Comments by "Louis Giokas" (@louisgiokas2206) on "China Observer"
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In the US, when buying a new construction home, one puts down a deposit, but the mortgage does not start until the home is completed. Another difference is that the lender and purchaser both have liabilities. Typically, whether new construction or existing home, if you can no longer pay the mortgage, the lender takes possession of the home. You may lose the equity you have built up, but you then have no further liability. The lender then sells the home to recover the loss. You may, if you have sufficient resources, sell the home before you run out of money to pay the mortgage. As long as you get enough to cover the loan, you may be better off. The system in China is so skewed against the purchaser that I wonder why it was set up that way. Both in terms of the initial purchase and the loss of income scenario, the Chinese citizen is the one who is adversely impacted. The crazy thing is that you don't permanently own the home. In the US you do. My brother is in the home my mother grew up in. It has been in the family over 100 years. I feel very sorry for the Chinese people. The reality the real estate sector will never com back. The country is already overbuilt, and the population is shrinking.
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It seems that many companies are moving to the US, among other places. I recently bought three pieces of battery powered lawn tools of a Chinese company. Two of the three were made in Vietnam. I looked at the company website and found they were also opening up a factory in the US. The US has cheaper energy than Europe, so many energy and hydrocarbon-based industries from countries like Germany are relocating plants to the US. Industrial plant construction in the US is off the charts. Add to that the advantage that the US has in natural resources and agriculture, and China is toast.
Another way that China hurts itself is in not allowing foreign companies to create wholly owned subsidiaries in China. This is madness and is typical of developing countries. By the way, India does this too, and it that holds them back. The only things in their favor are a large potential market and inexpensive labor. This is very much like China was. Their big advantage is that they do have a democratic rule of law-based society, so they will do better. Back to China, this restriction on foreign ownership makes it easier for foreign companies to move out. They only have half ownership (actually only up to 49%, I believe) and thus when they move, they only have half the exposure. The local Chinse company is left holding the bag. China created this mess for themselves. Add to that Xi's inconsistency in policy and his aggressiveness towards the west, his best market, and you set the stage for disaster.
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I truly feel for the average Chinese person. I have often held that in northeast Asia the Chinese people were the closest in temperament to the US, and a natural ally. That is, of course, before 1949.
On the other hand, the horrible things done by the peasants to other Chinese people, both during the revolution and during episodes like the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, have shaken my attitude.
The fact that the two biggest Marxist revolutions took place in countries with a large rural peasant population would have surprised Marx. His assumption was that the revolution would start in industrialized societies with a large proletariat. He was thinking of Germany, the US and UK. There were attempts in these places, but they did not go that far. There are lots of reasons he was wrong, but the main reason was his understanding of people. Considering his personality, this is to be expected.
Life in an industrial society, in cities, is far better than life in the country, especially in the period we are talking about. Actually, it is basically true today as well. So, while the proletariat was not living the high life, it was waaay better than being a peasant farmer, or even a small holder.
So, what was done in Russia and China was to appeal to the peasant masses' basest instincts. They would band together and take from the "rich". It was really nothing other than organized theft in which everyone participated. Of course, all this was done under the direction of the Party.
Given all this it is no wonder that in both the Soviet Union (and now the Russian Federation) and Communist China that corruption is rampant, and that morality is dead. It is a sad end to a long lived civilization.
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On this topic I see a lot of college grads with degrees in "soft" fields in the reporting from China. This surprises me. I was taking some graduate classes in statistics a few years back and there were lots of Chinese students. Some would admit they would prefer to be studying something else, like marketing, but their parents insisted that they go into a STEM field. Sound advice, actually.
The issues these Chinese grads are facing are the same as in the US, but the job market here is in much better shape than in China. So, while they may not get a job in their major, they can get a job. Frankly, there are too many people with these non-core majors that, as the second girl in the video found out, just about anyone can do without the degree. Many of these fields have no place in a university curriculum. Copywriting, entrepreneurship and similar are really only valid in a vocational business school. What the universities, in China and the US, have done is to offer these inappropriate subjects to expand their market. That is all. They dupe people like the woman in the video.
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Don't forget where the CCP came from. The CCP is a Marxist-Leninist party. The funny thing about where Marxist socialism, or communism, or whatever you want to call it, has been successful is that Marx did not predict it (he was wrong about so much). The main countries were Russia and China. Both were mostly peasant societies. He assumed that the revolution would come in advanced industrial societies with a developed industrial proletariat. He was thinking about countries like Germany, the UK and US. Those countries with a peasant economy would have to go through stages of development to bring them into the conditions for revolution. So, why did Russia, then China, become the first major communist countries? Because the revolutionary leaders promised the peasants free stuff. That stuff was, of course, taken from the bourgeoise. They played on the greed of the people. These are the people of China.
I say all this because the society of China, as well as its leaders, are thoroughly corrupt. Does the CCP organize the massive counterfeiting in China? The CCP is involved in a lot of the IP theft, but not all of it. How about all the poor-quality goods and outright poisoning of the environment?
The man who starts speaking at about 1:45 is correct in what he says, but he leaves out that these private business owners as well as all the CCP officials they have to deal with, are probably corrupt.
Also, the people protesting at the beginning of the video are dreaming. They fled. They are in the US where they can say those things. They are kidding themselves if they think China can become like the US. Just look at what happened in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. That is China's fate, with competing warlords. That is Chinese history.
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China does not export coal. In fact, it imports coal. As for rare earths, they are not rare. Before China became involved in processing them, the US had its own source and processing. The thing about this process is that it is environmentally "dirty". Thus, as with much other materials processing, the pollution was simply shifted to China, which does not enforce standards, thus lowering the cost. These are not advantages for China.
In a real war scenario, it would be trivial to strangle China of resources. China imports massive amounts of oil and food, as well as many other commodities. China would be back to the state they were in around the time of the Great Leap Forward, including the starvation.
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WOW! A very thought-provoking video. Well done!
One more thought on communism in China, and generally. Marx assumed that the revolution would be driven by the urban, industrial proletariat. He assumed that it would start in countries like Germany, the UK and the US. Instead, it started in countries that were industrially underdeveloped with large peasant populations. Specifically, Russia and China. This is what allowed them to control the populations. They were used to being controlled.
Of course, Marx's reasoning was all wrong. The people of Russia and China were offered free stuff, taken from the middle and upper classes. They were not really ideological. In the countries where Marx expected the revolution the people aspired to create wealth. Many of the wealthy in the US these days, and historically, did not come from highly privileged backgrounds. Even the average factory worker has it fairly good. Frankly, having traveled a bit, I have concluded (and I am not alone in this) that our lower classes would be considered middle class in most of the world.
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"...currently land and air transportation are significantly more expensive compared to sea transportation..." implies that it could be otherwise. Not true. Sea transportation will always be cheaper. All the grand plans China has to incorporate alternatives including land transportation (primarily rail) will increase shipping costs. It is a political exercise, not an economic one.
Why so you think the original Silk Road disappeared? Considering the relatively fragile nature of long-distance sea transportation at its dawn in the era of sail, it shows how fraught that original Silk Road route was.
The current transportation system we have grew organically and was not mandated by any political entity. It was made possible by the US guaranteeing security on the high seas. China, the biggest benefactor of this system now wants to overthrow it. That is one of the dumber foreign policy decisions of all time. It shows, if more proof were needed, the immaturity of Chinese foreign policy and governance.
