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Half of China's millionaires want to leave country

business.blogs.cnn.com

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Re: Half of China's millionaires want to leave country

#71

Post by cma »

angkec wrote: post #66

This may add more insight: I'm Chinese (mainlander) myself and I'm not rich (student). All my friends are not rich either. Yet almost everyone wants to leave the country. This is probably due to high real estate prices (around 1M RMB in large cities like Beijing and Shanghai for a decent apartment that can get you a girl to marry you, yet you don't really "own" the property even if you buy it. Technically the state s…

>Technically the state still owns your apartment and you were just paying for "usage fee" because that's how communism/socialism works.

The fee part sounds like something other than communism.

Re: Half of China's millionaires want to leave country

#72

Post by cma »

espeed wrote: post #9
folkster wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This news is far from being accurate. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2806250

Regardless if its billionaires in yuan or dollars, if there is a sentiment in China that the wealthy are being killed, it could fuel the desire to leave.

There is a death penalty in China for trying to form a labor union (and people said American labor unions opposed "free trade" agreements with China out of pure selfishness...).

Anyway, there's a complex mix of people in China afraid of being killed.

Re: Half of China's millionaires want to leave country

#73

Post by angkec »

cma wrote: post #71
angkec wrote: post #66

This may add more insight: I'm Chinese (mainlander) myself and I'm not rich (student). All my friends are not rich either. Yet almost everyone wants to leave the country. This is probably due to high real estate prices (around 1M RMB in large cities like Beijing and Shanghai for a decent apartment that can get you a girl to marry you, yet you don't really "own" the property even if you buy it. Technically the state s…

>Technically the state still owns your apartment and you were just paying for "usage fee" because that's how communism/socialism works. The fee part sounds like something other than communism.

I know! And it's ridiculously high, beats any property tax in U.S. That's probably one of the reason why the Chinese government is so rich.

The propaganda has invented a new saying, calling this the Chinese Socialism, and it tries to credit itself for the economic boom after the 1980s. We the people think that the gov is just trying to collect massive money after they abandoned soviet communism so everyone had a chance to make a better life. The chance is getting slimmer as the gov is getting much more greedy than in the 80s.

Re: Half of China's millionaires want to leave country

#75

Post by Volpe »

tomkarlo wrote: post #57

Once you're rich enough, you become concerned with protecting that wealth and your own well-being. You want transparency from your government, rule of law (in a transparent, predictable manner) and political stability. Those are not strong points in China these days.

Political stability is not a strong point in china?

Re: Half of China's millionaires want to leave country

#76

Post by Tsagadai »

folkster wrote: post #13

Money can buy you bigger houses, fancy clothes, new cars. But it can't buy you freedom, in China. That's why the millionaires leave, to be free.

China is quite free compared to most western countries. If you have money you are pretty much free to do as you please as long as you keep your head down. There are two types of crimes in China crimes that get you put away forever or executed and crimes that you just pay the officer for. Every regulation in China is basically a tax, you pay someone and it is solved.

Re: Half of China's millionaires want to leave country

#77

Post by redthrowaway »

chaostheory wrote: post #27
wisty wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd expect a number of extremely rich Chinese oligarchs have been shot for treason, as some forms of corruption are punishable by the death penalty. There's a lot of really nasty shit that happens in China. Babies dying from additives to their milk formula, organs being stolen, farmers being driven off communes to build illegal factories, outright theft of government funds and property ... none of it is really sancti…

> outright theft of government funds and property Yeah most of that ends up in North America. imo They tend to buy housing in cash for their children mostly in either Vancouver or the Bay Area.

As a Vancouverite, I can confirm this. The only reason our housing bubble didn't pop with everyone else's is the continued influx of large amounts of capital from (principally) China.

Check out http://www.crackshackormansion.com/part2.html to see how bad it's gotten.

Re: Half of China's millionaires want to leave country

#78

Post by Volpe »

There is too much bias from reporters these days to work out actual trend from manufactured trends with regards to china.

Silly to say "half of china's millionaires want to leave" without saying how that percentage is different from "all chinese"...

China long ago loosened restrictions on emigration, to allow Chinese to be educated overseas and then (hopefully) return to China, so that it could benefit. I think this increase of emigration could be a natural progression of that policy (as Chinese now have a lot more ties in other countries).

The 'unaffordable housing' issue, sounds similar to Australia (Median house price is 8+X median yearly/salary), so I doubt it is a reason for leaving.

People who are saying it's "too be free", are clearly just anti-P.R.C, again, by-in-large chinese are happy/apathetic about the govt in china. Those that care about politics, join the party and have just as many rights (to vote and affect change as americans have).

Very difficult to work out 'truth' here...

Re: Half of China's millionaires want to leave country

#79

Post by tomkarlo »

Volpe wrote: post #75
tomkarlo wrote: post #57

Once you're rich enough, you become concerned with protecting that wealth and your own well-being. You want transparency from your government, rule of law (in a transparent, predictable manner) and political stability. Those are not strong points in China these days.

Political stability is not a strong point in china?

On the order of a lifetime (50-60 years)? No. Especially given that you have an incumbent political party that is (at least in name), still Communist and committed to the equitable distribution of wealth across the population.

China has a lot of internal tensions, not the least of which is that as people become more affluent, they start to want greater transparency from the government, greater fairness, and more independence. All of those desires put them in conflict with the current regime. The party may be able to keep things under control, but I don't think there's any question that it's already grappling to maintain order via censorship, suppression of dissent, etc.

Re: Half of China's millionaires want to leave country

#80

Post by SearchDream »

angkec wrote: post #66

This may add more insight: I'm Chinese (mainlander) myself and I'm not rich (student). All my friends are not rich either. Yet almost everyone wants to leave the country. This is probably due to high real estate prices (around 1M RMB in large cities like Beijing and Shanghai for a decent apartment that can get you a girl to marry you, yet you don't really "own" the property even if you buy it. Technically the state s…

Agree on almost everyone want to leave, I have about 10+ friends and colleague come to work in Singapore like me.
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