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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

#51

Post by ksec »

dis-sys wrote: post #39
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…

> It is ironic that Li Keqiang is premiere (#2) but Xi Jinping has decided not to use his index ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Keqiang_index ) that gets around fudging with more accurate statistics. Li Keqiang Index has three components, electricity consumption, railway cargo volume and bank loans. They all had pretty good growth, e.g. https://www.caixinglobal.com/2018-12-06/china-railway-corp-s... https://www.ca…

I am not sure why you are downvoted, agree with much of it, sort of disagree with

> how hard will it be to grow at 6-7% to catch up with some in the middle of nowhere countries with $20k USD GDP per capita?

It seems people are now downvoting comments they don't like. You may not like the above comment, but it is hard to argue against it as they are facts. This to me, is a much bigger problem on HN right now. The quality of discussion ( especially anything to do with China ) is dropping.

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

#52

Post by ksec »

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…

I upvoted your last comment, and upvoted this one. I disagree with they are a "better" indicator to what other part of the world uses, but agree with the the index being more reliable than the current one China is using. Agree with the Caixin sources as well.

I generally don't downvote something unless they are, meaningless, offer no value to discussions or spreading wrong information that could easily be disproved.

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

#53

Post by nradov »

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?

Apparently China's claim to the Spratly Islands only emerged in the 20th century, and was just a result of errors in translation and cartography.

http://cimsec.org/chinas-claim-spratly-islands-just-mistake/...

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

#54

Post by learc83 »

ksec wrote: post #51
dis-sys wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is ironic that Li Keqiang is premiere (#2) but Xi Jinping has decided not to use his index ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Keqiang_index ) that gets around fudging with more accurate statistics. Li Keqiang Index has three components, electricity consumption, railway cargo volume and bank loans. They all had pretty good growth, e.g. https://www.caixinglobal.com/2018-12-06/china-railway-corp-s... https://www.ca…

I am not sure why you are downvoted, agree with much of it, sort of disagree with > how hard will it be to grow at 6-7% to catch up with some in the middle of nowhere countries with $20k USD GDP per capita? It seems people are now downvoting comments they don't like . You may not like the above comment, but it is hard to argue against it as they are facts. This to me, is a much bigger problem on HN right now. The qua…

>It seems people are now downvoting comments they don't like.

This isn't new. It's been part of HN since the beginning. pg said this a decade ago.

>I think it's ok to use the up and down arrows to express agreement. Obviously the uparrows aren't only for applauding politeness, so it seems reasonable that the downarrows aren't only for booing rudeness.

Maybe he or the current mods have changed their minds since then or maybe they haven't, but it's been part of the culture here from the start.

>You may not like the above comment, but it is hard to argue against it as they are facts.

I didn't personally downvote it, but I don't think people who did are necessarily arguing with facts. Parts of the comment were facts, and parts were conjecture. Downvoting the comment because you disagree with the conjecture seems reasonable to me.

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

#55

Post by nradov »

contingencies wrote: post #31
resters wrote: post #16

Consider that Fannie and Freddie were allowed not to provide detailed financials to congress for several years in a row preceding the 2008 housing collapse. It's not a matter of "oh wow, a major government fudges numbers", it's "how many major ways in which my government fudges numbers might I not be aware of?"

As an outside observer, another example would be the constant redefinition of US unemployment (I hear it is now "people who haven't actively sought work for 3 months are no longer considered unemployed") which IIRC from an article has dropped US unemployment figures. It sounds like reality may differ substantially, and there is certainly a huge underground/cash economy.

You do not recall correctly, and since the correct information is so readily available I suspect you're just lying to try and make a political point. The definition of unemployment hasn't changed in our lifetimes.

https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm#concepts

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

#56

Post by baybal2 »

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…

I remember mentioning a double digit overaccounting to my econ prof in 2011 and being laughed off: "Economic stats of major nations are all being compiled, revised, and audited with involvement of no joke international institutes"

Now, how these no joke international institutes miss a double digit overaccounting for over a decade?

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

#57

Post by adventured »

barry-cotter wrote: post #49
ggm wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Taiwan should also obviously be added to the list of China's territorial ambitions. They're openly aggressively intent on annexing Taiwan by any means required, despite it being a separate, self-governed nation for the last half century. They're the 21st largest economy in the world. It would be by far the biggest conquering event in terms of a major nation being annexed since the WW2 era.

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

#59

Post by m0zg »

Reminds me very much of the Soviet Union. CPSU could also produce whatever paper numbers they wanted. Whether any of them matched reality was another story entirely. Everyone knows how that ended.

That said, I no longer trust the mass media to report something like this accurately either. For all we know someone might be throwing in a narrative to help (or hurt) the ongoing trade negotiations.

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

#60

Post by ido »

dis-sys wrote: post #39
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…

> It is ironic that Li Keqiang is premiere (#2) but Xi Jinping has decided not to use his index ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Keqiang_index ) that gets around fudging with more accurate statistics. Li Keqiang Index has three components, electricity consumption, railway cargo volume and bank loans. They all had pretty good growth, e.g. https://www.caixinglobal.com/2018-12-06/china-railway-corp-s... https://www.ca…

China is huge and heterogeneous - the coastal cities are well developed and there are 100s of millions of people living in Shanghai, Beijing, Hong-Kong, Shenzhen etc who are well on their way towards western level of development.

For example the Yangtze River Delta has more than 100m people (more than any European country) and GPD(PPP) per capita similar to Italy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yangtze_River_Delta

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