Chinese Economics Thread

[jli88]

Having a kid is the biggest "leverage"/"debt" one can take on other than taking out a mortgage. One cannot not consume once they have the kid. (See David Fishman's conversation with coffee barista in Linfen)

Good step.

Other things to do: increase kids car safety seats standards with consumer subsidies that gradually roll off over 3 years; broaden K-12 free education to more areas. Etc etc

This needs to increase further. Child-birth is a very small part of raising a kid. In fact I will argue child-birth is the cheapest part of the process. Raising a kid, sending them to college, getting them married are much bigger commitments.

Also, are they looking at the ethnic mix at all? It only makes sense to give Han parents some preference, since Han were the most targeted under the one-child policy.

 

[siegecrossbow]

Are you saying they should adopt Biden's economic policy on childcare?

Not a bad idea by the way, but the core issue is the cost of services, rather than subsidization of those services.

They can tax radical feminists and use the money to fund couples with children.

 

[wuguanhui]

It's not enough just to stimulate consumption, but it needs to be the right kind of consumption by the right kind of people, namely families. I don't want my social media filled with wretches enjoying a wonderful child free lifestyle while families struggle. It really ought to be the other way round.

People aren't going to buy stuff without a large enough home to put stuff in. We want families to have big homes to fill with children, elderly and more stuff. Huge potential source of domestic consumption when people aren't living in tiny 40m² apartments.
The cost of housing is mostly concrete and artificial scarcity anyway. Make car and housing subsidies for families permanent, and funded by car and property taxes on adults without children. Nice cars should be for people with families, two wheelers for people without. I'm dislike seeing an entire family of 4 riding on one moped.

China needs more public baby changing rooms.

They can tax radical feminists and use the money to fund couples with children.

I'm in favour of conscripting childless women to keep public toilets clean. Not because we need the labour but establish social "status" and reduce discrimination to blue collar workers. They can still clean toilets in their LV and Gucci rags of course, but it's harder for them to look down on blue collar men while doing do.

 

[Jiang ZeminFanboy]

Are you saying they should adopt Biden's economic policy on childcare?

Not a bad idea by the way, but the core issue is the cost of services, rather than subsidization of those services.

It's not enough just to stimulate consumption, but it needs to be the right kind of consumption by the right kind of people, namely families. I don't want my social media filled with wretches enjoying a wonderful child free lifestyle while families struggle. It really ought to be the other way round.

People aren't going to buy stuff without a large enough home to put stuff in. We want families to have big homes to fill with children, elderly and more stuff. Huge potential source of domestic consumption when people aren't living in tiny 40m² apartments.
The cost of housing is mostly concrete and artificial scarcity anyway. Make car and housing subsidies for families permanent, and funded by car and property taxes on adults without children. Nice cars should be for people with families, two wheelers for people without. I'm dislike seeing an entire family of 4 riding on one moped.

China needs more public baby changing rooms.




I'm in favour of conscripting childless women to keep public toilets clean. Not because we need the labour but establish social "status" and reduce discrimination to blue collar workers. They can still clean toilets in their LV and Gucci rags of course, but it's harder for them to look down on blue collar men while doing do.

Not Biden, to follow Polish program that started in 2016, liberals cry about it to this day. Reality was completely different from the liberals prognosis, no bankruptcy but huge growth in consumption and reductions in poverty.

In 2016 Poland introduced 500 zł per child per month program untill the child becomes 18 years old. Now it is 800 zł. China can do the same, start with 500 RMB or even more like 1000 RMB per month. It will help both things, consumptions and to some degree raise birth rate but probably not a lot. However it will certainly help parents and confidence in general economy. If you know that at least you have some stable predicted income years to come, you feel safer.

 

[wuguanhui]

Not Biden, to follow Polish program that started in 2016, liberals cry about it to this day. Reality was completely different from the liberals prognosis, no bankruptcy but huge growth in consumption and reductions in poverty.

In 2016 Poland introduced 500 zł per child per month program untill the child becomes 18 years old. Now it is 800 zł. China can do the same, start with 500 RMB or even more like 1000 RMB per month. It will help both things, consumptions and to some degree raise birth rate but probably not a lot. However it will certainly help parents and confidence in general economy. If you know that at least you have some stable predicted income years to come, you feel safer.

Most Chinese people will just put it in a bank account and not use it. Many Chinese people are terrible (excessively good) at saving money. We'll squeeze whole families into 40m² apartments to save money, squeeze whole families onto a moped to save money, skip unnecessary health check ups to save money, forgo holidays to save money... Giving them money won't solve this. It needs to be a voucher with an expiry date on it to trigger that fomo fear of missing out to get people to consume. I want to subsidize housing and cars simply because they are the biggest big ticket items.

