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Jim Chanos' Dire Prediction On China: "Whatever You Might Think, It's Worse"
"In fact, like many of us, sometimes they don't have a clue."
That’s from Jim Chanos, who sat down on Friday with CNBC’s Fast Money A-Team which, like the rest of the mainstream financial media punditry, can’t seem to figure why things unravelled so quickly last week.
Chanos was referring to the Chinese government and more specifically to their efforts to simultaneously manage a decelerating economy, a currency devaluation, and a bursting stock market bubble.
As we’ve said on too many occasions to count, the task is quite simply impossible, a reality which often manifests itself in contradictory policy initiatives and directives emanating from Beijing. Despite the plunge protection national team’s best efforts to channel some CNY900 billion into SHCOMP large caps, China’s stock market looks to be on the verge of an outright meltdown, and the effort to support the yuan after the devaluation is draining liquidity and tightening money markets, rendering policy rate cuts less effective even as further easing becomes more necessary with every FX intervention.
In short, the situation is, as Chanos puts it, "worse than you think," and because it’s sometimes hard to get through to CNBC’s Halftime crew, Chanos reiterated the sentiment: "Whatever you might think, it's worse."
See the interview below.
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Next up.......Global market stick save!
I am fed up........
Stick Save...Yep....everything already PRICED IN! BTMFD
Incompetent politicians and bureaucrats !?!
Who wudda' thunk?
Really seems like the fall predictions for the turning of the markets will be true. Better get guns, ammo, food, water, cash and precious metals asap!
Steve Keen predicts massive China crash
http://www.planbeconomics.com/2015/08/steve-keen-predicts-massive-china-...
They can't drive very well.
Everybody knows that.
Details behind why China is now entirely screwed...
http://econimica.blogspot.com/2015/08/chinas-collapse-is-last-straw-of-global.html
and why everybody else that was already screwed, is now screwed x2...
http://econimica.blogspot.com/2015/08/population-growth-will-never-be-fix-to.html
I don't buy it....not because I have any expertise in eco-demographics, but China is a country that has seen their citizens starve. I just can't logically buy into the theory that they are screwed because they don't want an extra 200 million mouths to feed. So waht if their population drops by a hundred million, okay GDP potential drops...I just don't see that as the problem. Credit? heck yah...that's a problem.
Committee to save the world, my ass. All the stick saves took place within a certain context. Namely the Chinese buying everything in sight; commodities and treasuries.
THAT'S OVER NOW. THE CONTEXT HAS CHANGED.
The committee has no clothes.
HEAD TO THE BUNKERS.
So now we see the real reason for all the dire warnings in the Western MSM about China's economy: economic warfare, economic cold war, East vs West, least-dirty-shirt theory, etc. IMF wants Westerners viewing China with suspicion, China's collapse will be worse than the West's, new Asian Contagion is looming, etc. China's $3Trillion in foreign reserves isn't big enough to save them. Local government debt piled high, phony loans on phony commodity collateral stored in exploding warehouses.
Well...what's the West got? Nothing but debt, backed by overpriced McMansions and bankrupt college students, insured with swaps, and rehypothecated 100:1. >$10Trillion printed by Western central banks. How dare that foolish Chinese government buy stocks! It's....indecent!
So the war for our "hearts and minds" goes on, dot gov continues to play the "greater fool" theory game. All these charts I see everywhere about China's debt-to-GDP include private debt, local government debt, etc. They are designed to make China's debt to GDP look larger than US, which everyone "knows" is around 100% (but Krugman thinks it's too small). Can someone produce a chart pf US debt-to-GDP which is apples-to-apples like the ones always shown for China?
Does any nation other than China have any significant foreign reserves at all? Does any nation other than China have an industrial base worth saving? Do any nations other than China and India have a citizenry stocked up on shiny?
So "China is worse than you think". Does that characterization also not grossly understate the US's actual condition? Who the fuck is he trying to kid?
