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Is China Under The Skyscraper Curse?
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Shanghai Tower (Center), Source: Forbes.com |
By EconMatters
China Builds World's 2nd Tallest Skyscraper
The world's 2nd tallest skyscraper, Shanghai Tower, at Lujiazui, Pudong, Shanghai, China is to open to the public in a month or two (mid-2015). It measures 2,073 feet with 128 stories in the financial district of Shanghai, only surpassed by Burj Khalifa in Dubai at 2,722 ft.
Once the building is completely open, it is expected 20,000 to 30,000 people will pass through each day. It was built for about $3 billion by the Shanghai Tower Construction and Development Co., a state-owned enterprise.
Loved By Asia & Middle East
In recent years, skyscraper seems to serve more of a symbolism of status rather than an actual real estate commercial project. In the case of Shanghai Tower, special computerized damper, and other additional special designs have to be implemented to prevent the building from swaying in heavy winds from, for example, typhoons. In all Shanghai Tower, there are 21 sky lobbies (mostly public spaces) that can't be rented out to make money. So basically these types of design elements would never make the ROI economics and be constructed in the United States.
This is probably part of the reason why skyscrapers are dwindling in the more developed regions like Europe and North America while regions with greater State wealth and authority like Asia and the Middle East, seem to have developed an affinity (see chart below).
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Chart Source: Zero Hedge |
Skyscraper Index Curse?
Back in 2010, China commissioned and put a replica of the Wall Street bull in Pudong, Shanghai to stake its rightful place on the global financial stage as an equal to New York. A skyscraper just seems a natural follow-up 5 year later. However, Shanghai Tower will not stay as the tallest building in China for very long, Shenzhen's 2,170-ft Ping An Finance Center will surpass the Shanghai Tower when it is completed in 2016.
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Chart Source: economicreason.com |
Nevertheless, the fact is that Shanghai Tower is opening during the darkest period of China's economy in recent years. This make me wonder if the skyscraper index which showed that the world's tallest buildings have risen on the eve of economic downturns (see graph above) could have some predictive value than mere coincidence.
For example, Taipei 101 was the tallest building in the world before Burj Khalifa came along in 2010, but till this day, many in Taiwan still believe the erection of Taipei 101 negatively affected the island's 'natural flow of prosperity'. Dubai economy has not fared well after Burj Khalifa either. With a similarly deep cultural root in symbolism and Fengshui, it is no wonder that Sky City, the planned skyscraper taller than Burj Khalifa in Changsha, Hunan in south-central China has never got off ground.
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What rubbish ? Economic analysis linked to Tower Index ? This is voodoo from EconMatters. They should be in the comics biz.
"Darkest period of China's history in recent years?"
What drivel. The rate of growth has dropped to 7.5%.
Has this writer ever been to China?
Sure, that drop to 7.5% GROWTH was dressed up as a "hard landing".. but that failed to stick.
So they started using a Li Keqiang comment to claim all numbers are totally fake... but that failed to stick
So they started claiming that electric usage and rail freight were key signs. But they failed to account for increase in power costs, Failed to account for the consolidation of heavy industry. Failed to account for efficiency subsidies that has cleaned up a lot of the industry in recent years.
So now, it's all about being vague, ignoring the numbers while claiming them to be "fake anyways", and then making up their own narrative of what is happening based on anecdotal stories overhead in taxis. If you disagree, you must be an "wu mao", because by default if you are not attacking China (bullshit or not), you obviously must be a paid troll. (let's ignore for a moment that the pentagon runs SMISC to do EXACTLY what china is being accused of... except it's not an allegation, it's 100% fact, proven, as in "this is a thing in the budget of the pentagon" as in "domestic propaganda laws were revised to allow for it to happen")
That's the honest truth of the matter. China's got problems sure, and we would love to be able to bail out to another country rather than stick around and put up with some of them. But the US... it just gets worse every fucking week. Have a "bad china week", decide that the problems in the US just might be tolerable, and bam, some new horrible thing happens and it's another dealbreaker moment. Europe is unstable, everything in Asia is tied to China anyways, the US is shit. South America is either a warzone or owned by China. Canada is transitionary due to US and China influences. Africa is basically a warzone or owned by China. Middle East? Good luck not getting killed, thanks Obama.
So, pick your poison really. The US, where shit keeps getting worse. Real wages have not risen in 30 years. Social tensions are primed and ready to implode. Or China, where things are, in fact, still getting better for most.
That said, if you are not already in China, don't bother fleeing over here. That ship sailed long ago. If you do not own property here, or are capable of buying in more or less instantly without depleting cash reserves, it's not a place for you anymore.
I could not have said it better myslf.
Went to China frst time in 2000, opened the first business with a Chinese partner in 2001 in Shanghai and again in 2003 in Wuhan another company.
If I could choose any place in the world to live it would be Shaghai by day and Beijing at night.
Those who have been to China know fuck all about China.
Except the fucking lies and shite spewed out by the MSN.
Fuck, most cities in China wipe out the US as far as living quality goes now.
No wonder the no con fuckwits are afraid of China ans believe me its a fucking damned sight freer and easier to go about your business and no fucking terrorists called pigs in your face every day
I retired in China over 2 years ago. I live in a beautiful, clean, safe, civilized city that has no equal in America. The police never bother anybody. They don't even patrol. Except for traffic and public events, you don't even see cops. When I return to the States, I feel like I am in a police state. Americans will never understand this. They just keep believing they live in a free country, but they never leave their trailer parks or turn off Fox News.
No matter how the China bashers want things to fail, there is one thing to remember. Almost everybody in China is better off than last year or ten years ago. The poor have come the farthest. The middle class has grown the most in numbers. The uber-rich are richer and more numerous than ever. How does America compare to that?
