How China's “debt traps” work • Hacker News Board

Re: How China's “debt traps” work

#201

Post by throwaway2990 » Thu, Oct 05, 2023, 3:47 AM UTC

ccding wrote: post #166

throwaway2990 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

This is not true. In China, buyers have to pay the down payment and mortgage before the apartment is built, but for some reason if the builder left the apartment half built, buyers do get their money back from the bank.

You have to pay in full to the developer. By taking out a loan which consists of a downpayment. The developer now has 100% of the money. And the buyer has nothing but debt. The developers are either never breaking ground or never completing the building. Using the money to buy more land and sell more homes. When they file for bankruptcy. The banks still need the money back from the buyer. Since the buyer has no home because it was never finished they effectively lose their investment and their lives as debt collection takes their cars, live-in home. Etc. Stop spreading misinformation that buyers aren’t suffering.

Re: How China's “debt traps” work

#202

Post by dash2 » Thu, Oct 05, 2023, 6:38 PM UTC

neilwilson wrote: post #183

dash2 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with not listening to economists is that you then suggest policies which economic history reveals are seriously flawed. Why are foreign investors likely to accept shares in your business denominated in, say, Rupiyah? Especially if it can't be "hot money", which implies they won't be able to resell it. As for building the equipment yourself: are you kidding? This kind of import-substitution failed spectacu…

"Why are foreign investors likely to accept shares in your business denominated in, say, Rupiyah?" Because if that country wants to sell their stuff to you, that would their only option - other than taking Rupiyah directly. And if your country doesn't do it, then some other country will - because new sources of demand don't come by every day. That's how you avoid a 'debt trap' and the debt prison that comes from coun…

I predict to you that demand for shares in emerging country currency in exchange for real goods will be low, and that no country will ever get rich by this method, because none ever has. As for system dynamics, I don't know about it - maybe it's great. But I do know a little economics, and a glance at NBER reveals very many deeply practical applications from unemployment to inequality to supply chains to sexual harassment: https://www.nber.org/papers?page=1&perPage=50&sortBy=public_.... So I'll repeat my point: do you know economics? If not, what makes you so confident to pontificate about it?

Re: How China's “debt traps” work

#203

Post by dredmorbius » Sat, Oct 07, 2023, 1:36 AM UTC

bpolverini wrote: post #33

hackandthink wrote: post #10

"David Graeber: Oh, absolutely. After all, the alter-globalization movement grew out of a broad global reaction to the Washington consensus, which was never any sort of consensus, but rather, a vision of the world forcibly imposed on the global South through the third world debt crisis. I was involved in “drop the debt” campaigns of various sorts since at least 2000. What got me interested in some of the philosophica…

The Government already has a monopoly on force and steals our money under the threat of imprisonment in the form of taxation: Now that money is supposed to be allocated into risky investments for abstract, unmeasureable benefits like "soft power," for the benefit of people somewhere else? That creates resentment here. It also infantilizes the Global South. How much better would it be if we eliminated the IMF, shrank…

It's not the monopoly on force, it's the monopoly on the claim to the legitimate use of violence, from Max Weber:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36317559>

Re: How China's “debt traps” work

#204

Post by hatsune » Tue, Oct 10, 2023, 1:41 AM UTC

Animats wrote: post #23

It's not just internationally. China has done that to its own people. Or worse. Look at Evergrand and Sunac. The government of China let developers sell un-built apartments to future residents. The residents not only paid down payments, but took on a mortgage obligation for an un-built building . "The majority of new properties in China — about 90% — are sold before being completed." - CNN. This produced a terrible i…

this was banned recently (around 2020), also that sounds as legal as how stocks work in the first place during age of exploration and an intervention within seems maybe not strictly necessary.