My guess is there will be an outright decline in middle class Chinese rather than any increase. Negative Chinese demographics and the collapse of perhaps the greatest credit bubble of all time (China +1400% in 14 years) combined with slowing global exports don't bode well.
In 10yrs from now, the OECD demographic est. show there will be 15 million fewer 0-64yr/old Chinese but 63 million more 65+yr/olds...2015 is the peak total population for 15-64yr/old Chinese population and the decline in this segment + the 0-14yr/old segment (which began declining in the '70's) really pick up speed from here. China is set to hit peak total population in 2030 and begin outright declines...just like Japan is now.
Since WWII, (for every nation I've researched) once the core 15-64yr/old population has started declining, government debt has skyrocketed while private credit plummeted, and growth collapsed. Why will China be different?
Yep, DWA (driving while asian)
Like language learning (or lack thereof) DWA seems to be related to growing up in a vehicle-driving family.
If you reach your teen years as a non-participant in the driving culture, you may well never become a decent driver; it's like learning Spanish in high school, as opposed to learning it in the nursery and living-room.
FWIW my daughter-in-law (Korean-born, but raised in USA) is a perfectly fine driver; she agrees that DWA is a fact.
Good explanation. I didn't think of it that way. Not that I've noticed Asians being poor drivers but I know it is a common joke.
Ain't Chanos the dude that naked shorted lehman and b-stern to death,so much, infact, his fast expireys tripled th -or mas - the outstanding shares for lehmans, and only after after he had his media blabbers talk `em up?
If was was a a social event with this guy also there, i'd leave my wallet in the car. how can ya trust a guy like this to be giving the straight poop on anything. The outcome always seems to be the opposite.
He made the point when he said that Ping was anti west, and a nationalist. It appears he is closing for business for a while.
Who would prevail over the long term? Some shaky Doomsday Chicken Little with a lousy track record? Or the guys who dragged a billion starving peasants from feudal misery to kicking the world's ass in 50 years? Tough call.
Default.
Yes, and following Western debt Ponzi economic doctrine; yikes!
Sort of like mechanical engineers who never worked on anything with a combustion engine being broken down in a town infested by packs of wild dogs, desperately
trying to make repairs.
Good luck to you theoretical assholes.
Dire Prediction On ______ : "Whatever You Might Think, It's Worse"
Can't be too much worse than what I think since I'm betting on a full economic collapse, though we could nuke each other into oblivion while we're at it......
USSA's got the SCORPION team. They won't let old red white blue falter. They got technologies and genius powers.
What is to be termed "America" in our time? Is it still the same society located in the same geographical area as what was originally founded under the red, white and blue flag a few hundred years ago? Or has "America" gradually become a different idea? Something that is (much) more globalized and abstract in nature?
FUCK YOU and your abstract ramblings!
SCORPION is a team of specialized brilliance and they WILL save America from the evil-doers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UUYjd2rjsE
This asshole prolly thinks the US is transparent though....such garbage....we are jsut as bad, if not worse
I saw the interview live.He also had a lot to say about the US and phoney accounting tricks as
well.China is the issue on the front burner right now, trouble is we have all sorts of other things happening
behind the curtain as well.Currency swaps,oil derivatives, and a collapsing trade/world gnp,thats all
going to culminate at the end of September/start of October.
Whats going on now is just minor tremors before a major quake.
We might get a bounce for a few weeks, or it could shit the bed next week.
Don't underestimate the complacency factor. We're still near the top. Hope springs eternal. Some busy beavers are pulling up stakes tho
All this screaming and gnashing of teeth is taking place against a back drop of just a 5% decline in the S&P year to date, for fucks sake!
Wait until it really gets hammered.
Then in CA you'll get arrested under the Duty to Rescue Law for yelling "Jump you fuckers"
Anyway, here's the Knukie's prognostication.
