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Michael Pettis Revisits 12 Predictions On China
Via Michael Pettis of China Financial Markets,
In 2006 I started making a number of predictions based on what I thought was the necessary and logical development of China’s growth model. Some of these predictions seemed fairly outlandish, especially to China analysts – Chinese and foreign – who had very little knowledge of economic history or other developing countries, but many of them so far have turned out quite well.
As more and more analysts are beginning to understand the constraints of the Chinese growth model I think it might be useful to list some of these predictions to get a sense of what might be still to come.? Perhaps my bet with The Economist has caused me to throw caution to the winds, since a smart economist never makes his predictions explicit, but here they are:
1. China will be the last major economy to emerge from the global crisis. My basic argument was that the global crisis was caused by the necessary reversal of the great trade and capital imbalances of the past decade, and a country can only be said to have emerged from the crisis when those underlying imbalances had been resolved.
Since China’s contribution to the global imbalances has been its excessively high savings rate, China could not emerge from the crisis until the high savings rate had been reduced to a more reasonable level. Since 2007-08, of course, the opposite has happened, as Beijing has exacerbated its domestic imbalances in order to keep growth rates high. But without infinite debt capacity this cannot go on. I think it is pretty clear that over the next few years China will be forced to address and reverse the high savings rate, and it will only be after this happens that China can be said to have emerged from the crisis. This may take a decade or more.
2. Chinese consumption will continue to stagnate or decline as a share of GDP until the growth model is abandoned. By “abandoning” the model I mean that transfers from the household sector to subsidize rapid growth must be eliminated and reversed.
This is really a continuation of the first prediction. It is too early to say, but 2012 may be the first year in which consumption growth will outpace GDP growth, but only if GDP growth turns out to be much lower than expected – say below 7%. As long as GDP growth rates exceed 7%, there can be no real rebalancing of consumption.
3. Although there were many factors that explained both rapidly rising GDP and the contracting consumption share, financial repression would eventually be recognized to be the key factor. It took many years to make this point, but it has become pretty clear to everyone that financial repression is at the heart of China’s problem. This may explain Premier Wen’s recent and rather shocking attack on the banks, although in my opinion it will still be at least another year or two, if ever, before we see any real liberalization of interest rates.
Remember that the more debt there is, the harder it is to raise interest rates, and the longer we take to raise interest rates, the more debt we run up. In the end I suspect that financial repression will be eliminated not by an increase in nominal rates but rather by a decline in GDP growth (remember that the size of the financial repression tax is a function of the difference between nominal GDP growth and the nominal lending rate).
4. Investment is being misallocated on a massive scale and this was not due to any special Chinese characteristic but was rather a fundamental requirement of the way the system operated. Although there are still some economists who disagree that investment is being massively wasted, I think this is so well understood by now that there is no need to belabor the point. People respond to incentives, and for the last decade or longer there has been a strong incentive to keep investment levels high regardless of their returns. It would be surprising if this did not result in a lot of wasted spending.
5. Debt is rising at an unsustainable pace and debt levels will become unsustainable well before the end of the decade. This follows from the above point – if investment is debt funded and if it is being wasted, then by definition debt must be increasing at an unsustainable pace – i.e. faster than debt-servicing abilities.
In the past three years this warning about rising debt has become much more widely accepted, especially since Victor Shih started counting local government debt in late 2009. There is still some disagreement on the sustainability of debt, with some analysts, like Arthur Kroeber of Dragonomics and the guys at The Economist, saying that China doesn’t have a serious debt or over-investment problem. I suspect nonetheless that in another year or two no one will doubt that the Chinese growth model tends towards unsustainable debt and that we are rapidly reaching the limit.
6. When specific debt problems are indentified, resolute attempts by Beijing to resolve them would be warmly welcomed by analysts but wholly irrelevant – because the problem of debt was systemic, not specific. This follows from the above. The issue is not that specific borrowers may run into debt problems. It is that the run-up in debt is systemic and cannot be prevented as long as China maintains the existing growth model.? If there is rapid GDP growth, say anything above 6% or 7%, debt within the system must be rising at an unsustainable pace.