Frankly, the sentiment in the US is that the cost of maintaining the system is not worth it. This parallels the issue with the British colonial system. In the end, it was the cost of maintaining directly controlled colonies, like India, that brought about the dissolution of the empire. For the US, the order that was set up was a response to the threat of the Soviet Union. If you hadn't noticed that threat disappeared thirty years ago. The US Navy has not been configured to maintain shipping safety for a long time now. It has morphed into a power projection force, not a protection force.
So, China sits on the sidelines in this crisis and, for purely anti-American political reasons, tolerates and even supports, clandestinely, the instability in the region. The Chinese navy actually has a squadron of ships stationed in the area. They have done little or nothing to help resolve the crisis. Now it is Chinese businesses that will suffer as a result.
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I wonder if they even have five years. I don't think that there will be losses, or perhaps minimal ones at best. Don't forget, industrial equipment is constantly being modified, repaired and upgraded. Foxconn is a very experienced contract manufacturer with operations in many countries. They know how to handle this.
Most of the manufacturing in China is low tech. They assemble the iPhones, for example, but the components come from all over the world (including the US) and by cost, the phone assembly is a small percentage of the total. Have you seen the pictures and videos of the iPhone assembly lines Foxconn has in China. Row, upon row of manual assembly stations, staffed by peasants from all over. These are not that difficult to move. The Foxconn exec who said, near the beginning of the video, that he could move anywhere quickly was correct.
Another interesting note is that many private, and some state owned, manufacturers in China are opening plants in other countries. I recently bought three battery powered lawn tools. The company is Chinese (although the trade name is not, which should be a signal) and two of the tools were made in Vietnam. Looking at the company website, and it seems they are also opening a plant in the US. One of the reasons for this activity is the situation in China vis-a-vis wages and the business climate. Another may be that these companies want to get their capital out of the country, and this is probably one of the only ways they can do it.
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Caucasian meals? Funny. Actually, the raw ingredients are often healthier. In the 1970s I "introduced" my mother to raw mushrooms. I was just starting out at university. My closest friends were Indian. One's parents were moving back to India (his father was a diplomat) and his mother tried to teach us traditional Indian cooking. It was soooo complicated. So, we switched to Zen macrobiotic cooking. Actually, one time, between places, I moved back into my parents' house for a couple of weeks. My mother decided to try eating what I did for a week, and she started to lose weight. Her doctor told me to keep it up for her. Well, I moved into a new place, and she did not continue with it and did not continue to lose weight.
I went through a life change a few years ago and returned to a simple diet (no sugar, no processed foods, pescatarian, etc.) and lost about 25% of my peak weight. I was overweight but not obese. Physically I am back to where I was in my 20s and it feels great!
Considering the problems that the Chinese people have with obesity and diabetes (which are related), this trend might be a good thing.
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@GeoScorpion The first part of your comment has merit. The second part not so much. As far as contagion from a China collapse, the CCP itself has made sure it will not spread too far. Yes, there will be pain in the west, but it will not extend to essential goods. Even China's involvement with "high tech" goods is relegated to the low-end assembly process. Have you ever seen pictures or videos of an iPhone factory in China? Do you understand that most of the people working on assembling those devices are peasants?
I have dealt with companies that moved such production to China, one having just previously set up a new production line in the US, and it is not a decades long process that will break the business.
The other factor is that many, many companies from the US and the rest of the world, that produce in China do it at arm's length via contractors. These can either be the big guys like Foxconn or can be direct relationships with Chinese firms. Many small and medium size brands, and some large ones, are design and marketing enterprises. The manufacturing, and often the distribution, is done through contractors. That gives them the ability to change contractors when necessary.
The isolation extends to the financial system as well. We hear these numbers of missed bond payments, etc. What is rarely mentioned in the press is the percentage of the various markets this represents. We are generally not told what percentage of various investment funds are exposed to this. In the few cases where I have seen it, the number is miniscule.
Mexico recently surpassed China as America's biggest trading partner.
The most important thing to remember is that, in the US and the "west" in general, while the government sets the stage, so to speak, it is private companies that do the work. This is China's, specifically the CCP's, great weakness. They want the government to control everything.
Wow! The coffee is really kicking in!
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Decades ago, in a satirical magazine, China was represented on maps as the "great big empty spot". It looks like this could happen again.
I have known people who, when young, went through the Cultural Revolution. They escaped to the US and have become very successful in the US. One, who I was close to, was the head of the CS department of a university in Chicago. He ran a very prestigious lab. I worked with him a lot as the head of the Computer Society of the IEEE locally. He was made a fellow of the IEEE for his work. China has lost many people because of the restrictions of their system. These people are generally major contributors to the countries they emigrate to.
Just look at what Russia is going through right now. The numbers I have heard is that over 300K Russians, many with advanced technical skills, have left. The strength of the West is the openness of its system and the diversity of its people. This is especially true of the English-speaking countries, including the US, Canada, the UK and Australia. I have a lot of experience of this, including living in the US (where I was born) and the UK. I have also worked extensively in Canada. Most of Chinese industry was set up by Western companies, not by the Chinese. Many were even set up by Taiwanese, Japanese and Koreans. If China accelerates the decoupling, they will go down the tubes, as the saying goes.
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Your use of all these surveys is kind of out of hand. For one thing, CEOs are not a reliable source of information. This is not something underhanded. One has to understand that pronouncements by CEOs, at least on western public companies, have a special status. They are not actually able to just give their opinion openly. Just look at what Elon Musk has gone through with his, sometimes unhinged, pronouncements. CEO's and companies get sued in the west.
The CEO, in international business, also has to play a political role. So, you have Tim Cook in China opening a new store and making all lovey dovey with the CCP. All this while the CCP is banning the use of his products and openly promoting his Chinese competitors. Any rational actor would be pulling out. As it turns out, that is what Apple is doing. The only thing is that they are doing it too slowly and will likely suffer dire consequences. That is just an illustration of the complexities that have to be dealt with. CEOs will say one thing to protect their interests, while doing just the opposite. Each case is different and often complex.
The thing that is important is to follow up on what is happening to those western companies that have pulled out of China. My understanding is that one of the Japanese car companies that pulled out experienced no material effect from the move. Just look at what happened in Russia with the sanctions. There a rapid withdrawal was forced. None of the large companies experienced a material degradation of their businesses. There are other markets, and China's is turning into a s**t show.
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Again, with government relying on "land auctions" for income. I know, I know, people will make all kinds of justifications for this in China, and Asia specifically. But, let me tell you, this is a very primitive form of raising government money. It is also the least efficient and the least likely to enhance the economy long term. I mean just look at mainland China.
The mania with land in a country with limited amounts, may be understandable, to some extent. Of course, this really doesn't apply to China, does it. But again, it is primitive. There also seems to be a lack of understanding in Asia about markets. Housing prices fluctuate, even in the US, over time. I have seen many cycles in my lifetime. Some were local, some national. There were many different causes. That is natural. But the lack of understanding I talk about extends beyond that. There are multiple financial markets operating at the same time, and the relative returns, outlooks among them are what really drives them. Money is a great invention, whether it be metals based or fiat. It can be moved around quickly (not so much for the former, thus the later) and thus one has to constantly look beyond the narrow confines of a single market and look at the economy in macro terms. From what I have seen in China, there is no real understanding of this by the leaders in their business community or the CCP. Primitive!
