China’s State-Driven Growth Model Is Running Out of Gas • Hacker News Board

Re: China’s State-Driven Growth Model Is Running Out of Gas

#81

Post by linkregister » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 7:44 AM UTC

RidingPegasus wrote: post #8

nordsieck wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> China's GDP is growing at 6.3%. It's not clear to me the extent one can trust the official numbers from China.

Would you like to provide some evidence to the contrary for that or just a general "It's probably not true"? You could say the same about Western government debt that's creatively accounted, unemployment rates which avoid underemployment/participation and inflation which desperately needs to remain low to keep bond rates from bankrupting public balance sheets.

The Fed has been talking about U6 since before Yellen took the chair. The Fed's entire dovish stance on interest rates was publicly predicated on low labor force participation being unaccounted-for slack.

The unemployment rate vs labor force participation has been a part of Presidential debates since 2012, and also figured in the 2010 Congressional elections.

If you want to know more about how U.S. government debt is accounted for, the various Federal Reserve websites are informative, if a bit dry.

The China growth rate is probably not far from the truth, but there is not much public data published to back it up. It's reasonable to be skeptical. I think there's reason to believe that their actual growth rate is higher in some years and lower in others, as an artifact of the difficulty in getting accurate numbers.

I'm curious about your comparison of China to the United States. It seems like a whataboutism argument, which isn't really to the point of the topic.

Re: China’s State-Driven Growth Model Is Running Out of Gas

#82

Post by jariel » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 7:44 AM UTC

vajaya wrote: post #52

China collapse has been predicted by china expert for at least 2 decades. I don't understand why people can still be this delusional at this moment.

The 'delusion' is all of the people lamenting the media predicting a 'crash' on this thread.

There's no such thing. They're talking about a slowdown - not a crash - which has already happened. It's not a prediction, it's a reality: China is not growing fast enough to put itself into '1st world' territory as have done Japan, Taiwan and S. Korea.

And FYI few were predicting a 'China crash', rather, a crash specifically in the property market which is not unreasonable.

Re: China’s State-Driven Growth Model Is Running Out of Gas

#83

Post by puranjay » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 7:50 AM UTC

tepidandroid wrote: post #60

deehouie wrote: post #46

For those who have not followed US media coverage of China, this a very enlightening piece : The Land that Failed to Fail. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/18/world/asia/ch... I recall the New York Times, WSJ, and particularly Bloomberg from 2011 to 2014 have run uncountable number of articles unanimously, unequivocally predicting the collapse of the Chinese economy. I really hate to use the word "western…

And The Economist. Can’t forget The Economist’s constant and sustained death knelling over China’s economy over the years. I just file all these away along with the other 8447372 similar articles predicting the imminent collapse of China.

In its China coverage, The Economist often comes across as ZeroHedge with better writing. There's a collapse always right around the corner.

Re: China’s State-Driven Growth Model Is Running Out of Gas

#84

Post by bhaak » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 7:57 AM UTC

haunter wrote: post #18

Every time I read about China I never know it's just western propaganda or not (true vice versa ofc)

Nowadays, it's not only "China" but "anything". You should always question if the author has a political agenda to push.

OTOH I've read for years about the impeding housing bubble bursting or that the rally of the stock market has to end in a crash soon.

You can be fundamentally right but still be wrong for years to come.

Re: China’s State-Driven Growth Model Is Running Out of Gas

#85

Post by gcatalfamo » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 7:59 AM UTC

goatinaboat wrote: post #79

gcatalfamo wrote: post #51

I was in China last month. Running out of gas is not exactly the analogy I would’ve chosen to describe the most thriving economy I have ever seen. As a side note, I have visited many companies while there and the Tencent HQ was the most awe-inspiring building, leaving the Bay Area architecture and building amenities looking incredibly dull.

How much of China did you see? You could not gain a meaningful understanding of even a much smaller country from visiting a single city. E.g. NYC is not America, so Shenzen is not China.

I saw Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and collaterally, Hong Kong and it was for business. Yes there were things I saw that showed the inherent poorness of the population but the overwhelming power of the industrial ecosystem and overall progress of the country despite “zero privacy” was breathtaking.

I have been talking with local about the privacy thing which was super interesting but it’s off topic here.

Re: China’s State-Driven Growth Model Is Running Out of Gas

#86

Post by RidingPegasus » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 7:59 AM UTC

linkregister wrote: post #81

RidingPegasus wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you like to provide some evidence to the contrary for that or just a general "It's probably not true"? You could say the same about Western government debt that's creatively accounted, unemployment rates which avoid underemployment/participation and inflation which desperately needs to remain low to keep bond rates from bankrupting public balance sheets.