7. Privatization, a topic all but forbidden in polite company, would become a very hot topic of conversation by 2013-14. I have discussed why in several of the more recent blog entries.
8. As some policymakers gradually became aware of the problem with the growth model and the risk of crisis, a fundamental political split would emerge between those that demanded rapid reform and those that wanted to maintain control of resources. The problem is that continuing the growth model will lead to a debt crisis, but abandoning the model will lead to much slower growth, and especially to much slower growth in the accumulation of state sector assets. This is politically very difficult for many to accept and will lead to more political conflicts over the next few years.
9. Chinese government debt will continue to balloon through the rest of this decade. Privatization is the best way to effect the transfer of wealth from the state sector to the private sector, and would be especially efficient if privatization proceeds were used to extinguish debt, but for the reasons discussed above it will be extremely difficult to do it. This means that debt build-up and the state absorption of private sector debt will continue for many years.
10. If the transition is not mismanaged, average Chinese GDP growth rates will drop to 3% for the 2010-20 decade. As my bet with The Economist suggests, this is one prediction that is still an outlier. The Economist(and many others) still believe that Chinese growth will make it the largest economy in the world before the end of the decade, but much slower growth is what rebalancing requires and it is hard to make the numbers work at growth levels much above 3%. By the way if I am wrong and Chinese growth this decade is materially higher than 3%, my prediction is that the “lost decade” of much lower growth stretch out over two decades.
11. If China rebalances correctly, then much slower GDP growth rates will be accompanied by only slightly slower growth rates in household income. In that case there need be no social instability. The political risk comes from instability at the top, not at the bottom. Factional disputes, in other words, haven’t ended with the Chongqing affair. They will persist.
12. Non-food commodity prices are set to collapse over the next three to four years. “Collapse” is not too strong a word. China’s share of global demand for such commodities as iron, cement, copper, etc. is completely disproportionate to its size and almost wholly a function of its very high growth in investment. As investment growth drops sharply, as it must, global demand for non-food commodities will plummet.
This is an abbreviated version of the newsletter that went out two weeks ago. Academics, journalists, and government and NGO officials who want to subscribe to the newsletter should write to me at chinfinpettis@yahoo.com, stating your affiliation, please. Investors who want to buy a subscription should write to me, also at that address.
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Don't bite the hand that feeds you.
China is sucking the cock of the Western mega-corporation. Eventually, it will receive the money shot.
China has been sucking our inflation and turning it into growth capital,
Oooops is that a drop in demand?
Gee ... can you say capcity utilization drop
Hey Benny ... how's that printing working for you?
the hairs on the back of my neck are tingling.
we have exported our wage inflation, the only thing the fed watches so what they are trying to
create will not happen. deflation is just around the corner along with more depression.
Cannot have perpetual growth on a finite planet.
There, see? much simpler; saves a lot of "ink!"
7% growth means a DOUBLING in a mere decade. Just think of everything around you doubling in just 10 years. And then you have to ask: can it be done AGAIN? At some point the sheer weight of the unsustainable crashes in.
The USA had 6 decades of sustained high yoy GDP growth rates from 1870-1930.
It can be done. You betcha.
global demand for non-food commodities will plummet.
So the bull market in gold is over?
Good, I can get more oz for these Federal Reserve Notes.
global demand for non-food commodities will plummet.
Hmmm... unless it is picked up by other emerging countries.
Indonesia = 200 million people
India... Pakistan, Bangladesh...
Nigeria... Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda...
Brazil, Philippines, Vietnam, Mexico.
Still plenty of scope for growth I think.
If gold is a commodity to you, the answer is no.
Greed is no longer good. Funny how that goes.
funny, if you just change the percentages a little bit, you WOULD BE TALKING ABOUT THE U.S. NOT CHINA.
There's a whole lot of folks in the statis bicoastal elite consensus who look at China as a model, not a cautionary tale.
Absent a currency collapse, what's to cause the system to stall? Nothing.
Unbounded fiat expansion => unbounded state expropriation of the private economy. Simple. Per the MMT'ers they spend money into existance buying stuff and patronage for their own advantage.
