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China Cannot Let This Happen
Submitted by John Rubino via DollarCollapse.com,
After borrowing — and largely wasting — $15 trillion during the Great Recession, China now looks like a typical decadent developed-world country, complete with slow growth, anemic consumer spending and unstable financial markets.
But it’s not France, Canada or the US, where recessions happen and voters peacefully replace one major party with the other. China, within living memory, has seen civil unrest beget open rebellion beget multi-decade civil war.
Just as Germany is never going back to hyperinflation, China will not tolerate mass protests. Which means it somehow has to find jobs for the tens of millions of citizens who aspire to middle class life. This need for growth at any price explains the borrowing/infrastructure binge of the past five years. And soon it will explain a massive devaluation/QE program. From Monday’s Wall Street Journal:
China’s Workers Stumble as Factories Stall
XIGUOZHUANG, China—For decades, an army of migrant workers drove China’s boom times, flocking to its cities to sew T-shirts, assemble iPhones, or build apartment blocks and Olympic stadiums.
The arrangement helped millions of poor, rural Chinese join a new consumer class, though many also paid a heavy price.
Now, many migrant workers struggle to find their footing in a downshifting economy. As factories run out of money and construction projects turn idle across China, there has been a rise in the last thing Beijing wants to see: unrest.
In Xiguozhuang, a village among cornfields some 155 miles south of Beijing, it had been rare to see working-age men for much of the year. This year, however, many of the men are at home, sidelined by a fading property boom.
“Times are tough now,” said Wang Hongxing, a 39-year-old father of three who has worked at building sites across China’s northeast since his teens, but who has spent the past two months tending his farmland plot. “There are too many workers and wages are dropping.”
But for other migrants, especially those of a younger generation who took jobs in factories along China’s coast, a return to farming isn’t an option. Nor do they necessarily want to join the service sector China sees as a cornerstone in its shift to a new economic model.
Wang Chao dropped out of school when he was 15 and left his home in Anhui province. After a series of jobs up and down China’s east coast, he felt he had struck gold with a job in a textile factory near his hometown.
The factory closed in July. Mr. Wang, now 19, and other workers gathered recently outside the factory premises to demand back wages. He says he is owed two months’ pay, or about 2,000 yuan, or $320. The owner of the factory, which produces cheap trousers, told workers he is in deep debt and can’t afford to pay them. He couldn’t be reached to comment.
Mr. Wang hopes he can find another factory job. In Shanghai, he worked in a restaurant but doesn’t want to do that again. “Factory work is so much more comfortable in comparison, and better paid,” he said.
As a result of a rural-to-urban flow that many scholars say is likely the largest in history, roughly 55% of China’s 1.37 billion people now live in cities, compared with just under 18% in 1978.
The migrant workforce now numbers some 274 million but the pace of its expansion has slowed, and many economists believe China now faces a shortage of unskilled labor in urban areas. A mismatch of workers’ skills and aspirations with actual labor demand has exacerbated the problem.
…In August, after the factory a which made Power Wheels cars and other toys for Mattel Inc., shut its doors, hundreds of workers protested to demand unpaid wages.
Such unrest has become more common. China Labour Bulletin, a Hong Kong-based watchdog, has tracked more than 1,600 labor protests and strikes in China since January, already exceeding last year’s overall tally of 1,379.
The malaise has even affected workers at major state-owned enterprises. In May, thousands of workers staged protests over proposed layoffs at China National Erzhong Group Co., a debt-riddled machinery maker in Sichuan. Workers shared images on social media of banners criticizing company officials. One read: “360 yuan! How can we live on that!”
In response to such disputes, local authorities have at times adopted harsh tactics, including sending police officers to break up strikes and detain protesters. But in some cases authorities have also sought to appease workers.
The recent unrest is still far from the massive protests that swept over China in the late 1990s and early 2000s as state-owned enterprises laid off tens of millions of workers and local governments expropriated farmland around emerging cities for development.
But the rise in frequency of strikes and protests has caused concern in Beijing, which in March urged bureaucrats across the country to prioritize “harmonious labor relations.”
Take a surplus of young men (the result of China’s one-child policy which put a premium on male children), combine it with a shortage of good jobs, and the obvious result is instability.
