Comments by "Bob" (@bobs_toys) on "Zeihan on Geopolitics" channel.

  1. I grew up in the shadow of the Canadian war. Blame Canada. Blame Canada.
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  2. ​ serriajohn but how much of that is just wasted effort, like these houses? If I spend all my money on firecrackers and blow them up, I'm increasing gdp.
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  3. ​ serriajohn what people? Your population is declining. If there are fewer people, you don't need as many homes. And the current number isn't enough to fill them. Also, I was hearing that same line over a decade ago. And here we are.
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  4. I was there a few weeks ago.
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  5. There's also this cultural thing where elderly Chinese really expect to be cared for. Western elderly tend to make a point of trying to be independent. It's like a control thing. My wife was amazed at our elderly when she first came to Australia. My grandfather was hero worshipped for being able to take care of himself in his 80's. Then she met another relative in new Zealand who looked after herself until she was over 100. By contrast, her mother has been playing up diabetes I'm not really convinced she has for decades. My mother who's a bit older just joined us on a three week trip through Vietnam.
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  6. ​ @elrichvolshebnik you should try going to the PRC. I've been going there for twenty years. Those are not words I'd ever use to describe them. My Chinese wife is even further away from trusting them than I am.
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  7. Saigon and HCMC are interchangeable. It's not a Leningrad St Petersberg thing. There don't seem to be political connotations in the choice. Which surprised me.
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  8. Not at this speed, it isn't.
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  9.  @andresmith2771  they've gone down about fifty percent, then gone up five percent. That five percent represents the pent up demand from the pandemic era, plus the child being born in a lucky year. It's not nearly enough. Even if it were sustained for the next decade, it wouldn't be nearly enough. It'll also take two decades for that five percent to be useful. In the next decade alone, they've got a roughly 300m worker shortfall from what's required to maintain the current 2:1 worker to dependent ratio. (down from about 3:1 in 2011)
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  10.  @mmwosu  I've tagged him several times in another instance of him asking for proof. He's a coward who runs away.
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  11. They did. The French refused.
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  12.  @EireHammer  don't call me friend, buddy!
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  13.  serriajohn  cars are a consumable. They get used, get old and need to be replaced. They're not investments any more than your shoes are. Also, they don't own five at once. A good house should last decades or a century. Also, unless you're in your 20's you don't put your life savings into a car. And they're much, much cheaper to produce. Absolutely none of this should have needed to be pointed out.
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  14. ​ @loot6 I was in Hong Kong during the protests and national security law implementation. So I'll echo what you said. I've got to go to see family later in the year. I really don't want to. When it goes bad, it'll go bad fast.
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  15. There's a reason this hasn't been done.
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  16.  serriajohn  financial markets allocate resources to where they'll be most effectively used. Houses that won't be used are just a waste.
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  17. So for them, who takes care of the elderly? And who takes care of the people who take care of the elderly?
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  18.  @mmwosu  the pretending he's two different peopleis sad. Anyway: to spread the source he was given and ran away from far and wide: @jacksmith6015 9.5 million births last year. 17.8 million in 2017. From the global times, taken from the national bureau of statistics. "There has been a declining curve of yearly new births in China– 17.86 million, 17.23 million, 15.23 million and 14.65 million in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 respectively, according to data released by the NBS." "China's population fell by 850,000 in 2022 from the previous year, the National Statistics Bureau (NBS) said in February. The number of births was 9.56 million last year, or 6.77 per 1,000 people, data from the bureau showed."
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  19. So in 2029 they'll have what TSMC had in 2020. Is that meant to be impressive?
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  20.  @ChrizzeeB  and those numbers as a whole are extremely optimistic when you look at them year by year.
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  21. They kicked the arse of the PLA as well
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  22. 3.5 percent is just above the ideal band.
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  23. I'm guessing you've forgotten about the last few years. For a start.
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  24. If that's the big thing going on in the PRC that God has a problem with, his priorities are seriously screwed up.
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  25. The truth is worse
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  26.  @gbxgbxgbx  plus the supply line that's 4000km to 5500km Over rail. In some of the coldest places in the wield. And ratios of workers to dependents. If that's too bad (which it's going towards rapidly) the important thing isn't the size of the population
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  27. Not even close. You can check the demographic pyramid on each. The USA has remained relatively consistent on the number of people within each age range. The PRC has had large bubbles with a massive collapse in the youngest parts. The USA (which can attract immigrants) has a birthrate of 12 per thousand. Down from 15 per thousand in 1990. The PRC is on 6.77 per thousand. Down from roughly 13 per thousand in 2017.