As long as all the statists are doing it - globally - there is nothing for any one currency to collapse against.
"There's a whole lot of folks in the statis bicoastal elite consensus who look at China as a model, not a cautionary tale."
One needs to understand the dynamics (rather than layering with emotional lables such as "bicoastal elite" [as though there's none in the interior- hm... where do soybeans and cotton come from?]).
Don't confuse WHERE lobbying occurs to mean where lobbyists are FROM.
From http://daniel-workman.suite101.com/top-chinese-exports-imports-a24920
China Imports from U.S.Of the $55.2 billion in American exports to China in 2006, the following product categories had the highest values.
population of China 1.3 BILLION - population of U.S. 300 million = Huston we have a problem - China is "the Borg" from Star Trek.
Fine. Seven of Nine can live at my house. But the rest of you handle everyone else...
of course when you say "live" you mean RENT IS DUE MY FINE CHINESE TENNANTS.
I'm sure Seven will find a way to work off the rent...
I predict China will become 13% more Chineseier. Unless of course, they don't. Either way I'm right.
Looks like somebody is about to take the crack pipe away from the Australian economy.... how bout that housing bubble
How dare you Irish swine! Australia is different, we have golden beaches, we are smarter than the rest of the world, the sun shines brighter here and real estate is not a bubble!
We will be laughing at you when real estate prices double in the next 7 years making the average 2 bedroom, heroin house, worth over 20 times the average median wage.
TO INFINITY AND BEYOND!!
US used QE/Financial repression combo, out of necessity--off-shoring of jobs had wiped out tax base which lead to debt. However China has used the combo out of sheer greed--to line the pockets of the elites. Nothing like infrastructure building to skim off mega bucks and throw sand in public's eyes.
"US used QE/Financial repression combo, out of necessity"
Necessity to continue greed!
Really, as I tell my wife who is from the Philippines, and would tell me about how badly corruption is there- follow the money, the US has the MOST, therefore it has the most corruption (the sophistication is just at such a level as to appear legitimate- this fools 'em all). China's greedy are mere pikers...
Rather powerful evidence is emerging that China's domestic oil production peaked in 2010. It is the source of their import spike.
It is doom.
I think the bulls and bears are alike in that they do not understand the symbiotic relationship of our economies.
At some point U.S. QE and it's inherent exporting of inflation to China will lead to a decoupling of our symbiotic relationship.
I do not think that there will be a significant renaissance in U.S. manufacturing to offset the inevitable decline in Chinese imports.
The nearterm endgame will be a crash in China followed by a forced (by U.S. QE)decoupling of China where the rest of the world joins in on "the decoupling".
then it's on bitchez... (due to the pressures of afore mentioned quantitative easing)
btw, I object to China being referred to as a developing economy. China has been a civilization for thousands of years. The past 150 years of "developed economies"(exponential) economic growth is an anomoly based on an abundance of high energy density fossil fuels.
Yeah, it always amazes me that people can't get the simple equation that production REQUIRES energy and that those countries that don't have energy are pretty much fucked. Just watch what happens to Japan (and then watch what happens to the UK- two nicely confined "island" countries w/o energy).
It takes balance. China doesn't have it.
iHope that iApple Is iSolated from the iDuck Sause...
It's all fine and dandy to talk GDP growth, consumpition, and debt stats, but let's talk boots on the ground ... China has a sex-ratio of 1.13 males to females for those under 15 years old, meaning they will have 17 million under-occupied young males approaching military service age, and another 300 million under-occupied impoverished people in its hinterlands. That's a lot of spare manpower that could be put to work elsewhere in the world rather than being allowed to stir up trouble at home, if you catch my drift. Surprised neither of these factored more prominently in the prognostications.
So what is Pettis doing in China if it is going to be in trouble?
These economists...they all have their theories and they are so sure of them, they act like they are always right. It is just a lot of hot air that usually doesn't make any money.
