Chinese Economics Thread

solarz

Brigadier
The underlying issue of unaffordable housing is quite extreme in Hong Kong. The truth none of these protesters are willing to admit or mention is that capitalism is responsible for the predicament and the solution is for more socialist housing policies by the local government. Another inconvenient truth is that these young people are behaving like well-bottom-frogs limiting their lives to Hong Kong when Hong Kong is now part of China and they should explore the country for opportunities. As a matter of fact nothing is stopping them from exploring the world for opportunities either.

Unaffordable housing happens when there is a vibrant economy, but insufficient transport infrastructure, so people are forced to live in a small area.

AFAIK, infrastructure is an issue for the local HK government. If HKers want to alleviate housing, then they should build more housing in suburban areas and build public transportation to link those suburbs with city center.
 

Blackstone

Brigadier
Looks like more and more westerners are grudgingly coming to the same conclusion Nicolas Lardy did in his 2015 China economic study: China's official financial and economic numbers are relatively accurate, and have been so for a long time. Lardy also said China's Bureau of Statistics is staffed by highly competent professionals that collect and normalize (adjust) data for accuracy, often in difficult conditions.

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China has released its official figures for GDP growth and they come in precisely at expectations. We shouldn’t really pay all that much attention to this precisely because they did come in right at expectations. For meeting the plan is rather the thing we would expect in a country ruled by a Communist Party that claims the right to rule through the competence of its economic management. There’re a number of people out there who insist that China’s economic statistics don’t add up–and in some ways they’re entirely right. It’s not always obvious quite how the national numbers match up with the separately reported regional ones for example. Further, we see inconsistencies in a number of numbers. Things like energy consumption don’t seem to match growth numbers–that could be because large underlying changes in the structure of the economy are taking place rather than just its size but, well, not everyone is entirely convinced let us say.

But the report is that everything is exactly in line with
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:

China’s economy produced the goods again last quarter, growing at the same pace seen in the first half of the year.

According to China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the economy grew by 6.7% year-on-year in the September quarter, a figure that was in line with expectations.

It’s this little bit that has the
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:

China‘s economy expanded at a steady 6.7% in the third quarter and looks set to hit Beijing’s full-year target, fueled by stronger government spending, record bank lending, and a red-hot property market that are adding to its growing pile of debt.

The point being that the Communist Party really does derive a goodly portion of its self-perceived right to rule from the manner in which a good communist party can and should plan the economy. Thus there’s a certain expectation that economic growth will turn out to be, later in the year, about what the planners said it would be earlier in the year. There’s almost an undercurrent of thought that China’s economic statistics will only become interesting when they don’t accord with the plan. Because that’s when those statistics will contain interesting
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:

China’s economy has managed a curiously singular feat for any country: Growing a steady rate of 6.7 per cent for the third quarter in a row.

“It’s definitely unusual in an international context,” noted Julian Evans-Pritchard, a China economist at Capital Economics on Wednesday. “There are almost no countries that have such stable GDP growth rates.”

The GDP trifecta is the first since at least 1992 when Reuters began compiling data.

“It suggests quite significant smoothing of the data behind the scenes. Even by Chinese standards, this is quite rare,” Evans-Pritchard said.

Others are a little less polite about it all.
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for example.

The bottom line here is that no one is very surprised that China’s GDP growth figures are slap bang in the range that the government said they should be. And there’s at least a thought that this is more to do with government stating that this should be so than it being real information about that economy itself. But even so, the numbers aren’t wildly divergent from reality.
 

Janiz

Senior Member
China's official financial and economic numbers are relatively accurate, and have been so for a long time. Lardy also said China's Bureau of Statistics is staffed by highly competent professionals that collect and normalize (adjust) data for accuracy, often in difficult conditions.
lol, yeah, sure, right :D

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Janiz

Senior Member
That NBS isn't independent body and will write whatever the party wants. Enough?

And yeah. They accept bribes as well.
 
Unaffordable housing happens when there is a vibrant economy, but insufficient transport infrastructure, so people are forced to live in a small area.

AFAIK, infrastructure is an issue for the local HK government. If HKers want to alleviate housing, then they should build more housing in suburban areas and build public transportation to link those suburbs with city center.

Building housing further out and adding the connecting public transportation have already been done, lack of development is not the problem, home prices are. Short and long term investors continue to drive up housing prices that were already astronomical for the average person to begin with. Many affordable housing units that have been built recently are sitting empty as potential buyers consider even the discounted prices as too unaffordable.
 

manqiangrexue

Brigadier
What of it? What exactly are you trying to tell us? Kindly walk us though your reasoning.
Allow me to translate for Janiz. He said in Japanese,

"We have an economy growing ass-backwards smaller than it was 20 years ago and you guys have one that grows at nearly 7%? No no no no no no no no no no to the HELL NO! If I have to feel like a turd every day, y'all are gonna take a piece of this turd right here. So go on and convince me that China's growing at 7%. Good luck cus I don't take evidence; it's all just lies if I don't like it. If you can't convince me, then it isn't true. Even if I know it's true, if you can't get me to publicly admit it, then you lose. There; share my pain! Oh, and Fcuk Duterte!! Give us back our coast guard ships we donated!!"

How's that, bruh? My Japanese pretty good, eh? LOL
 
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solarz

Brigadier
Building housing further out and adding the connecting public transportation have already been done, lack of development is not the problem, home prices are. Short and long term investors continue to drive up housing prices that were already astronomical for the average person to begin with. Many affordable housing units that have been built recently are sitting empty as potential buyers consider even the discounted prices as too unaffordable.

There are policy based ways to combat housing speculation, the mainland had this 10 years ago. Again, a local government issue for HK.

Regardless, supply and demand is the ultimate determinant of prices. If home prices are still too high with development, then there obviously needs to be even more development.
 
There are policy based ways to combat housing speculation, the mainland had this 10 years ago. Again, a local government issue for HK.

Regardless, supply and demand is the ultimate determinant of prices. If home prices are still too high with development, then there obviously needs to be even more development.

Supply and demand is a drastic oversimplification of the topic here as is usually the case when that concept is thrown about as the answer to real life situations. Nor does applying that concept automatically mean the answer must be more supply.

Why would a developer build more to the point of reducing their profit margins below their expectation? Development includes much more infrastructure than just the housing itself i.e. additional power, water, services... etc. how would all of these be afforded? There is skewed competition between short term non-utility demand (investors) and long term utility demand (owner occupiers), how will this be addressed?

Anyways my point here is that the Hong Kong opposition is focused on sabotage and politicking rather than finding solutions to the problems they highlight. Methods used by the mainland to cool housing speculation such as limiting ownership per individual if used by the HK government is guaranteed to be condemned and opposed by the opposition as "undemocratic" or "Beijing extending its control". That said the local government does need to get a backbone and pursue policies for the common good even if it means offending powerful special interests and fueling nonsensical opposition, it's all in a day's work for any government.
 
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