1. The global currency wars must be fought as everybody's already bought in
2. Meaning further competitive devaluations, round robin style
3. Nobody's real GDP is worth beans
4. Meaning stimulus id demanded (a la Krugman et al and the Painted Corner)
5. Deflation is the risk with commodity prices falling and works against debt issuers
6. Meaning Everybody is On Board for their Simultaneous QE4Evahs
7. And with Deflation being the Bad Bogey Man no longer hiding in the closet, but now Die Nachtmare, chasing you around the bed when you woke up (as in for real, dude), the best way to indicate there's some inflation is to what?
8. Let the PM's run!
QE's 4Evah
Close to what I think.
We get more stim packs (QE all around) when the default dominoes start falling.
BIflation will just get worse
Question: are govt closeouts for the year a factor and will inventory closeouts for the year a factor in collapse or what is happening now.
In the USA govt closes out contracts and budgets starting June of each year... which would be 10 - 6 - 4. 4 months prior to end of FISCAL Year for govt. Industry closes out different and there are Christmas oriented industries and inventories that happen late.
So we are just heading in to Industry clean up for the year maybe in Oct/Nov/Dec.
He's an asshole because of some opinion you think he "prolly" holds? You're the asshole, and I make that judgment on the basis of what you actually said, not what you "prolly" think.
To be fair, I have no idea what he thinks of the US, but I'm sick of eveyone blaming the crash on China. Usually when some clown comes on and says this slowdown is China's fault they think America is open and transparent. If he holds the opinion that the USA is as bad or worse I renig that comment.
The US is better at lying. The US will layer lie on top of lie, and when it unravels and is shown to be a lie, the US will just lie about it. China on the other hand is communist. They lie, and then lie some more. But at some point they just tell the media and people to STFU and then the truth becomes very apparent.
China is not communist. It might call its filling political party that and they might use communism's symbols but they're not communist.
I don't even have a label for them, but one is not needed.
China has not been communist since 1978, but Americans nver got the memo. Too busy chanting 1956 Cold War propaganda.
News flash. Mao Zedong is dead. Since 1976. Most of his policies were cancelled or reversed in the next 2 years. Americans talk about China as if it still operated the rules of the Mao regime.
When a country has private property, free enterprise, foreign companies operating inside the nation under principles of free enterprise, freedom of travel, private banking, a stock market, and billions of small private companies, it is not communist. Not by anybody's definition.
The Chinese joke about the fact that that the workd "Communist" is still used. They don't care what name it has, it works. As Deng Xiaoping said, "We don't care what color the cat is, as long as it catches mice."
You are "Fed" down.
Don't presume to know what I think...asshole.
I like Chanos. One of the very small number of hedge fund managers that is a straight shooter.
Daniel Simpson Day has no grade point average.
I mean, the earth is a sphere, which means if you start of to the left or right, sooner or later you'll get to the same point. Meaning? The space you are traversing is finite, which also means the markets are also finite and have long been interconnected into eachother, MANY TIMES! The next best thing we could do (since we still haven't convinced aliens out there to buy stuff from us) was to create credit expansion and expand this credit into this finite market. Obviously, no one really gave it a proper thought to what happens when you finally saturate the marked with even credit. More credit? Well, that has offically been now proven to not work. So now what? One domino starts falling and the whole boat rocks.
I think this time it really is different and that this time the boat is gonna tip over and sink. Unless?!
The answer to all problems.
What if the Super Rich own most of the Businesses(corporations), most of the Rental Property, sell most of the housing, own the utilities, own the retail stores including grocery stores, own most of the banks, own most of the malls, lease most of the property and buildings to the govt... and on and on.
Is that like Communism?
You know they become the state/govt in effect.
All of the media....
Not commumism - it's called the feudal system.
Well you know... Russia is vulnerable to a drop in oil prices, so the cartel pulled the pin -- as instructed. China is vulnerable because it joined in on the rigged-sweepstakes/ponzi scheme years ago, so the banksters pull the pin on the Chinese stock "bubble" they inflated -- also as instructed. This isn't the contortions of genuine market economies being handled badly, rather it is geopolitical hard-ball American style. Look at Brazil. They got uppity so the media sock-puppets pulls the pin on the Petrobras "scandal" -- as instructed.