The equally-obvious solution? Easier money designed to get people borrowing and spending. So now it’s just a question of which central bank is first to address its country’s crisis (slow growth and a massive influx of refugees for the eurozone, slow growth and a demographic implosion for Japan, slow growth and global chaos for the US, and now slow growth leading to civil unrest for China) with a massive devaluation. China, given its history, might be the odds-on favorite.
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The preppers are so keen on armageddon, they see it around every corner. No, China is not about to implode...
(and no, the picture aint pretty either)
Pessimists are rarely disappointed.
Keep in mind that this article is from DollarCollapse.com.
Another scumbag doomer website like
Inforwars.com
full of tinfoil-hat idiots.
The preppers are so keen on armageddon, they see it around every corner. No, China is not about to implode...
-- Chiang Kai-Shek
Wrong. China owns the US from a monetary standpoint. And they have already put the pieces in place to bring us to our knees without firing a single shot. Once them and Russia dump all US treasuries into the open market, it's game over. For every country. Hide your children. Hide your wife. So to speak. At least hide your precious metals if nothing else.
Perhapse China could pull a page from the Western economies. Is it "False Flag" time?
Well, as a prepper, if the bottle of catsup in the frig goes empty at 10pm, I KNOW where I can find a replacement bottle real quick. Same for most food stuffs. Got tuna? You bet!
If its pre-Fukishima tuna, its expired by now.
If not, enjoy your cesium sandwich....
Doesn't "expire." Sure, it'll be less nutritious in 10 years, but it'll still be edible. Same with soup.
If you're worried about the expiration date, you are not hungry enough.
I caught my dipshit wife in the prep storeroom, with a fucking trashcan, throwing out "dated" can goods. I thought I might strangle her. I got her to stop by saying we keep those to give to stragglers who may wander by.
Geesh!
Some people will deserve to starve.
Once again your wife's antics makes me respect your tolerance. I would have been kicked to the curb long ago for such lunacy. Unfortunately, I can be very indecisive which occasionally drives Mr nuts but it does make me conservative when it comes to our preps. I have a case of pre fukushima tuna that I'll never part with.
Miffed;-)
Hey Miffed, when Fukushima blew up I went out and bought a load of canned Pacific salmon.
How long after the can's stated expiry date would you judge them to be safe to eat?
Cheers,
Jim x
Go into your pantry at night with the lights off.
If the cans are glowing, try to use them in a month or two.
Canned meat is one of the longest lasting things that are canned. There have been cases when cans were found 50 ( I read one find was about 100) years old and we're not bad. Just didn't taste fresh.
Canned fruit and veggies I'd be more careful. If it's bulging toss it or if it foams after you open it, not good. That could be Clostridium botulinum which is an obligate anaerobe producing one of the most deadly neurotoxins in the world. The spores are very heat resistant so if you don't cook it well enough and give it an environment without air, it can flourish. This organism is associated with soil so veggies are more likely to harbor the organism. Cases today are seen in home canning, especially low acid veggies.
I've never heard of a case in canned meat. I'd eat it as long as the can wasn't bulging or foaming and ignore the outdate. But I tend to be an adventurous rule breaker so take that under advisement.
Miffed;-)
Here's the best short story ever about how long canned food stays good: http://www.tkinter.smig.net/outings/rosemountghosts/babylon.htm. Stephen Vincent Benet's (1898-1943) "By the Waters of Babylon;" its about (long after the nuclear apocylpse) how the priestly class goes into cities and, eats tinned food. Well, that wasn't the main thing they did, but that's what I remember best from reading it at age 11, haha:
"I found it at last in the ruins of a great temple in the mid-city. A mighty temple it must have been, for the roof was painted like the sky at night with its stars—that much I could see, though the colors were faint and dim. It went down into great caves and tunnels—perhaps they kept their slaves there. But when I started to climb down, I heard the squeaking of rats, so I did not go—rats are unclean, and there must have been many tribes of them, from the squeaking. But near there, I found food, in the heart of a ruin, behind a door that still opened. I ate only the fruits from the jars—they had a very sweet taste. There was drink, too, in bottles of glass—the drink of the gods was strong and made my head swim. After I had eaten and drunk, I slept on the top of a stone, my bow at my side."