China was never going to overtake the US. Look at all the remnants of empires that have long histories like China from Babylon to Persia to Egypt to Rome to Byzantium. That is the fate awaiting China, and it always has been.
I am always fascinated by what is going on in China (and most of the world), but it really doesn't worry me anymore.
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While all of what is said about housing is basically correct, the young man at 19:25 is just being stupid. Mortgages in general, in places like the US, are structured this way. There are two reasons this is not a problem in a normal, market economy. The first is that housing prices are expected to go up over time. The second is that inflation, even at a low rate, will make the money used to pay off the mortgage less valuable than it was at the beginning. The other thing to consider is that without mortgages structured in this way very few people could afford to buy a house in the first place. In addition, without the income generated over the life of the mortgage, the capital it represents would not be made available.
The real issue is that the CCP has manipulated the market to keep prices unreasonably high. Interference in markets by governments is always bad. The price to income, both median figures, in the US is generally about five, moving up to seven recently (the current situation is an anomaly). The same ratio in China is now 17. Even at the beginning of this millennium it was ten. So, prices have always been unrealistically high in China. Now, as they seem to be collapsing, the middle class, such as it is, will be wiped out.
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@@user-pi3fc1qt1l I tend to agree with you. The same thing happened with the Japanese. At least the Japanese situation happened while we were still in the Cold War (I miss the Cold War) and there was still some geopolitical justification for it. That has been gone for over 30 years now, and we can see what has happened to Japan.
China is another story. It was mostly just greed. Wall Street saw a big market. Fair enough. But, like the Japanese situation, the system was not open. Even to this day, it is hard for foreign companies to invest heavily in Japanese companies.
There is a lot of expectation that it can all be moved to India and Southeast Asia. We should be cautious about that. India has stringent capital and ownership controls. If they don't start to relax them now, I feel that we will run into future troubles. At least there is a chance this could happen in India, but it is not certain.
Finally, don't make such a big deal out of China being the world's factory. By around 1900 through the 1970s that was the US (note this is before the wars). Then it was Japan. Now China. This stuff moves around. And in China's case, unlike Japan, and to an extent Korea, they have not moved up the value chain.
No, China squandered its own future by being a bad actor. They deserve what they are getting.
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At about 8:15 the narrator uses the phrase "...suppress dissent and restrict citizens rights...". Of course, in China under the CCP, there is no such thing as "citizens rights". The fact is that the people are not "citizens" in the way that the term is generally understood. They are "subjects", or as some say, "slaves". This is true of any communist regime we have ever seen.
By the way, the Nazis were National SOCIALISTS. Their mixed economy, state controlled with some private enterprise, moving toward total state control, is exactly the same as China's current state of affairs. In addition, the CCP uses nationalism (drop the populism label, it is imprecise and misleading) and racism to justify their actions. So, tell me what the difference is.
Ever noticed how much this also resembles feudalism? It even goes down to restricting people's movement and tying them to the land. I am speaking here of household registration in China. Similar restrictions also held in the Soviet Union.
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@crunchyfrog555 Oh, come on man. I have been driving for half a century, and have had two accidents, both caused by mechanical failures. These failures were not something a self-driving technology could avoid. I also know lots of people who have similar driving experiences. If a large number of people can go that long without a driver induced accident, then I call that a success.
As for Tesla's technology, do you have data on that? I am asking sincerely. Sources and numbers. I have to admit, few of the Tesla drivers I know or have run across, use the feature, and it is generally not because they had a problem, but because it is new, and I guess can be somewhat scary.
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@plumeria66 You majored in philosophy, interesting. Did you do graduate studies or get a professional degree (law, MBA, etc.)?
As for "kids" being duped, I have to disagree with you, with a caveat. That is, parents are also involved in these decisions. Either the parents are paying, or they at least acquiesce, assuming the student gets a loan for their studies. I will give a typical case. The son of a friend of mine got an English degree from and expensive school. He had well over $100K in debt (this is in the US). He asked his father for help when he couldn't get a sufficient job. Hs father, who was very successful, said he would only help if he went back and got a practical degree.
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Mr. We Pang was applying for jobs paying $2.26 per hour, in 2023. I made that, in the US, as a part time student worker at the university I was attending, in 1973. So, 50 years later, many Chinese are making what was basically minimum wage in the US half a century ago. On top of that the gentleman was denied the job because of his age.
This ageism, for everyone, whether in manufacturing jobs or skilled white collar jobs, will actually kill the Chinese economy. In western countries, it is people over 45 who provide a lot of the capital in the society. They are highly skilled at their jobs, therefore much more efficient, and have fewer expenses for children, etc. They are generally making their highest incomes they will make and are often investing aggressively to maximize their savings for retirement. Once they retire, this pool of funds is generally withdrawn from the capital markets and put into safe, boring income producing investments.
Every economist knows this, except those advising the CCP leadership, apparently. Well, of course, we should not be surprised. They are bunch of commies, after all.
China is well and truly screwed.
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As stated at 9:30 the actions needed are not possible for the CCP. A capitalist, western style economy (which is what is called for) has no place for a communist party. Power is intimately tied to economy.
Xi may be the implementor, but I think that the consensus in the CCP has been that the reform and opening up had shifted too much of the economic power to the private sector. As an example, where the transition was done peacefully and within the system, look at the UK in the early 19th century. The boroughs, or legislative districts, were static and drawn on lines reflecting old centers of economic power. This was the aristocrats who controlled the land, which had been the source of much of the economy. With the industrial revolution, the real economic power had shifted to a totally different group, the business owners. In the UK, this prompted the redrawing of legislative districts and a peaceful shift of power. Such a shift is not possible in a one-party system.
This begs the question of what comes next. The system is riddled with corruption, and this is not just the graft of political cadres. It has seeped into the whole society and is evident from the wholesale IP theft and counterfeiting. To assume that a society that has never known democracy would turn into a liberal democracy overnight, without outside influence, is probably incorrect.
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@stlouisix3 I agree with the paganism and heresy, but what about a little debauchery? Just kidding.
The science is not settled. In the 1970s the same climate scientists were predicting an ice age and the military was convening conferences on how to fight in such conditions. Frankly, no science is ever "settled". When I was studying physics in the early 1970s, one of my professors told me we could find out is was all BS tomorrow. He didn't expect it, but it could happen. In real science theories are always tested, and each test could change everything. Out two best theories, the Standard Model of Particle Physics and General Relativity. The former has been around for 50 years and the latter for over 100. They have been tested in many, many different experiments. So far they have been proven correct. One YouTuber, a PhD physicist, whenever a new observation supports GR she says, that guy again, and show a picture of Einstein. There is a feeling that there is something more, but we haven't found it yet. Considering that we have more PhD physicists trying to find alternative explanations than ever before, this should be a clue. I mention this because it is interesting, and because one has to contrast it with "climate science".