Ask yourself: What do those 3 countries have in common? They are all at war with the USA. Not a shootin war, yet.
You are supposed to throw the grenade after pulling the pin.Seems that was left out of
that Harvard course.
The sixties did a lot of damage, especially where cause and effect are concerned.
That was the drugs which we're supposed to legalize now.
Bzzzzzzzzzzt!
Should never have been illegal in the first place.
Have sampled most of the 'biggies' over the years - getting a bit long in the tooth for anything more than herb & beer these days.
The one that fucked me up the worst was the legal one - tobacco.
Took a lot of effort to drop that one and I know that just one smoke would have me back to a pack a day as of right now. I know, I fell off the wagon a few times!
If you know what you are getting, are well informed and act with caution, pretty much anything's OK.
Glad I didn't miss out on the halucinogens.
You completely contradict yourself in the space of a few paragraphs.
The only contradiction I see (which was pointed out) is that legal drugs are often more harmful than illegal ones.
Makes you wonder what is really in the TPP agreement----just saying---
"Ask yourself: What do those 3 countries have in common? They are all at war with the USA. Not a shootin war, yet."
I have always maintained that the USA's only chance of remaining on top of what has become a rubbish heap is by dragging any competitors down rather than pulling itself up. And this unfortunately will be the focus of the immediate future.
What the USA may be underestimating is the ability of the Russians and Chinese to throw some grenades into the mix as well. What form these may take I have no real idea but quite a few suspicions.
The first step of any recovery requires the big boys to settle their differences otherwise it will just get worse.
There is no doubt about this in my mind. All three forgot to bow to the mighty corrupt machine in DC. I dont think they will either. But you see the US instigating political instability in all 3. Probably 3 ex-goldman cocksucks waiting in line to take over. You know, for the children
It is frustrating to see it all happening, worse when so many seem to be forcing themselves not to -- getting bogged down in the distractions like the TPP or TTIP or T-TIT or whatever and all the other approved things to worry about. Take for example: There is a growing and serious hatred of America taking root in France because of all the other screw-up distractions in the Middle East, Ukraine, "migrants" otherwise known as human guided missiles from the Saudis, etc, etc... So they send in the opps team to manufacture some "heroes on a train". Or this new dance in the Koreas. It just never ends. No way will they ever recognise that they have lost control and are sliding ever faster to the end because they are not up to the task. Nope, they will just keep on reacting -- badly.
If the Chinese economy worsens, tensions with US and Japan may rise, precipitating a war
Deep-seated cultural tensions between the Chinese and Japanese have bubbled up to surface over a dispute regarding a string of uninhabited islands. China is taking aim at the US dollar’s dominant reserve currency status with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. George Soros takes it a step further, recently saying he believes the US and China are on the threshold of World War III.
http://www.valuewalk.com/2015/05/jim-chanos-china-debt-bubble/
US-China war 'inevitable' unless Washington drops demands over South China SeaGlobal Times, a tabloid newspaper run by the Communist Party, said that China might have to “accept” there would be conflict with the United States.
“If the United States’ bottom line is that China has to halt its activities, then a US-China war is inevitable in the South China Sea”, said the paper, which is often seen as a mouth-piece of hardline nationalists in the government in Beijing.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/11630185/US-China-w...
Conflict with the USA? And China's largest customer is?
When you go to war with your customers.... Well it isn't good for business that is for sure.
It is even worse when you go to war with your banker...
China dead broke like the Soviets?
Did the Soviet have $3.6T US in forex reserves?
US dead broke like the Soviets?
what is paper when your hungry or cold?
Fiber supplement and fuel.
Insulation.
Butt wipe$.
A good way to start a fire.
Decent ass wipe in an emergency. Trust me.....
I'll beer ya!!!! What Soviets are you talking about?
