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At the same time, their population is in freefall, they have a massive housing bubble, and they import most of their energy and foodstuffs. Not saying that you

At the same time, their population is in freefall, they have a massive housing bubble, and they import most of their energy and foodstuffs. Not saying that you're wrong, but it's definitely more complicated than what you are making it out to be.

thiago_fm 3y ago
China has more than enough people, the challenge there is how to make them all consumers with fat wallets and raise their productivity. They indeed import most of their energy and food stuffs. Like any big exporter, see Germany for instance. Really similar, just different consuming power. For the housing bubble, it's part of planned development. It isn't as bad as a housing bubble in the US, as the government from China isn't democratic. The Chinese government can easily use its authority to tell the average Chinese to eat it up.
- laszlojamf 3y ago
  Yeah, I don't know about the housing thing: https://edition.cnn.com/2023/09/23/business/china-too-many-homes-for-1-4-billion-people-intl-hnk/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2023/09/23/business/china-too-many-h... Also Germany is an interesting comparison since their population is _also_ in freefall and their are looking down the barrel of a major demographic crisis. And as for China not being democratic, the Chinese government is still very much in the hook for keeping people happy. Just look at what happened with the Covid restrictions when the population eventually had enough. The question is how bad it's gonna get next time around
- Nydhal 3y ago
  It's not about the raw number of people, it's more about how old and aging they are. Age distribution is the key factor. 1 billion 60 year olds is not the same as 1 billion 20 year olds.
- randomdata 3y ago
  > The Chinese government can easily use its authority to tell the average Chinese to eat it up. In theory, so could the US government. It has done exactly that before on a smaller scale. It would do it for housing too if it were deemed a good solution to the problem. I expect what you are implying is that Americans lack confidence in that being a good solution to something on a grandiose scale, like the housing situation, to see it though? That is something that appears to be true. But then why would the Chinese people have that confidence? The authority can tell anything it wants, but without the confidence of the people it isn't going to go anywhere.

thiago_fm 3y ago

China has more than enough people, the challenge there is how to make them all consumers with fat wallets and raise their productivity. They indeed import most of their energy and food stuffs. Like any big exporter, see Germany for instance. Really similar, just different consuming power. For the housing bubble, it's part of planned development. It isn't as bad as a housing bubble in the US, as the government from China isn't democratic. The Chinese government can easily use its authority to tell the average Chinese to eat it up.

laszlojamf 3y ago
Yeah, I don't know about the housing thing: https://edition.cnn.com/2023/09/23/business/china-too-many-homes-for-1-4-billion-people-intl-hnk/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2023/09/23/business/china-too-many-h... Also Germany is an interesting comparison since their population is _also_ in freefall and their are looking down the barrel of a major demographic crisis. And as for China not being democratic, the Chinese government is still very much in the hook for keeping people happy. Just look at what happened with the Covid restrictions when the population eventually had enough. The question is how bad it's gonna get next time around
Nydhal 3y ago
It's not about the raw number of people, it's more about how old and aging they are. Age distribution is the key factor. 1 billion 60 year olds is not the same as 1 billion 20 year olds.
randomdata 3y ago
> The Chinese government can easily use its authority to tell the average Chinese to eat it up. In theory, so could the US government. It has done exactly that before on a smaller scale. It would do it for housing too if it were deemed a good solution to the problem. I expect what you are implying is that Americans lack confidence in that being a good solution to something on a grandiose scale, like the housing situation, to see it though? That is something that appears to be true. But then why would the Chinese people have that confidence? The authority can tell anything it wants, but without the confidence of the people it isn't going to go anywhere.