Another brilliant idea from yours truly!: Free (subsidized) family holidays during the quiet seasons. Fund this by a 300% tax on international flight tickets purchased by unmarried adults.

 

[enroger]

It's not enough just to stimulate consumption, but it needs to be the right kind of consumption by the right kind of people, namely families. I don't want my social media filled with wretches enjoying a wonderful child free lifestyle while families struggle. It really ought to be the other way round.

People aren't going to buy stuff without a large enough home to put stuff in. We want families to have big homes to fill with children, elderly and more stuff. Huge potential source of domestic consumption when people aren't living in tiny 40m² apartments.
The cost of housing is mostly concrete and artificial scarcity anyway. Make car and housing subsidies for families permanent, and funded by car and property taxes on adults without children. Nice cars should be for people with families, two wheelers for people without. I'm dislike seeing an entire family of 4 riding on one moped.

China needs more public baby changing rooms.




I'm in favour of conscripting childless women to keep public toilets clean. Not because we need the labour but establish social "status" and reduce discrimination to blue collar workers. They can still clean toilets in their LV and Gucci rags of course, but it's harder for them to look down on blue collar men while doing do.

I very much agree housing is the single biggest issue here, it is the most important thing to consider in raising a family in China. I think we're at a point where the government must consider providing large quantities of public housing for couples with kids as an incentive.

You said it right cost of housing is artificial scarcity, time to remove it. It would be the first step towards full communism.

My thinking on consumption is that Chinese aren't really under consuming, people are buying stuffs but stuffs are way too cheap so overall consumption seems low. I mean look at the stuffs you buy on Taobao, things aren't supposed to be THAT cheap lol.

This is another problem that can be solved by mass public housing projects. By providing cheap homes it will release people's purchasing power so they're willing to spend more on buying manufactured goods, more profit margin for companies, higher wages so on so forth. A positive feedback loop on the part of economy that really matters.

All in all, fuck the real estate market.

 

[Eventine]

We’ve discussed this topic before when the demographics thread was still up.

Birth incentives for families are only one aspect of it, and not even the most important. The most important is people not forming families in the first place, ie the collapse in marriage & partnership rates (at least among younger people).

If you’re not addressing that then you’re not addressing the real issue. Married couples cannot fundamentally make up for the deficit of singles; because nobody wants to have 4-5 kids these days even if they were fully paid for. The sheer time & quality of life lost to raising that many children makes it an impossible prospect to sell.

The real solution is rewarding family formation. Not just making it easier for existing families to have more kids.

Conversely there needs to be relative disincentives to staying single. Not saying you must punish people for not getting married, but rewarding family formation is effectively the same thing.

Oh, and let’s put some effort into censoring what really matters - the toxic gender war influences drifting into China from nearby Korea and the West.

 

[wuguanhui]

Conversely there needs to be relative disincentives to staying single.

Yup.

Have baby, get big house, new car, many holidays and no clean stinky toilets.

Be single, make toilet sparkly white, or pick up garbage.

Maybe garbage man and toilet cleaner woman find love and have babies instead...?

 

[enroger]

We’ve discussed this topic before when the demographics thread was still up.

Birth incentives for families are only one aspect of it, and not even the most important. The most important is people not forming families in the first place, ie the collapse in marriage & partnership rates (at least among younger people).

If you’re not addressing that then you’re not addressing the real issue. Married couples cannot fundamentally make up for the deficit of singles; because nobody wants to have 4-5 kids these days even if they were fully paid for. The sheer time & quality of life lost to raising that many children makes it an impossible prospect to sell.

The real solution is rewarding family formation. Not just making it easier for existing families to have more kids.

Conversely there needs to be relative disincentives to staying single. Not saying you must punish people for not getting married, but rewarding family formation is effectively the same thing.

Oh, and let’s put some effort into censoring what really matters - the toxic gender war influences drifting into China from nearby Korea and the West.

That depends on what is the root cause of people not forming families. I believe it is social economical, the crushing financial burden of forming a family, in which housing cost and to a lesser degree education cost are the major factors. That's why I think public housing is a good solution.

It would be very stupid to punish single people without removing the financial barrier to forming families first, like you are literally pushing people to off themselves....

I agree on the gender war issue, they really must shut that shit down.

 

[vincent]

Demographic thread is locked for a reason. Enough chats on the topic.