Russsia, however, has relative to GDP, an infinitesimal amount of debt compared to USSA; an extraordinary land mass chock full of resources the rest of the world cannot live without; unparalleled advanced scientific knowledge on a par only with the USSA, Germany, and Japan; and relative to circumstances in Europe and North America substatially greater cultural and ethnic homogeneity. Of course, not to mention a nuclear capability second to none. China, on the other hand, has the greatest productive and manufacturing capacity of the world.
As this egg begins to crack, i'm afraid its going to be all over Amerika's face, cuz all weez got is debt and exceptionalismo.
the skeptical one
Well sure. Russian chip makers are world renowned. Their bio-tech is the envy of the world. When you need oil field services who do you call?
And ethnic "harmony" in Russia? Chechnya.
I know this is going to hurt but IMO the USSA will decline the slowest of all the major blocks.
Hint - where has the hot money been going? China? Russia?
At least they still win the Ms. Babushka World Pagent. Russia is a less developed world shithole (with nuclear weapons) that it always was post WWII, and likely will be as long as any of us are alive...it's a Russian thang. PutinHasbraTrinas ain't shit @ ZHemroids.
The hot money is denominated in dollars so it has to go back home to die.
Well that's the theory most of us believe is the most representative of reality (at some point), but we've been proven abysmally wrong for more than 5 years.
"Truth in Sunshine" after all mr. Chanos?
Thanks Truth, ahead of the curve.
I got 99 problems but my Shandong chemical plant ain't one.
The worst part of these developments is that if people start to take precautions this will worsen any fallout and therefore both speed up and magnify the net result.
The worst reaction of course will be to soften interest rates and lending standards even further wherever possible.
My greatest concern is cash flow of individuals and corporations as we go forward. For speculators, the worry is asset prices.
mANIC mONDAY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsmVgoXDq2w
China's biggest mistake is listening to GS and Barclays and thinking they can do things like the Fed.
You don't have a post WW2 international economic framework to push off on.
China's boogeyman is inflation and if the last hundred years has not shown it central control of any economic process has impossible outcomes.
Trying to manage the yuan's peg and the stock market along with exports, unemployment, rural/coastal development, floating populations, all the provincial favors and PLA connections is about as impractical as the Great Leap Forward.
The CPS should know this.
Sometimes the best strategy is to do nothing.
Thinking that sending your sons to Harvard and City of London and copying "the West" for solutions was/is a mistake comrades.
Stay the course. Build machines. Hoard gold.
Let the markets be markets with real price discovery. What a concept!
Billions will be hurt, but you can't fight Heaven.
"China's biggest mistake is listening to GS"
This version of China is a GS/New Bolshevik creation.
Fed's QE4, is 99.9% guaranteed.
It's 0% interest for years going forward until the US dollar dies.
Excessive QEing will trigger a currency crisis eventually.
...or months going forward until the US dollar dies.
Where's my seatbelt?
It's the 'eventually' bit that gets you.
I'm amazed we've lasted this long!
I know. It seems like I've been watching the domino set up phase for ever. And at some point someone is going to place one and it is going to teeter and set off the whole chain reaction but it could be Monday or it could be 20 years from now. But what do I know?
"Wen Jiabao is anti-western."
That club is growing thanks to Obummer.
"Chanos was referring to the Chinese government and more specifically to their efforts to simultaneously manage a decelerating economy, a currency devaluation, and a bursting stock market bubble."
You know what takes care of all of that? War.
His lips are moving...
Jim Chanos' Dire Prediction On Clinton.com National Security Leaks to China, & Russis: "Whatever You Might Think, It's Worse"
Jim Chanos' Dire Prediction On Illegals crime wave in America: "Whatever You Might Think, It's Worse"
Jim Chanos' Dire Prediction On Gold held by the West Central Banks: "Whatever You Might Think, It's Worse""Jim Chanos' Dire Prediction On China: "Whatever You Might Think, It's Worse"
Exactly what I tell the sleeping American lions: As bad as you may imagine it is, it is much, much, worse.
The American country and people are as poor, if not poorer, than Mexico and Mexicans, they just don't know it yet. And they are little prepared to deal with it.
Zion is a scheme, not an ethnicity.
