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My takeaway from this is that China's GDP is being held up by government investments and subsidies.
by tokai 3y ago
My takeaway from this is that China's GDP is being held up by government investments and subsidies.
- alismayilov 3y agoIs not it similar in the west as well? If governments start cutting their budget deficits and subsidies, I assume we are going to have a lot of problems.
- dartos 3y agoTesla and spacex would go under. I think the corn subsidies ended a few years ago, but I’m not in that industry enough to know what the fallout was. Would be interesting to know.
- tokai 3y agoYeah almost all countries would have issues if the state just closed. This is about green energy subsidies.
- foobiekr 3y agoIn a shallow way, and ignoring the degree, yes, they are similar.
- FrustratedMonky 3y agoOR. Are they cleaning up their environment. Like actually doing what we only 'talk' about. Remember a few years ago when Beijing was all smog and smoke. Universally condemned for such bad air quality? Now they do something about it, to be better, and the 'right' is "it's just government subsidies, wish we could still pollute our environment like the good old days".
- anonymouskimmer 3y agoI remember in the early 90s in China. Buildings got deliveries of coal to burn for their boilers. Out during a rainstorm in Beijing I came inside literally dirty with black soot (either the rain had nucleated around the soot particles, or it washed them out of the air).
- synergy20 3y agothere is no magic, the manufacture industry caused lots of environmental damage and they are just fixing it now, the way out probably be nuclear plants, and the new coal plants are said to be much more cleaner(I'm not sure). US in general is much less polluted as far as I can tell.
- retrac 3y agoChina's ongoing industrialization is so immense, that any and all forms of energy are desirable - coal, natural gas, nuclear, solar, wind, hydro - all are being built as fast as they can be. > China leads the world in constructing new solar and new wind, while also building more coal plants than any other country, the report finds. https://www.npr.org/2023/03/02/1160441919/china-is-building-six-times-more-new-coal-plants-than-other-countries-report-fin https://www.npr.org/2023/03/02/1160441919/china-is-building-...
- BurningFrog 3y agoThe west cleaned up the environment 50 years ago. China is just about getting started. This is the normal development. As countries lift themselves out of poverty, pollution doesn't become a priority until they reach a certain prosperity level.
- anonymouskimmer 3y agoTo put this in perspective, according to Macrotrends on GDP per capita (not adjusting for purchasing power parity, I assume) China is now at the point that the US was in 1980, and in 2014 was at the place the US was in 1974. https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/gdp-per-capita https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/gdp-... https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/CHN/china/gdp-per-capita https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/CHN/china/gdp-per-capi...
- llampx 3y agoThe US's $34 trillion deficit would like a word. Just take a look at how much debt was added since the debt ceiling was lifted.
- jezzamon 3y agoFor context: The US's debt to GDP ratio was 96% in 2023 China's debt to GDP ratio was 288%
- sudosysgen 3y agoThis is often repeated but is actually completely wrong. China's government debt to GDP is 77%, vs 121% for the US : https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/GG_DEBT_GDP@GDD/CHN/FRA/DEU/ITA/JPN/GBR/USA/FADGDWORLD https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/GG_DEBT_GDP@GDD/CHN/... The numbers you posted are the US's federal government debt to GDP and Chinas total overall debt to GDP (including private debts such as mortgages). The two numbers are obviously not comparable at all.
- hash872 3y agoMy understanding is that analysts frequently include not just the debts of China's central government, but also all of the provinces, which are much much more heavily indebted. Under the argument that the Chinese central government is going to cover their provinces' debts in a pinch. (Not defending the specific numbers quoted by OP, just a general observation)
- sudosysgen 3y agoThe 77% is total government debt, which includes provincial and local government debt - national government debt is only about 10% of GDP. The 280% figure includes corporate and household debt.
- jezzamon 3y agoAh! Thanks for correcting me. I only did a short amount of Google searching
- foobiekr 3y agoThis. Basically this is the new civic projects spending.