants from across the planet. Many immigrants are quite valuable to the USA and do their fair share when they arrive.

America has some serious issues, but it has more going for it than you let on here.

Not sure why America will remain an attractive destination when someday companies in China will be able to pay them better prices.

The simple fact of the matter is that America's productive population is dwarfed by it's non-productive population.

http://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/terenc...fit-takers

Right now, for every taxpayer there are two benefit takers. And soon another 30 million will be given amnesty, which means more drains on the welfare system.

It's broke and nothing is being done to improve the situation.

China, on the other hand, does not have to worry about any of this.

Quote:

Quote:America is between a rock and a hard place. China has plenty of options still open to them, including the immigration option. China can print money. China can do all the things Western countries already have in the past 50 years to stave off collapse. China can delay for a long ass time but America's day of reckoning is no longer preventable.

Like I said, I'm not willing to bet against the USA at this point in time. There's reason to have more cautious optimism than you show here.

I'm going to have to side with Jim Rogers.

Quote: The simple fact of the matter is that America's productive population is dwarfed by it's non-productive population.

For a lot of them, their productive jobs were taken away and sent overseas

(04-30-2014 03:08 PM)Samseau Wrote:  

(04-30-2014 03:06 PM)clever alias Wrote:  chinas biggest problem (mot.that its huge) is civil.unrest. the government has to keep growth high or people (most of whom are still rather poor) will get a little rowdy

And what if they do? Chinese soldiers have no compunction with mowing down their own. They've proven they can do it before in the Communist days and they will do it again.

China also has control over their own internet. They can stop resistance movements from forming.

The Chinese leadership is absolutely terrified of civil unrest.

There are hundreds of riots in China each year. Just Google "China" and "riots" and see how many pages of material appear.

It only takes is a very small proportion of the population to stage a successful regime change. The Chinese leaders know that, which is why they build untold numbers of ghost cities and ghost highways to keep everyone employed.

(04-30-2014 11:30 PM)T and A Man Wrote:  

Quote: The simple fact of the matter is that America's productive population is dwarfed by it's non-productive population.

For a lot of them, their productive jobs were taken away and sent overseas

Or through NAFTA.

I saw that firsthand due to the railroad, Canadian Pacific, that I used to work for. Traffic easily doubled on the route from the border in ND to Chicago after that passed, if not more.

(04-30-2014 11:33 PM)Tail Gunner Wrote:  

(04-30-2014 03:08 PM)Samseau Wrote:  

(04-30-2014 03:06 PM)clever alias Wrote:  chinas biggest problem (mot.that its huge) is civil.unrest. the government has to keep growth high or people (most of whom are still rather poor) will get a little rowdy

And what if they do? Chinese soldiers have no compunction with mowing down their own. They've proven they can do it before in the Communist days and they will do it again.

China also has control over their own internet. They can stop resistance movements from forming.

The Chinese leadership is absolutely terrified of civil unrest.

There are hundreds of riots in China each year. Just Google "China" and "riots" and see how many pages of material appear.

It only takes is a very small proportion of the population to stage a successful regime change. The Chinese leaders know that, which is why they build untold numbers of ghost cities and ghost highways to keep everyone employed.

I've always been curious how the male/female imbalance will play out there. Millions upon millions of men with little chance of mating would seemingly be a powder keg waiting to explode.

(04-30-2014 11:48 PM)Hotwheels Wrote:  I've always been curious how the male/female imbalance will play out there. Millions upon millions of men with little chance of mating would seemingly be a powder keg waiting to explode.

Me too, but the USA has a similar gap (because of the Alpha/Beta divide, not the number of individuals of each gender), and it hasn't exploded yet. I think porn has done a lot to blunt the negative effects that would usually appear from such an imbalance.

(05-01-2014 03:51 AM)Handsome Creepy Eel Wrote:  

(04-30-2014 11:48 PM)Hotwheels Wrote:  I've always been curious how the male/female imbalance will play out there. Millions upon millions of men with little chance of mating would seemingly be a powder keg waiting to explode.

Me too, but the USA has a similar gap (because of the Alpha/Beta divide, not the number of individuals of each gender), and it hasn't exploded yet. I think porn has done a lot to blunt the negative effects that would usually appear from such an imbalance.

Well, a very small contribution to keep the explotion off is the recent surge of chinese/african couples. China is investing a lot in Africa, usually putting their own workforce on those proyects, and the workers end up marrying african women. This cause a whole new issue with the tipical chinese xenophobia.

I'm not very knowledgable on economics but I go to a public university ranked in the 20's in the states and the Chinese students here drive: brand new BMW M3's, AMG Benz's, S line Audi's, Nissan GTR's, and even McLaren's, Lamborghini's, Bentleys and Maserati's. Take that for what it is.

"I've always been curious how the male/female imbalance will play out there. Millions upon millions of men with little chance of mating would seemingly be a powder keg waiting to explode. "



You aren't accounting for the samesex pref population which seems to be growing in number by day. Even if 1/100 are, that is still a huge percentage of the population. There are alot here in the South...

