Is China actually bankrupt?

Discussion in 'Economics' started by bearice, Mar 15, 2010.

  1. LOL - where did you pull that bs number from?
     
    #31     Mar 16, 2010
  2. between 06 and 08 Chinese cards went from ~10 million to over 140 million: you think their problems are getting worse or better? That's a 1200% increase in 2 years. You are naive if you think that the problems those 10 million had are not going to scale.

    "Accounts overdue by six months or more accounted for 3% of total outstanding credit-card debt at the end of March, a 60-basis-point rise from a year earlier, the China Daily cited the PBOC as saying in a report dated Tuesday. "

    "The regulator's admonition followed the disclosure by the People's Bank of China that 4.97 billion yuan of credit card payments were at least 60 days late in the first six months of 2009, a jump of 133.1 percent from a year earlier. "

    "About 1.9 billion credit cards are believed to have been issued in China since 1985. "

    In a country where a sizable amount of the population doesn't have electricity these are just the infancy of the problems western countries have dealt with over the past 100 years. China can either learn from our mistakes or repeat them.



    I have no issue with China at all, so correct yourself. I do, however, see the writing on the wall. China can afford to make cheaper products becuase of the lack of quality control, labor regulation, etc; there is no denying it. As China's advantages - cheaper toxic materials, sub-standard working conditions - start to catch-up to the 1st world economies their costs will increase, making their product less attractive. You forget all too easily that most of those foreign products we American's buy are engineered and designed by US companies in the US - we just outsource the grunt work.


     
    #32     Mar 16, 2010
  3. 1) the numbers you cite are minuscule in comparison to outstanding balances on US cards and late payments. Everybody in China who has a credit card has electricity at home, air conditioners in every room, running and sanitized water. (as an aside, Chinese banks employ a full scale credit scoring system which Japanese banks still dont manage up to today). Add all first and second tier inhabitants together and you get your 140 million cards. Now: Show me a single first or second tier city that does not offer apartments that rival high priced housing in HK or Singapore. My point is, most look at some shocking environmentalist website and incorrectly deduce this applies to all of China. I would claim, China is far more advanced in its first and second tier cities than 95% Americans could ever imagine or believe. All this I attribute to horrible reporting and news research. The rest of China is understandably behind and will provide Chinese businesses with ample demand for decades to come. Lets be fair, when we talk about the US we imagine NYC, SF, Chicago, not some of the shit holes in Alabama, Mississippi, South Dakota, and what have you that nobody ever wants to go or even talk about.

    2) " You forget all too easily that most of those foreign products we American's buy are engineered and designed by US companies in the US - we just outsource the grunt work. "

    -> How lucky that what makes the big bucks is to perform that "grunt work" and improve on it. Who cares in the end who invented it, or do you know who came up with LEDs, solar panels....? Look at the example of Qualcomm, they sat on their mobile technology, licensed it and what is left of this company. The real powerhouses are China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom. I could continue with an endless list but I guess you get the point.

    I dont try to declare China the next paradise but fact is it has become an economic powerhouse much faster than any western power ever imagined and in fact I would argue, given its power and influence over world economics the Chinese are very silent about political demands on the world stage. Would the US be in the same situation then it would have already asked all its servants to bow down and show their gratitude and loyalty. The time is over, no more cold wars to win, no more hamburgers to invent. I suggest the US, as well as the rest, really start to reinvent themselves and find a new edge otherwise it can get a lot nastier than it already is, economically speaking.

    China is what it is with its good and bad points, but one thing it is for sure not is that it is close to bankruptcy, that is simply hilarious to assume.

     
    #33     Mar 16, 2010
  4. The grunt work does not make the big bucks and if you believe that come cut my grass. If it did, with the amount of production china does, they would currently be the largest economy, and they are not.(regardless of their growth) As the Chinese production industry matures with regulations, qa, etc. I fully expect the volume of work they do to decline as it becomes cost-prohibitive to do business with them. And as for who cares who invented it? The inventors do, more specifically, the companies representing them. China can only screw over/steal from a company so many times before they stop doing business over there.

    I agree China is an economic powerhouse and has grown quickly, but the fact remains they are immature and are having similar issues that we solved 50 years ago, only on a much larger scale. You cannot say how big and expansive their positive growth is without acknowledging that the negatives scale just the same.


    edit: i wanted to add a brief story I heard about a US bank that did some business with a Chinese bank. The China bank purchased some option contracts from the US bank. The trade went against the Chinese bank and because of the amount of the bad-bet, the Chinese govt. busted the contracts, something to the affect of the China bank wasn't responsible because the loss was so large they figured something was wrong with the deal. No matter the China bank made a bad call, didn't perform complete due-diligence, etc. - the govt simply said they didn't have to pay. The loss was over a billion, though not much more.

    If that's an example of how business is done over in China no one will do business with them.

     
    #34     Mar 16, 2010
  5. Why do you keep insisting on comparing China with the USA? And telling us how bad the USA is? When it has absolutely no relevance to the thread topic of "Is China actually bankrupt?".
     
    #35     Mar 16, 2010
  6. Not 100% correct, as it was changed under Gorbachev to start allowing limited degrees of private ownership and kept growing. What you see in China today is that system evolved into a sweatshop economy.

    However, there is no constitution and no real rights. Do not fool yourself. The mistake all you rah-rah China proponents keep making is treating it like a capitalist nation, which it is not.
     
    #36     Mar 16, 2010
  7. Do you even know how eminent domain gets used by federal, state or local government? It's nowhere near a seize & grab operation, it's actually a long process that can be shut down and cannot succeed versus heavy opposition of the community. Additionally, the government has to pay you market value, which most of the time is a fair price. I bet quite a number of RE investors would love to be a victim of eminent domain right now.

    So consider that versus what they can do in China, which is show up, tell you to get out or get shot.
     
    #37     Mar 16, 2010
  8. A 70-year-old Chinese grandmother in the central province of Hubei was beaten and buried alive by property developers eager to get their hands on her land.

    Wang Cuyun was attempting to prevent a demolition team from knocking down her house when she was allegedly beaten by a worker with a wooden stick and then pushed into a ditch that had been dug around the property.

    A bulldozer then covered Mrs Wang with earth, burying her alive. By the time her relatives dug her up, she was dead. The incident occurred last Wednesday in Maodian village in Huangpi district.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...anny-buried-alive-by-property-developers.html

    Old shool.
     
    #38     Mar 16, 2010
  9. except in China, the basic punishment seems to be the death penalty for everything...

    And there are 1.3 billion people who are happy and feel it their duty to turn in "corrupt" people.
     
    #39     Mar 16, 2010
  10. achilles28

    achilles28

    The Communist Chinese are power mad. It's laughable to think they'll nationalize private wealth and bankrupt the Country to reap a few trillion. Cut off their nose to spite their face !

    Plus, there's 1 Trillion US in FDI that's gone into China. But I guess all those fools that opened factories in China made a "suckers bet" too, huh???
     
    #40     Mar 16, 2010