The Fed has been talking about U6 since before Yellen took the chair. The Fed's entire dovish stance on interest rates was publicly predicated on low labor force participation being unaccounted-for slack. The unemployment rate vs labor force participation has been a part of Presidential debates since 2012, and also figured in the 2010 Congressional elections. If you want to know more about how U.S. government debt is…

> if a bit dry

That's part of the problem. Journalists avoid a deep dive into the nitty gritty that might muddy the narrative. Of course economists discuss this and are more aware of it than any other group. But how stats are presented (marketed?) on the outside should be of concern to anyone caring about their own democratic system where this stuff sways millions of votes.

> seems like a whataboutism argument

It's tiring to see this said here. Quite sure it's not tolerated much lately as a singular/only response either. It is ingrained human nature to compare others, particularly those with similar traits. To shut down discussion with a single word is incredibly disingenuous and unhelpful to modern discourse.

Give me 10 mins and I can tell you 100 things the US does far better than China. I really doubt the same claims of whataboutism would be made in the opposite direction.

Don't let nationalism cloud your judgement friend. It's a big wide diverse world with a bunch of viewpoints.

Re: China’s State-Driven Growth Model Is Running Out of Gas

#87

Post by piokoch » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 8:13 AM UTC

deehouie wrote: post #46

For those who have not followed US media coverage of China, this a very enlightening piece : The Land that Failed to Fail. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/18/world/asia/ch... I recall the New York Times, WSJ, and particularly Bloomberg from 2011 to 2014 have run uncountable number of articles unanimously, unequivocally predicting the collapse of the Chinese economy. I really hate to use the word "western…

We'll see I guess. "Big news" is often about China collapse. I like to look for "small news" that not many people pay attention but they show a bit different picture. Picture of China moving slowly and patiently in many directions to make sure collapse will not happen and that nobody (that is US) can stop China economy development.

It is worth to read about huge investments in many African countries and generous credits Chinese government is giving away. In fact, the only missing piece is a big oil producer that will agree to abandon trading oil in US dollars (Iran is a candidate, that's why US suddenly started pushing on sanctions against it.)

It is worth to read about new routes from China to Europe. Right now there is an operation train connection between China and Poland (Slawkow) that uses wide rail (https://euterminal.pl/en/). Another train connection like this will be available soon to Vienna.

A few days ago final agreement was made to built a highway that would connect China and Berlin.

Chinese investors own almost whole harbor in Piraeus, Greece.

And so on. For me it looks like a plan to be able to trade with Africa, Europe without risk that US can stop this somehow. I would not underestimate China, although, personally, I am not very happy about China expansion, as their political system is truly horrible and against human dignity as I perceive it.

Re: China’s State-Driven Growth Model Is Running Out of Gas

#88

Post by chewz » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 8:45 AM UTC

> Based on household surveys, the poverty rate in China in 1981 was 63% of the population. This rate declined to 10% in 2004, indicating that about 500 million people have climbed out of poverty during this period. [1]

> As of June 2016, the IMF warned the United States that its high poverty rate needs to be tackled urgently by raising the minimum wage and offering paid maternity leave to women to encourage them to enter the labor force.[21] In December 2017, the United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, undertook a two-week investigation on the effects of systemic poverty in the United States, and sharply condemned "private wealth and public squalor", declaring the state of Alabama to have the "worst poverty in the developed world".[22] Alston's report was issued in May 2018 and highlights that 40 million people live in poverty and over five million live "in ‘Third World’ conditions."[23]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_China#Poverty_reduc...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States

Re: China’s State-Driven Growth Model Is Running Out of Gas

#89

Post by spaceman_2020 » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 8:49 AM UTC

jdietrich wrote: post #44

ajflores1604 wrote: post #2

This video from last year was pretty eye opening to me. Shows uninhabited "new" ghost cities completely crumbling. There's no underlying value to the property bubble going on over there and the scale seems mind blowing. https://youtu.be/XopSDJq6w8E

A lot of "ghost cities" that were reported on in the Western press are now thriving communities. Although some major property development schemes do end up becoming white elephants (particularly in the poorer north), most "ghost cities" aren't abandoned, they're just in the process of becoming occupied. Properties in China are normally sold as a bare undecorated shell, which makes new developments look derelict to we…

I really don't understand property prices at all. There's a new Trump Tower coming up in Gurgaon, India. There is nothing around it but other large towers and empty land. Yet all the apartments in these towers are already priced in the $400,000+ range - money that even a Google software engineer in India would need 20+ years to save.

Re: China’s State-Driven Growth Model Is Running Out of Gas

#90

Post by tonyedgecombe » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 9:03 AM UTC

haunter wrote: post #18

Every time I read about China I never know it's just western propaganda or not (true vice versa ofc)

That works both ways, just look at some of the commenters on this page and their history to see the other side at work.