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Life in China Is Getting Harder With High Prices

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Re: Life in China Is Getting Harder With High Prices

#111

Post by Konnstann »

freejulian85 wrote: post #104
9nGQluzmnq3M wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was comparing to Japan, and per capita means divided by population.

I’m well aware what per capita means. China has 10x the people as Japan. Resources are finite and the earth is already burdened trying to sustain 8 billion people. China wants to improve their per capita gdp? They should reduce their population. It’s not reasonable to assume 1.4 billion people should have the same standard of living as a country which kept their population reasonable.

Considering China's GDP is based on manufacturing and export, reducing the population will also result in productivity decreases, which would mean a negligible change in GDP per capita, since GDP would also fall.

Re: Life in China Is Getting Harder With High Prices

#112

Post by missosoup »

barry-cotter wrote: post #90
philipov wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you mean they preserved Greek and Roman knowledge, which was the basis of the Renaissance. The Enlightenment was a few hundred years later, and consisted of new ideas.

They didn’t just preserve Greek and Roman knowledge. Averroes, Avicenna, the Mutazilites, al-Razi, Maimonides, al-Farabi and others made enormous and original contributions to philosophy, medicine, chemistry and other fields. The Renaissance and the Enlightenment would have been unrecognizably different without the contributions of the thinkers of the Islamic world.

Can you suggest some reading materials to those who want to know more about this?

Re: Life in China Is Getting Harder With High Prices

#113

Post by missosoup »

UIZealot wrote: post #67
missosoup wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The wonderful culture and arts you're thinking about is historical. It doesn't really exist in China now. It was mostly wiped out during The Great Leap Forward, along with 30 million people give or take. Fun fact: advanced Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioners travel from China to Japan to learn. Japan preserved records of the TCM knowledge that China destroyed during the great leap.

Fun fact: Traditional Chinese Medicine is mostly a bunch of useless horseshit. Too bad the great leap didn't totally destroy it.

Information should never be destroyed. There is a treasure trove of obsolete but preserved cultural knowledge out there, and China is a bit of a dark spot because of the great leap.

Preserving historical knowledge is not the same as perpetuating it or believing it's effective. Keeping a record of what societies did what is extremely important, regardless of whether it worked. If nothing else, so that a particular failed avenue of research isn't pursued again.

Re: Life in China Is Getting Harder With High Prices

#114

Post by oceanplexian »

88840-8855 wrote: post #41
adam_ellsworth wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having not studied economics/politics during my time in college, wow does one qualify "collapse" here? What are the properties?

Dramatic political reforms, similar to what happened in 1991 when the Soviet Union "collapsed". Corruption would skyrocket, Oligarchs would emerge from the state owned enterprises, HK would declare independence, inner Mongolia, Tibet, Xinjiang, probably Yunnan would follow. Flows of money, including taxes, would be interrupted, people wont get paid. State owned enterprises would not be able to pay their people, the b…

I would rather see the US economy knocked back 15-20 years, if it meant we would stop being so dependent on China. Even if it meant my 401k dropped 80% overnight, if we were going back to domestic production I would support it.

Recovery wouldn't happen immediately but there are a lot of towns and cities with shuttered factories, particularly in the Rust Belt and the Northeast which I could see revitalized. Increased manufacturing would vastly increase the economic diversity of the country, instead of a situation where most jobs that pay a living wage are concentrated in few cities and few industries. A diverse economy would vastly improve the housing situation, since there is abundant land and housing in the middle of the country. It would also do wonders for halting Climate Change, since the US has much cleaner power, transportation, and emissions regulations.

Re: Life in China Is Getting Harder With High Prices

#115

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

varjag wrote: post #29
JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People that have survived communism just accept high levels of corruption because it's better than the alternative. That's why Putin is popular.

Do dictators have to eradicate every slight manifestation of dissent and turn elections into rigged cargo cult shows because they are so popular?

It's subtle, but no, Putin isn't popular in the way freely elected leaders are. He's only preferable to the alternative.

Re: Life in China Is Getting Harder With High Prices

#116

Post by [deleted] »

UIZealot wrote: post #83
tarsinge wrote: post #80

As a French the amount of (bad) news regarding China on American websites I browse (hn, reddit, newspapers websites...) is really disturbing compared to home. I try to think rationally but the coincidence with the trade war is hard to ignore. As an outsider it looks like nothing has changed (China is a communist country, fresh news!) but suddenly the media is all over it. The media pattern now is so obvious every tim…

And any time there's an article about China, people who knows nothing about China, besides that it's ruled by the communist party, comes out of the woodwork to take a dump on China. People look down on Trump and ridicule him endlessly when he spews bullshit about things he knows nothing about. But if you spew bullshit about China, you get lots of upvotes.

[deleted]

Re: Life in China Is Getting Harder With High Prices

#117

Post by LorenPechtel »

Animats wrote: post #42

The increase in pork prices is due to a swine fever epidemic that started in Liaoning province.[1] SCMP has a reasonably good article. China's huge boom is starting to level off. Down from 10%/yr to 7% a year. The US is under 3%/yr. That happened to all the "Asian tigers", as they caught up to the developed world. Its a long way from a recession. [1] https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3020488/c...

At least part of the problem is their whole economy is predicated on those crazy growth rates. Dropping to 3% would be catastrophic for them.

Re: Life in China Is Getting Harder With High Prices

#118

Post by SubiculumCode »

cdmckay wrote: post #66
NicoJuicy wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China made it personal ( for me) messing with democracy and the EU through the sham "16+1". Which is not meant to break the EU's democracy and getting more votes. Nothing else. I wish Hong Kong and Taiwan the very best, even this far away China is overreaching it's influence. They shouldn't be surprised that they have lost all sympathy from a lot of westerners. Before I forget, if you try to loan halve of the world m…

So China is bad because they invested in eastern EU countries?

Chinese apologist.

Re: Life in China Is Getting Harder With High Prices

#119

Post by NicoJuicy »

cdmckay wrote: post #66
NicoJuicy wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China made it personal ( for me) messing with democracy and the EU through the sham "16+1". Which is not meant to break the EU's democracy and getting more votes. Nothing else. I wish Hong Kong and Taiwan the very best, even this far away China is overreaching it's influence. They shouldn't be surprised that they have lost all sympathy from a lot of westerners. Before I forget, if you try to loan halve of the world m…

So China is bad because they invested in eastern EU countries?

It's not investing :D

Everyone can see that, it's loans and you get a cheaper loan when you use Chinese workers.

It's also shell companies, that do nothing ( from a research of the Netherlands)

It's a scam

Re: Life in China Is Getting Harder With High Prices

#120

Post by varjag »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #115
varjag wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do dictators have to eradicate every slight manifestation of dissent and turn elections into rigged cargo cult shows because they are so popular?

It's subtle, but no, Putin isn't popular in the way freely elected leaders are. He's only preferable to the alternative.

Who is the alternative?
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