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@henrycarlson7514 Well, that might not be such a bad idea. Actually, I would like to see much less government. Much less. Strip it down to the bare minimum. If you would permit a little philosophizing, I would like to point out that the government just hires people to do the jobs that need doing (and lots of jobs that don't need doing). For example, in one city I lived in the government did not collect garbage. There was a list of companies, and you could choose the one you wanted. The prices and service varied, and you could change the one you used. There is almost nothing that the government does, including fire and police, that could not be done by a private company. Set rules and parameters for them, basically contract terms. After all, the real work is just done by a bunch of people. If you do not use government employees, you can change out the provider when necessary. Look at the aerospace and defense industries. Note the term industry. We talk about NASA programs (I have worked on several). All the work is done by the contractors. The same is true for military equipment and systems (I have also worked on several of those). Look at building a house. There is the general contractor, but the work is almost all done by subcontractor who compete for the business.
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@johndoh5182 Well, my initial issue is what I read about Chapter 15. My understanding is that the company needs to have filed in the country in which they are located. We'll see what the bankruptcy court has to say on that. They may allow it to try to protect the US creditors, otherwise the US court has no real interest in protecting Evergrande. There is also the issue of how Evergrande would be able to pay off their debts in the US. Their prospects for doing this will also influence the ruling.
As for your last point on tax and convenience purposes, you must be kidding. The reason these venues are chosen are precisely because they have very lax laws or low, or no, taxes or both on corporations. Another example of this is the flagging of commercial shipping. There are many small countries that become "flags of convenience" for similar reasons. You must not follow international finance or business very closely. I mentioned the FTX case above. You might want to look into that to see an example of how important those laws are when it comes to US or other large government involvement in bankruptcies.
As for Evergrande in China the figures I have seen show a company that would be in bankruptcy just about anywhere else. Their debts dwarf their assets, and those assets are probably overvalued. The prognosis for their main business is abysmal. Those debts span everything from suppliers to banks and investment firms. There is a real question about whether they could build their way out of their current situation. Oh, and did I mention that the market for their product is drying up.
As for the Chinese government doing what it wants, that is true, but only to a certain extent. If they keep it private, then it will go bankrupt, unless the government covers the losses. If they do that, they will experience an immediate loss themselves, and quite frankly they don't have the money for that. Their other choice, nationalization, would be very costly as well. You have to consider that Evergrande is not the only one. Whatever they do for Evergrande they will have to do for Country Garden and others. Why do you think they haven't done anything about it until now? There is also a real question about whether they really have the intellectual capacity within the CCP to come up with a solution.
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The words of the student at about 3:30 forward are so true. When Xi talks about socialism with Chinese characteristics he is talking gibberish. As the student in this video points out, Marxism is a foreign concept. The form of it practiced by the Soviet Union and the CCP is Marxism-Leninism. In other words, Marx as interpreted and implemented by Lenin. What that came down to is a new form of oligarchy. If you look at the three forms of government that have existed since ancient times you will see the crux of the situation. The three forms are aristocracy, democracy and oligarchy. This refers to where the leaders are selected from. Look it up. It will become clear.
Marxism-Leninism is a form of oligarchy. That is why, even after communism fell in the Soviet space, Russia continued as it did. All those with real power come from the power elite, not some hereditary aristocracy or from the demos. The nomenclature in Russia is becoming hereditary and this might morph into some sort of aristocracy. We are seeing something similar in China and the CCP with the phenomenon of the "princelings".
Those who say democracy is not the end-game in politics are just plain stupid (that is the nicest way I can say it). First, and foremost, allowing leaders to arise from the whole population is always the best approach. This is true in business (so many examples there) as in politics. Don't get me wrong, it does not always work, but the exceptions often prove the rule. Aristocracies often produce incredibly weak and incompetent leaders. Just look at the history of China. Oligarchies generally degenerate as well. No system is perfect, but some are destined to fail.
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@samsonsoturian6013 Absolutely correct! By the way, many of "clients" I mention were overweight and some outright obese. Such people were probably in the majority. And this is at a food pantry. Just in general, many of our problems in the US are "first world problems" that people in the rest of the world find puzzling and just plain stupid.
Actually, there is not a world-wide food problem. There hasn't been in a long time. I have read that we produce 1.5 to 2.0 times more calories than we need as a planet. The problem, as always, is distribution and cost. It has been so since I was young and became aware of the issue (over half a century ago). There were always famines here or there, often driven by war and conflict and the food would be found. The exceptions, in places like Mao's China during the Great Leap Forward were all caused by politics. Another example is the Holodomor in Ukraine. There was no shortage of food worldwide at the time. It was all politics.
No, there is a bigger problem, especially of China and Russia get their way in reshaping the "world order". The problem is that the order, led by the US and its allies, has allowed anyone, anywhere to trade and become specialized. This means, and this is the crux of the matter, that many places have grown in population well beyond the carrying capacity of the land locally. This is fine if world trade is stable and safe. That period is about to end.
The most glaring example of this is, of course, China. Africa is another example. Sub-Saharan Africa is one of those regions. Another example is Egypt. In the post WWII world order they switched from growing wheat to cotton. Don't forget that as far back as during the Roman empire they we one of the breadbaskets of the Roman world. Cotton is a lucrative crop. They could sell cotton, buy food from outside and pocket the difference. Their population grew so much that, even if they abandoned cotton production altogether and went back to wheat, they would still not be able to feed themselves.
What is the result of all this? In a "multipolar" world, split into different spheres of influence, lots of people will starve. That's the third world problem, and it is coming, and it is China and Russia that will precipitate it.
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@clown6507 I fully agree. India also has a very multicultural environment. This gets messy at times, but it is also a strength. India, being an open society will grow and adapt in their own way, as most societies do.
It is interesting that you mention the role of arranged marriages. My neighbors are Indian (born in India but now US citizens). Their children, a son and daughter, were born in the US. I am not sure about the daughter, but they arranged a marriage for the son. Actually, they picked one girl, and she came over from India to meet him and it didn't work out. Then they found a second one. That one took. She is beautiful, smart (had a MS in EE and now has a PhD). They have wonderful children (aren't they all).
Back in the third quarter of the last century of the last millennium, when I first went to university, my two best friends (we shared everything, sometimes even girlfriends) were from India. The parents of one went back to India while he was an undergrad (his father was a diplomat). He had a long string of failed affairs and would often say that he was tired of it and just wanted his parents to arrange a marriage. Strangely, theirs was not an arranged marriage. They met at university in the UK. I have really lost contact with him, but I do know that he got married and had two sons. I do not know if it was an arranged marriage.
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Trump was reacting to something that people in the US had been complaining about for at least a decade. I actually saw two aspects of it in my consulting work. One is the rampant IP theft. The other is the poor quality of manufacture in China. Coupled with the difficulty and cost of dealing with long distance supply chains makes the current system basically unstable.
One example, which put a small company under, was the substitution of a couple of critical parts. These were power transistors. The Chinese manufacturers couldn't get them, so they substituted another part without telling their customer. The US company was using power supplies made, they thought, to their specification in China as just a part of their product. At six months all the Chinese made parts started to fail after the company had installed a large number of their systems at customer premises. Frankly, up to then, they had been very successful. There was no saving them at that point. I have other examples of where this type of thing even happened to large companies.
On top of that, Trump also caught onto the trade imbalance. This was also a big deal when Japan was on the rise and taking jobs from the US. This had a lot to do with the closed nature of investment in Japan at the time. Japan is still not as open as the US.
Ironically, the Japanese spent a bunch of that surplus buying property in the US at the peak. When things got bad in Japan, they had to sell at a big loss. The market in the US is, after all, a free market, especially in property. It seems that China will do the same thing. As people flee China and the CCP, they tend to overpay for property elsewhere. This affects the locals in the short term. Those inflated valuations will, at some time, come back to earth and the Chinese investors will lose money, just like the Japanese did.
