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A Fifth of China’s Homes Are Empty (2018)

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Re: A Fifth of China’s Homes Are Empty (2018)

#171

Post by foldr »

est31 wrote: post #167
foldr wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but it's not really accurate to say that intellectual activity moved because the Church was systematically harassing philosophers.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/dec/28/the-darkening-... > Shenoute is now considered a saint in the Coptic church, but his piety manifested itself in a particularly ugly guise: he was part of a gang of thugs who would break into the houses of locals whose theological views they felt to be unsound, and smash up any property they objected to on religious grounds. > Early in the book, she describes how she was b…

>Intellectuals in Antioch (in ancient Syria) were tortured and beheaded, as were the statues around them.

And you use this as an example of religious oppression in medieval Europe (?)

Here is a good critical review of the book you're citing:

https://historyforatheists.com/2017/11/review-catherine-nixe...

Re: A Fifth of China’s Homes Are Empty (2018)

#173

Post by thetechlead »

setgree wrote: post #123

In 2012, I traveled for about 6 weeks in China. I saw a lot of large cities -- not the megalopolises of Beijing and Shanghai but Guangzhou, Xi'an, Kunming -- with unreal amounts of what looked like high-end real estate going up. if you moved to the countryside, things got a lot poorer, so there was a pretty clear disconnect. But the weirder thing was endlessly empty malls. For whatever reason, high-end luxury malls h…

Lived in both China and USA for 10+ years each. Things that make no sense in American eyes make a lot sense in China.

> In 2012, I traveled for about 6 weeks in China.

Six weeks staying in China means nothing. China is already the 2nd largest economy but it still develops at an unprecedented rate. Urbanization in the country only reach 60% and will increase to 90% in 2030. 'Ghost cities' and empty malls will be filled very quickly in the next 3-5 years. There's actually a shortage of malls/supermarkets/schools in most communities in China, and that's the reason why e-commerce prevails and companies like Alibaba are reinventing retail.

> So pretty much everything I read about China's economic development, I don't believe.

You shouldn't, especially if you only read reports from Western sources, which are heavily biased and often telling only what people prefer to hear. People in the States are either ignorant on what's going in China, or so entitled to think there's only one way for how societies work.

Re: A Fifth of China’s Homes Are Empty (2018)

#174

Post by alextooter »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #39
swuecho wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

school are allocated based on house. rental apartment does not cout.

As far as I know, school is allocated based on your hukou, and whether you own a house is irrelevant. (Except that in most places, owning a house is sufficient to get a local hukou.)

Good school need you have a house or apartment within 500 meters.Those apartment may three times or more expensive than normal one.

Re: A Fifth of China’s Homes Are Empty (2018)

#175

Post by logfromblammo »

kartickv wrote: post #60

The government should make a law saying that houseowners shouldn't keep a house empty if there's someone offering even a single rupee or yuan a year, plus paying the insurance premium to protect the homeowner from any damage done by the tenant, plus deep cleaning to restore the house to a rentable condition when the tenant leaves. A landlord cannot keep the house empty if there's at least one person offering the abov…

> The government should make a law...

King Canute should just decree that the tide is to go out.~

No matter how you structure the law, the capacity of property speculators to evade its intent will likely exceed the government's ability to enforce it, especially when some of those speculators are government officials.

I foresee that a vacancy tax would be avoided by building apartment buildings that are only 80% finished, or whatever the law threshold may be, such that they do not qualify as vacant housing units, but can still be brought onto the housing market more quickly than erecting a new building from the foundations.

Re: A Fifth of China’s Homes Are Empty (2018)

#176

Post by close04 »

foldr wrote: post #152
frostburg wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more accurate (somewhat) to say that a lot of intellectual activity moved. The issue is historiographically complex but the traditional view of early medieval Europe not doing a lot to advance human knowledge except in some specific (and not very abstract) fields is mostly true.

Yeah, but it's not really accurate to say that intellectual activity moved because the Church was systematically harassing philosophers.

