Comments by "hugh mungus" (@hughmungus2760) on "Obsession of high-speed rail causes China’s freight, energy, and debt crisis" video.

Lol the west is 'de-growing' right now and encouraging people to eat insects and 'own nothing' instead of improving their material conditions.
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yeah until you run into traffic. Do you know of china's notorious multi-day long traffic jams?
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China is going to 'win' this war because the US is still under the illusion that its going to be a shooting war and not an economic competition which china is beating the pants off the US at.
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Why are people expecting a public utility to be profitable? Do you complain that police and fire services run at a loss? Maybe you should privatise all the roads too while you're at it.
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@Dusty1698 The fact of the matter is, the claim that china is in for some kind of debt apocalypse when it's debts are quite tame compared to other countries in the world just goes to expose who's the real biased person here.
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@rogersheddy6414 the whole 'tofu construction' is really just a symptom of the free market getting into rampant speculation without adequate regulation, its not a government initiative. If you have any problems it should be with the free market not the state. The HSR is also NOT tofu construction. As for power, that has more to do with a global price hike for fuel and coal than anything else.
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@rogersheddy6414 Really. so your solution to rampant speculation is to allow even more speculation by getting rid of the nominally 'communist' government. Thats a non-starter. and no the US absolutely engaged in the same kind of rampant property speculation back in 2008, except it wasn't ghost cities, it was ghost suburbs because american consumers prefer housing over apartments. Nowadays americans can't even afford to speculate on housing so they throw their money into overvalued stocks and the crypto casino. As for the rest of your rant, downplaying chinese manufacturing prowess just flies in the face of reality, theres a reason why china is the largest exporting economy in the world and the US is the largest importing one. Simply put. china just makes better stuff for the value. Even if it might not be top of the range. 'Good enough' is clearly the best way to attain market share when you've got the volume.
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@rogersheddy6414 yeah sure. you can play around with definitions all day but a 'communist' country isn't one that has more private billionaires than the vast majority of 'capitalist' countries in the world. China has a mixed economy that has some sectors that are state run and others that are very much free market orientated, Hell the recent evergrande bankruptcy didn't even result in a state bailout. That the kind of free market fortitude many people wished the US to had after 08. Also. dude, you do realise all cities undergo planning right? You can't just build whatever you want. There are zoning permits and local government regulations even in western countries. Stop thinking in black and white. But then again expecting a christian to see nuance might be naive. The fact of the matter is, if you understand how economics and the development of nations work, you would see many of the economic problems in china a result of growing pains of an economy making rapid transition from a low income export based economy to a high income innovation based economy and how, the gross accumulation of capital leads to the rise of 'capitalists' who try to create system whereby they can rentseek.. you also wouldn't be trying to chalk everything up to 'muh communism' which is a copout answer.
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clearly she's a Thatcherite neoliberal who'd privatise everything if given the chance.
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When will people get that its irrelevant who's the head of state in china. Every great power has a 'deep state' that has its own set agenda.
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uhh no. The HSR has been arguably the single largest piece of infrastructure that has contributed to china's economic success over the past 20 years. You don't think linking cities of millions together with fast rail improves efficiency?
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@rogersheddy6414 what are you on about, I said the largest piece of 'infrastructure in the past 20 years' trading arrangements are not infrastructure and the spiel you went on described china from the 90s to early 2010s. Today the vast majority of china's economy IS domestically driven with exports accounting for less than 18% of GDP. 2008 was supposed to have been the end of the chinese 'miracle' but it was only the turning point from where china went from a low-end export lead economy to a technology and innovation based one which its making good progress in to this day.
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@rogersheddy6414 Oh boy where to start. You as an individual rarely if ever get to determine what gets built. you can obstruct and thats about it. City hall will still get its way 9/10 times, why do you think eminent domain is a thing? Again what you have an issue with in china is poverty, not the government model. The very fact that the country has gone through 30 years of very rapid economic growth completely invalidates your argument. The vast majority of people indeed have seen a rise in quality of life it just started from a very low basis. Collective bargaining is not some kind of sin. A government working for the betterment of domestic industry and domestic workers by demanding foreign companies hand over technology in exchange for market access deserves praise for its savvy. In fact historically ALL countries that climbed the development ladder engaged in something similar. Read up abit about america's early days of industrialisation and how it blatantly ripped off european technology.