When will they learn?
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The biggest issue in China is that the ratio of home price to income is very high. It is much higher than in the US. That people thought this was a viable option says a lot about the Chinese system. The people were fooled into thinking that home prices would always go up. Perhaps over a very long period of time, but the rate of return is generally not going to be as high as other investments, at least in a real market. I have a financial advisor who studies all this stuff, and he has looked at it over long periods of time. As an investment, property is not the best. Meaning that putting all your, and your family's, savings into property is risky and not likely to be optimal.
For one thing, property is generally not liquid, as people in China are finding out. There are times when a house can be sold quickly for a good price and others when it cannot. If you try to sell into a situation like the later, you are going to suffer. I have seen this up close. When I first moved to where I am now, from the east coast of the US to the Midwest, there was a recession just starting. Lots of people lost their jobs and ended up moving. I looked at 200 homes in the city I now live in. At least half were empty. Fortunately, we had gotten a good price for the house we sold and were able to upgrade for a modest price. In the house I am in now, I have seen the value go up, down and back up. It never came down below what I paid for it but the difference between the peak and trough was on the order of 35%. It is now back at the peak.
What I am trying to convey is that markets go up and down, and the Chinese people don't seem to understand this. They overextend on housing, and I get the impression from various sources that it is a prestige thing. People in the US have been known to do that as well, but never to the extent that they do in China. They also often "pay the price".
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@vindowmaker5819 BRICS is a sham. You have India and China, who have an active border conflict that many in India think will go hot soon. So, how are the BRICS countries going to come up with a common currency. In addition, Russia, the traditional arms supplier to India, has stopped providing those arms. This includes systems India has already ordered. Russia has become a vassal of China. And China is in the process of imploding. Of course, you have Brazil which is going through many problems. Then there is South Africa which cannot keep the lights on. I don't think the US, or the west in general, has anything to worry about from BRICS.
As for the French making payments in yuan, there is nothing wrong with that. If they are in two way trade with China and they want to do that, it is their choice. The French have always chaffed at US power. Prior to the war in Ukraine Macron was pushing for an EU army. He stated that this was to protect themselves from Russia, China and the US. That should give you some idea of the attitude. What would be interesting is how much of their trade is in yuan. I expect it is not a lot. In fact, the use of the dollar as a reserve currency has only increased, not decreased. France may find out, like Russia did, that it is difficult, if not impossible, to get their money out of China.
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Is it bonuses, or base wages that are being clawed back? It is never clear from these reports. Perhaps that is because, in China, people assume that bonuses are part of guaranteed compensation. This is silly. Why do you think they are called bonuses. Oh, wait, this is a commie society. People, and the government, do not understand how finances work.
In the US, when one is on a bonus plan, or even on a commission plan, or both, those bonuses and commissions are not guaranteed. They are performance based. I have worked for large and small companies and seen many types of plans. In some cases, bonus portion of compensation was based on the performance of both the company and the particular business unit. If one or both did poorly, then the bonuses could be reduced, or eliminated.
The idea was that one lives off the base salary and uses the bonuses and commissions for investment. That might entail upgrading a home, without increasing monthly costs, or buying a car for cash. If things are going well, then that is great. If not, then one continues to live within their means (base salary) and should have saved up from the good times to have a cushion. This takes a little thought and planning.
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The issue is not that the CCP lacks sincerity, but that they lack intelligence. They are commies, after all. What do they know about capitalism? In an authoritarian dictatorship such as that under Xi, anyone who has a contrary opinion or real knowledge has been sacked, jailed, or killed (sometimes all three in that order). The level of corruption in China is only matched by that in Russia. All of Xi's anticorruption campaigns are shams. The people "caught" are generally political opponents. The people in his clique are just as corrupt. As long as they are loyal, they get to continue their corruption. Otherwise, Xi and the CCP would never be able to rule the country. Another thing I see glimpses of, but that is not covered on most YouTube channels, by think tanks or media outlets, is the role of organized crime in China. I think this will be the next "shoe to drop".
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The Chinese news outlets are entirely correct. Trump is trying to "buy Russia". He is doing, in reverse, what Richard Nixon did in opening up to China in the 1970s. At that time the idea was to get China onside against the Soviets. It worked, by the way. It was a second front type of strategy. Now, Trump is trying to get the Russians onside to counter the CCP. This is a brilliant strategy. There is no love lost between CCP led China and Russia, despite their leaders' statements to the contrary. China is making encroachments into Russia's near abroad as well as into Russia itself. Xi has said many times he is unhappy with the unequal treaties with the Russians going back to the Qing dynasty. On top of that the Russian people are not happy buying Chinese goods, especially compared to the western goods they were getting before.
One other thing that is of interest here. If sanctions on Russia were to be eased, they could drive down oil prices. This would help with inflation in the US and around the world, and would, paradoxically, help China.
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The comments at the end about what Xi could do are kind of silly. First, the Chinese people are mostly peasants, still. They have no experience of democracy. Even Sun Yat-sen was a socialist. His commitment to democracy was not strong. His successor was a warlord. It took the KMT a few decades to move toward real democracy in Taiwan.
The other thing to understand is that there is a lot of counterfeiting and IP theft that is not done by CCP officials. Yes, the CCP tolerates it, but it is the people who actually do it. Just watch some of the videos on this channel, and others, for examples.
After the Qing dynasty fell China went through a warlord period. Frankly, Mao and Chaing were just two of many. As an example of counterfeiting, I saw on firearms channel a lot of instances where the Chinese were copying western firearms, without paying any royalties of course. This was 100 years ago. Sometimes the copies were reasonably good, while many times they were not. Nothing has changed.
The odds are that China will break up into waring regions. There is even talk about the southeast, which has generally been at odds with the northern plain, even joining with Taiwan. Unified central control in China is actually a rare thing.
Finally, why would the US, or anyone else, want to "help" China? They are in terminal demographic decline. Projections are for the population to drop to 500M by the end of this century. They also don't have massive natural resources. Those they do have can be found elsewhere. As an investment destination, they are toast. There are lots of other, better places to put capital, including political capital. The original impetus for investing in China was twofold. One was a large, cheap labor force. The other was a large potential market. That ship has sailed.
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The comment at about 4:10 about the west not needing to take actions is sooo true.
My investment advisor was hoping that Xi would get a third term. His reasoning was that Xi would tank the economy through his incompetence. How right he was.
Of course, this was to be expected. The CCP, after all, are a bunch of commies. They really have no idea of what a market economy really is. Their attempts through direct government intervention in the stock market proves that.
Xi, in trying to solidify his rule, has reverted back to a more pure Marxist-Leninist ideology. He adds the term with Chinese characteristics. This is just a cover for a national socialist model, based on ethnicity. Remember that from the 1930s in Germany? He will need another Cultural Revolution (long live the Cultural Revolution!) and perhaps another war, or both, to maintain power.
If Xi were to openly send arms to Russia, or start a war, the west's reaction would be sanctions, which would quickly destroy China's economy. Woe to the Chinese people.
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@goaway7346 Launching 1,000 missiles at any one target is unprecedented, and probably impractical. The US also has lots of other platforms to launch aircraft in the area as well. Heck, you would probably see B-2s and B-52s taking off from the US launching missiles at China. The new Marine doctrine also includes anti-ship missiles for their expeditionary units. There is also the new system for launching large numbers of missiles from cargo planes.
