China bubble getting ready to bust!

[BAllen]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17390729

They have many empty cities with no one living in them.

[Zippyjuan]

Their "labor cost" advantage is shrinking. They used to be able to bring thousands to their cities who would be willing to take any job for whatever the jobs paid. Now they are becoming more demanding both in the type of jobs they are willing to do as well as the pay they are willing to accept to do them. They are starting to face labor shortages in some areas and rising wages they have to pay to attract labor. Some industries are actually leaving China in search of cheaper labor- to places like Vietnam.

[BAllen]

The problem is that, like here, they are propping the housing market up. Some places, 70%, despite the empty cities that could be put on the open market, to drive down housing to affordable levels.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ely-empty.html

[Steven Douglas]

The problem is that, like here, they are propping the housing market up. Some places, 70%, despite the empty cities that could be put on the open market, to drive down housing to affordable levels.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ely-empty.html

Unlike here, when there's real financial trouble, civil unrest can get truly ugly in ways that doesn't ever happen here. There's a steady history of that in China, and a reason why a common "how do you do" greeting there is "Have you eaten yet?" A long, long fuse of longsuffering and patience eventually becomes Off With Their Fucking Heads time when actual mortality, and not just 'survival', is threatened. And nobody knows that better than the Chinese government. But...not to worry, as they're trying to follow their own version of our model. And look at us! If it wasn't for that whole Reserve Currency Petrodollar thingy, and the fact that the RMB is so internal-only and highly controlled, they'd be able to export their inflation as well.

I lived in a "small" city of nearly 6 million people, up from 1 million in 1990 as a couple of decades of populations steadily abandoned the more rural farming areas and poured in from all the poorer provinces looking for any opportunities they could find. There are more than 20 million people living in Shanghai alone (it's really quite something to see in person). Anyone not from Shanghai is treated as a foreigner, and taxed at a fairly heavy rate as an outsider...which pushes them outward, to the steadily growing lower rent outskirts. When that bubble pops, it implodes before it explodes, underscoring one of the biggest fundamental problems with wealth centralization.

Their problem is not going to be housing. That's only truly scarce in the inner cities--where all the money is. Their problem is going to be normal access to food, not to mention the means for everyone to pay for it, which is already hanging from a thread. And the Chinese have no problem with price fixing, despite the massive shortages that come as a result, because those fundamentals have nothing to do with politics, or edicts from anyone, regardless how mighty and powerful.

[Acala]

Unlike here, when there's real financial trouble, civil unrest can get truly ugly in ways that doesn't ever happen here. There's a steady history of that in China, and a reason why a common "how do you do" greeting there is "Have you eaten yet?" A long, long fuse of longsuffering and patience eventually becomes Off With Their Fucking Heads time when actual mortality, and not just 'survival', is threatened. And nobody knows that better than the Chinese government. But...not to worry, as they're trying to follow their own version of our model. And look at us! If it wasn't for that whole Reserve Currency Petrodollar thingy, and the fact that the RMB is so internal-only and highly controlled, they'd be able to export their inflation as well.

I lived in a "small" city of nearly 6 million people, up from 1 million in 1990 as a couple of decades of populations steadily abandoned the more rural farming areas and poured in from all the poorer provinces looking for any opportunities they could find. There are more than 20 million people living in Shanghai alone (it's really quite something to see in person). Anyone not from Shanghai is treated as a foreigner, and taxed at a fairly heavy rate as an outsider...which pushes them outward, to the steadily growing lower rent outskirts. When that bubble pops, it implodes before it explodes, underscoring one of the biggest fundamental problems with wealth centralization.

Their problem is not going to be housing. That's only truly scarce in the inner cities--where all the money is. Their problem is going to be normal access to food, not to mention the means for everyone to pay for it, which is already hanging from a thread. And the Chinese have no problem with price fixing, despite the massive shortages that come as a result, because those fundamentals have nothing to do with politics, or edicts from anyone, regardless how mighty and powerful.

Are you saying that there are iron laws of economics that cannot be overruled by government?

[RabbitMan]

I recall seeing something in 2010-1 about the empty cities on BBC. And that article is from March. What makes you think it is getting ready to bust in the very near future?

[Tpoints]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17390729

They have many empty cities with no one living in them.

unlike us, right?

[dannno]

Their "labor cost" advantage is shrinking. They used to be able to bring thousands to their cities who would be willing to take any job for whatever the jobs paid. Now they are becoming more demanding both in the type of jobs they are willing to do as well as the pay they are willing to accept to do them.

Wait, they did that on their own?? I thought that was the government's job

[Tpoints]

Wait, they did that on their own?? I thought that was the government's job

Nobody ever claims it is the government's job to demand better pay or better work conditions, nobody wants bad pay or bad working conditions, it's just whether people believe government should be involved in enforcing such demands. I have not seen one country where government forces workers to be treated better than workers want themselves as a norm (I'm sure there's always weird exceptions).

[KrokHead]

That dumbass city (Ordos) has been empty for years. Maybe they are waiting for Shoeless Joe, Ty Cobb, and their friends to pop out of the cornfields and populate this ghost city.