Earlier quoted context omitted.
Edward Snowden is being hunted by the US. Are you for him or against him? If you're for him, then you'd have to stand against the US government. One could argue that due to the spying and the prosecution of Edward Snowden, that the US gov't is also lost legitimacy.
That someone posts something negative about a given country, doesn't mean posting something negative about the US therefore refutes or otherwise alters it.
China's booming middle class is creating world's most dynamic consumer market
61–70 of 76 posts
Re: China's booming middle class is creating world's most dynamic consumer market
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Being realistic is different from being contrary, which in turn is different from being a conspiracy theorist. Personally, I consider "Chinese government is fabricating economic statistics" a conspiracy theory territory. You have a point that being mistaken is different from being hostile or anti, but we do call people "anti-vaccine" when they are just mistaken and as a result genuinely worried about vaccine. I think…
Fabricating statistics wholesale is conspiracy theory. Releasing statistics that are distorted in all sorts of ways because various government organizations have direct incentives to do so is pretty much a statement of fact.
In China, the statistics ARE controlled by one, non-objective party (Party? :-)), so conspiracy theories are somewhat justified.
Even in the much freer US, there are examples of (subtle) information manipulation. Such as releasing numbers that don't fit the government narrative :
- on a Friday afternoon (when all journalists are driving home or drinking at a bar)
- on page 95 of a 96-page report
Re: China's booming middle class is creating world's most dynamic consumer market
#63Everybody wants to have a binary outcome for China: China, is it an all dominating inevitability? Or a massive fustercluck? A or B! And that's silly. China will grow tremendously over the next 30 years, and that growth will be filled with turmoil, booms and busts. Things are only black and white in comic books.
Or it could be like Japan and stagnate over the next 30 years, due to its similarity to Japan in demographics, exporting country's inability to transform to a consumer economy, massive internal debt, capital flight, etc.
This is why China won't upvalue their currency like Japan did in the 80's (at the insistence, once again, of the US essentially forcing Japan to sign the Plaza Accords to stop Japan from becoming a rentier nation). They've learned from Japan's crisis.
Re: China's booming middle class is creating world's most dynamic consumer market
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
" Why the strong anti-China sentiment on HN? I don't get it. That's quite odd, I notice the opposite. I notice many pro China pieces here on hackernews. Whether it's talking about their green energy, growing economy, financial markets or what have you. Perhaps you've fallen victim to what's known as hostile media effect? ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostile_media_effect ) It says that you tend to notice more negat…
Being realistic is different from being contrary, which in turn is different from being a conspiracy theorist. Personally, I consider "Chinese government is fabricating economic statistics" a conspiracy theory territory. You have a point that being mistaken is different from being hostile or anti, but we do call people "anti-vaccine" when they are just mistaken and as a result genuinely worried about vaccine. I think…
It's not conspiracy theory territory, Li Keqiang the country's premier actually admitted that many provinces fabricate statistics to look better to Beijing. And there is tons of evidence that their statistics do not match reality. Realistic is China's economy cannot continue to defy gravity, the regular people aren't experiencing the miracle growth. Maybe the wealthy who have their hands in the pie, but for the other hundreds of millions of Chinese, there is no miracle.
Re: China's booming middle class is creating world's most dynamic consumer market
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
This question was answered years ago by the magna carta. Without rule of law, you get corruption and a dissatisfied population. Then you get economic stagnation and suffering by the masses. Finally, you get the French Revolution, the various Communist revolutions, and so on. Rule of law is necessary for economic prosperity because without rule of law, entrepreneurs cannot confidently engage in economic activity witho…
This is why Xi Jiping is making stamping out corruption one of his top public priorities, more so than any previous Chinese leader in modern history. And/or this campaign is destroying rivals to his power.... He is also on record that he wants China to move forward to have proper rule of law. And if so, we'd better hope he's a 2nd Lee Kuan Yew. Except as you note, the scales don't even vaguely match, trying to effect…
Yes, definitions and platitudes aside, feasibility is a completely different matter. It would be interesting to see whether the PRC really can implement proper rule of law from the top down, and it is quite possibly not feasible. That doesn't necessarily imply that the desire and effort are false.
