Chinese Economics Thread

Brumby

Major
Differential wealth growth leading to wealth inequality I think is a much more accurate term than "wealth transfer," let's put it that way.
Sorry can't agree on your descriptive statement because of the causative nature leading to the results. A differential wealth growth leading to wealth inequality is a natural outcome driven by economic policies that are non discriminating and one that offers a level playing field so that the resulting wealth inequality is a result of varying degrees of effort applied and/or are circumstance related. A wealth transfer is an artificial orchestrated policy that doesn't present the same economic opportunities across the board but access is limited to a chosen section of the population and in our discussion that means members of the CCP and/or those that are politically connected.

And just for the record, I also do believe that there must be a statistically significant proportion of the middle and upper class who are CCP members and have achieved wealth through abuse of power via their positions.
The issue is not necessarily related to corruption but simply unequal access opportunities to the economic pie.

The difference is that I'm willing to accept that I can't make anything near even a half-hearted guess as to what proportion of the current middle and upper class achieved their status via those means, because I lack even the beginning of the inkling of information to go about doing so... while you seemed to have been far more confident in your assertions and if it weren't called out by others you would've almost seem to have tried to pass off those claims as accepted and documented fact.

You are accusing me of a practice that yourself is engendering with your comments. Please refer to my original post and the words that I used like "consider", "alternate story" and the case for my reasoning which I laid out which is simply deductive reasoning. Did I used facts or infer that my claims are facts. Do we have a double standard here?
 

Brumby

Major
You mean to tell me that the CPC uplifting of 800 million of it's own people out of poverty is a bad thing when their own 1%ers are doing a far better job than the 1%ers in America?o_O:rolleyes:

Did I make any suggestions that wealth growth is a bad thing?
 

AssassinsMace

Lieutenant General
But you did say So what's wrong with the way the CPC doing?

That side believes crimes aren't determined by the act one commits. Crimes are determined by two factors. Who commits the act and who's the victim of that act? That's why in one instance it's wrong when China does it but not wrong when someone else does it. The argument is China's not communist enough all of the sudden.
 

Equation

Lieutenant General
That side believes crimes aren't determined by the act one commits. Crimes are determined by two factors. Who commits the act and who's the victim of that act? That's why in one instance it's wrong when China does it but not wrong when someone else does it. The argument is China's not communist enough all of the sudden.

Exactly, so 800 million victims rising out of poverty and a continuing growth of middle class victims are resulted from the "crimes" done by the CPC. Heck many here in the US would LOVE to be that growing middle class "victim".:D;)
 

Equation

Lieutenant General
If you think that discrimination (unequal access), forced distribution, and abuse of authority is not wrong ethically and legally, then it is not a problem.

And if you think China is the only one guilty of it than you wrong. You are just trying to downplay my earlier post with such weak and cheap cliche statements. C'mon admit it the CPC are doing a far better job economically than whatever inept government or group you are rooting for.
 

Blitzo

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Sorry can't agree on your descriptive statement because of the causative nature leading to the results. A differential wealth growth leading to wealth inequality is a natural outcome driven by economic policies that are non discriminating and one that offers a level playing field so that the resulting wealth inequality is a result of varying degrees of effort applied and/or are circumstance related. A wealth transfer is an artificial orchestrated policy that doesn't present the same economic opportunities across the board but access is limited to a chosen section of the population and in our discussion that means members of the CCP and/or those that are politically connected.

No definition of "wealth transfer" exists, but I think asking any normal individual, they would perceive it as reappropriation and redistribution of existing wealth to move from one group to another. In other words, in wealth transfer, one group must lose wealth while another group gains it. [note, wealth transfer is a different word to wealth redistribution -- if you had used wealth redistribution then possibly this may not have been an issue... though again, wealth redistribution is typically used in a context of creating greater equality rather than inequality, so it might have created additional unnecessary confusion]

If you are using the term "wealth transfer" it in terms of different availability of economic opportunities leading to unequal growth between sectors of society, then that is a different term to my understanding of what you described.
In that case, I would still say that using the term "wealth transfer" adds unnecessary confusion to the points that you're trying to make, and that you are better off describing it as something like "rise of unequal socioeconomic opportunities". This is a matter of semantics so I won't belabour it.


The issue is not necessarily related to corruption but simply unequal access opportunities to the economic pie.

