How China Cooks Its Books & The Growing Risk of a Chinese Economic Implosion

[kiwi_trader]

Quote from Misthos:

In the grand scheme of things, which country is better off:

1) A country with NO safety net that will eventually start rolling out a saftey net OR a country that has an expensive safety net but no money other than a growingly skeptical bond market to finance it?

2)A country with an already impoverished population that is used to difficult work conditions and sacrifice OR a country with fat lazy people that get the highest salaries in the world. Which country will have a tougher time keeping their status quo?

3) I'll say something outlandish: Innovation means shit. Civilization peaked with innovation. Every subsequent innovaton makes life marginally better than it was 100 years ago. The question is - who enjoys the innovation? What percent of the population? And where would you rather be - in a place where modern amenities are on the upswing or a place where overindebted people that can't afford all the modern amenities they have will eventually revolt when they lose them?

America's Government will get more brutish as this economy unravels - mark my words. We don't have a "free" government that repsects human rights. We have a population that is well fed and kept busy. When the population starts losing the lifestyle it's accustomed to - and reacts in violent ways - THATS WHEN YOU JUDGE A GOVERNMENT. Not during peace - but during conflict.

Eventually, the US gov't will react to it's population much like China's did at Tianemen Square.

China has nowhere to go but up. They will sell things more internally and with their neighbors.

The US has to deleverage - to go down....

Where is growth?

China.

Where is deleveraging and bankruptcy?

USA

Interesting but probably largely wrong because we all write from where we are:

1. & 2. The US is currently still much better off and with a bit of belt tightening can still be much better off. Chinese gdp hasn't caught up and the people are not close to catching up. They are getting closer though which is a good thing for them.

Neither country will keep its status quo - countries never do in the medium term.

The bigger problem is China's. Which country felt worst in the great depression - the country which was busy exporting to the rest of the world or the importers? The exporter (US) felt it much worse than most of the rest of the world. Who's the exporter now?


3. In your innovation message you simply reflect your own age and viewpoint. Innovation has shifted to consumerism (more crap) and the biological sciences and we seem to be at the edge of dramatic impacts from biological sciences.


The Chinese already have brutish government. The US has an amusingly corrupt form of government but it is unlikely to get truly brutish.

Lets see though. 2020 is probably about when we'll know how it panned out

 

[mgabriel01]

Quote from MohdSalleh:

this is a dumb eurocentric perspective. The Chinese have been overthrowing regimes and their rulers for 5000 years. Long before we were a superpower, the Chinese have been a super power for 1000 years, the Ming dynasty fleet was 3 times the size of the Spanish Armada, and back when their ancestors built cities and a standard of living, yours were sucking on sheeps tits in the caves of Europe

Damn... That being said, I wonder how our powerful friends to the east ever wound up

Being occupied by European Mercantilists
Being Occupied by Japanese Militarists
Being sent to re-education-through-menial-labor-camps by Communists


So thats about the most recent 300 years of this powerful story
You must be talking about before that