China to Europe: You are just too damn lazy.

Quote from heech:

I'm not even sure why I'm engaging in this "discussion" here... I guess it's a lazy Sunday afternoon, why not.

Do you really think its a question of "choice"? If we transported you to China and got rid of your Western passport, would you still "choose" to work smarter and be more productive? And the Chinese who work in the West and get compensated very well, did we simply "choose" to be paid more?

In the year 2011, the West is rich for the same reason that Paris Hilton remains rich: you were born with it. You're inheriting the wealth of past generations. The capital that your ancestors accumulated still paying off today... even if GDP growth is just 1% today (versus 10% in China), the fact is, America is still creating far more value every year than China is.

I'm not going to get into a long discussion about *why* the West already had more capital ... those of you who study history already know why, and those who don't will just turn this into a pointless argument. The point is, the world has fundamentally changed. And I for one believe that we're well past the tipping point, with China's future growth becoming an irresistible force.
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The difference between you, and the other Chinese mentioned in the OP is that you seem to have a first-hand understanding of the west (lived/living in the west), while he showed the opposite.

I would further bet that if you were in China, they would still favor that guy over a person like you, because of possible patronage mentality. So China may not be a meritocracy if rewards are tangible (monetary/power) and immediate.

The GDP point is good now, but would it scale/be maintained. The GDP per capita may reach a flat line below the west.
 
But then how come nobody's hiring Americans.

Quote from tradingjournals:



I think it is the westerners who are smarter: they have a higher return on their efforts, while the average chinese work harder, study harder, but his production are worth (by markets) less than the westeners' production.
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Quote from Random.Capital:

I'm not a Democrat and I never said a single thing about race.

I'm afraid the obsession is entirely on your side.
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yeah, I think he has you mixed up with someone else or he sees racists behind every comment that disagrees with his.
 
Quote from Random.Capital:

Because if he doesn't, capital won't flow to China.
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I check labels of pants/shirts/etc in stores. They used to be "made in china", but in more recent times I have been seeing Malaysia, Bangladesh, Indonisia, Pakistan, etc. This might suggest that the Zhangs are being outflanked by the Gupta, the Bangalis, the Mahattirs, etc.

So Zhang's competitor is not Joe, but someone else with a lower cost than Zhang.
 
Sounds more like a global deflationary supercycle and basic supply/demand than any particular culture's economic principles. It would make sense that with billions more productive workers out there in the world that come on line, and enough food and water to feed 10x current day's population, prices continue lower.

Price controls, unions, aren't really capitalist ideas.

Quote from tradingjournals:

I check labels of pants/shirts/etc in stores. They used to be practically "made in china", but in more recent times I have been seeing Malaysia, Bangladesh, Indonisia, Pakistan, etc. This might suggest that the Zhangs are being outflanked by the Gupta, the Bangalis, the Mahattirs, etc.

So Zhang's competitor is not Joe, but someone else with a lower cost than Zhang.
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Quote from tradingjournals:

The difference between you, and the other Chinese mentioned in the OP is that you seem to have a first-hand understanding of the west (lived/living in the west), while he showed the opposite.
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I suspect you'd be completely wrong. I havent looked at this guys credentials, but if he's 50 or younger, I'd bet he has a graduate degree from an overseas university. And if he is over 60, I would say with 100% certainty his kids are studying/working in the US or Europe; that's standard operating procedure.

For over 100 years, Chinese intellectuals have worshipped "the West" and modernization. This includes Russia, Japan, France, Germany... The first generation of Communist China's leadership, other than Mao, all spent time in Paris. (As did Ho Chih Mian, for that matter.). The Chinese government continues to send it's best and brightest overseas.

The Chinese leadership has a very informed view of the West (at least on non-political issues), far more informed than Western politicians (other than Huntsman) are about China.


The GDP point is good now, but would it scale/be maintained. The GDP per capita may reach a flat line below the west.
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Who are the other Confucian nations in Asia, with very similar cultural perspectives, that we can compare to? Korea, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan. China is just 10 times larger than those others, combined.

No one has ever given me a convincing reason why China wouldn't reach the same level ofnindividual achievement as these other peripheral nations. (And peripheral they are: for most of the past 1000 years, Japan / Korea only dreamt of matching Chinese achievement.)
 
Quote from heech:

I'm Chinese, and perhaps predictably, very sympathetic of his point of view.

Want to maintain your standard of living? Rather than complaining and hoping to distribute what's left of a small and diminishing pie, work twice as hard. Want to have money after retirement? Work harder now and save more.

The average Chinese continues to study harder as kids, and work harder as adults. All else being equal (ie capital becoming equally available and fair global markets), why should the average Zhang make less than the average Joe? There can't be any justification, and as such the current trend is both reasonable and perfectly irresistible.
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My understanding is that the one major fly in the ointment in China is demography and that the population is aging too quickly for the economic growth to be sustainable.

If China had not taken a 30-year detour down the dead-end of Communism, they'd have been much better off and could have avoided the tragedy of the Cultural Revolution.

That said, the demographics in Europe are just as bad or worse.

I'm a 100% Westerner and I am appalled at how lazy the West has become. The only thing I can think of as the cause is the old saying, "Whom the gods would destroy, first they make crazy". I feel more of a kinship with the Chinese or Indian guy working 18 hours a day to get ahead than I do with the typical Westerner.
 
Quote from tradingjournals:

I check labels of pants/shirts/etc in stores. They used to be "made in china", but in more recent times I have been seeing Malaysia, Bangladesh, Indonisia, Pakistan, etc. This might suggest that the Zhangs are being outflanked by the Gupta, the Bangalis, the Mahattirs, etc.

So Zhang's competitor is not Joe, but someone else with a lower cost than Zhang.
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else before Zhang's competitor would be Singh, and everything is cheap in India, so u have to be cheaper than the Indians
 
Quote from logic_man:

My understanding is that the one major fly in the ointment in China is demography and that the population is aging too quickly for the economic growth to be sustainable.
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I'm definitely not a perma-bull on China, I think there are all sorts of challenges. But the demographics argument, I really don't get. (I see it used sometimes to compare China vs India.)

Try applying it to a family down the street: "boy, its a shame those Johnson's are so poor ... They cant even afford to educate their kids; it's a good thing they are having so many of them." Doesn't make sense to me, either.

If it was a 1-1 replacement, I can understand the math. In China however, 1 != 1. The retiring generation, my parents generation, has a high school graduation rate of less than 20%... and a college graduation rate of less than 1%. In other words, peasants. The kids entering the workforce today? High school graduation rate of 80%, and college graduation rates of 50%+. In fact, the southern city of Shenzhen is considering making 15 years of schooling mandatory: 3 years of pre-school, 12 years thru senior high school.

What's more economically productive? 4 peasants working the fields by hand, or an engineer?
 
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