Chinese Economics Thread

Brumby said:

I am not sure why we are spending inordinate effort on an off-topic.

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Well I'm kind of hoping a mod will take these last few posts and put them into a dedicated thread about social research methods, because I think it's a worthwhile topic.

If you take a 50 year satisfaction survey, I am sure you will find very favourable results because the base line is off the Cultural revolution/Great leap era where the amount of deaths and suffering was on the scale of WW2. The issue is not about whether China has made economic progress or whether the living state has improved or not.

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You're right, the issue is exactly about whether the living state has improved or not -- that is part of the original point that Vincent was making regarding people's livelihoods and satisfaction... however it is about whether the living state has improved from 30 years ago to now.
The way I'm reading it, Vincent's original point fundamentally revolves around the principle that he was talking about the changes China has gone through over the last 30 years, and the degree of change in satisfaction and living conditions that has occurred from then to now.

If you want to argue that such a measure over 30 years is not worthwhile or whatever, then that is fine, however at the same time the Gallup poll you're posting most definitely is not a legitimate counter piece of evidence for the point Vincent was making, because they're talking about fundamentally different things.

Vincent's attempt is simply off-topic when the discourse is about aging demographics and fiscal policies or lack of to a future problem.

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I don't disagree that this topic about satisfaction and what not are off topic... but at the same time, the Gallup polls you used are not reflective of the original point which Vincent was trying to make.

Bltizo said:

You're right, the issue is exactly about whether the living state has improved or not -- that is part of the original point that Vincent was making regarding people's livelihoods and satisfaction... however it is about whether the living state has improved from 30 years ago to now.
The way I'm reading it, Vincent's original point fundamentally revolves around the principle that he was talking about the changes China has gone through over the last 30 years, and the degree of change in satisfaction and living conditions that has occurred from then to now.

If you want to argue that such a measure over 30 years is not worthwhile or whatever, then that is fine, however at the same time the Gallup poll you're posting most definitely is not a legitimate counter piece of evidence for the point Vincent was making, because they're talking about fundamentally different things.

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I have two problems with your reasoning.
Firstly Vincent was off topic because it is not about living state improvement be it whether it is 30 years or less. Secondly Vincent is speaking from personal experience. You previously reminded me of data points and statistically it would barely register. In contrast I am giving you professionally conducted surveys over 9 comparative years. That might not meet the 30 year period span but it would be difficult to argue that it is not more representative. As to your point that it is not similar, tell me what comparative surveys are ever similar?

Brumby said:

I have two problems with your reasoning.
Firstly Vincent was off topic because it is not about living state improvement be it whether it is 30 years or less. Secondly Vincent is speaking from personal experience. You previously reminded me of data points and statistically it would barely register. In contrast I am giving you professionally conducted surveys over 9 comparative years. That might not meet the 30 year period span but it would be difficult to argue that it is not more representative. As to your point that it is not similar, tell me what comparative surveys are ever similar?

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Regarding problem one: off topic, yet you're still willing to discuss it. I have no issue with that. Vincent being off topic originally is not giving anyone any brownie points here.

Regarding problem two, I will subdivide into two parts:
-part one, personal experience and data points: yes you can definitely argue that Vincent's personal expereinces are not a sufficient representative sample to support his overall claim. I would have no issue if you had only used this path as a counter for his claim.
-part two, using a the Gallup survey: the professionalism and the nine year history of the survey unfortunately is still insufficient for using it as a means of arguing against Vincent's claim, because Vincent's claim is fundamentally different to what the survey was measuring. The similarity of the content of the survey vs the content of Vincent's claim is of course very important if you are seeking to use the results of the survey to disqualify the claim of the other.

In other words, if you'd only used part one of problem two as a means of arguing against Vincent's claim then I would have no problem with it. But using the results of a survey which was fundamentally asking a different question to the content that Vincent was claiming, means the results of the survey does provide evidence to support your position, in my view.