Very interesting! My "intuition" would have told me the vegetables were safer! Thanks Miffed xxx
Always a pleasure my dear BigJim. Hopefully if will not be needed in some future Twilight Zone apocalyptic nightmare but it is best to be prepared.
Miffed;-)
What would any country do with 50 million high testosterone males who cannot compete for the limited females against pampered, spoiled brats of corrupt oligarchs--and now cannot even find work?
Who's more likely to get the ole' rope treatment Xi or Abe?
Abe. Xi has a larger power base that's willing to do anything to keep him in power. Anything. I just got back from China. Those people will react to just about any damn thing the government tells them to do. It's uncanny how mad they can get at the government but the minute the government pulls the "anti-U.S." or "anti-Japan" card they fall right into line. It always works like a charm.
The 'external threat' method rarely fails!
Aliens from outer space anyone?
If the lie of 9/11 is still flying, pretty much any lie could be pulled off.
Xi, Abe, Obama, Cameron etc. etc. are all in it together.
Countries are concepts used against the rest of humanity.
The real fight is 'psychopaths vs humanity'
Trouble is, most of humanity seem to believe what the psychopaths tell 'em.
where did you say you lived?
Cattle prod time, who's next?
While some think mass unrest in China won't happen again, I disagree. If the level of corruption within the government and their designated business partners continues on the same course, and if income inequality continues at its present pace or accelerates, China will explode. It's in China's DNA, it seems, to get right to the edge of greatness, then kill itself from within. If over a billion Chinese peasants decide they're fed up, they'll take on the military and the police and they'll win. They'll win because a lot of the military and a lot of the cops will defect. I can definitely see Cultural Revolution Redux happening within a 10 to 15 year time frame.
The "ant tribe" of very educated college grads there is extrtemely restless; they are well-educated but there's no jobs for them so they remain poor and idle. The pervasive corruption aggravates their unrest, esp when they see some local gubmnint official's uneducated, arrognat child zooming by in a Ferrari.
Poor & Idle = Unrest
Are you describing LA or NYC
USA!!!
Since capitalism failed them, maybe they should go the atheistic commie route and slaughter a portion of their population and tighten down every aspect of commerce and private life.
I thought that's what we are doing?
Oh wait, you meant China.
it somehow has to find jobs for the tens of millions of citizens who aspire to middle class life
Send them to college in the US so they can be disillusioned.
China also receives top shelf produce out of california. (I was informed by a field worker of this) If anyone shops here in Calif., especially in Costco, you will notice the substandard quality of fruits and vegetables (older or blemished) which was not the case just a few years ago. I could always count on Costco for good quality produce, not getting home to find over ripened or under, for instance. Not anymore. The cost is also higher and the amount is less. The products on the sheft are geared toward Asian dishes as well.
That's what you get for trying to be like the good ole USA. You made it! The jokes on you!
China wont let it happen. That's why they are sending troops and equipment to Syria ... great way to keep the money flowing and the populace focused on the important shit.
Just like Uncle Sam does.
Whoa.. and I was thinking that too. No better way to get hardened political supporters.. and then to Iraq for a rebuilding program, but with a cause and repayment plan. Iran is a market to tap into.
''Binary economics proposes that central bank-issued interest-free loans should be administered by the banking system for the development and spreading of productive (and the associated consuming) capacity, particularly new capacity, as well as for environmental and public capital. While no interest would be charged, there would be an administrative cost as well as collateralization or capital credit insurance.[21]
Proponents of binary economics are dissatisfied with fractional reserve banking, arguing that it “creates new money out of nothing”.[22] The supply of interest-free loans would place in circumstances of a move (over time) towards banks maintaining reserves equal to 100% of their deposits; in practice, the large-scale interest-free lending desired by binary economics is compatible with the widespread reduction in money supply that would be caused by increased reserve requirements only if the government takes over the banks’ role in credit creation.''
https://usuryevil.wordpress.com/economic-perspectives/
The KEY words is this:
"China Labour Bulletin, a Hong Kong-based watchdog"
So China news coming from HongKong based entity? Did UK/US still angry, their umbrella protest doesn't enticed riots in mainland China?
Typical...
Funded by the CIA.
Agree.. so off to eBay to buy a few choice coins this evening
It's very simple. Do we want war, or something else?
https://app.box.com/s/hfgvcqg7gqh7i27at6sv53ywu87lwarp
And no, there is no choice "C."