One of the items I have seen, in relation to the rocket force in China, is their fear of being targeted by the US. I am sure that they would be happy to defend the country if it were attacked and would do their duty. On the other hand, they might be somewhat more reluctant if China were to take unprovoked offensive action.
The most likely direction of attack on China is from Russia. Actually, it is even more likely that China will attack Russia if that country loses their war in Ukraine, and perhaps breaks up. The US, and the rest of the west and allies in Asia have no motivation to attack China.
Your last point is a valid one. The US has the largest number of large attack carriers in the world.
What I really expect to happen is that an amphibious attack on Taiwan would fail. It is not an easy thing to do, and China has no experience with such an operation.
There, you got me going.
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In the US, the minimum monthly wage is just over 8400. Many large enterprises pay twice that for entry level work. Also note that the US Federal minimum is just that, a minimum. Several states set the minimum wage higher, none can lower.
From all I am seeing, Xi wants to take China back the Mao era. Maybe that is an environment he feels most comfortable in. He has beaten down the tech giants. He has alienated many manufacturing businesses, so that they are beginning to move out of the country. His agricultural policies are a joke and change week by week, it seems. He allowed the property sector to grow too long, until it became a Ponzi scheme, then stomped it down without a plan, greatly affecting 30% of the economy. This is another area where he has changed policy direction multiple times. Add to the mix his belligerent attitude towards his trading partners, and he wonders why "derisking" is a thing. This guy has no economic knowledge, and he is running the economy. He also has removed or killed anyone who could rationally advise him.
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What is this concern for security by these dictators? No one in the rest of the world has any desire, or need, to attack either China or Russia. Russia, at least, has lots of useful natural resources, but the rest of the world would rather buy them rather than take over the country. China, on the other hand, has nothing the world needs. Even those minerals such as rare earths are primarily just refined in China. They don't originate there. Because of China's lax environmental regulation enforcement, the world has simply shipped all that pollution and cost to China. Everything else an industrial country needs, such as iron ore, coal and oil, China has to import. To destroy China one only has to disrupt shipping far from China itself. It wouldn't even take much and there are several countries that could do it. In Russia one would have to control vast territories. In China, it is the vast population that would present a problem.
These dictators are the ones who need war. Look at Mao. In the 1950s with the Korean war the Chinese had almost 200K killed and only got back the original borders. In 1962 Mao fought a war against India to cement his power, which was successful in that. Many in India expect the next war for China to be with India in the same general area as the 1962 war. In 1979 China fought a war, their last, with Vietnam and lost. Now, with almost 1B people living in real poverty, China is spending heavily on their military. They actually spend more on internal security. The only country they really have a beef with is Russia, and that country is no longer a threat to China.
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The Cultural Revolution? Bring back the Cultural Revolution! Long live the Cultural Revolution! Go, Xi, go!
One of the political reasons for opening up to China was to affect the system there by bringing in capitalism. The hope was that this would make China more democratic over time. A China that followed the rule of law, respected private property, including intellectual property rights, could have been a huge success and a great partner in the world.
But, alas, China was, and is, a communist country. All communist countries become oligarchies and then morph into aristocracies. All communist countries also become institutionally corrupt.
As for fighting China, the west only needs to do very little. Just disrupting trade is enough. China imports most of its energy and other raw materials. Its farmland is very poor, requiring about five times as much in inputs (fertilizer, pesticides, etc.) as land in the US or Europe. As Peter Zeihan likes to say, China deindustrializes in a matter of months and begins to experience mass starvation within a year.
Look at the sanctions on Russia. They are devastating that country. The full sanctions have only been put in place gradually over the last two years. And Russia has lots of raw materials and grows lots of food.
No one wants to invade China, except perhaps Russia. Well, not even Russia these days. What is that big military for? It is China that is threatening to invade other countries, and not just Taiwan.
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Why would anyone want to deal with China? At about 5:00 the video states that China wants others to feel the bottleneck. Is this how you talk to customers and partners? Certainly not to their face. Even outside of all the indicators showing the Chinese economy is going down, this one statement, and the attitude it represents, should dissuade other countries from doing business with China. Actually, there is also the "impedance mismatch" between the CCP controlled economy and western companies. You see, there are no government directives mandating Tesla, Apple, Volkswagen, Toyota or other "western" companies to invest in China. These companies make those decisions for themselves. In China, it is the state, no the party, that directs investments. History and economic theory show that such centralized control is ineffective and bound to fail. It generally ends in catastrophe.
Just look at lithium mines. This is not a rare element. In fact, multiple massive lithium deposits have been found in the US and will be developed. Just like Japan buying up high end properties in the 1980s during their property bubble, and then having to sell them at a loss, China is out buying lithium deposits at the high end and then having the bottom fall out of the market.
This is why I don't worry about China economically. The CCP is doing a great job of tanking the economy all by themselves.
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I tend to think so. Peter makes a big deal about how long it takes to move industries, etc. Well, those that moved to China did not take long, so why would they now take long to move out. Second, the answer is in type of role that China has played. They primarily play in the labor intensive, low end of the manufacturing cycle. Finally, most of their progress, besides that directly funded by outside investment, is minimal. They have survived by IP theft and doing things that have already been done. All their tech companies, mostly in the e-commerce field, are not hard to reproduce. A non-China related example is how quickly Meta came up with a competitor to Twitter. This is not rocket science.
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@jfverboom7973 I have seen that as well. Good point in this current discussion.
Control of one's own river system is very important, especially in this age when we are all building dams to control and exploit them. Another example is the Nile. Its sources are in different countries not even bordering Egypt which are, as with the Chinese, building dams and potentially disrupting it. Then you have the Helmand River critical to Iran that starts in Afghanistan, which is also building a dam.
I mention all these not to show off my extensive foreign affairs interest and knowledge, but to give a background for what might well come next, driven by these river issues. As with many international situations it is natural resources that often drive events. The traditional solution to these problems has been conflict and conquest. Then came the US led, rules-based world order after WWII. The UN was going to resolve all these issues. Well, now that hasn't worked, what happens? We are on the cusp of going back to old order.
As China breaks down, I think there might be a need for the affected countries to secure their river sources. I personally don't believe the Chinese military is even half as good as their Russian counterpart. and just look at what is happening to Russia in Ukraine. As the last piece of the strategic puzzle, air power (F-16s are arriving in Ukraine about now) is put in place, Ukraine will win. Russia at least has recent combat experience (lots of it actually). China has none. Some of the states adversely affected by this river controversy do have the experience and are better equipped than Ukraine was at the beginning of the war. I have even heard that the US might sell F-16s to Vietnam (that would be a hoot).
The only wildcard is nukes.
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So, an "Oriental philosophical value investment theory". Sounds suspiciously like socialism with "Chinese characteristics".
When will the Asians realize that the systems like capital investment are not "western" or "oriental". They were not developed with any region, race or ethnicity in mind. The same is true with socialism. Both have evolved and morphed over time, not based on the race or location of the people practicing them, but due to forces and innovations that have nothing to do with race or culture.
Marxism is an internationalist doctrine. Concentrating on socialism with Chinese characteristics is actually national (and thus racial) socialism. That has been tried before. It was in Germany, and the party there was called the National Socialist German Workers Party, or Nazi Party.
