China Censors Bad Economic News Amid Signs of Slower Growth • Hacker News Board

Re: China Censors Bad Economic News Amid Signs of Slower Growth

#101

Post by rqs » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 1:49 AM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #84

rqs wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the comment section of that very video, I quote: > Freda Du: are you guys comparing one of the most expensive chinese cities with the average american (suburban/rural) rent? And comparing fine western dining (cuz apparently you think the $2 chinese meals will kill westerners..) with dollar menu? I lived in Shanghai, LA and NYC, let's make a major city to major city comparison here.. a single metro ride is $0.5 i…

China is not expensive. Rent is actually cheap: that place on the market in beijing for $1 million USD will rent for less than $2k/month, for example. Food can be cheap, not as cheap as 22 RMB/week (heck, even in Chenzhou I'm not sure who could do that), but $5/person for a decent meal out and cheaper if cooking in. Cars are super expensive compared to the states, so is gas. Real estate prices are insane, but again r…

Chenzhou: Population (2001): 4,559,600; GDP (2015): ￥201 billion. For comparison, Our city: Population (2017): 1,700,000; GDP(2017): less than ￥120b.

I've searched the price of fast food restaurants in your city, the result: https://t.dianping.com/list/chenzhou-category_189

Base on that, I can see the average price is ranging from ￥13 to ￥45 ($2~7) per person. So I guess $5 is really pretty decent.

However, I have lived in few other cities in China, I know that live in another city other than your hometown is expensive, let alone when that city is in another country. Simply too many extra costs (like Rent and education).

Speak of educational cost,

> Education is super expensive if you don't have a hukou (which foreigners will never get).

It's actually location depended. You may want to talk with local schools or departments see if they can help you with it or at least give you a direction. It likely results a cold shoulder but you won't get warm one if you don't try. Plus, ask them directly is better than complaining online.

Also keep in mind, not many Chinese teacher can speak English. So.

Re: China Censors Bad Economic News Amid Signs of Slower Growth

#102

Post by dis-sys » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 3:00 AM UTC

bicubic wrote: post #40

paradite wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would agree with you that such techniques could be used, and in fact I suspect they are used. However, I wouldn't say they strictly qualifies as censorship, because you can still get the information if you know where to look at (go to specific websites legally and search for them).

If information that would typically be widespread was prevented from becoming widespread, then censorship has taken place and succeeded. If a newsworthy event has taken place but is not reported on mainstream media because of government intervention, that is censorship. The main purpose of censorship is not to completely stop all access to some information, it is to prevent that information from reaching a majority o…

> where most people would not look

He/She linked articles from sina.com and hexun, they are arguably the most popular online news outlets in China. Xinhua also have numerous news articles on the increasing defaults [1][2][3] -

May 2018 [1] http://www.xinhuanet.com/finance/2018-05/29/c_1122902212.htm

August 2018 [2] http://www.xinhuanet.com/tech/2018-08/04/c_1123221839.htm

July 2018 [3] http://www.xinhuanet.com/finance/2018-07/13/c_1123119356.htm

How about stop commenting on something you don't even understand?

Re: China Censors Bad Economic News Amid Signs of Slower Growth

#103

Post by dis-sys » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 3:04 AM UTC

bicubic wrote: post #46

paradite wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's just because of different definitions of censorship, I would gladly take the downvotes. After all, people disagree on definitions and HN allows downvotes for disagreeing. In fact I am happy that we found the root cause of our disagreement. Edit: To be more clear, I would define censorship as denying legal means to access a piece of information.

"Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information, on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient" as determined by a government or private institution" The definition is pretty clear, and TFA pretty clearly meets that definition. You're not being downvoted simply because people disagree with your point of view, you're being downvot…

> To put it really bluntly, your comments match the heuristic of what people would consider propaganda trolling.

I got downvoted to hell for pointing out that the article doesn't provide the total size of the bond market when talking about those $8 bln defaults. I provided a link to a recent bloomberg article showing the total size is $11 trillion.

Surely those downvotes are a good show of freedom of speech! Shame on you.

Re: China Censors Bad Economic News Amid Signs of Slower Growth

#104

Post by seanmcdirmid » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 3:49 AM UTC

rqs wrote: post #101

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is not expensive. Rent is actually cheap: that place on the market in beijing for $1 million USD will rent for less than $2k/month, for example. Food can be cheap, not as cheap as 22 RMB/week (heck, even in Chenzhou I'm not sure who could do that), but $5/person for a decent meal out and cheaper if cooking in. Cars are super expensive compared to the states, so is gas. Real estate prices are insane, but again r…

Chenzhou: Population (2001): 4,559,600; GDP (2015): ￥201 billion. For comparison, Our city: Population (2017): 1,700,000; GDP(2017): less than ￥120b. I've searched the price of fast food restaurants in your city, the result: https://t.dianping.com/list/chenzhou-category_189 Base on that, I can see the average price is ranging from ￥13 to ￥45 ($2~7) per person. So I guess $5 is really pretty decent. However, I have li…

That population number is for the entire county, the urban city will be much smaller (about 1 million). I’m not sure what you are counting for yours. Note we live in the states these days, just my wife has hukou in Chenzhou.