China, the USA, and the US of the Euro are all suffering the same disease; capital misallocation by soulless idiots at the top, consumed with greed for power, money, and all that entails. The "beggar thy neighbor" approach to economics they follow means that 1) They stay on top 2) The printing presses hum 3) The circle jerk of borrowing from near and far continues 4) The public contents itself with faux elections and boob stories 5) Return to 1). Meanwhile, productive use of capital is an afterthought clung to by machinists and manufacturers that may still have actual customer bases relying on them. Wall Street simply applauds the current system and dances around the growing bonfire. Fill up your pantries, your freezers, and your "bank of friends". When the wheels come off, the bitch is going in the ditch.
“The worst problem of the 21st century is that many people want positions of leadership, but they don't want to make difficult decisions”
—Carlos Ghosn, President & CEO of Renault/Nissan,
Well said...
& the ace in the sleeve is that anytime the system is on the verge of collapsing, the bankers can easily convince the puppet politicians to crank up the war machine & brainwash their populace with campfire ghost stories about scary alien people from afar who want to come pillage their homes, rape their wives, & cut their children into bite size chicken McNuggets...
Michael Pettis,
I am too hungover to refute your statements point by point so I have to deal with them as a group. What a pile of crap. Statistics and data will not give you any insights into China. Why not travel to a hundred cities in China and talk with business people such as the Overseas Chinese, Chinese and foreigners.You might actually learn something.
WHAT IS REALLY SCARY IS THAT PEOPLE MAY READ WHAT YOU HAVE WRITTEN AND NOT UNDERSTAND THAT YOU JUST MAKE SHIT UP!
Blah, blah... travel.. blah, blah... talk... blah, blah.
Really, that's what your "supporing argument" is all about. Care to give us some SUBSTANCE (and do so within the confines of REALITY, i.e. physics)?
Why not travel to a hundred cities in China and talk with business people such as the Overseas Chinese, Chinese and foreigners.
************
Well you should tell people to avoid these cities-it might be hard to find anyone to talk with-
**************
Vast new cities of apartments and shops are being built across China at a rate of ten a year, but they remain almost completely uninhabited ghost towns
JJ
From memory there are about 800 cities in China so a couple of fuck ups is still less that 1%.
China is still growing at a fair rate and banks are not giving cash to property developers so what is vacant gets filled up as everyday goes by.
China is still growing at a fair rate and banks are not giving cash to property developers so what is vacant gets filled up as everyday goes by
******************
It sounds to me like affordability is the the biggest problem and as of this year-those cities remain vacant-how will they fill the cities when no one can afford to buy there-
***********
April 16, 2012
You’ll find entire cities built to house 12 million people that are nearly empty. Huge apartment buildings, skyscrapers, shopping malls…all empty. Their government keeps embarking on huge infrastructure projects in order to give people jobs, but they’re building stuff that doesn’t match demand. And what’s so ironic about is that you have people next door living in squalid conditions, nine people to a tiny apartment, yet these new apartments are priced way past anything they could ever afford. The apartment would cost $100,000+ yet they only earn $6000 a year
http://www.jasonsummers.org/chinas-ghost-cities/
JJ
What's this link quoting Jason summers? Where is this city that is empty that has accommodation for 12 million people?
I gotta call Bullshit mate.
Please provide any information you have that backs this nonesense up.
You need to read the link i provided closer--
It says "cities" .....not city-as in one city--
You obviously have not kept up! Pettis lives in Beijing and is at ground zero of the action. From his blog
Michael Pettis is a Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a finance professor at Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management, where he specializes in Chinese financial markets. He has taught, from 2002 to 2004, at Tsinghua University’s School of Economics and Management and, from 1992 to 2001, at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business. He is also Chief Strategist at Shenyin Wanguo Securities (HK).
So yea, I think he knows a thing or two about what is happening in China.
All I know is that every single mainlander I have met wants to get the fuck out of Dodge.
So now the question is, are you working for the Chinese central government to scan blogs that don't say nice, positive things about China?No, he's a hack and a clown
I threw the IChing #19 Lin / Approach in the middle of February. It said Spring was approaching. Success is certain. In August we must take heed of the change.
Does that help?