Actually, the current system in China shares a whole lot with the Nazi system. There is the mixed state controlled and private capital economy, with the trend toward more and more state control (the parallels are scary). There is the racial component. There is the threat of war to bring people of the same racial background into the fold. There is total centralization of power in one individual and the elimination of all other political forces. There is the total suppression and control of the population and the heavy use of propaganda. The parallels are striking.
So, if you see anyone peddling financial products, or anything for that matter, with some sort of racial, ethnic or regional emphasis, RUN AWAY!
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The problem in China is that the peasant masses are the ones that put the CCP in power in the first place. Are they going to suddenly become enlightened and foment a great democratic revolution? Not likely.
The other problem is that there are no leaders among the so-called middle class that could arise to lead such a movement. China went from a monarchical peasant society to an authoritarian communist peasant society then to a more developed peasant society (with help from the west). Don't forget, over two thirds of the people in China make 2,000 yuan or less a month. Will people who work for years without being paid their wages suddenly become a politically engaged populace? Come on man!
No, the future in China is going to be like that of the early 20th century after the Qing dynasty fell. There is also the elephant in the room that most commentators, including this channel, rarely mention. That is the endemic corruption. It is massive and permeates all levels of society, especially the CCP, but also, by necessity, the middle class and successful people. Will those people give up their gains, or hope of future gains? Not likely.
Look at Taiwan. After the civil war they had martial law for decades before they became democratic. They were supported by the west as a counterpoint to the CCP. Without that support, they would never have progressed.
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What is laughable is that Xi's fantasies of China's grandeur are not borne out by history. Even in Asia, if you want to be historical, the Mongol empire was much more extensive than China's ever was. Russia controls much more territory, some of it taken from China. From the early 19th century, a number of small, mostly European countries held sway over China's external trade. Even little Japan conquered large areas of China. Frankly, if Japan had not attacked the US, they may well have conquered all of China. The last time China projected power by sea was in the 15th century. So, where do these dreams of grandeur come from?
As for having enough, or not enough, people, Xi is delusional, as usual. China's population is projected to fall to 500M by the end of this century. Most of them will be poor. Coupled with their poor geography China is headed toward third world status, not global hegemony.
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The issue of bonuses in China puzzles me. If there is a bonus plan compensation is usually divided into base salary and at-risk compensation (i.e., bonus). Bonuses are usually based on some performance measure. Working hard is not a performance measure. It has to be something related to business results. It could be a general bonus based on the organization's performance. It could be a set of goals set for the individual. Often, in my extensive experience, it is a combination of both.
The point is that you live on the base salary, and then use the bonuses to upgrade somehow. Perhaps you put the money toward a new car or an upgrade to your home, etc. Or you may use the bonus to pay off the home early or invest. That way, if the bonus is not there or not what you expected, you are still able to live within your means. If you assume a bonus. and spend accordingly, then you open yourself up to disappointment and failure.
What I am constantly seeing in China is ignorance of how things work, even by the educated. Between these bonus issues and the workers who continue to work without being paid what I see is a population at a very low level of development. It even comes down to how people look at their mortgages and a misunderstanding of how such things work and why.
Don't forget that Japan was expected to surpass the US in GDP. Theirs is now about 20% that of the US. Then it was China. They have probably reached their high-water mark, or close to it. At least Japan became rich before going through about three decades of painful restructuring. Heck, even the EU was set to challenge the US. The EU as an organization is probably not long for this world.
The goal is not to compete with the US, or anyone else, but to adapt and grow, not to compete on a national basis.
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@pootispiker2866 On the warming up issue, I have actually had vehicles where the manual explicitly stated that warming up was not necessary, or a good thing.
As for your example of a long trip, that is because you live on the East Coast (which is where I am from). In the Midwest or West that trip in the Appalachians would be a nothing. It is not unusual to go well over that 200 miles one way and have to refuel at least once. Get with the program.
As for hauling 200 pounds of "extra engine" that is the clue that you have no idea what you are talking about. For one thing, the electric motor is not weightless. For another, have you considered the weight of the battery? That is often 750 to 1000 pounds. A gallon of gasoline weighs about six pounds. So, a full tank of gasoline (20 gallons) weighs 120 pounds. At 25 mpg (medium size SUV) that gives 500 miles of range. An electric motor weighs about 70 pounds. So, structure aside, your 200 pound motor with 120 pounds of fuel, or 320 pounds, give over two and a half times the range of your 1000 pounds of battery plus the 70 pounds or so of motor.
By the way, the hybrid I mentioned was a larger BMW SUV, not a Leaf. You are the one who needs to get with the times.
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@redbaron6805 Talking about what could be done for generation is an old problem. I tend to agree with you on that. The problem is that it takes a lot of time and money to make the change. All of that money comes from the consumers. So, that increases the cost of electricity, which increases the cost of running the EV.
Just a note about the cost. The best measure when comparing vehicles of different types is cost per mile, not miles per gallon, of course. Information I saw out of the UK claimed that the cost per mile of EVs and ICEs is about the same. This is primarily due to the high price of electricity driven a lot by the high cost of natural gas.
So, until we get nuclear fusion going (which has been a decade away for decades), the picture will not be bright for EVs.
Along those lines, since we have started this conversation, the market has come down on my side, for exactly the reasons I talked about. The growth of EVs is slowing. Plug in hybrids with a limited pure electric range are doing well. If you don't want to listen to me, then listen to Elon.
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China is the most vulnerable country in the world. They import most of their oil and gas. They import a large part of their food and the inputs to grow food. In fact, right now they are experiencing an agricultural meltdown because of drought and floods (in different parts of the country, of course). The fact is, if they precipitated a conflict, the US and its allies would not even have to get close to China to cut it off. What follows is industrial collapse and then mass starvation. Why do you think they instituted the one child policy? They were afraid of the growing population causing a collapse because of the inability to feed it.
They have a big military with little ability to project power. The only countries they could realistically attack are all on their borders. Two of these are nuclear powers. On the other hand, no one wants to invade China. As I mentioned above, they don't really have anything anyone else needs and then there are all those Chinese.
Economically, they are the second largest economy in the world, but their economy is only 2/3 of the largest economy, while their population is four times as big. Their economy is about the size of the EU plus the UK with three times the population. This is not a formula for world domination.
Economically, they have put themselves in a poor position. They require foreign companies to have a majority local ownership in any manufacturing plants they put in China. This limits the detrimental effects of a Chinese decoupling. One Japanese car company quit China and it did not have a material effect on their overall business. Another issue is that many western companies operating in China use contractors. In that model, you can get another contractor somewhere else. Not much leverage there for the CCP.
The plain fact is, China is toast, and it is their own doing.
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@1powerequalsgod I am staying in my home, and I am over 45 (actually over 65). My father-in-law has decided to stay in his home (he is much older than me). My brother lives in a home that has been in the family for 100 years plus. My parents stayed in their home until they passed. On the other hand, my sister sold her home and is moving locations. In all these cases, the homes were paid for a long time ago. In the US, where a large portion of the population (perhaps a majority) lives in suburbs, there is not a need to optimize the size of the home to meet some criteria. Some do that, but lots do not. That is because the home is not a speculative investment, or the only investment people make. The idea, which also seems to be operative in Europe, that people need to move out of their homes to make way for the younger generation is based more on factors like limited land, thus population density.