I think Nigel Farage and Dmitry Medvedev are brothers. Just sayin'. Night.
Ugly is in the eye of the beholder...
In short, the situation is, as Chanos puts it, "worse than you think," and because it’s sometimes hard to get through to CNBC’s Halftime crew, Chanos reiterated the sentiment: "Whatever you might think, it's worse."
Been saying that for a long time; how could it be otherwise?
Shortsighted western corporations started the ball rolling decades ago when middle class income-producing jobs were sent to China, and elsewhere. Easy credit games, culminating in the collapse of 2008, and salt-in-the-wounds warping by the global central banks (at first "coordinated in their warping, but, no more, as increasingly it's becoming every bastard CB for itself) today leaves us on the precipice we (AND the Chinese citizen) anxiously teeter.
It has been the biggest, most inevitiable negative feedback loop ever set into motion, and yet, folks still claim to have been clueless about that inevitibility.
And after all that, we're still allowing ourselves to be fed the same stimulus bullshit as if it ever had a prayer in hell of overcoming such self-destructive behavior.
If we have anything to fear from China, it is that on the eve of their ultimate collapse, the communist Chinese government points the finger OUR way when their masses demand answers to the real cause of their plight.
If we're even a little honest about it, it will be hard to deny their claim...
Policies and behaviors have consequences.
It's high time the players, then and now, be visited by accountability as well.
m
How in the hell do you figure that China is OUR fault?
We built the motherfucker up from a bunch of short dudes in gay suits living in mud huts.
And now you want to blame US for their stock market crash. Blame US for the Ghost Cities? Blame US for not wanting to buy their total shit trinkets and toxic toothpaste?
I am so sick of everyone looking around for SOMEONE ELSE to blame for their own troubles. As if nobody in the entire universe has any free will whatsoever.
When I fuck up, it's me that did it. Nobody broke into my house and held a knife to my throat until I scrawled my name on some document I wasn't allowed to view. And I think the same thing goes for China as well.
Policies and behaviors do indeed have consequences and pointing fingers at some guy across the Pacific is strictly an evasion of the truth.
Exactly.
Western corporate culture is responsible for the whole goddamned mess.
Societies don't corrupt themselves; neither do their elected representatives. I've yet to see one politician trying to buy another off. Horse trading? Yes. Hard persuasion and debate? Yes. Piles of money and promises of sweet ever afters if only they'll "get on board" with some position? Seldom, if ever.
No, it's western corporate's corruption of honest capitalism that's at the heart of the whole matter before us. THAT'S where the corrosive and ultimately destructive policy manipulation and the mountains of cash to grease the skids all come from. They are the sons o' bitches who are the ceaseless termites here...and always have been.
Better mouse trap? Not when you can corrupt the system to the same effect. It's an old habit by now, and like a chronic addict, corporate culture and the Street whores they feed are shaking in the morning until they pull the one-armed-bandit of the global racket they created for yet another fix. Fed dope is also primo dope, and they'll do ANYTHING for another hit.
My point is the same forces that evacuated our middle class means of wealth creation to the east left nothing viable in it's wake. They would not see the inevitable destruction of the very source of their wealth: western consumers. They left a once-prosperous, first world society broke and headed for destitution rapidly.
In so doing, the same corporate despots are also responsible for what's going on abroad. Great hordes of cheap Chinese labor, rising from rice paddy poverty were led to believe that a better life lie just ahead. All they had to do was produce and all would be well, even though the seeds of ultimate collapse were sown at the start of the whole process. Yet, they didn't see it either. They did what they were told to do, and for the most part, did well...until now.
Now...if you're a fearful Chinese government determined to keep order and power (especially after what you saw during Tienammen Square), and YOU were FINALLY waking up to the truth of your fucked situation...what would YOU do?
You'd point the finger.
And if you were pointing at the actual source of the problem, you'd be right. Corrupt, shortsighted western corporations for decades have fucked BOTH sides...and so far...have gotten away with it.
