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China’s property giant Evergrande files for bankruptcy protection in Manhattan

cnbc.com

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Re: China’s property giant Evergrande files for bankruptcy protection in Manhattan

#81

Post by jskrablin »

jeswin wrote: post #65
tjpnz wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government control over reproduction leads to unintended consequences? Who would've seen that coming?

It's not automatically a bad thing. China has done fantastically well economically, and in terms of health care, education etc. There are other countries which have had strict population control and have done well economically - such as Singapore, South Korea. I see nothing wrong with poorer countries keeping restrictions on population growth - so that they can increase the standard of living and make sure everyone g…

It may work in short term but then you run out of population in long term. And suddenly any gains from short term improvement is under a big question mark.

Re: China’s property giant Evergrande files for bankruptcy protection in Manhattan

#82

Post by throwaway4good »

oblio wrote: post #57
aylmao wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why this comment is getting downvoted. I think it's relevant to the discussion, whether people agree with it or not.

> it was all about keeping asians down and dependent. Probably because of this. The US is allied to several prosperous Asian countries.

Who all got seriously smacked down when they got too independent (from the Vietnam war to the Plaza accord).

Re: China’s property giant Evergrande files for bankruptcy protection in Manhattan

#83

Post by PeterisP »

jimbob45 wrote: post #43
midoridensha wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>- China's fertility rate dropped to record low 1.09 in 2022 >- China records fewest marriages in more than 3 decades Wow, at this rate, they might just overtake South Korea for lowest birth and marriage rates within the decade.

Wow, I thought you were making that up. It’s real. Why not just repeal the child limitations then? No reason to keep them in place if the rate is that low.

Fixing the consequences requires that they have to be repealed not now, not a few years ago, but rather 25 years ago.

Re: China’s property giant Evergrande files for bankruptcy protection in Manhattan

#84

Post by berdario »

oblio wrote: post #57
aylmao wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why this comment is getting downvoted. I think it's relevant to the discussion, whether people agree with it or not.

> it was all about keeping asians down and dependent. Probably because of this. The US is allied to several prosperous Asian countries.

Yes, prosperous. But as prosperous as the US?

And being prosperous doesn't mean not being dependent.

Japan agreed to the Plaza accords

https://youtu.be/pU_yyadYgG8

Other Asian countries probably are going to be careful before signing up for something equivalent.

Re: China’s property giant Evergrande files for bankruptcy protection in Manhattan

#85

Post by throwaway2037 »

ipnon wrote: post #5

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.

    Some of these companies have trillions in RMB on their balance sheets.
I don't understand this sentence. It is nonsensical to use balance in this way. You wrote "trillions in RMB". Let's assume (your hand-wavy use of the term) balance sheet means: outstanding debt. Further, each 1T RMB is 137B USD. How many companies in the whole world carry more than this much debt? Let alone Chine property developers? Wildly overstated.

Also, central bank's can print money, by definition. They can also buy debt issued by these companies to repay maturing debt. Then they can forgive this debt. Why would this harm "the assets of the middle and lower class"? The misunderstanding of monetary theory appears weak here.

Re: China’s property giant Evergrande files for bankruptcy protection in Manhattan

#86

Post by throwaway4good »

oblio wrote: post #58
geysersam wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> GDP capita flattened at 13k Flattened? It's growing something like 5% per year.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37171762

You can cherry pick negative news all you want. But if you a clear picture look at the aggregate for longer terms.

Re: China’s property giant Evergrande files for bankruptcy protection in Manhattan

#87

Post by somenameforme »

tjpnz wrote: post #33
jamesaurichs wrote: post #18

Some real estate related news from China: - Country garden, China's second biggest property company after Evergrande, missed a mere 22.5M payments for dollar denominated bonds. It is trying to restructure a $340B debt owned. https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/chinas-government-... - Li Ka Shing, richest man in Hong Kong, just offered an immediate 30% off on his newest buildings for sale - One of China's bigges…

Government control over reproduction leads to unintended consequences? Who would've seen that coming?

This is a crisis happening everywhere in the developed world. A stable practical fertility rate is 2.1. South Korea has the lowest fertility rate in the world, below 0.8, and there was no government meddling there. The US fertility rate is also plummeting and now down to below 1.7 and heavily biased by income. The birth rate for households earning $200,000 [1] with a near perfect linear relationship for incomes in between. And obviously there are way more poor households than 'rich.'

It's so odd to me that of the many issues people freak out about, this one ranks relatively low. We're looking at a non-speculative and entirely real demographic collapse of the entire developed world, in quite rapid order. For those who may not appreciate the impact, a total fertility rate of "N" means you will trend towards a system where the population of one older generation will be "2/N" times larger than the next younger generation.

So if you have a fertility rate of 2, each generation will be exactly the same. If you have a fertility rate of 1 then each older generation will be exactly twice as large as the next younger generation. So, for a simple model, imagine we all gave birth at 20. You'd trend towards a population distribution of 16 80-year-olds, 8 60-year-olds, 4 40-year-olds, 2 20-year-olds, 1 newborn. Systems of social security, healthcare, and the general economy will just collapse under that sort of pressure.

[1] - https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-fam...

Re: China’s property giant Evergrande files for bankruptcy protection in Manhattan

#88

Post by whimsicalism »

fmajid wrote: post #60
whimsicalism wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it is not looking good for their outlook. That said, nobody is seriously claiming Chinese youth unemployment at 50% unless you are looking at something like labor force participation rate, which is then a similar number for the US as well.

A Peking University professor of economics says it is 46.5% if you use the same definition as in the US: https://archive.ph/L6ZfU

wrong, that’s the labor participation rate

read your own article, you also just made up the thing about the definition in the US

Re: China’s property giant Evergrande files for bankruptcy protection in Manhattan

#89

Post by throwaway2037 »

w10-1 wrote: post #79

This is really a breathtaking legal situation. 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 un…

    This is really a breathtaking legal situation.
Yeah, not really. They issued USD debt and chose NYC as the legal jurisdiction to make their bond more attractive to overseas buyers. There are probably a myriad of overseas entities involved. It is very unlikely this will spread back to Mainland China.

    Bankruptcy law typically trumps virtually all other laws, with not much to guide the court's discretion.
No, sovereignty does. We learned that during the CoCo bond 100% write-down during the Credit Suisse forced merger with UBS.

Re: China’s property giant Evergrande files for bankruptcy protection in Manhattan

#90

Post by whimsicalism »

anonylizard wrote: post #40
whimsicalism wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it is not looking good for their outlook. That said, nobody is seriously claiming Chinese youth unemployment at 50% unless you are looking at something like labor force participation rate, which is then a similar number for the US as well.

No, it can actually be 50%. Why do you think that's not serious? Greek youth unemployment was at 60% during their peak debt crisis. China's mega debt tsunami is starting to slam the shores right now. China already tried its hardest to suppress youth unemployment rates. Student councillors in China are given strict KPIs to ensure their students graduate with a job. So obviously they co-operate with shady companies tha…

that’s a lot of words to not cite a single person saying 50%
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