The Jews want more margin to increase EPS. They don't care about China, or anywhere else.
China can't transition to a service economy because there is nowhere else on Earth capable of producing the goods the Chinese would need to consume to support a service based economy.
What, is everyone supposed to work in an iPhone store?
The Chinese who became rich did so by producing product for Western nations at a price that allowed margins to explode. Now that margins are contracting, the Western corporations are searching for lower cost products.
Sadly you can only cheapen things so much. A $17 toaster made in China for $5 isn't going to be made any better in Vietnam. It will probably end up being a $19 toaster made for $4.
The world has reached peak margin expansion. So global stock markets are over. The last gasp of the Ponzi is coming. Look at what we have. ZIRP, NIRP, QE infinity and now corporations buying other corporation's debt so they can buy back more of their own shares. This isn't business.
Capitalism has reached a final, decadent phase, I agree. We are reaching the limits to economic growth, at least in developed countries, with our current technological level of advancement - genuine growth is a once-in-a-century event and is slow and linear otherwise, not an exponential process. With debt-backed money, this isn't going to end well.
But I'd like people to stop constantly blaming "the Jews" for everything that is wrong. Many non-Jewish people are in on the scam and have done very well for themselves, and in fact a majority of the top 0.01% everywhere are NOT Jewish (although Jews are disproportionately represented). Similarly most Jews are not in financial or other extractive professions.
Perhaps there is something to be said for learning to read backwards.
Uh oh... this is NOT going to help...
---
Roboforce: Chinese plant replaces 90 percent of workers with robots
A Chinese company has begun building the first factory in the Dongguan manufacturing hub in the south of the country which will be staffed almost exclusively by robots, in a countrywide automation drive.
Initially about 1,000 robots will be used at the factory of the Shenzhen Evenwin Precision Technology Co, which produces components for mobile phones. "The use of industrial robots will help the company to reduce the number of frontline workers by at least 90 percent," said Chen Xingqi, the chairman of the company’s board, China Daily reported. "When all the 1,000 industrial robots are put into operation in the coming months, we will only need to recruit fewer than 200 software technicians and management personnel."
http://www.rt.com/news/256245-china-factory-robot-workforce/?
Sounds like young men cannot get jobs..investors are losing big time..need to get back to basics..as Mao Tse Tung would admonish his people... "Wherever we happen to be, we must treasure our manpower and material resources, and must not take a short view and indulge in wastefulness and extravagance. Wherever we are, from the very first year of our work we must bear in mind the many years to come, the protracted war that must be maintained, the counter-offensive, and the work of reconstruction. On the one hand, never be wasteful or extravagant. Previously, in some places people suffered a great deal because they did not take the long view and neglected economy in manpower and material resources and the expansion of production. The lesson is there and attention must be called to it."
Seems like a better idea would have been a zero child policy. Even with the one chlld policy the working population way outnumbers jobs.
I have to believe the suicide rate (without an offspring left behind) would increase on a zero child plan. The marriage figures would probably suffer too, creating a pool of disaffected unmarried men, ripe for revolution.
deleted
Yeah another revolution is one of their biggest fears I would say. Reading about what happened during the last one is chilling reading.
I can never understand Americans, starts a website called dollarcollapse.com
and then starts worrying and lecturing about yuan? Claims proficiency in finance and then starts predicting social unrest in country on other side of the world and to which he has never paid a visit, neither can speak or understand their language (to best of my knowledge). Okay I know BO lecture on exceptional Americans still don't you think it is stretching it a bit too far
Chinese coal company lays off 100,000 workers. That should leave a mark.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/china/In-biggest-layoff-in-Chin...
China may not be about to implode but similarly they cant allow a society of more than a billion people to unravel. The repercussions of that would make the European refugee crises look like a que at an apple store. Theyve got a nice big army that is easier to make bigger and the government has a lot of ghost cities to appropriate to house them. Then they can police their own country and maintain order as well as expansion. Just look to the over militarised American police state with its ex army issue everything for the template.
But in fact China is about to reduce its armed forces by 300,000 (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/china/Chinese-military-to-layof... ), including an incredible 170,000 officers. That should git them a strong bunch of disgruntled ex military with leadership skills, heading into a drastically weakened civilian market.