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  28.  @SomeCanine  how long do you think that'll last with the PRC's collapse in birthrates? I'll put it this way. In 2000, the PRC had a median age of 28.9 years In 2020 it was 37.4 years. 8.5 years in absolute terms, or a 29 percent increase. In the US, in 2000 the median age was 35.3 years. In 2020 is was 38.8 years. Or a 3.5 year increase. Or a 10 percent increase. And things in the PRC have accelerated massively in the last five years. Plus (again) the USA can attract immigrants to dampen the effect. The PRC just can't.
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  29. What do you think happens when people stop having children en masse?
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  30.  @blitzen2009  please name three western countries that have had a greater than 40 percent decline in births per year over five years and dates in which this happened. The PRC has gone from 17.8 million births in 2017 to 9.56 million last year, according to official numbers.
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  31. So you don't understand ratios. That's fine. You're not alone. It's a prerequisite for saying this is fine. And please name three western countries that have had a greater than 40 percent decline in births per year in five years. Also list when this actually happened.
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  32. The problem is this is decreasing in exactly the way you don't want it to. Thanos did it completely randomly. This is biased towards getting rid of producers and future producers while keeping people who will never produce again.
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  33. ​ @falcor200  this sounds like yet another development that's right around the corner and is going to give Russia victory. It feels like we get one of those a month.
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  34. ​ @JonySmith-bb4gx you've claimed to be from new Jersey, Arkansas and Florida. All in your second language English.
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  35.  serriajohn  and recovers. Badly run companies disappear, new ones rise to take their place, and if a government's believed to have mishandled the economy it's peacefully voted out to give someone fresh a try. If you think the housing market in the PRC is going to recover for any reason other than terrible construction quality of what's currently there, you need to use a water purifier. As for peacefully voting out the govt to give someone else a try, well...
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  36.  serriajohn  except recent events have clearly shown it's not a safe procedure.
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  37.  serriajohn ...... The developers are collapsing.... They're not finishing the houses.
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  38. So what do you think happens to a country when its future workers simply weren't born (and its former workers will continue to consume resources for decades)?
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  39. Theoretical babies grow into theoretical workers.
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  40. Your name is suitable for someone with this inability to understand ratios.
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  41. No. For two reasons. First, they just don't have that much. Second, they're treasury bonds. You can't call them in, all you can do is not buy more when they mature, which is on a predetermined date that can be anything from six months from now to multiple decades. You can sell them, sure, but all you're doing then is giving the buying country a bargain.
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  42. ​ @JoshDillon the result of the CCP depiction they needed as many degrees as possible. Then bring unable to use them
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  43. The question is time-scale and the scale of the problem. Taking Japan as an example, it's a wealthy country (3x the PRC's gdp per capita) with a much smaller population and a birthrate that's declining at a much, much slower rate (what took Japan 32 years took the PRC 3 years. I'm not exaggerating) So will it eventually? Yes. As technology matures, becomes more affordable, and most importantly, doesn't need someone with a decade plus experience in a highly specialised field to implement and maintain. Will it be feasible in the time required for a country this big and this poor (per capita is what's important here)? I wouldn't bet on it. It'll be a very long time before Chinese outside of the tier 1 cities benefit from it. Time they don't have. Particularly considering China's thing is still predominantly manufacturing. Which leaves the question of: if machines can do it, why do it in the PRC? This is all part of why there was a race to get rich before they got old. That race has been lost.
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  44. ​​​ jacksmith6015 re you are, buddy. Sure you are. If true, why did you give up your PRC citizenship?
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  45. Easy to answer, but won't answer. And what didn't I answer, exactly? Source?
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  46.  jacksmith6015  if you had a good answer, you'd have chosen to answer 😂
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  47. ​ @douglassun8456 this. As soon as you leave the sorts of areas foreigners go, things degrade very quickly. I noticed years ago that most things are almost brand new or falling apart. There's very little in between.
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  48. It's past 11pm
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  49. It's not whether they're screwed, but it's the amazing variety of self inflicted ways they're screwed that always amazes me.
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  50. Basically.
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