Remove debt spending from the equation and then rethink "Almost everybody in China is better off than last year or ten years ago".
This is an overarching characteristic of human beings, the absoluite and utter inability to consider BORROWED money. Look at China and US's and Europes and Australias and ( . . . . ad infin-fucking-itum) debt levels getting bigger and bigger and bigger while governments make claim after claim of what they do to grow GDP and build infrastructure and improve standard of living.
It's a fucking con, can you not see this. The ponzi cannot keep going and any gains you perceive to made in China will be lost in a fucking flash when fiat burns itself into the ground through debt saturation.
If there is a financial meltdown, China has built itself massive infrastructure on a scale unseen in the history of the human race. This will not evaporate. They have built up the infrastructure of other nations in mutually beneficial agreements.
The West has no comparison.
The Empire State Building was started before and completed during the Great Depression....
the only darkest period there is is whatever a blip in china growth causes negative growth in the west. china is still growing. it is better to be china growing a 10trillion dollar economy 5% than to be the west with real contraction.
I see the author has no idea what the Sears Tower looks like, given the illustration marking "Sears Tower" is wrong! The source for the chart, economicreason.com clearly doesn't either.
Its kind of shocking that so few people know the Sears Tower, which was the tallest buidling in the world for most ZH reader's lives. Furthermore, the Sears Tower is very obviously taller than the Pentronas Towers in any side-by-side comparison, and the label "tallest building" was some strange technicality that is no longer considered valid.
the problem with the sears tower to the benefit of chicagoans is that no one would notice if .gov took it down and could not care less when told about it.
World's largest penis built by the people with world's smallest penis. Go figure
been running with this same exact story for years now... but hey, broken clocks and all.
hahah yeah right man . Meanwhile
China Becomes Second Stock Market Superpowe2014: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-02/chinas-epic-skyscraper-construc...
2013: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-07-23/presenting-worlds-tallest-skysc...
2012: http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2012-06-21/news-matters
2011: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/world/2011-01-20-chinabuilding20_ST...
In fact, I can find references to this notion all the back to 2009 with the starting rumblings around 2008. In other words, as the US economy was burning, the news turned to a bunch of "whataboutist" stories that were pointing fingers at China. Sure, our economy is fucked, but THEY are totally gonna implode any second. With the implication made over and over again that if the US popped before China, then the US will totally come back online first and best.
Well, China never did really implode from all that. So the story remains unresolved and by default must pop up every year lest the "experts" be proven "wrong".
Here's what's going on RIGHT NOW. It's an economic war going on. Chinese companies are being given some crazy valuations to protect them. US companies getting crazy valuations due to the fed supporting them with free money MUST at some point justify those valuations. That requires either innovation or increased global market share. If you want to justify PE ratios in the hundreds without anything new... you have to buy out competition in growth markets. China is the #1 market right now. If Chinese companies are cheap, they can and will be raided for essentially nothing. Chinese companies are positioning themelves to take over more shit in the US for the mature markets, the brand names, the "legitimacy" which they can simply buy rather than earn over a decade or more of struggle. If China balks first, the US companies can raid them. If the US balks first, the Chinese companies can raid them. They are playing chicken at this point and neither market will be allowed to crash until it cannot be supported any longer.
China is pushing trade deals and international infrastructure investment as a means to support domestic companies through this. Anything to keep the numbers up and the valuations in place. Even if the financing defaults, the influence gained has been cheap (a few billion? cheaper than a war). The US on the other hand, it is being attacked from all angles. US IT is no longer legit due to the NSA, everyone is looking to diversify away. The fake numbers from the US are starting to be impossible to hide. The leadership is increasingly a joke. The cops are being exposed. Confidence in the system itself is faltering on a scale never really seen. Everyone knows it's coming to an end and the only thing the government can do is go looking for a war to justify "patriotism" again. Because the US economy is a war economy. Without war, it dies. War is now VERY expensive due to fascism, er.. "privatization". War is unsustainable and not-war is economic suicide. It's why the US craves the tiny little wars where it can bomb with impunity, send in the mercs and private companies to "rebuild" and "peace-keep" and "consult". But even those are blowing up in its face now.
Whoever flinches first will lose the next century. I don't think China is going to flinch.
DEBT.
Every country that has expanded debt (INCLUDE UNFUNDED LIABILITIES) to greater than GDP will descend into chaos.
Get it through your head.
It's all a fucking con based on massively pulled forward demand.
It aint going to last and will have horrific consequences to countries massively over populated like China.
They are fucked, probably more than the US.
China is destroying it's environment at rates far greater than the west has managed exacerbated by massive population. China is doing in a few decades what the west took centuries to accomplish.
Like all humans though, you like many others have a genetic inability to take into account DEBT, POPULATION and ENVIRONMENTAL DEGREDATION.
Out of sight, out of mind.
The human race is on borrowed time. We are all Easter Islanders.
It's all so Phallic.
ShaaaaBoing!!!
Easter Island also erected its most prestigious and largest moai just before its stupendous collapse. Lots of historical precedents...
http://olduvai.ca
Easter Island also erected its most prestigious and largest moai just before its stupendous collapse. Lots of historical precedents...
http://olduvai.ca
Tower of Babel is the oldest recorded incident. Civilization went amuck after it was constructed.
Calling it a "curse" reverses cause and effect, so therefore it should be known as the "Skyscraper Effect."
"In the case of Shanghai Tower, special computerized damper, and other additional special designs have to be implemented to prevent the building from swaying in heavy winds from, for example, typhoons."
What could possibley go wrong?
Their backup batteries could fail just when they need them most?
They just need to call Elon Musk...