Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

China’s Economy Slows Sharply

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 260 posts

Re: China’s Economy Slows Sharply

#91

Post by mike986 »

askaboutit wrote: post #88

Every economy has a plateau then a fall, then a pull back up again. I think the aggressive trade stance and hard line politics by China might have played a major role. As it’s frightened both the local businesses and foreign businesses and lead to all global powers starting to put tariffs and trade barriers up, all due to China wanting to get away with pretty blatant violations of fair trade, huge import taxes on for…

> hugely subsidised mail

I noticed this many years ago when ebay vendors from china were able to sell stuff for less that what one has to pay for shipping

What's the implication here in this context?

Re: China’s Economy Slows Sharply

#92

Post by vertexFarm »

porpoisely wrote: post #15

I'm sure I've read this same story for the past 5 or even 10 years. I am certain that the chinese economy will face a recession one day and I am sure nobody in the media will know why or how. Maybe I'm alone in thinking these articles are such a waste of time. It tells us nothing.

The field of economics certainly has lots of problems with replication and pseudoscience and pigeon superstition, but I'd like to point out that when large-scale events naturally take decades to play out it's a common effect for people to dismiss it, saying "oh they've been saying that for the past fifteen years, let's just move on already."

Sometimes things take that long. That kind of cognitive bias is making it difficult for our species to do any sort of proper long-term planning or even observation of slow problems.

Re: China’s Economy Slows Sharply

#93

Post by Qworg »

mike986 wrote: post #91
askaboutit wrote: post #88

Every economy has a plateau then a fall, then a pull back up again. I think the aggressive trade stance and hard line politics by China might have played a major role. As it’s frightened both the local businesses and foreign businesses and lead to all global powers starting to put tariffs and trade barriers up, all due to China wanting to get away with pretty blatant violations of fair trade, huge import taxes on for…

> hugely subsidised mail I noticed this many years ago when ebay vendors from china were able to sell stuff for less that what one has to pay for shipping What's the implication here in this context?

It is essentially abusing the UBU to subsidize trade from China. There was an excellent NPR story about it: https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?stor...

Re: China’s Economy Slows Sharply

#94

Post by jcfrei »

NicoJuicy wrote: post #9
rrggrr wrote: post #5

I continue to believe - as I've said in prior HN comments - that the Chinese leadership welcomes this slowdown and the related trade dispute as a means to rebalance the domestic economy, while placing the blame for the rebalancing on the United States. I note that at least one distinguished China watcher agrees: https://carnegieendowment.org/2018/07/27/china-s-best-option...

I have my sincere doubts about this. China always had a requirement to grow 6% for every city. So I believe some numbers are inflated ( mostly about real estate eg. Ghost cities, ..). This doesn't give many issues, because there is actual growth. The reasoning goes that when the growth slows, the entire pyramid goes crumbling down ( debts). As weird as it is, I think it's an objective overview of everything China rel…

> The reasoning goes that when the growth slows, the entire pyramid goes crumbling down ( debts).

Since every bank in China is under the direction of the central government it's up to a committee therein to decide which companies end up bankrupt. China might look like it has a modern capital market but it's still centrally controlled for key parts. National banks can and will infinitely extend credit lines to unprofitable companies if it's in the governments interest (for example to prevent public unrest).

Re: China’s Economy Slows Sharply

#95

Post by the_duke »

apo wrote: post #84

I think of China as epicenter of a gargantuine deflationary hurricane. The cycle goes something like this: 1. Chinese economy slows down. 2. Chinese leadership realizes it's only one real recession away from existential threat. 3. Chinese government floods the market with fake money. 4. Chinese factories expand and export still more goods, despite weak demand. 5. World inventories pile up, depressing prices across th…

The US and the EU have been flooding the markets with money ever since the recession too, though, with low to negative interest rates and bond buys.

The EU is in a worse state than the US with an interest rate of 0.0 and therefore no room to maneuver in case of a new downturn.

For either three of those markets, the flooding can't continue indefinitely.

Re: China’s Economy Slows Sharply

#96

Post by seanmcdirmid »

reaperducer wrote: post #89
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think so, not yet anyways. Trump is probably a one term president, and most companies are thinking longer term. 1989-90 was much much worse.

I don’t think so Think again. GoPro moving some production out of China to avoid US tariffs: https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/10/tech/gopro-china-tariffs/inde...

So what? Does one data point make the case for a sustained long term trend?

Re: China’s Economy Slows Sharply

#97

Post by ubtual »

rrggrr wrote: post #5

I continue to believe - as I've said in prior HN comments - that the Chinese leadership welcomes this slowdown and the related trade dispute as a means to rebalance the domestic economy, while placing the blame for the rebalancing on the United States. I note that at least one distinguished China watcher agrees: https://carnegieendowment.org/2018/07/27/china-s-best-option...

This is a common pattern amongst Chinese apologist

Economy: Everyone says it's been failing for 10 years -> Chinese leadership is omnipotent regarding economy -> it's just a temporary slowdown, government will print more money -> Chinese leadership planned this slowdown

Human rights: look at US! -> ignore comparisons to other countries other than US -> It's not really a concentration camp, since there's no mass murder -> prisoner organ harvesting isn't bad compared to US separating families at the border, or slavery 300 years ago

Re: China’s Economy Slows Sharply

#98

Post by jacquesm »

askaboutit wrote: post #88

Every economy has a plateau then a fall, then a pull back up again. I think the aggressive trade stance and hard line politics by China might have played a major role. As it’s frightened both the local businesses and foreign businesses and lead to all global powers starting to put tariffs and trade barriers up, all due to China wanting to get away with pretty blatant violations of fair trade, huge import taxes on for…

> all global powers starting to put tariffs and trade barriers up

That's a bit of a stretch.

Re: China’s Economy Slows Sharply

#99

Post by reaperducer »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #96
reaperducer wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think so Think again. GoPro moving some production out of China to avoid US tariffs: https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/10/tech/gopro-china-tariffs/inde...

So what? Does one data point make the case for a sustained long term trend?

It's a single data point because I'm not going to do your research for you.

It's something that happened recently and was mentioned on HN, that's why I provided the courtesy of posting that for you.

Re: China’s Economy Slows Sharply

#100

Post by irishcoffee »

1996 wrote: post #81
neolefty wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love all these "You are also right" comments. One of the skills I hear about being prized in Chinese culture is the ability hold two conflicting ideas in your head at once, without feeling stressed about it. And that skill seems to help when trying to understand China itself!

Being able to manage what seems to be multiple "conflicting" ideas at once and without stress should be prized in every culture. The world is not black or white. Enlarging your perspectives always help.

Fox news and CNN would beg to differ
Post reply on HN