You are suggesting that unequal access to economic growth is occurring, with that unequal access being split between those who are part of the CCP or affiliated to the CCP, versus those who are not.
I think that would fall under the general understanding of corruption.


You are accusing me of a practice that yourself is engendering with your comments.

Um no, you were making a confident and complex claim with little to no evidence to back it up, while I was looking at your claim and saying "it might be possible, but we need more information".


Please refer to my original post and the words that I used like "consider", "alternate story" and the case for my reasoning which I laid out which is simply deductive reasoning. Did I used facts or infer that my claims are facts. Do we have a double standard here?

Fine, I will do a qualitative analysis of your original post, if that's what you're asking for. This takes me back to my psychology days.

#1 Before you pop the champagne it might be worthwhile considering a different read into the numbers.

Here, you do indeed use the word "consider," but it doesn't actually instill any doubt as to what you are about to say next, rather it is used in such a way so as to simply present an alternate view to equation's post. If anything, immense confidence is prevalent through this opening part of the post.

If you were to say "consider this different read into the numbers, which admittedly lacks any meaningful evidence to back it up but is worth pondering anyway..." then that would be a different matter.


#2 We are witnessing the biggest transfer of wealth in world history and that is from the general population of China to an elite sector of the economy and they are called members of the CCP.

This is a big, significant claim without without any doubt or acknowledgement of a lack evidence to support the claim. This part of the post begins with "we are witnessing," which suggests that you are assuming this phenomenon is a well documented one which everyone can bear witness to and is proven without a doubt to exist.
Needless to say, the fact that this supposed phenomenon is not well documented at all and that you bring little to no evidence to the table, and that it is being contested heavily right now between us, means the confident nature of this claim is at best misguided.


#3 Yes Communism is paying big time (literally) with Chinese capitalism.

This sentence further adds affirmation to the above claim. Now would have been a good part of the post to acknowledge that the claim did lack evidence and that it was based on your own speculation trying to bring various pieces of statistics together... but nope. Just "yes".


#4 It makes Wall Street pale in comparison. Who do you think are controlling all the state owned enterprises which is the driver of the Chinese economy?

Here, the rhetorical questions serve to demonstrate the supposed obvious answer, which is #2 part of the post.
Again, there is no acknowledgement of any doubt or lack of evidence surrounding the overall claim which is being made.


#5 Conversely, how is it that in one generation the Gini coefficient for China has gone backwards from being the most equal to the least in Asia?

This is probably the best supported (or least unsupported) part of your post, as you're at least using well documented evidence to try to support your claim, which is the well known rise in economic inequality in China. But, again, you do not consider any alternative scenarios as to why the Gini coefficient may have risen. The use of a rhetorical question also again seeks to demonstrate part #2 as the obvious answer to the question, yet no evidence is still in sight and no doubt is expressed to the increasingly difficult to defend position.


#6 In a rising tide, the elites took the major share (that is being generous in description) and the numbers is a testimony of that fact. Where are the 99 percenters? I guess protest carries risk in China.

And this helps to further wrap up and reinforce the point made in #2 with additional rhetorical questions and a lovely personal anecdote at the end which is based upon the assumption that the population must be stifling under such a degree of economic inequality imposed by the evil government but are too terrified to act.

So to answer your question, yes your original post was phrased in a way where the claims were passed off as obvious and as facts, and any reader would have interpreted your post as such.
If you'd used some phrases such as "it may be worth considering if this may be true," or "yes, there are no actual stats which demonstrate this, but it's probably worth thinking about" or even sprinkling a few "maybes" in there, then we wouldn't be having this conversation right now.
 
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Blitzo

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And if you think China is the only one guilty of it than you wrong. You are just trying to downplay my earlier post with such weak and cheap cliche statements. C'mon admit it the CPC are doing a far better job economically than whatever inept government or group you are rooting for.

@Brumby, just to show you I am being even keeled, this is also a statement which I would consider lacking in good evidence or logic, because one would have to judge China's economic performance versus another nation's economic performance, which is a difficult thing to truly objectively measure in one country, let alone comparing two.

There are actually many posts of various natures which I consider to be poor in judgement and I sometimes do call them out. Occasionally some of my own posts may also lack a word of doubt which I intended to put in, which makes it seem like I'm making a far more grand confident statement than I actually meant. I also acknowledge this.

But all this doesn't detract from the fact that your original post which was the root of this discussion, was also strongly confident and phrased in a way that seemed to portray your statements as fact to potential readers, despite being unsupported.
 
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