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@rogersheddy6414 And you just sound like an ignoramus who's fed so much cold war hysteria you think everything that isn't liberal western democracy is 'communism' Reverse engineering is literally how Japan, south korea and Taiwan's industries took off. Where did you think the original founders of TSMC got their designs from? They sure as hell didn't reinvent the transistor. No country becomes 'innovative' in a vacuum and if you had an ounce of historical knowledge you'd know they were accusing Japan and south korea of being copycats in decades prior. In fact according to WIPO, china is already shedding it's copycat image by registering the largest number of patents last year and it's you who's behind the times. Clearly you dont want to acknowledge that china came from an extremely poor basis, extreme poverty in china has only recently been (nominally) eradicated BECAUSE of a concerted effort by the state. Compare that to a 'free' country that came from a similar level of poverty like India or the Philippines, you get a much more apples to apples comparison. As far as food security goes, I can pull up a great stat for china's achievements over other countries of a similar level of development if youtube will let me post links. I dont know why you're bringing up the one child policy and chinese border skirmishes in a discussion about infrastructure. If busting idiotic and quite frankly insulting claims about china made by cold war leftovers like you is working for the CCP then maybe its you who needs lay off the propoganda.
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@rogersheddy6414 Yeah and how else do you think the average wage in china has been growing at nearly 8% per year for the past 30 years? China is a mixed economy buddy, which means a private sector exists alongside with a state owned sector. Societal dropouts exist everywhere. You think your average dope smoking gen-Z who collects welfare and plays video games all day isn't a problem for western society?
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@rogersheddy6414 Really, you do realise not everyone in china lives in first tier cities right? Only the in urban areas are housing unaffordable for most, which is the case in most countries. Thats like saying because the average person in the US can never afford an apartment in sanfran doesn't mean housing is unaffordable everywhere. and as for capitalism. You don't need approval from a government official to open a convenience store. Like in any country the vast majority of capitalist enterprises are small businesses.
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@rogersheddy6414 funny. last time I checked home ownership in china was roughly at 90% with rural populations having as high as 95%. So whats this nonsense you're babbling about chinese people not having homes? And even assuming the few that don't have homes, china actually has a functional public housing system that keeps people off the streets. Which is why the US has homeless encampments popping up in all it's cities and china doesn't.
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@KevinDavis338 yeah which is why it takes half a day to go from washinton DC to NY by ANY means while it takes 2 hours to go from beijing to tianjin
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@KevinDavis338 Again. explain why it takes half a day to travel the same distance in the US that takes 2 hours in china? Your higher forms of transport seems awfully inefficient. Maybe theres a reason why tons of other countries have functional passenger rail and the US is a laughing stock when it comes to rail infrastructure.
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funny. so you're saying people getting new housing and better infrastructure is all fake? Then what is genuine? Clearly this has been running for over a decade now all over the country so this Potemkin village is looking pretty damn real.
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@mediocreman6323 lets see, the build quality of a cement home with indoor plumbing is still better than grass and mud shacks. You think the rural poor in china had something better they came from? Obviously you're not going to go from dirt poor to mansions, but hey, concrete tenements and cookie cutter housing is still better than living in a shack or having no homes. Infact ever wonder WHY china doesn't have a homeless problem while rich western countries are awash in tent cities? Taiwan and the other asian countries had a 30 year head start over china when it came to reform and modernisation, why bother comparing? Compare china today to Taiwan in the 90s. how about that? Public transport isn't supposed to turn a profit, its a social service. Like police and firefighters. I bet you anything Taiwan and south korea have underutilized public amenities too.
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@mediocreman6323 Building the interstate roads or putting a man on the moon made no economic sense either. Sometimes national projects are about more than just money. The chinese HSR provides incalculable amounts of secondary benefits that can't be directly measured in dollar returns. The creation of entire satellite cities that would not be feasable without a, cheap, high frequency, high speed, high capacity mode of transportation for starters. Its your type of myopic views that caused infrastructure all over the western world to fall into decay by squeezing every dollar out of what is supposed to be a public service. How does running an extra deficit of a few billion for the HSR 'hurt' an economy of almost 14 trillion? A single day where the HSR network isn't functioning will deduct that much in nationwide productivity. Taiwan opened up to trade with the west much earlier than the mainland, hell the US didn't even recognise the mainland as a country until the late 70s. Today the mainland is scaling the technology ladder like taiwan did in the 90s and becoming a global competitor in many sectors. As for taiwan today, its more or less stagnant save for its one bright spot in semiconductors. Everything else in taiwan is very second rate even compared to a second tier chinese city like Chongqing in terms of services and facilities.
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@mediocreman6323 Western infrastructure for the most part fall well short of meeting demands, I guess thats how you make it 'profitable' by providing the bear minimum of service for a price that only just beats driving. You look at how abysmal the british or american rail system is or how badly the interstate in the US is maintained. Don't take my word for it. your own damn watchdogs report this. Again. less than 0.1% of GDP in wasted spending on public transport is not really an issue. Taiwan outside of Taipei is very underwhelming that looks like any forgettable south east asian countryside. And Taipei itself is only as good as a single second tier mainland city. Go do a side by side comparison of walk around videos with chongqing or dalian vs taipei and you can't tell the difference.
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