> a bunch of intellectuals for their "heathen" ideology (greek philosophy, sciences, etc). So they all moved [...]

I think the suggestion is that the ones who were persecuted moved, not all. Basically "the bunch".

Re: A Fifth of China’s Homes Are Empty (2018)

#177

Post by BurningFrog »

masonic wrote: post #124
BurningFrog wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SF residents are among the richest in the world. SF housing is made extremely expensive by multi decade long anti housing policies, but that's completely artificial. If the Chinese ran housing in SF, there would be housing for 5 million people there.

If the Chinese ran housing in SF, there would be housing for 5 million people there ...and enough water for about 900,000 of them.

Pretty sure there would be water.

Pretty sure not everyone would like how.

Re: A Fifth of China’s Homes Are Empty (2018)

#178

Post by setgree »

CathayRe wrote: post #138
setgree wrote: post #123

In 2012, I traveled for about 6 weeks in China. I saw a lot of large cities -- not the megalopolises of Beijing and Shanghai but Guangzhou, Xi'an, Kunming -- with unreal amounts of what looked like high-end real estate going up. if you moved to the countryside, things got a lot poorer, so there was a pretty clear disconnect. But the weirder thing was endlessly empty malls. For whatever reason, high-end luxury malls h…

>In 2012, I traveled for about 6 weeks in China. ........None of this made any sense It really doesn't. That is until you visit there again in 3 - 5 years times. Everything is different. You start getting lots more people and spending money. Ok it is not like everyone becomes wealthy overnight. But from Zero to having a few people actually buying, shopping and eating in these malls is quite an achievement. And they m…

When I saw the section of my comment you quoted, I thought you were going a different direction, which is pointing out that my original comment reads like a satire of HN commentary: "I dabbled in something as an amateur for like a month and now I don't believe any experts because I'm so much smarter.."

Anyway, I'm perfectly happy to be wrong here, there's clearly a lot about macroeconomics that I don't know (that people don't know?). So, if you say that it's happening despite its weirdness, well, that's something.

I just think we have a big enough theoretical apparatus for why state-directed economic development is inefficient that the burden of proof is on people saying "things are going well in China." Especially because we can be pretty confident that some large percent of the statistics we see on development are forged.

Re: A Fifth of China’s Homes Are Empty (2018)

#179

Post by setgree »

thetechlead wrote: post #173
setgree wrote: post #123

In 2012, I traveled for about 6 weeks in China. I saw a lot of large cities -- not the megalopolises of Beijing and Shanghai but Guangzhou, Xi'an, Kunming -- with unreal amounts of what looked like high-end real estate going up. if you moved to the countryside, things got a lot poorer, so there was a pretty clear disconnect. But the weirder thing was endlessly empty malls. For whatever reason, high-end luxury malls h…

Lived in both China and USA for 10+ years each. Things that make no sense in American eyes make a lot sense in China. > In 2012, I traveled for about 6 weeks in China. Six weeks staying in China means nothing. China is already the 2nd largest economy but it still develops at an unprecedented rate. Urbanization in the country only reach 60% and will increase to 90% in 2030. 'Ghost cities' and empty malls will be fille…

It's a fair point, 6 weeks 7 years ago is nothing. This is the data I collected, but my priors are that state-run economic development tends to be inefficient and that the stats we're reading from the CCP are false. These are pretty strong beliefs for me. But if I had more data I might come to a different conclusion.

Re: A Fifth of China’s Homes Are Empty (2018)

#180

Post by seanmcdirmid »

hopler wrote: post #155
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really in the same way. High property taxes mean you usually can’t sit on a property and wait to flip it, it has to be put to productive use because deprecation (through taxes) happens right away. No one can really afford to buy an apartment building, decide that renting the units isn’t worth it and just sit on the empty unrenovated apartments until buyers come along. In China, you can buy property and just sit o…

US property tax of 1% or rarely 2% is not much of.a speed bump when you are chasing 10+% gains.

10% gain won’t even cover sales commissions. If you can ignore property taxes and do nothing with your property, you are looking to make 50% at least in a few year period.
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