Bltizo said:

In other words, if you'd only used part one of problem two as a means of arguing against Vincent's claim then I would have no problem with it. But using the results of a survey which was fundamentally asking a different question to the content that Vincent was claiming, means the results of the survey does provide evidence to support your position, in my view.

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Ok so let's look at Vincent's claim because that is the source of the contention.

vincent said:

I can tell you from my experience, people in China don't live in fear. They are annoyed with the corruption and inequality, but they are also enjoying the fruit of their labour. Most of my ex-coworkers are doing quite well. People I know have multiple houses and take vacations all over the world. They are far richer than I am. The Chinese government has done a pretty good job with the economy in the past 30 years and I'm confident they will continue to do so in the future.

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Effectively Vincent is claiming two things. The first claim relates to collectively in my view degree of satisfaction pertaining to personal security, lifestyle and economic interest. The first claim seems to imply a moderate to high degree of satisfaction. The second claim is the CCP's economic performance over a 30 year span.


My rebuttal is that the satisfaction survey shows a falling off from a peak. We don't know the components of the living standard but that doesn't mean it is necessarily off base from the nature of Vincent's claims.

The early years, a humble beginning.



She stood up and prevails.
Keep on walking, proud and tall.

Brumby said:

Ok so let's look at Vincent's claim because that is the source of the contention.


Effectively Vincent is claiming two things. The first claim relates to collectively in my view degree of satisfaction pertaining to personal security, lifestyle and economic interest. The first claim seems to imply a moderate to high degree of satisfaction. The second claim is the CCP's economic performance over a 30 year span.

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My rebuttal is that the satisfaction survey shows a falling off from a peak. We don't know the components of the living standard but that doesn't mean it is necessarily off base from the nature of Vincent's claims.

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You can make that argument if you want (underlined), and that particular argument could indeed use the Gallup chart as a form of evidence. The argument you're making here is one of projecting into the future, and we'd need a few more consistent graph readings showing decreases over the next few years to project a long term trend -- but the use of the Gallup poll in this case is at least logically sound.

However the argument you are making (which I underlined) is a completely separate argument to the one which Vincent was making, which was comparing the change of past satisfaction from 30 years ago to current satisfaction today. In other words, Vincent is talking about the change from 30 years ago to now, and you're talking about the change from now (or the recent past) to the future. In regards to the Gallup poll, it is only able to be logically applied for your argument, not Vincent's.

Therefore, I will repeat again, that using the Gallup poll to counter Vincent's argument does not add anything to your counter position.

Bltizo said:

However the argument you are making (which I underlined) is a completely separate argument to the one which Vincent was making, which was comparing the change of past satisfaction from 30 years ago to current satisfaction today. In other words, Vincent is talking about the change from 30 years ago to now, and you're talking about the change from now (or the recent past) to the future. In regards to the Gallup poll, it is only able to be logically applied for your argument, not Vincent's.

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I agree that Vincent was referring to a snapshot in time i.e. presently. However I fail to understand why you are insisting that in contrast (in my rebuttal to Vincent) that I was referring to a future state. Falling off from peak to present (as per Gallup) is not a future state conversation. You need to decouple the two conversations i.e. that with Vincent and that of aging population and the future state as they are clearly different conversations.

Brumby said:

I agree that Vincent was referring to a snapshot in time i.e. presently.

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Wait, what? I never said that Vincent was referring to the present.
I was saying that Vincent was referring to 30 years, that is to say the change from 30 years ago to now.

However I fail to understand why you are insisting that in contrast (in my rebuttal to Vincent) that I was referring to a future state. You need to decouple the two conversations i.e. with Vincent and that of aging population and the future state as they are clearly different conversations.

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First of all, I want to repeat that I believe Vincent's statement is not referring to the state of living conditions/satisfacation etc of the "present", but rather the change in living conditions from 30 years ago, to the present. In other words, I view his statement as one of the change in conditions/satisfacations which had occurred from 30 years ago to now.
Going back to the Gallup poll, it is measuring the sentiments of the respondents to their present situation at the time of response, which is asking a different question to what Vincent was describing.
That is why I see the Gallup poll's results as fundamentally being irrelevant to trying to counter Vincent's position.