If China cannot find a way to move up the 'value chain' of manufacturing without outright theft of intellectual property - they are toast. Their bubble will pop, otherwise, and a decades long depression is the exigent risk.
Does it really matter HOW they come up with HOW to produce shit?
This smacks of Chamber of Commerce talk.
Meanwhile resources and export markets are drying up. Lot of good a bunch of nice "recipes" ("intellectual" property) are going to do ya.
Got physical (enough to support what it is that you're [be it individual or nation] expecting to do)?
I mostly agree. My point was surrounding trade secrets. As someone who develops novel answers to complex problems; givong them away for nothing seems, at best, draining.
" As someone who develops novel answers to complex problems; givong them away for nothing seems, at best, draining. "
Well, I understand what you're saying, but in the entire scheme of the universe it really doesn't matter, does it? This is all petty human nationalism shit.
And, really, we're all just so self-important to believe that we're "doing God's work." When our water is fouled, our land is wore out, of what value then will be your "novel answers to complex problems?" Quick, are you really all that important (or anyone developing iCrap) compared to Norman Borlaug, the founder of the "Green Revolution?" Note that this is kind of a trick question in that I consider the Green Revolution will turn out to be one of humankind's WORST ventures.
Building castles is great and all, but we tend to, more than not, miss that they're being made out of sand. ALWAYS question the premise (i.e. building castles in the sand).
“The chief cause of problems is solutions.”
- Eric Sevareid
My favorite Pettis insight is:
"4.Investment is being misallocated on a massive scale and this was not due to any special Chinese characteristic but was rather a fundamental requirement of the way the system operated".
While the US spends trillions it doesn't have, on Defense and Social Welfare, China spends up big on infra structure: subways, railways, roads, bridges, ports, highways, and airports. China is inter-linking its economy with the economies of the countries that surround it and even building infrastructure in countries hundreds and thousands of miles away to increase its economic links with the rest of the world.
Just another idiot academic.
While the US spends trillions it doesn't have, on Defense and Social Welfare, China spends up big on infra structure: subways, railways, roads, bridges, ports, highways, and airports. China is inter-linking its economy with the economies of the countries that surround it and even building infrastructure in countries hundreds and thousands of miles away to increase its economic links with the rest of the world.
And building it all based on an unsustainable platform. Yeah, brilliant!
Did you not get that they're building shit that will not and cannot be used?
Just another idiot academic.
And there are also un"educated" idiots.
Hey I know!... What they could do now is spend the next 10 years paying everyone to tear it all down piece by piece... Now we're REALLY getting somewhere! Where's my Nobel Prize? Krugman? BEULLER?
MW
What sort of problem solving do you do? The novel answers to complex problems is interesting? And the giving them away for nothing/draining bit, doesn't sound like fun at all.
1. [...] I think it is pretty clear that over the next few years China will be forced to address and reverse the high savings rate [...]
5. Debt is rising at an unsustainable pace and debt levels will become unsustainable well before the end of the decade.
Yeah, sure, lets just declare everything a problem.
And think about in how much better shape the US is: We only have one of those two problems! /sarc
Seer,
I remember seeing the US economic growth on a chart once, the US economy went ballistic a few decades ago, it happened after the US linked all its cities with the highways system.
China is just doing that now so it is fair to assume their economy will do OK as a result. It did result in an incredible spurt of growth for America so it is fair to assume China will do OK for the next decade or two.
"it happened after the US linked all its cities with the highways system."
Yeah, kind of a natural outcome of cheap energy.
I've hypothesized that the US interstate road system was about centralization, esp the food system.
And... I have to wonder whether it was always the aim of the "commie-haters" to do-in China by getting them addicted to oil.
"China will do OK for the next decade or two"
I'm not so certain that this will be the case. Growth has been because of its export capacity; they need exports in order to obtain energy: heading up the "industrialized" ladder tends to mean that you've exhausted your resources and need to make trinkets to sell to stupid natives in order to get them to give you their resources. Just not seeing there being any way to maintain a growing export base when the rest of the world is contracting (esp with the world's leading consumer country stalling). When this happens China won't be able to keep their population busy* (and distracted) running the factories; those that feel cheated will start to become a bit unruly and... put it this way: I'd get the fuck out of China as soon as possible. * They can try and do so with internal infrastructure projects, but again, where's the energy going to come from? (when the US did this it had all sorts of cheap oil available).
