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China's GDP Growth Pace Was Inflated for Nine Years, Study Finds

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Re: China's GDP Growth Pace Was Inflated for Nine Years, Study Finds

#41

Post by learc83 »

headsupftw wrote: post #38
learc83 wrote: post #30

Can we do something about every article remotely ctitical of China being flagged. I'm assuming that's what happened since this article very quickly moved from 1st place to below other articles that are older and have far fewer comments and upvotes. Edit: currently #21 despite more upvotes and comments and being newer than the top 3 articles.

It's actually the opposite. Every comment not critical of China gets downvoted quickly. Proof: comments on this article and other articles critical of China, remotely or overtly.

Downvoting is different from flagging. Articles can't be downvoted only flagged.

If you look at the comments in the thread that have been flag killed, they are mostly low quality comments on both sides of the issue.

And looking at downvoted comments, there doesn't seem to be much correlation at all between upvotes and whether the comment is critical of China.

Re: China's GDP Growth Pace Was Inflated for Nine Years, Study Finds

#42

Post by bobthepanda »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #4

Not surprising at all, the government is uncannily accurate in their prediction (growth will be 6.9% this year, at the end of the year: hey look, we did it!). Kind of like how almost every province usually has a 4.0% unemployment rate. That isn't to say China's GDP hasn't been growing, just that the numbers are always being fudged one way or the other. They used to even fudge the numbers down (growth higher than repo…

That index has similar problems to the one mentioned in the article, though. Depending on how you weight them you overweight heavy industry and undercount services, which don't really use the railway cargo network and don't consume a terribly crazy amount of electricity (and use appliances that have seen marked increases in energy efficiency).

Re: China's GDP Growth Pace Was Inflated for Nine Years, Study Finds

#43

Post by cryptonector »

digitaltrees wrote: post #33
resters wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Information was omitted: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/03/business/dealbook/why-no-...

This article doesn’t support your original claim at all.

> This article doesn’t support your original claim at all.

  Could Fannie’s officers really have been accurately
  disclosing the risks the firm was taking shortly before
  its sudden collapse? It is here where the case got complicated.
  
  While he was chief executive, Mr. Mudd said that subprime
  mortgages accounted for about 2 percent or less of the
  mortgages Fannie Mae was insuring. The commission’s case
  largely rested on the fact that this percentage did not
  include the insurer’s longstanding programs for low-credit
  score borrowers, Expanded Approval and MyCommunityMortgage.
  
  The theory about the Alt-A loan disclosures was also not
  that Fannie had not disclosed that it was in the business.
  It classified a number of its loans as Alt-A, and told
  investors as much. But it did not disclose that it had
  instructed lenders not to classify certain other loans as
  Alt-A, even though they were also supported by low
  documentation.
  
  ...
The 2008 crisis definitely involved some sort of fudging or failure to disclose. But it also involved failure to see systemic risks building.

Re: China's GDP Growth Pace Was Inflated for Nine Years, Study Finds

#44

Post by dis-sys »

learc83 wrote: post #41
headsupftw wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually the opposite. Every comment not critical of China gets downvoted quickly. Proof: comments on this article and other articles critical of China, remotely or overtly.

Downvoting is different from flagging. Articles can't be downvoted only flagged. If you look at the comments in the thread that have been flag killed, they are mostly low quality comments on both sides of the issue. And looking at downvoted comments, there doesn't seem to be much correlation at all between upvotes and whether the comment is critical of China.

> they are mostly low quality comments on both sides of the issue.

Please have a look at the other reply I made in this thread, when someone mentioned that Li Keqiang Index and argued that it is a better indicator of China's real GDP growth, I listed recent figures to show that if Li Keqiang Index is actually more reliable, there would be higher real GDP growth. My cited numbers are from Caixin, which is considered as a pretty reliable private source.

What happened to my reply? My "low quality" comment is downvoted within seconds. I don't think China bashing comments are being treated the same way.

Rather than just blindly marking other people's replies as of "low quality", maybe you can share some more details on why my downvoted reply above is of low quality and how can I improve from that.

Oh, btw, with high confidence that this reply is going to be downvoted fast.

Re: China's GDP Growth Pace Was Inflated for Nine Years, Study Finds

#45

Post by resters »

digitaltrees wrote: post #33
resters wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Information was omitted: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/03/business/dealbook/why-no-...

This article doesn’t support your original claim at all.

I'm quite sure it's true, but I can't seem to find the original citation.

There were congressional hearings in 2005 because the GSEs couldn't produce financials.