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As for your position...
You wrote in your last post "My rebuttal is that the satisfaction survey shows a falling off from a peak". The problem with the phrasing of this statement, is that we don't have enough data points to know if a peak had already been reached, nor do we know if the fall is part of a long term trend or a short term fluctuation. Putting it simply, the phrase "falling off from a peak" at present has insufficient data points to make that statement.

If you had written something along the lines of "The Gallup survey showed that in 2015 there was a drop in proportion of the population who felt like their standards of living were improving, compared to 2014," then that would be a far more accurate statement which does not make any impositions upon the unknown future to make the statement be logically sound.

Furthermore, no matter which variant of this argument is made, it is still a completely separate one to Vincent's position.

Putting it into plain words:
I see Vincent's argument as this: "there has been a meaningful increase in living standards/satisfaction/etc from 1986 to 2016".
OTOH, your position based on the results of the Gallup poll, is something like this: "in the last few years, the increase in living standards per year may be dropping from its peak growth".

I think that makes it quite clear what the differences between Vincent's position and your position is.
You can say all you want about how the proportion of people satisfied with an increase in living standards may be decreasing in the last two or so years using the Gallup poll, but that doesn't provide evidence against nor negate Vincent's argument that there was still an increase in living standards and satisfaction from 30 years ago to now.

Let's use a more extreme example: let's pretend China's living standards fall to hell in 2017, but that would still not negate the Vincent's argument that between 1986 and 2016 there was an increase in living standards and satisfaction.

Now, I'm not here to say how true Vincent's argument is -- I'm only trying to emphasize that the Gallup poll and your counter argument is arguing against a completely different thing to what Vincent is arguing for.

Despite popular misconception of China's over-investment, China still has to go a long way to catch up in capital formation, ie the stuff that last longer than a year, to improve her productivity, ie how much a person can produce in an hour. A train can carry more stuff than a bicycle, that kind of stuff. Both Solow residual and capital formation together with her saving function can take China a long long way up the productivity ladder.

Using a chained index for US, starting from 70's to today, gross capital formation for US is well over USD 60 trillions. Current dollar terms would be way more than that number. That's the stuff that will keep US as the top dog for a long time. That was the telephone booth in the middle of nowhere a Japanese diplomat saw before WWII and advised his government there was no chance for Japan to win a war with that country. That's capital formation.

Related to the future Chinese economic outlook and demographic trends, have a look at the following stat breakdowns and compare China with the US today (note the difference in Agriculture sector):

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The current Chinese population requires a significant labor force dedicated to the Agricultural sector. Many times that of the US and not at all in proportion to their difference in size. Now this is partially a legacy from the Agrarian to Manufacturing Economy transition but more so a necessity of the sheer size of the population and an indicator that implementation of modern farming efficiencies is still a work in progress.

You can see the trend though, as China heads towards a developed nation model like the US. The Agricultural work force will continue to be scaled back and a relative decline in the overall population/workforce will only support that (less need for so many farmers).

So if China continues on with efforts to enhance education and bring modern jobs to the interior of the country (and these are national policies of the CPC talked about in Chinese Media) I don't see a crisis in the offing as some do. I think this *could* be an example where centralized authoritarian government has its benefits in managing such large scale transitions in a nation. We'll see.

On the flip side however, look at India as an example with the opposite problem. Continued population growth to my mind is not at all advantageous for a country that's infrastructure and social services are already beyond strained. Poverty is high and the population continues to grow while the Agrarian Sector is barely enough to meet the current demographics. Social and financial stability becomes at risk when the people demand better services and living conditions. As an example India is working through a 'One Rank One Pension' scheme to equalize pay for all service members, but the projected cost of this program is arguably unaffordable - but it's something being demanded by the masses. A growing population is not always a benefit; balance is key.

Those are just my thoughts, but I figured the stats would help the discussion along.