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Chinese economy overtakes the U.S.’s to become the largest

marketwatch.com

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Re: Chinese economy overtakes the U.S.’s to become the largest

#101

Post by Zigurd »

simonh wrote: post #74
crdoconnor wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's not at all about real global power, it's about domestic economic capacity. As soon as China tries to start exerting it's economic muscle abroad, it has to compete on international terms which means adjusting costs to take advantage of domestic costs doesn't matter anymore. The entire reason the GDP and PPP GDP is so out of whack in China is because it intentionally suppresses the value of its currency to subsid…

> Yes it does because all of these things require domestic manufacturing capacity. But that's manufacturing capacity it doesn't have for technology is also doesn't have. To get it will either take buying it in at international prices (in $), or take take world class investment in technology, training, manufacturing capacity etc. Having cheap rice and roads will help a bit, but it won't come close to closing the gap w…

> But that's manufacturing capacity it doesn't have for technology is also doesn't have.

You just moved the goalposts. It's pretty obvious a Chinese shipyard could build a frigate vastly cheaper than a US shipyard. PPP GDP probably doesn't even touch this ratio.

It's true that China high tech is behind the US, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. For now. That will last a decade, maybe. There are thousands of products that used to be designed outside of China that are now fully Chinese.

Re: Chinese economy overtakes the U.S.’s to become the largest

#102

Post by berelig »

danieltillett wrote: post #65
Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly if you put in the cliche American free market priorities (jobs, income high, safety, work life balance, environment low, everything else in the middle) the US does come out top (as opposed to high but not top on a more even measure). The same things seems to happen if you put in the sort of priorities other countries are generally believed to hold (so put in the environment, satisfaction, work life bala…

As an Australian the thing that makes Australia a great place to live is the same that makes it suck - distance. It does have California's weather without the risk of earthquakes which is hard to beat :)

What about drop bears?

Re: Chinese economy overtakes the U.S.’s to become the largest

#103

Post by crimsonalucard »

muyuu wrote: post #33
legitquest wrote: post #11

Why does total GDP matter so much? China has over a billion people. A much more accurate metric is GDP or even PPP GDP per capita. Only when China has 3x larger economy than US economy will it be of the same size per capita to the U.S.

Because it's not a per capita thing how large a military you can afford, or how strongly you can lobby. On a per capita basis the US is world's #10. The US is the most important country in the world because of its aggregate power, of which the total GDP is an important factor.

"most important" is kind of arrogant.

Re: Chinese economy overtakes the U.S.’s to become the largest

#104

Post by melling »

ternaryoperator wrote: post #23

For comparison, using the more traditional measure of an economy's size, nominal GDP, the US economy is about 2x the size of China's. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...

This exact story was submitted a day ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8700954

Weird, must have flowed through too quickly at lunch time, or the original article's title was not good.

Re: Chinese economy overtakes the U.S.’s to become the largest

#105

Post by autokad »

kokey wrote: post #30
ternaryoperator wrote: post #23

For comparison, using the more traditional measure of an economy's size, nominal GDP, the US economy is about 2x the size of China's. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...

Having moved between developing and developed countries recently, I was reminded of what GDP in PPP misses. It's even cruder than how inflation is measured through CPI or RPI. In one country it might be cheaper to get services that depend on a lot of labour, like restaurant meals, cleaning and tailoring, but in another country you can walk or take public transport to the restaurant or tailor without the fear of being…

yeah, and if china balanced to the US in real terms, all that industry they sucked up would flee thus dropping them right back down

Re: Chinese economy overtakes the U.S.’s to become the largest

#106

Post by briandh »

crdoconnor wrote: post #77
simonh wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes it does because all of these things require domestic manufacturing capacity. But that's manufacturing capacity it doesn't have for technology is also doesn't have. To get it will either take buying it in at international prices (in $), or take take world class investment in technology, training, manufacturing capacity etc. Having cheap rice and roads will help a bit, but it won't come close to closing the gap w…

>But that's manufacturing capacity it doesn't have for technology is also doesn't have. Says who? Chinese technology is converging at US levels. >You don't get to move from being a third world country with a third world cost base to being a first world country and keep your third world cost base. The two go hand in hand. That's why Chinese manufacturing is beginning to lose it's price advantages over places like Viet…

>>Assembling high tech iPhone components

>My Xiaomi is pretty much every bit as good as an iPhone and 1/4 the cost.

