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

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

#121
post #29
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…

If housing in the UK is a 6/10 I don't want to know how are 4/10s or worse.

Agreed. UK housing is a third world problem in a supposedly first world country.

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

#122
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :)

But does it have California's Jobs? :)

I don't know of anyone called Steve Jobs in Australia, no.

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

#123
post #30

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…

>but in another country you can walk or take public transport to the restaurant or tailor without the fear of being the victim of a crime

That's unrelated to the prices. 3 relatively poor countries are in fact much safer than the US [0], and all safer ones are poorer than US.

>PPP is good to measure if people have 'enough' to live on in a particular location but for comparison between countries it's pretty meaningless.

The overwhelming majority of living costs are local (especially food production), so PPP is a very good measurement. Prices of electronics and oil aren't that important for day-to-day living.

You seem to ignore the fact that, even in PPP, the average Chinese is really poor. It's just that their standard of living is $12k poor, not $7k poor.

[0] http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/safety/

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

#124

I read a lot of comments about the "Calculation" It really doesn't matter how you calculate it. China is the number one economy and American is on its way to becoming Japan or worse Greece. Having a been in China a lot its easy to see why. China is really striving to be number 1. They are setting a goal and accomplishing it. American on the other hand is mired in Bureaucracy and lack of vision for what we want to do.…

  "- by 2020 50% of all electric will be generated by non-fossil fuels. 2025 80%."

  "- 2025 be the #1 export of oil and coal"
That's interesting, especially seeing these goals being put together!

  "- Infrastructure 7% GDP"
How did you come to this number? Keep in mind that infrastructure costs depend on a lot of factors, like expropriation of private property, building new infrastructure and up-keeping the existent one in a number of more or less accessible places, development of new infrastructure technology and a lot more. China got a lot of these for almost free: it can afford to expropriate at ridiculous prices, it builds infrastructure with cheap labor and materials (bought at home market prices), it got its hands on new technology cheaply from abroad through various tricks (versus developing it from scratch), and so on. There's a lot to talk about infrastructure and resources allocated to it, and 7% may or may not be the answer.

  "- Moon by 2030 a sustainable colony."

  "- Mars by 2040 a sustainable colony."

  "- Mars by 2050 100,000 people"
Moon and Mars are not fit to be inhabited by humans (for their gravitation being inappropriate, if nothing else).

  "- Population 500,000 by 2040"
You wanted to say 500,000,000 maybe?

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

#125
post #101
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. 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…

pPP moves the goalposts on to each nation's home turf so they get a home player advantage. International influence and power requires playing against the same goalposts as everyone else.

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

#126

I read a lot of comments about the "Calculation" It really doesn't matter how you calculate it. China is the number one economy and American is on its way to becoming Japan or worse Greece. Having a been in China a lot its easy to see why. China is really striving to be number 1. They are setting a goal and accomplishing it. American on the other hand is mired in Bureaucracy and lack of vision for what we want to do.…

"- by 2020 50% of all electric will be generated by non-fossil fuels. 2025 80%." "- 2025 be the #1 export of oil and coal" That's interesting, especially seeing these goals being put together! "- Infrastructure 7% GDP" How did you come to this number? Keep in mind that infrastructure costs depend on a lot of factors, like expropriation of private property, building new infrastructure and up-keeping the existent one i…

Current spending is at 2.4% and it pays basically to not have dirt roads 7% is slightly is slightly less than China' current spend.

opening the border will provide a cheaper work force that can extend the infrastructure spending further.

the key is we need build goals and more people that are hungry to achieve them.

US has the natural resource to build out what it needed.

500,000,000 correct US population it far to low relative to the size

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

#127
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, we've been watching for the last decade as the predictions were made. Now they are coming true. Many people denied that it would happen and China would be another Japan, for example. We should be observing history at its slow and steady pace. As India and China lead the world within a century, the United States will have to learn to fit into its new role farther down the ladder. We could be the Great Britain of…

Hardly. China's growth is already sputtering. China will go the way of the Asian Tiger. This is catch up. What's far more concerning is imagining a country the size of China undergoing the current meltdown in Japan.

The American economy sputters too. I'm not sure exactly what you're saying. Can you be more precise and give a time period?

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

#128
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, we've been watching for the last decade as the predictions were made. Now they are coming true. Many people denied that it would happen and China would be another Japan, for example. We should be observing history at its slow and steady pace. As India and China lead the world within a century, the United States will have to learn to fit into its new role farther down the ladder. We could be the Great Britain of…

Hardly. China's growth is already sputtering. China will go the way of the Asian Tiger. This is catch up. What's far more concerning is imagining a country the size of China undergoing the current meltdown in Japan.

You mean Celtic Tiger?

China's growth is 'sputtering' because the government is starting to make the sort of reforms that everyone said they needed to make to move growth away from being driven by debt-funded infrastructure spending, but were too scared of making because of the short-term costs. Now that that's happening, the media narrative has shifted to "economic growth targets dropped 0.5%; economy in imminent danger of collapse".

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

#129
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…

Samsung: mostly Korea, TMSC: mostly Taiwan, Intel: Israel, U.S., etc...

Globalfoundries: Dresden, Singapore, U.S...

The only company I see with a lot of fabs in China is SMIC, and they're at 40nm, so they sure aren't making the Xiamo's CPU. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabricati...

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