Anyone who wants to live in China is absolutely nuts. Most people are doing their best to get out. People who talk extensively about wanting to do business in/with China... most of them I would wager have never spent much time with actual Chinese people or in China itself.

(04-30-2014 11:46 PM)Hotwheels Wrote:  

(04-30-2014 11:30 PM)T and A Man Wrote:  

Quote: The simple fact of the matter is that America's productive population is dwarfed by it's non-productive population.

For a lot of them, their productive jobs were taken away and sent overseas

Or through NAFTA.

I saw that firsthand due to the railroad, Canadian Pacific, that I used to work for. Traffic easily doubled on the route from the border in ND to Chicago after that passed, if not more.

This, I am currently working in Chihuahua, Mexico and this place is like a Detroit back in the day except in Aviation, though they do have a little bit of everything going on. There are plants everywhere. People don't even need to worry about there job as there is another 1 right around the corner. They don't make much but considering that in their culture it is still normal to live with the family until the 30s, they have plenty to spend and they do. At my plant the Mexican engineers make 22,000 -36,000 pesos a year roughly.

Its not like the states where there are few engineers, here they are everywhere in the plants. The engineers to operator ratio is crazy. Its also noticeable how young everyone is. In the USA plants are full of 50+ year olds. Here they are almost entirely 23-33 year olds

Juarez is another city that is just like this one. Loaded with jobs.

Multiple plants in Canada and the USA are shipping more and more projects. The towns are certainly growing because of this as well.

Actually, there is a ton of opportunity for business.

(05-01-2014 10:44 AM)Mekorig Wrote:  

(05-01-2014 03:51 AM)Handsome Creepy Eel Wrote:  

(04-30-2014 11:48 PM)Hotwheels Wrote:  I've always been curious how the male/female imbalance will play out there. Millions upon millions of men with little chance of mating would seemingly be a powder keg waiting to explode.

Me too, but the USA has a similar gap (because of the Alpha/Beta divide, not the number of individuals of each gender), and it hasn't exploded yet. I think porn has done a lot to blunt the negative effects that would usually appear from such an imbalance.

Well, a very small contribution to keep the explotion off is the recent surge of chinese/african couples. China is investing a lot in Africa, usually putting their own workforce on those proyects, and the workers end up marrying african women. This cause a whole new issue with the tipical chinese xenophobia.

I wonder what those bitches are gonna look like.... Poosy paradise in a few decades?

(05-01-2014 11:11 AM)RussianRootCanal Wrote:  I'm not very knowledgable on economics but I go to a public university ranked in the 20's in the states and the Chinese students here drive: brand new BMW M3's, AMG Benz's, S line Audi's, Nissan GTR's, and even McLaren's, Lamborghini's, Bentleys and Maserati's. Take that for what it is.

That's because those students come from China's 1%. Not exactly an accurate depiction of the average Chinese citizen.

Maybe so, but it's literally having an effect on our economy

http://mobile.businessweek.com/articles/...-car-sales

(04-30-2014 08:59 PM)Switch Wrote:  This is false. The Chinese government can do whatever it wants. China is not too big. The government is simply too strong to need to change. It's practically lawless out in China. Their population is uneducated. Their population is poor. People who do get educated either a.) get the fuck out of the country or b.) exploit the system in place, and make enough money that they have no reason to change.

I was in China during the Jasmine revolution. China takes things like that very seriously. It was squashed. Reporters got murdered. Fire hoses were brought out at the first sign of unrest.

Additionally, citizens are not allowed to own guns. How can a government with almost total control over its country's internet be overthrown, especially when its own citizens cannot own guns?

Not quite. China's dealing with a lot of internal unrest at the moment. The machete spree in March and the train station bombing yesterday show serious unrest the the Uighur region, which has repeatedly been completely shut off from the internet and has had cell phone service dismantled, yet it hasn't managed to stop the unrest.

And Chinese citizens can own guns. Gun ranges are becoming increasingly popular across the country. It's as of now, it's prohibitively expensive hobby, 12RMB/bullet. Despite this, gun ranges are popping up all over. Hell, I went to one right next door to the Confucius Temple in Qufu, and saw another one when I was in Hainan.

VPNs are almost becoming more common in China, so the government doesn't have complete control over everyone, or the internet. I even stay in touch with a couple people on the mainland through Facebook.

Wow, didn't know people could own guns in China. Wonder how many guns are floating around.

(04-30-2014 11:48 PM)Hotwheels Wrote:  I've always been curious how the male/female imbalance will play out there. Millions upon millions of men with little chance of mating would seemingly be a powder keg waiting to explode.

China will send those boys out to conquer lebensraum in Africa, Australia, Myanmar and other countries that are not densely populated (by Chinese standards).

Either that or large parts of China turn into San Francisco's Castro District.