Without taking Simonh's "side" here, you are missing his point, which is that the high-quality screens and advanced ICs are overwhelmingly designed and manufactured outside of China, especially in the countries he listed.

Even a low-end Xiaomi model uses a MediaTek (Taiwanese) SoC fabbed by TSMC (Taiwanese).

China may be moving toward more domestic production of such components, e.g., with modems and SoCs by Spreadtrum; SoCs by AllWinner, RockChip, AmLogic, etc.; or fabbing by SMIC. (On the other hand, I'm not aware of a major Chinese manufacturer of DRAM, NAND, or smartphone displays, for instance. I'd be interested in hearing about them if anybody knows of some.)

In other words, to counter him, it's not sufficient simply to show a Xiaomi phone; you must also show a BOM for one with primarily Chinese parts. As far as I know, one does not exist.

Re: Chinese economy overtakes the U.S.’s to become the largest

#107

Post by muyuu »

crimsonalucard wrote: post #103
muyuu wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's not a per capita thing how large a military you can afford, or how strongly you can lobby. On a per capita basis the US is world's #10. The US is the most important country in the world because of its aggregate power, of which the total GDP is an important factor.

"most important" is kind of arrogant.

I'm not American though. You can hardly deny it is, or let's say the most relevant.

China is getting there though.

Re: Chinese economy overtakes the U.S.’s to become the largest

#108

Post by BrianEatWorld »

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #42
pmontra wrote: post #17

This is a ranking about PPP. There are about five Chinese persons for every American. The sum of their income will keep getting larger and so will their economy. GDP and economic output don't automatically relate to how well people live but they do relate to the influence a country has over the world. If we care about how happy people are in their country then maybe we should look at http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.or…

Interestingly if you put in the cliche American free market priorities (jobs, income high, safety, work life balance, environment low, everything else in the middle) the US does come out top (as opposed to high but not top on a more even measure). The same things seems to happen if you put in the sort of priorities other countries are generally believed to hold (so put in the environment, satisfaction, work life bala…

Any deficiency in the "Deadly Animal" slider is easily balanced by the massive surplus on their "Ute Availability" slider.

Re: Chinese economy overtakes the U.S.’s to become the largest

#109

Post by melling »

jeroen94704 wrote: post #36

I don't really understand the fascination with nominal GDP, be it in US$ or PPP. Those numbers are heavily influenced by the size of a country's population, which according to wikipedia ranges from something like 100,000 all the way up to 1.3 billion. That's four orders of magnitude! That's like comparing a Formula 1 car and a Peugeot 107, and then deciding the guy in the Formula 1 car is a better driver because his…

Where's India on the list? It's as big as China. The point is that since the 1870's the United States was bigger, even with a large population difference. It's certainly noteworthy that China has caught up, or the U.S. is falling behind.

Re: Chinese economy overtakes the U.S.’s to become the largest

#110

Post by danmaz74 »

sneak wrote: post #46
pmontra wrote: post #17

This is a ranking about PPP. There are about five Chinese persons for every American. The sum of their income will keep getting larger and so will their economy. GDP and economic output don't automatically relate to how well people live but they do relate to the influence a country has over the world. If we care about how happy people are in their country then maybe we should look at http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.or…

Or maybe we should stop moving the goalposts because this article isn't about anything per-capita and isn't titled "Chinese quality of life tops the US". It's about total economic might.

Yes but if you talk about economic might, then PPP doens't make much sense either.
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