Re: China Censors Bad Economic News Amid Signs of Slower Growth

#105

Post by hungryhobo » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 4:41 AM UTC

dis-sys wrote: post #10

alecco wrote: post #4

The kind of "bad economic news" censored: TABLE-China bond defaults rise over 56 pct from 2017 at $8.74 bln https://www.reuters.com/article/china-economy-defaults/table...

how about not to selectively ignore the total market size? that is as bad as censorship. $8.74 bln defaulted out of the $11 trillion market [1]. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-07/china-s-1...

also interesting is the debt graph's y axis does not start at 0 to make the effect more dramatic

Re: China Censors Bad Economic News Amid Signs of Slower Growth

#106

Post by rqs » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 4:44 AM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #104

rqs wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chenzhou: Population (2001): 4,559,600; GDP (2015): ￥201 billion. For comparison, Our city: Population (2017): 1,700,000; GDP(2017): less than ￥120b. I've searched the price of fast food restaurants in your city, the result: https://t.dianping.com/list/chenzhou-category_189 Base on that, I can see the average price is ranging from ￥13 to ￥45 ($2~7) per person. So I guess $5 is really pretty decent. However, I have li…

That population number is for the entire county, the urban city will be much smaller (about 1 million). I’m not sure what you are counting for yours. Note we live in the states these days, just my wife has hukou in Chenzhou.

Then I'm glad you have escaped from all those problems :)

BTW: The population is the total number.

Re: China Censors Bad Economic News Amid Signs of Slower Growth

#107

Post by rqs » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 5:14 AM UTC

mistermann wrote: post #92

rqs wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the comment section of that very video, I quote: > Freda Du: are you guys comparing one of the most expensive chinese cities with the average american (suburban/rural) rent? And comparing fine western dining (cuz apparently you think the $2 chinese meals will kill westerners..) with dollar menu? I lived in Shanghai, LA and NYC, let's make a major city to major city comparison here.. a single metro ride is $0.5 i…

Reality is what it is regardless of your or my opinion, and it seems to be human nature for individuals to have a tendency to want to paint it in one way or another (for example: "cuz apparently you think the $2 Chinese meals will kill westerners" - purely a figment of that person's imagination, regardless of it's accuracy). If you're serious about trying to discern the reality of this situation as accurately as poss…

Let me guess. Did you just been triggered by the $2 a week diet thing? Then don't be, I'm actually not very proud of it.

I did it from time to time for about few weeks so I can quickly lose my belly fat. And I don't like it at all let alone recommending it.

> the most useful metric I know of to look at is the affordability ratio

Of course. I just searched a bit, the DPI seems to be ￥7,815 or $1,137 for the first quarter.

However, I don't have any information other than that, and dig the information needed is too hard for me :(

Re: China Censors Bad Economic News Amid Signs of Slower Growth

#108

Post by TheM00se » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 8:55 AM UTC

mabbo wrote: post #48

This should really terrify us all. The Chinese economy is not just inflated, it's now an enormous chunk of the world economy. Throw in their really wild housing bubble [0] and it's a time bomb. Globalization has made everything cheaper, but it's tied us all together in many ways. They won't fall over alone. Hiding news that the economy isn't doing well distorts incentives. Those with political connections will know w…

I wonder if thats why tons of chines are buying houses in the US and Canada since they know that China house bubble has actually burst and they need to move their money elsewhere. They know it's a timebomb, the news will someday come out, but hey that house you bought in Canada still got value, as it'll take time for those markets to correct, but if you've got the Jump you can sell it.

Re: China Censors Bad Economic News Amid Signs of Slower Growth

#109

Post by datavirtue » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 4:02 PM UTC

toss1 wrote: post #80

datavirtue wrote: post #39

Chinese "leaders" are in way over their head trying to direct the economy. Now they don't know what the people really know. Something tells me that clear and open information is the best choice but they have already gone down the rabbit hole.

Yes, and even if the are actually fully informed and very skilled, there are severe limitations on what "management" of press and psychology can do. In an economy, an excess must eventually be corrected. The problems are that it's a dynamic super-multi-variable system and tends to overshoot in both directions. Ideally, an excess would self-correct soon and gently, but many information loops have too long a lag. Hence…

They way to prevent irrational markets out running your solvency is to avoid easy lending/borrowing in the good times.

Re: China Censors Bad Economic News Amid Signs of Slower Growth

#110

Post by toss1 » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 7:48 PM UTC

datavirtue wrote: post #109

toss1 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and even if the are actually fully informed and very skilled, there are severe limitations on what "management" of press and psychology can do. In an economy, an excess must eventually be corrected. The problems are that it's a dynamic super-multi-variable system and tends to overshoot in both directions. Ideally, an excess would self-correct soon and gently, but many information loops have too long a lag. Hence…

They way to prevent irrational markets out running your solvency is to avoid easy lending/borrowing in the good times.

Of course, but the Chinese needed to do that a decade ago -- it is way too late for that now...

Usually the central banks serve that function by raising interest rates in better times as the economy heats up. China's? Not so much. Seems they might need to learn this lesson the hard way.