3 ms·

Again, I invite you to start up the ISP and website, and to remove your anecdotal experience from observational data: http://seeingredinchina.com/2011/04/27/how

Again, I invite you to start up the ISP and website, and to remove your anecdotal experience from observational data: http://seeingredinchina.com/2011/04/27/how-poor-are-chinese-farmers http://seeingredinchina.com/2011/04/27/how-poor-are-chinese-.... Debt is a function of belief in economic mobility; if I dont think your situation will be better in terms of income in the future vs today, I am far less likely to extend capital to you for risk. Im more likely to buy bonds. So the debt situation can be viewed as a reflection of capital markets betting against things getting better in China.

contingencies 13y ago
Err, I've run numerous websites in China before. The only functional difference with running them in the west is there's a generally unenforced request to register with the government so they know who to call if they have any issues (very civilized!). As for ISP... get out of the 90s! The state took China from zero internet to most of the global internet in ~10 years - of course they own the infrastructure. As for the list of incomes .. those look out of date but I have personally spent much time in rural Yunnan and some in rural Guizhou and Sichuan and can tell you the people are generally fine and have great quality of life with loads of interesting festivals, scads of TV channels, cheap education and such. The biggest issues tend to be if people need rare medical treatments or try to migrate to the cities with minimal education... the first often ends in death, the second in a return to the country with whatever cash they can stash. Sort of like those young Amish that leave their communities to experience the world for a bit then tend to go back home. Remember, these are people who are not traditionally part of the market economy in any significantly state-backed-currency-involved sense. So what you see as 'zero wealth' through modern economic glasses (described by George Soros, universally acknowledged as an authority on that mire, as "wrong" and "entirely based upon a false analogy with Newtonian physics"), is a lie. The people have food, clothes, housing, community, education, even internet. They don't need to sell much excess crop for fiat money.

contingencies 13y ago

Err, I've run numerous websites in China before. The only functional difference with running them in the west is there's a generally unenforced request to register with the government so they know who to call if they have any issues (very civilized!). As for ISP... get out of the 90s! The state took China from zero internet to most of the global internet in ~10 years - of course they own the infrastructure. As for the list of incomes .. those look out of date but I have personally spent much time in rural Yunnan and some in rural Guizhou and Sichuan and can tell you the people are generally fine and have great quality of life with loads of interesting festivals, scads of TV channels, cheap education and such. The biggest issues tend to be if people need rare medical treatments or try to migrate to the cities with minimal education... the first often ends in death, the second in a return to the country with whatever cash they can stash. Sort of like those young Amish that leave their communities to experience the world for a bit then tend to go back home. Remember, these are people who are not traditionally part of the market economy in any significantly state-backed-currency-involved sense. So what you see as 'zero wealth' through modern economic glasses (described by George Soros, universally acknowledged as an authority on that mire, as "wrong" and "entirely based upon a false analogy with Newtonian physics"), is a lie. The people have food, clothes, housing, community, education, even internet. They don't need to sell much excess crop for fiat money.