71–80 of 395 posts
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Ka Shing, richest man in Hong Kong Talk about nominative determinism...
I wonder how nominative determinism works across languages. Given enough languages and names, one is bound to come up with any number of people whose life is nominatively determined.
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Are they actually underwater or do they just have higher loan payments than rental income? If it's the latter, let them sell some properties or transfer them to the bank in lieu of loan payments.
The problem they have is that nobody buys their properties...
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Capitalism, like socialism, or postmodernism, or the labels conservative or liberal are almost devoid of meaning. But please, both the parent commenter and you keep arguing what the true meaning of capitalism is. Meanwhile I will head to the market and barter some of my guns for butter.
The problem with these terms is not that they have no meaning, it's that they have no context-free virtue. Prohibiting leaded gasoline is good and prohibiting housing construction is bad, even if they're both government regulations. Competitive markets are good and concentrated markets are bad, even if they're both markets. But people want to assign a label to the category instead of the instance, and then they fight…
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I wonder how nominative determinism works across languages. Given enough languages and names, one is bound to come up with any number of people whose life is nominatively determined.
not unlike star signs
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Government control over reproduction leads to unintended consequences? Who would've seen that coming?
Except it’s been loosened after decades, and suddenly the economy tanks? The more likely explanation is Xi’s authoritarianism and crackdown on the private sector. Anyone with a brain in China is trying to get their money and themselves out of the country.
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China will not be captured by the middle income trap because it has already escaped the middle income trap. The middle income in my opinion has a different reason countries get stuck there and its by design. Because the road to high income is protected by western IP protection. Patents are way for the west to forever license fees for their high end technology, China is beating the west in new IP generation and hence…
> It was never about money or trade it was all about keeping asians down and dependent. Thats way too much simplification. For starters there isn't a level playing field. Any Chinese company can start a company in the west but if a western company wants to start a company in China you can either start a "second class" entity (a WFOE) or if you want a level playing field with the locals you can use a joint venture but…
Didn't they drop that requirement last year?
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>"real estate assets everywhere but China now look better in the long term." They do not look better. They look inflated and unaffordable. If not fixed this will have social consequences at some point and it won't be pretty.
Housing can't be inflated and unaffordable at the same time. Someone is buying properties, driving prices higher. Those someone can definitely afford housing.
By "unaffordable" people mean that median person/poor person has problem with paying for housing. Not that no one at all can afford it.
There are many real estate giants and so-called "trust" companies who are incapable of repaying debt right now. Some of these companies have trillions in RMB on their balance sheets. The central bank can bail them out but at the expense of the assets of the middle and lower class. This would only further incentivize cash hoarding, and tighten the middle income trap. It is not an enviable situation.
Are they actually underwater or do they just have higher loan payments than rental income? If it's the latter, let them sell some properties or transfer them to the bank in lieu of loan payments.
Bankruptcy law typically trumps virtually all other laws, with not much to guide the court's discretion.
International bankruptcies are even weirder. In this case, US bankruptcy law has the power to intervene in ongoing bankruptcy proceedings in Hong Kong, Cayman's, etc.
Bankruptcy law protects debt-holders and the company, but not other stakeholders. As far as I know under US law the court has no basis to change anything for reasons of economic policy or impact. If the Hong Kong court pushes mainland Chinese interests, it's unclear to me how the other courts would respond.
Further, the due diligence required to qualify debts and debt-holders could uncover some unsettling relationships. I can imagine China viewing US bankruptcy discovery as an fishing expedition for intelligence.
Huge amounts, even larger consequences, and super-power competition would make this difficult even if the law were programmatic, but here so much depends on the court's discretion, and the court itself is the finder of fact. ("So much depends/on the red wheel barrow"?)
In the US we're lucky that these proceedings are mostly in the open and on the record (albeit sometimes only to record the results of debt-holder negotiations).
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China will not be captured by the middle income trap because it has already escaped the middle income trap. The middle income in my opinion has a different reason countries get stuck there and its by design. Because the road to high income is protected by western IP protection. Patents are way for the west to forever license fees for their high end technology, China is beating the west in new IP generation and hence…
Some bold claims with little evidence. GDP capita flattened at 13k is hardly “escaped the middle income trap”. IPs can be harmful to growth but then again China has never shown any intent to enforce IPs of western origin. There are no evidence of the US wanting to “keep asians down” - many of USAs asian trading partners enjoy less trade regulation. The “trade war” might be counterproductive but was a, imo mild, respo…
2. The Chinese economy is still growing more than most countries.
3. The US is clearly engaged in zero/negative sum economic warfare against China at the moment - for example read this article and the quoted views by admistration officials therein:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/12/magazine/semiconductor-ch...
‘An Act of War’: Inside America’s Silicon Blockade Against China