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>Allen is spending his remaining days wrapping things up. The coffee machines are going away and he’s now giving tours of the campus to prospective buyers, incl

by nafizh 7y ago

>Allen is spending his remaining days wrapping things up. The coffee machines are going away and he’s now giving tours of the campus to prospective buyers, including Chinese buyers. This reminds me talks of China buying up land and properties in US. I wonder why they are doing this.

IggleSniggle 7y ago
Probably for the same reasons they buy US dollars.
onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago
Occam's razor / base rates. China is like 20% of the world's entire population. It's close to as much of the global economy as the US, or the EU. It's way bigger than Japan. There's a ton of wealth there, and a ton of rich businesses and people. As things stand right now, China should account for about 15% of all asset purchases globally. It's not surprising if a lot of land and schools and houses and business in the US are being bought by China. There's similar amounts being bought by the EU and Japan. A conspiracy theorist would tell you it's because a lot of people inside and outside of China think the RMB is over valued (by as much as 50%). There's probably truth to this, but compared to the above mentioned base rates -- the affects are likely negligible.
- ericd 7y ago
  I would expect rates of land purchases in a country to be heavily biased towards its citizens, not be near their share of global GDP...
  - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
    The USA is an open market compared to other locales. It’s why the Japanese bought up a lot of real estate during the 80s, and why the Chinese are doing it now.
    - ericd 7y ago
      I know, I just mean that people are generally going to spend much more of their wealth on local land than abroad, so there's no way the land purchase breakdown is going to be anything like the global GDP breakdown.
      - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
        True, but they already do. China is basically just exporting some of the property bubble they already have back home (just like the Japanese did in the 80s).
imtringued 7y ago
Because trade surpluses leave you with a large amount of foreign money. You can spend them on more imports or on acquiring foreign capital. By definition exports exceed imports when you have a trade surplus so the only option left is capital acquisition.

by nafizh 7y ago

IggleSniggle 7y ago

Probably for the same reasons they buy US dollars.

onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago

Occam's razor / base rates. China is like 20% of the world's entire population. It's close to as much of the global economy as the US, or the EU. It's way bigger than Japan. There's a ton of wealth there, and a ton of rich businesses and people. As things stand right now, China should account for about 15% of all asset purchases globally. It's not surprising if a lot of land and schools and houses and business in the US are being bought by China. There's similar amounts being bought by the EU and Japan. A conspiracy theorist would tell you it's because a lot of people inside and outside of China think the RMB is over valued (by as much as 50%). There's probably truth to this, but compared to the above mentioned base rates -- the affects are likely negligible.

ericd 7y ago
I would expect rates of land purchases in a country to be heavily biased towards its citizens, not be near their share of global GDP...
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  The USA is an open market compared to other locales. It’s why the Japanese bought up a lot of real estate during the 80s, and why the Chinese are doing it now.
  - ericd 7y ago
    I know, I just mean that people are generally going to spend much more of their wealth on local land than abroad, so there's no way the land purchase breakdown is going to be anything like the global GDP breakdown.
    - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
      True, but they already do. China is basically just exporting some of the property bubble they already have back home (just like the Japanese did in the 80s).

imtringued 7y ago

Because trade surpluses leave you with a large amount of foreign money. You can spend them on more imports or on acquiring foreign capital. By definition exports exceed imports when you have a trade surplus so the only option left is capital acquisition.