Trouble is, when fingers are pointed, targeting accuracy is often tragically poor indeed.
m
Here is why gold prices are so low:
http://michaelekelley.com/2015/07/20/dear-fed-plz-raise-gold-price/
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-09/are-big-banks-using-derivatives-suppress-bullion-prices/
Here are some more signs of a coming recession.
http://michaelekelley.com/2015/05/29/mergers-and-acquisitions-set-record...
http://michaelekelley.com/2015/02/20/fed-warns-of-two-bubbles/
http://michaelekelley.com/2015/02/24/would-you-pay-39-more-than-asked/
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-27/when-will-we-ever-learn/
Here is how to prepare.
http://michaelekelley.com/2014/10/16/8-things-to-do-when-recession-happens/
Here is how to get your mind off this stuff.
http://michaelekelley.com/category/humor/
Good luck!
Chanos makes the same nistake as most wesstern commentators when talking about China. He assumes that China has a financial system that resembles that of the West. This assumption makes everything he says unreliable. Because China has a public banking system it can cancel debt and make interest free loans as it chooses. The result of this is that the mountains of unforgiven debt that are causing western economiess to grind to a halt are not a serious problem in China. Chanos really has no clue what he is talking about.
wrg
The truth is that nothing much is going to happen in China.
Mao was the one who pushed the big red looney button. Nothing much more can happen.
The economics industry will turn out millions of tons of intellectual garbage, but the billions of Chinese won't even notice anything.
Nothing much is likely to change, so forget it.
multiple empty cities to keep production alive? How could it get worse? Oh that war thingy.
Don't believe that "empty city" meme that is trotted out by the China bashers. If you don't live here, you can't grasp the magnitude and speed of construction. A certain percentage of empty units is normal, and the number is greater than all American units combined. Also, the home ownership rate here is 130% because so many people own a second or third home. They buy a home for their son for when he gets married, often a decade in advance. A second or third home gives a much better return that the 1% you get in a CD at the bank. Many of the empty units were paid for with cash-they are not unsold. Outsiders who bash China do not understand that homes are concrete and sold as a shell-rough plumbing and electric, that's it. Plan on another 20% to finish. They can sit like this for decades without sufferng decay.
Some huge projects like Ordos New City, which is a neighborhood, not a city, were a litle ahead of the curve. They are now 30% full and thriving, but Westerners keep running the same old 5 year old news articles as "evidence" of China's failure. China has a plan to move 300 million from rural areas to urban areas in the next 20 years. Of course the empty units will be sold.
One would have to wonder what is the motivation for somebody to misrepresent the situation. Is it ignorance? It is hard to imagine that anybody could be that stupid. A few keystrokes on any search engine will show the whole story. Is it being a mouthjpiece for American propaganda? I don't think they pay shills that well, but I may be mistaken. Maybe the writers are just trying to make the economy in their country seem better in comparison. That won't work, but they can fool themselves for a long time.
Well roddy, China is vast and mysterious, so we are simply entertained by the notion of huge empty cities, and rumors of strange noises in the sky, etc.
Some say there are giant parking lots all over the world filled with "unsold" brand new cars. Others try to debunk this. People need a little mystery.
Some of this stuff must be true.
Butt, butt, "China the new world power." heh
I live in Thailand and this place is going to pop a bubble in land and condos like the world has never seen.
I see it unfolding everyday. The Thai baht is monkey hammered and headed down hard. This is not like before. Every swinging dick has consumer credit up the ass. And every rice farmer is invested in some bullshit ponzi condo deal. Oh and we are one step away from panic as the military is the dictatorship running the show and the communists are ready to fight.
The good King has held it together but he is on his death bed.
I love Thailand and the people here.
And the fucking asshole who bombed the innocent people in Bangkok a few days ago should be burnt alive for what he did. That really hurt the Thai economy.
I'm renting and happy here.
But I fear for the good people here....I hope the best.
Fucking banksters should be hung for what they do to the world.
It's funny, I never would have thought Chanos would be bearish on China!!