Re: China's GDP Growth Pace Was Inflated for Nine Years, Study Finds

#46

Post by jlawson »

povertyworld wrote: post #32
ggm wrote: post #14

The article states that the provinces have a material reason to inflate. The provincial governments are far stronger than people routinely seem to understand, we're obsessed by the strong statist arguments of 'scary China' and don't think about their internal structure and where strength and weakness lies. I believe Chinese central planners don't like misleading numbers, it makes the five year plan much harder to des…

In college I remember a professor saying something similar caused problems during the Great Leap Forward. The local cadres were overestimating their production numbers so the central government exported rice to Albania or other allies thinking they had a surplus when in fact there was a shortage. I'm sure that wasn't the only reason there were problems at the time, but it didn't help.

If by "caused problems" you mean "killed millions by starvation", then yes.

They had a habit of killing local technocrats who didn't report strong numbers, though, so I can understand why someone would say their starving town had a grain surplus. And of course the guy doing the killing is under a similar threat, all the way to the top.

Re: China's GDP Growth Pace Was Inflated for Nine Years, Study Finds

#47

Post by learc83 »

dis-sys wrote: post #44
learc83 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downvoting is different from flagging. Articles can't be downvoted only flagged. If you look at the comments in the thread that have been flag killed, they are mostly low quality comments on both sides of the issue. And looking at downvoted comments, there doesn't seem to be much correlation at all between upvotes and whether the comment is critical of China.

> they are mostly low quality comments on both sides of the issue. Please have a look at the other reply I made in this thread, when someone mentioned that Li Keqiang Index and argued that it is a better indicator of China's real GDP growth, I listed recent figures to show that if Li Keqiang Index is actually more reliable, there would be higher real GDP growth. My cited numbers are from Caixin, which is considered a…

Was your comment flag killed? If it was, it isn't currently.

And since I know it wasn't when I made my comment, I wasn't talking about your comment. Downvoting is different from flagging.

Enable viewing dead comments, scroll to the bottom, and tell me they aren't low quality.

Also 2/3 of the dead comments I see right now are anti-China comments.

Re: China's GDP Growth Pace Was Inflated for Nine Years, Study Finds

#49

Post by barry-cotter »

ggm wrote: post #36
mc32 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would decouple the economic and political realities of “the mountains are tall and the emperor far away” from national military might. Vietnam, Russia, Tibet and other neighbors can attest that that one is not like the other.

Possibly, yes. The article I responded to focused on the economy. Do you see signs of Chinese territorial ambition, spratleys aside?

China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea are ridiculously broad. The nine dash line in particular is insane, extending into the EEZ of six other countries. China claims that entire area, not as its EEZ but as territorial waters.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_disputes_in_the_So...

> The disputes involve both maritime boundaries and islands.[8] There are several disputes, each of which involves a different collection of countries:

> The nine-dash line area claimed by the Republic of China, later the People's Republic of China (PRC), which covers most of the South China Sea and overlaps the exclusive economic zone claims of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam. Maritime boundary along the Vietnamese coast between the PRC, Taiwan, and Vietnam. Maritime boundary north of Borneo between the PRC, Malaysia, Brunei, Philippines, and Taiwan. Islands, reefs, banks and shoals in the South China Sea, including the Paracel Islands, the Pratas Islands, Macclesfield Bank, Scarborough Shoal and the Spratly Islands between the PRC, Taiwan, and Vietnam, and parts of the area also contested by Malaysia and the Philippines. Maritime boundary in the waters north of the Natuna Islands between the PRC, Indonesia and Taiwan[9] Maritime boundary off the coast of Palawan and Luzon between the PRC, the Philippines, and Taiwan. Maritime boundary, land territory, and the islands of Sabah, including Ambalat, between Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Maritime boundary and islands in the Luzon Strait between the PRC, the Philippines, and Taiwan.

Re: China's GDP Growth Pace Was Inflated for Nine Years, Study Finds

#50

Post by JumpCrisscross »

resters wrote: post #45
digitaltrees wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article doesn’t support your original claim at all.

I'm quite sure it's true, but I can't seem to find the original citation. There were congressional hearings in 2005 because the GSEs couldn't produce financials.

They were, to put it bluntly, fudging their numbers [1]. (From what I can tell, they were releasing timely statements to investors.) This was disclosed by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight and rectified well before the financial crisis. Taken together, it is a bad analogy for the systemic mid-reporting of economic data by China.

[1] http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/ofheo200605...

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