because of their imploding economy and population (some estimates put it as low as 400million)
You have to stop believing absurdities. Their economy is strong and manufacturing center, but 400M would give them 2x the number of cars per capita than US, as well as double GDP/capita and 5x PPP GDP per capita. Russia is a military peer to US, and has passed Germany and Japan to be 4th in PPP GDP.
If this happened just a few years later, the US’s relative position in the world would’ve been twice as strong, so we’re lucky it’s happening now since the rest of the world has the power to resist effectively.
US has been on a decline path. Accounting tricks (mainly owner’s equivalent rent) is 15% of GDP, and healthcare 5% of GDP higher than any other country. Manufacturing decline too. Overconfidence in its own (yours?) disinformation and strength explains their current behaviour. It is certain that they would have/will be relatively weaker in 4 years.
While I agree that 400mil is really pushing it, the arguments for it is less than unconvincing. The issue is that most pre-COVID estimates (from Japanese, to Russian, even several inner Chinese ones) hover around 800-900mil. And it’s a well known fact that for that the entire time they did the Zero COVID stuff, the crematories were running at eight times normal, burning 24/7 spewing black smoke from their chimnies the entire time with countless witness reports, the numbers actually add up that their population halved in those short years. It’s hard to discount math, but…frankly as someone who trusts numbers to tell things as they are, even I find it difficult to believe.
But the economic numbers? They’re shit. Anything that says otherwise is 99% government propaganda. You can tell from all the pictures of defunct economic activities being actively scrubbed from the internet that there’s truth to it. Hong Kong is practically a ghost town nowadays. A decade ago, people were practically shoulder to shoulder on every major street during the day, but now, a few natives walking down the biggest streets without a single foreign-born in sight. No cars, no open businesses. Nothing.
There is no evidence to support that the Chinese economy is doing well on any measure. Many of the biggest Chinese companies have either left, or went bankrupt. Tencent and a few other tech giants are basically the only ones left, and that’s because they make most of their money from foreign customers. Big businesses that rely exclusively on local customers are gone or have downsized massively. Tell me, what happened to Evergrand, one of the three biggest companies in China, and one of the top 20 in the world?
And I don’t see why you are so argumentative on US’s current weaknesses. I agreed there, and yet you can’t help but attack me on that point despite completely agreeing on it? Seriously? Pick your battles and bring some data to back it up if you think I’m wrong.
Evergrand, one of the three biggest companies in China, and one of the top 20 in the world?
Property development company that had financial difficulty. None of its equipment or expertise were destroyed. China moved to expand factories and manufacturing in response to housing downturn.
No amount of equipment or expertize matters when there’s no money to do work. Evergrand was billions in the hole and many of its employees hadn’t been paid in months before going bankrupt. Not only that, but there are hundreds, if not thousands of condos that are unfinished due to the bankruptcy, and that means that tens or hundreds of thousands of people who are more than a million in the hole with nothing to show for it. Their entire life savings, along with their retirement plan is gone, along with thousands instantly out of work.
This is the sort of things that major recessions are built from, and has repeatedly in the west. Unless if you can pinpoint a specific reason why China is immune to such disruptions, it is only willful blindness that can explain China as not being in a recession because of it.
And as for the factories, they’re not being built, they’re being abandoned. For example, Foxconn city (forget its actual name) shut down and moved to India. A city of close to a million people disappeared and was abandoned because the only employer moved out of the country.
You’re the one blindly following propaganda if you’re ignoring such obvious signs of an economic downturn, because “the government said things were good”, like how Trump’s been saying that the “tariffs will make everything better”.
You have to stop believing absurdities. Their economy is strong and manufacturing center, but 400M would give them 2x the number of cars per capita than US, as well as double GDP/capita and 5x PPP GDP per capita. Russia is a military peer to US, and has passed Germany and Japan to be 4th in PPP GDP.
US has been on a decline path. Accounting tricks (mainly owner’s equivalent rent) is 15% of GDP, and healthcare 5% of GDP higher than any other country. Manufacturing decline too. Overconfidence in its own (yours?) disinformation and strength explains their current behaviour. It is certain that they would have/will be relatively weaker in 4 years.
While I agree that 400mil is really pushing it, the arguments for it is less than unconvincing. The issue is that most pre-COVID estimates (from Japanese, to Russian, even several inner Chinese ones) hover around 800-900mil. And it’s a well known fact that for that the entire time they did the Zero COVID stuff, the crematories were running at eight times normal, burning 24/7 spewing black smoke from their chimnies the entire time with countless witness reports, the numbers actually add up that their population halved in those short years. It’s hard to discount math, but…frankly as someone who trusts numbers to tell things as they are, even I find it difficult to believe.
But the economic numbers? They’re shit. Anything that says otherwise is 99% government propaganda. You can tell from all the pictures of defunct economic activities being actively scrubbed from the internet that there’s truth to it. Hong Kong is practically a ghost town nowadays. A decade ago, people were practically shoulder to shoulder on every major street during the day, but now, a few natives walking down the biggest streets without a single foreign-born in sight. No cars, no open businesses. Nothing.
There is no evidence to support that the Chinese economy is doing well on any measure. Many of the biggest Chinese companies have either left, or went bankrupt. Tencent and a few other tech giants are basically the only ones left, and that’s because they make most of their money from foreign customers. Big businesses that rely exclusively on local customers are gone or have downsized massively. Tell me, what happened to Evergrand, one of the three biggest companies in China, and one of the top 20 in the world?
And I don’t see why you are so argumentative on US’s current weaknesses. I agreed there, and yet you can’t help but attack me on that point despite completely agreeing on it? Seriously? Pick your battles and bring some data to back it up if you think I’m wrong.
Property development company that had financial difficulty. None of its equipment or expertise were destroyed. China moved to expand factories and manufacturing in response to housing downturn.
No amount of equipment or expertize matters when there’s no money to do work. Evergrand was billions in the hole and many of its employees hadn’t been paid in months before going bankrupt. Not only that, but there are hundreds, if not thousands of condos that are unfinished due to the bankruptcy, and that means that tens or hundreds of thousands of people who are more than a million in the hole with nothing to show for it. Their entire life savings, along with their retirement plan is gone, along with thousands instantly out of work.
This is the sort of things that major recessions are built from, and has repeatedly in the west. Unless if you can pinpoint a specific reason why China is immune to such disruptions, it is only willful blindness that can explain China as not being in a recession because of it.
And as for the factories, they’re not being built, they’re being abandoned. For example, Foxconn city (forget its actual name) shut down and moved to India. A city of close to a million people disappeared and was abandoned because the only employer moved out of the country.
You’re the one blindly following propaganda if you’re ignoring such obvious signs of an economic downturn, because “the government said things were good”, like how Trump’s been saying that the “tariffs will make everything better”.