With consumption this low internal highway network doesn't do much good - it's merely a subsidy to exporters who can then move from expensive coastal provinces to cheaper inland. But with falling prices of finished goods and higher costs of energy even this simple recipe doesn't sound like a guarantee for success.
Hey I know!
Maybe they could put 'toll booths' on all those empty highways & collect income from the traffic that's not there because they aren't exporting anymore & can't afford oil...
BRILLIANT!
Agentdent,
yeah, so he is an idiot academic and you are his intern.
Chinese wealthy business people take up permanent residence in other rich western countries, primarily for face reasons. They also send their kids to western universities mainly because they aren't academically gifted enough to get into the best Chinese universities. Sometimes they park the wife overseas. Most Chinese love their country as the people of most countries do. A tiny percentage of people migrate every year.
I've made the point that Canada (esp British Columbia) is going to take a hit as the Chinese start to back-peddle. I figure that a lot of kids are going to be called home, thereby adding extra speed to the reversing housing market in Canada.
I think you forgot the /sarc tag at the end.
the china contraint is simple - limited and falling USA demand
Agentdent,
Sorry I missed one of your points.
Forgive me I am sitting outside in China, the weather is great I am drinking "Yellow Snow" a great beer from Rogue a US micro brewery.Your comment about your boss kinda proves he is an idiot academic.
"Michael Pettis is a Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a finance professor at Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management, where he specializes in Chinese financial markets. He has taught, from 2002 to 2004, at Tsinghua University’s School of Economics and Management and, from 1992 to 2001, at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business. He is also Chief Strategist at Shenyin Wanguo Securities (HK)."
Please tell him to get the fuck out of his classroom and see a bit of China then his observations will be relevant.
LOL you're fucking drunk (seeing twice as much demand for everything?) and still feel entitled to dispense advice about taking a better look. What a douchebag!
Pettis is right. Malinvestment in China is tremendous. People simply don't make enough money to be able to get much value from all the investment that has been made. 4 lane highway to the airport? Why? 90pct of people who take it make few bucks per hour so according to the current state of affairs 2 lanes - one for the rich and one for the rest - would have much better ROI. 10 years later, yes, maybe 3 or 4 lanes would be better. Right now it's a waste.
That's what Pettis and HH have been trying to explain, you dumb ass.
Debugus,
There are over two hundred countries in the world all of which China is doing its best to trade with. There was a time when trade with the US meant something. Problem now is they keep paying in fiat that helicopter Ben prints with abandon. Sorry bro doing business with a broke bum that can't pay his bills, wont last forever. Wouldn't it be funny if China required the US to pay for its crap with gold.
https://www.uschina.org/statistics/tradetable.html
There's not enough demand to pull from other countries to make up for the slack that's appearing from the declining exports to the US and Japan. And, let's be honest here, all the BOOM was based on faulty accounting gimmicks, pulling from future demand The game is over. The transmission just popped out of gear for China and it's coasting now, not yet realizing that stepping on the accelerator isn't going to do anything (welcome to the wall).
Seer,
You are smarter than the average bear, are you China based? We should catch up for a beer or three.
I'd not be inclined to compare myself with a bear. Bears have a great ability to survive out in nature... I can only dream of being so well adapted.
I don't consider myself smart, just wise. And this all comes from my special powers.
Salute! (virtual beer - I don't drink)
Non Passaran,
How many interns does Pettis have?
You guys are all so sycophantic. Why not tell your boss to get out of the classroom and see a bit of China. Then people that live in China and do business in China wont mock him for being the muppet that he is.
Non Passaran,
Consumption is low?
I guess you have been sitting in the front of the class listening really intently when Pettis waffles his nonesense. Hope he doesn't get any of it on you.
Retail in China is going through the roof. The locals are learning to live. Stop quoting his nonesense.
Have you even been to China?