Xi Bolai was an example of a campaign to destroy rivals to his power using the claim of wanting to clean up corruption. He had goals to achieve not yet achieved. Xi's already at the top. It would be very difficult to remove him from power, given the way the Chinese government operates. It would be tantamount to revolution. If revolution happens, I can't see it being because power rivals plot it.
Re: China's booming middle class is creating world's most dynamic consumer market
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
The money they spent does not lie... Look at the 2014 sales record of BMW and Audi.
Thats simply not true. They sold lots of cars to Greece before that country went into crisis. Money is not actually a real measure, and very much can be created on demand. There is also a big difference between money spent by a growing middle class versus money spent by corrupt officials. So you need better data than number of BMWs bought.
You right. For instance, before huge drop in value of Ruble, people rushed to buy all kinds of goods (Big TV's, Apple products, Cars) to capture value of currency. It can be argued that sudden increase in purchases can signal anticipation of economic downturn.
Re: China's booming middle class is creating world's most dynamic consumer market
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There's even an outside possibility that China's economic miracle could end up in a fiery crash landing People have been saying this since Deng Xiaoping took over, over 35 years ago. Actually, they've been saying it for over 65 years.
I think these two events in the last 65 years count as "fiery crash landings": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution Note the latter created an uneducated generation, and as of late we've been learning a lot more people were slaughtered than was generally thought. Moving forward past the Gang of Four, it's hard to see how this experiment won't end in tears:…
I suspect very few commenters here have visited China lately. There is a ton of consumer spending in China. Apple stores everywhere in big cities, way more than London or New York for example. The biggest name luxury brands are all over the place. Cost of living in Shanghai is on par w San Francisco, Beijing is probably higher.
Re: China's booming middle class is creating world's most dynamic consumer market
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or it could be like Japan and stagnate over the next 30 years, due to its similarity to Japan in demographics, exporting country's inability to transform to a consumer economy, massive internal debt, capital flight, etc.
China and Japan are about as different and opposite as two places can be (I've spent time in Asia). Their both very unique places in completely opposite ways. The differences are countless and I struggle to find even minor similarities.
I've spoken with Chinese business people who have echoed exactly that concern
Re: China's booming middle class is creating world's most dynamic consumer market
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or it could be just telling the truth.
It might be telling the truth but that seems unlikely given that it's repeating the "conversion to consumer society" script that unraveled at the same time that China's stock market unraveled in the very recent past. Basically, the "rising consumer society" mantra has been going on for a number of years, then various revelations show how false that. Then this just repeats the mantra rather than in any way refuting th…
It's happening all over Asia. First you have Japan, then South Korea, then China and Thailand (where Sony now make their top end cameras), next Vietnam, the Phillipines and Indonesia, with its huge boom in mobile commerce. Bali is no longer so cheap to manufacture and holiday. This is exactly why Myanmar has woken up and wants to become the next place in line for cheap manufacturing.
Re: China's booming middle class is creating world's most dynamic consumer market
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think these two events in the last 65 years count as "fiery crash landings": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution Note the latter created an uneducated generation, and as of late we've been learning a lot more people were slaughtered than was generally thought. Moving forward past the Gang of Four, it's hard to see how this experiment won't end in tears:…
I suspect very few commenters here have visited China lately. There is a ton of consumer spending in China. Apple stores everywhere in big cities, way more than London or New York for example. The biggest name luxury brands are all over the place. Cost of living in Shanghai is on par w San Francisco, Beijing is probably higher.
Never visited, didn't even read the The Economist article (didn't want to use up my quota of them) but:
There is a ton of consumer spending in China. Apple stores everywhere in big cities, way more than London or New York for example. The biggest name luxury brands are all over the place. Cost of living in Shanghai is on par w San Francisco, Beijing is probably higher.
Are any of these signs of middle-class prosperity?
The general theory here is that you want a huge middle class spending a lot of money. In aggregate, in the US at least in times past, the broadly construed middle class had more wealth than the upper class, spend more, and also provide useful functions WRT to upper class earnings and spending. E.g. how cool are the Apple products that I see for sale in my local Wal-Mart? I.e. to what extent does middle class adaptation of upper class fashions drive changes in the latter?