ah.. fuck.. the china solar plays are gonna fly in the morning. damn, it probably be up 10 points in the morning.
Right now, there's quite a disparity. But depending on which article you read and who's figures you accept, the date for parity between US and China GDP is as soon as 2009. What GDP fails to address is the fact that US consumers love to spend and hate to save. That artificially inflates our GDP... as a large chunk of that spending we're doing is going right to other nations, particularly China. On the other hand, the Chinese, who love to save, do not see that reflected in their GDP. From my understanding, the 'average' Chinese only makes around $1500 dollars a year, adjusted to US dollars. NOTHING about a GDP however tells you about the comparable standard of living for individuals. Translated into RMB, $1500 US dollars is approx 12,000 RMB. In China, I was told the average rent was around 200 RMB a month. Which would be 2400 RMB a year. What ratio do you pay of your income for your housing? You can stuff your face at a local restaurant in China for 5 RMB. That's $.75 US roughly. Can you get a burger at McDonalds for $.75, let alone a full meal with meat, vegetables, and starch? Lets not talk about the richest in the US vs the richest in China and the costs, lets talk about 'average'. The 'average' American makes $46,000 a year per the last complete US census, 2005. Most mortgage brokers would say that a rule of thumb is that you should spend no more on housing than 25% of your gross income. That would mean the 'average' household in the US would have $12000 average to spend on a place to live. Dunno where you live, but $1000 a month will get you a 1 bedroom or studio apartment in large US cities, or you can live in a poor suburb where you would have to pay to commute. This is for a 'typical' US FAMILY, not individual, FAMILY. I don't know what kind of sad housing you can get for $1000 a month, around here, that would be a trailer 40 miles from town? Something like that. From a cost of living standpoint, the average Chinese may already be better off than we are here, right now, GDP notwithstanding. If they indeed catch up to us in GDP by 2009, they will likely be richer than us in quality of life, in every measure you can think of. Further, just a few years ago, we took a drive to the area around Lake Ochechobee in the heart of Florida. In the USA, there were places with no running water, let alone electricity. HOMES that used outhouses in 2005 in the USA, in one of the wealthiest states in the USA. Not Montana or South Dakota, but Florida. How's that for poor? As for homeless in the USA all having shelters and benefits, I don't claim to know everything about homeless, but surely everyone has seen news and TV documentaries about homeless CHILDREN in the US? Entire families that live in the streets? There apparently are not enough shelters to house them all, because I can't imagine women refusing to take their children to a shelter. This is one of my pet peeves. There's all this awareness of the poverty in Africa, south American, Asia, and everyone just ignores the helpless in our own backyards because we are busy putting on the 'face' for the rest of the world. We have programs to feed all those people in other nations, but turn a blind eye to the problems we have to step over on our way to work or shopping. Anyway, we've really strayed from the topic, which was the Shanghai exchange. It's not the impoverished in either China or the US that are playing the markets, and we all know that.