"Retail in China is going through the roof. The locals are learning to live. Stop quoting his nonesense."
And we all know, based on the greatest consumer nation on the planet, that "retail" is what makes things happen! </sarc> (as prompted by its "leader" and told to go out shopping after experiencing one of the most greatest tragedies in the nation's history)
The locals are learning how to practice unsustainability.
FACTS:
1) Nothing happens without energy and physical/natural resources;
2) The planet is limited in energy and physical resources;
3) All that ANY nation is experiencing vis a vis growth WILL cease.
I had a "friend" who was in the mortgage business. I'd say that in general he was a more honest person than most. He made the unfortunate mistake of e-mailing me one of his newsletters. I replied that it was tripe and that I knew better. I got one hell of a response, pretty much putting me on the same plane as Satan. Well... he was blind to the facts because his existence (well, his revenue stream) depended on it to be so: I sold property before the collapse, almost at the very top. Those who profit off something will defend it to the very end, facts be damned.
Francis Sawyer,
Does this Pettis guy really have half a dozen interns?
He probably makes 10-20,000 renminbi doing his academic nonesense. I guess the value of his opinion is evident, his salary of USD1,500 to USD3,000 says it all.
Which empty highways bro? Please state which city this empty highway starts and whcih city it goes to?
http://grist.org/cities/2011-03-31-chinas-ghost-cities-and-the-biggest-p...
Yeah, all looks just dandy!
Seer,
Many people grow up believing that they are superior to other people. They belivee that their perceptions of reality are superior. It is hard for westerners to acknowledge that their respective country got it wrong and that a country that is full of people that are shorter and different have done better.
Do you realize that you're chasing your own tail?
Seer,
I clicked your link mate, below is the first paragraph:
"A couple of months ago, a lot of people were passing around the news about China’s plan to create a megacity that would be home to 42 million people, the so-called “Turn the Pearl Delta Into One” idea. The reporting was generally favorable, painting a picture of economic growth and opportunity — the narrative of a prosperous China, with a growing middle class, that has become commonplace in recent years."
The Pearl River Delta mega city has between 60 and 100 million people, it takes up an area about twice the size of Sydney.
i assume you used to live in China, a few years ago.
China been a communist country since the 1950s. China remains a communist country.
And for ALL communist countries that have or do exist, we know how the story ends.
Seer,
Please ask your buddy Pettis to list the cities of the Pearl River Delta and his idea of their population.
No disrespect intended to "The Academic" but like get out of the classroom, stop humping the interns, regardless of how much they push back and see a little of what you are commenting on.
When empires start to shake from their roots up to their pinnacles. China, the new rising star is now plagued with mal-investment and debt spiral; obviously garbed in the hubristic, opaque coat of debt/mismanagement denial. A monopoly system, a sham Confucian mandarin politico-social construct of "best and brightest", hand in hand with the young sprouts of home based entrepreneurial capitalism, towed along behind the state enterprise juggernaughts, veritable global behemoths fed on the RM bounty of world corporate neo-monopoly trade enterprise, is now showing signs of floundering in the devilish, state policed interstices of crony capitalistic incoherence, profligately dispensed in opaque mal-spending. Where have we heard that before?
In Japan, since 1990 (RE + Crony capitalist denial spiral)?...in USA since 1999 (Zirp + Gl-ST rev. + Derivative mega sleight of hand)?...in EUROzone (Banking meltdown post-2008, RE collapse, Sovereign debt spiral)? ...in UK (City shenanigans pre-2008, continued profligacy post-2008)?...
Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide the huge "funny money" corn of fiat/risk asset abundance. My God! Could it actually burn, could the fiat pumped cake just implode in one huge mighty sigh heard around the world like a death cry...?
Play on Sisyphus of Oligarchy EMpire lands! As the race to bottom hots up amongst global thieving combines on the verge of open financial wars. The groans of Kraken, the fumes of Vesuvius... the rising tide of people's passion.
Orangegeek,
Are you retarded?
Pick up the Glock put it under your chin and slowly squeeze the trigger. Don't jerk it, slowly squeeze it.
China's last resort is perpetural warz.