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@hughmungus2760 Well, your first point is interesting, but I think the question answers itself. They did it for thousands of years. They would know where it would work and where there had been problems before. So, over time they would avoid problematic locations. The CCP has no such knowledge.
As for the automation in farming, that is coming, but in reality, the widespread application is going to be slow and expensive. I worked on some machine vision projects for agriculture. It is very capital intensive. We will see it, but that is going to be a while. I live in the US and since I moved to the Midwest about 30 years ago, with in-laws that are farmers, I got more in tune with what is happening in farming. Just in the time I have been here the percentage of the US population involved in farming has dropped dramatically due to automation.
Just to give some perspective on the capital issue, one farmer I know told me that his 1,200-acre farm was about the smallest (we are talking grain farming) that is economically viable. This is because of the cost of equipment. At least ten years ago he got two new tractors (the larger ones). These had autonomous operation capability back then. He didn't use it. I also notice this with people who have a Tesla with self-driving capability. They often don't use it.
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If China starts a shooting war, they are done! They import most of their energy and mineral inputs. They also import lots of food, and with their disastrous flooding of prime agricultural land recently, could experience food shortages this year or early next. Don't forget, China is a processing point for many materials, but not an originator of the raw inputs. This is primarily because they ignore environmental concerns and can thus process the materials cheaply. They are utterly dependent on the world trade system developed by the US since WWII. Cutting off access to external inputs to China would not even take much in naval power. Frankly, there are choke points that could be managed by a few destroyers. These are also in reach of land-based forces. If China starts a war, or overtly supports the Russians in Ukraine, to paraphrase Peter Zeihan, they deindustrialize within months and soon after that experience mass starvation.
Xi is doing this to try to retain power. As with many dictators, when things are going bad at home it is useful to divert attention through the creation of external threats. Mao did this in the 1960s by invading India. Xi is in a similar situation.
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@danielch6662 I worked for GE. Actually, their issue was not that they were a conglomerate (although you could not say that at corporate level, trust me). They were, for almost a century, a highly profitable and valuable company.
What happened was that Jack Welch steered the company into finance. There had always been a finance arm, but this had two purposes. One was to help customers buy the products (from individual consumers to large companies). The leasing portion of that satisfied the second purpose. Minimize the tax bill. The depreciation on large turbines and jet engines, for example, checked that box. Then Uncle Jack got GE into reinsurance, and all kinds of other financial businesses that had nothing to do with the core business.
On top of that, the execs after Welch got into deal making and took their eyes off the ball. Don't get me started on that. Oh, wait, you already did.
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@zoeherriot Well, your first point is precisely what I said. Work on your reading comprehension skills.
Your second point is correct as well. As long as the government is not doing it, any media platform, from newspapers to social media, can decide not to carry it. In the past, what people did (in the dark days before social media) was just to find another outlet.
I never said you are supposed to be heard. What I said is that denying people have those ideas by closing your ears (eyes, mind) is perilous. If you deny that people have those ideas, and turn out to be the majority, for example, you could well be in a lot of trouble. I find a lot of things reprehensible that are said, but you cannot ignore that people think or say them and still be well informed.
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@fritz3388 You may want to look at actual figures rather than making them up on your own. The latest table I saw, using IMF numbers, has the US at number 6 with Germany at number 16. The US per capita GDP is 1.5 times that of Germany. The countries ahead of the US are mostly tax havens. So, Ami, copied and surpassed. Also, Americans pay less in taxes and housing is cheaper, bigger and better.
I have lived in Europe and done business there for and with some of the largest companies in the world. I have relatives in Germany (in laws) who have held high government positions (appointed) or executive positions in industrial companies. I have had a chance to interact closely with colleagues in Germany over an extended period of time. On the other side of the pond, I have been in the aerospace and defense industry, the software industry and electronics industry for decades. How many German tech entrepreneurs have you dealt with? Asking sincerely.
I actually started traveling overseas just over half a century ago as a teenager on my own. That was wild stuff, let me tell you. So, I do have some experience of the place and people.
When I was living there at company meetings there would be 20 people from 18 countries on a typical day. Since my background is southern European (guess where) and I was buying my clothes locally, people just thought I was another European. That led to some very interesting conversations. You might appreciate this. In my first business trip to Stuttgart (from Paris; not where I was based) I was dressed in all black (suit, shirt, tie, shoes, etc.), a style not seen in the US. This was early in this millennium. Even with my US passport the border control people started asking me questions in German. Fortunately, I had studied it at university. It was great fun.
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The mania with trade figures concerning China is just plain silly (trying to keep it clean here). Businesses are much more flexible than countries. There are lots of good examples.
One is the trade in iron ore and coal from Australia. As the CCP put restrictions and tariffs on this trade, the companies found other markets, such as India. Don't forget that as "decoupling" or "derisking" moves forward, that capacity that was once in China goes elsewhere and the commodity inputs will follow.
Another example is one of the Japanese car companies closing down in China. I think it was Mazda but am not sure. Rather than experiencing a drop in their total output, they just found other markets.
A non-China related example is that of all the companies from the US and Europe that were affected by the sanctions in Russia. Their assets there were basically confiscated. As far as I can tell, few, if any, were materially affected. Some had large operations in Russia, but these companies are so big that they absorbed the shock and just went elsewhere.
Finally, Taiwan's businesses are flexible and very well developed. They too will find new markets. Foxconn is a great example. They are a valuable partner and have moved production for many of their clients to places like India, Southeast Asia, Mexico and the US among others. TSMC is also building chip plants in other countries on other continents. This reduces their risk and shortens supply lines.
Just because trade with China is affected, the Taiwanese companies will adapt. This is what mainland China could have been.
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@silentwatcher1455 The west and their disciples have no intention of attacking China. China has explicitly stated that they are out for domination. Do you follow what they are saying? No one has attacked China, except for the Russians, who are no longer in a position to do so.
The idiotic thing is that their whole rise was facilitated by the US and the west. Without the investment from the west, Japan, Korea and Taiwan, China would be nowhere. Without the freedom of the seas, guaranteed by the US, China would be nowhere. If they start a war, it is a simple matter to totally close down their access to raw materials, energy and food. Doing nothing more than that and they get deindustrialization and starvation. So, what is your point?
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Xi is no economist. In fact, his ignorance of how economies work is breathtaking. Of course, that makes sense. He is a commie after all. His idea of internal circulation sounds like autarky. This is the concept that Hitler had in the 1930s and 1940s. Of course, Hitler was a national socialist. Sounds like Xi is going that way as well.
The woman at the end of the video also shows real understanding. It is not "China's manufacturing prowess" that is needed by the west, but the low end and cheap assembly "prowess". If you look at the value of components in something like and iPhone, the vast majority of it is from outside China. The fact is, that can, and will go anywhere.
NOTE: I edited this comment because I wrote the second paragraph before listening to her whole exposition. The last word of the first sentence was "ignorance". I was just reacting. By the end she sounded exactly like me. Can you tell us who she is?
In fact, there are lots of Chinese companies that are moving out of China She also pointed that out. I recently bought three products from a Chinese company (which by the way did not go by a Chinese name). Two were made in Vietnam. When I looked at the company website, I found that they were even opening a plant in the US. I expect that this is a private company. Besides getting away from China's issues, the owners can also get their wealth out of the country. This would be a powerful motivation.
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