I like the feeling of gaining twenty bucks more than spending it. The money goes right into my investment and I feel quite happy.
In fact I gained 300 yuan (60 buck) 2 days ago on CSSC stocks and you know what? It goes into other stocks!
Chinese Economics Thread
- Thread starter Norfolk
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In fact I gained 300 yuan (60 buck) 2 days ago on CSSC stocks and you know what? It goes into other stocks!
It's less painful to lose something you never had.
It's not a static pie. It can be a win-win if there's more investment in creating new industries. The bigger the pie gets, the more room there is for trade specialization and comparative advantage, which in turn gives room to less competitive countries to find their niche. But if we insist on crushing them in their existing industries, yeah, that's going to end in war.
It's not in contradiction. I'm not in full agreement with China's industrial policies. If it is a true zero sum game then ultimately trade with China will stop - and China will face this issue with every trade partner, not just Europe. This is why I suggest making the pie larger, and I know China is capable of doing this because it's done it already in spaces like consumer drones. China is actually better at dominating frontier industries via "leap frogging," and if not for the US's "national security" rug pull, I think China would still be trading quite a lot with the West and its allies buying chips, equipment, components, etc. from their established industries.
Ultimately, it's politics, not economics, that have made relying on Western supply chains impossible for China. Complete economic self-sufficiency was not China's original goal.
I think we're saying similar things.
Deindustrialization is not politically acceptable for Europe, but it is also not necessary - it's not an inevitable consequence of trade with China. That has to be the narrative if we want trade to continue. So there's two ways to achieve it - building new factories in Europe, and making the pie bigger via creating new industries. To me, the latter is preferrable to the former, because it preserves Chinese industrial preeminence. But ultimately, a combination of the two is probably needed to be build a stable trading system.
For Silicon Valley, software isn't really the product. YOU are the product, the moment you start using their software. It's not anything different in China - margins are lower in software because margins are lower in everything. Chinese (and in general, Asian) consumers just don't spend as much money on useless crap as Americans, who max out their credit cards and live pay check to pay check - something that Asians would not do even if they had the same social safety nets. We know, because we have Asian Americans as an example. Culture matters.
