tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6322916946732811685.post6031828264906577574..comments2024-03-28T04:52:18.318-04:00Comments on Borepatch: The China that can say 'no', and why it doesn't matterBorepatchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05029434172945099693noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6322916946732811685.post-63137011540625297812011-04-29T19:49:55.311-04:002011-04-29T19:49:55.311-04:00As an aside, what is our planetary GDP? All this ...As an aside, what is our planetary GDP? All this effort for what? A few simple probes scattered about going beep?<br /><br />JimAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6322916946732811685.post-33878410726605457332011-04-27T01:43:32.002-04:002011-04-27T01:43:32.002-04:00China's never concerned me. India now, they s...China's never concerned me. India now, they strike me as the Next Big Thing.Atom Smasherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01717946941636575857noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6322916946732811685.post-55166601045692556732011-04-26T20:11:26.409-04:002011-04-26T20:11:26.409-04:00Actually, the China/US population ratio is 4.3:1, ...Actually, the China/US population ratio is 4.3:1, so GDP per capita will still only be 23% of US when China's GDP officially equals the US. And officially in this case is likely to be no more accurate than the PRC's official homicide rates. <br /><br />Minimum wage is pegged at the equivalent of 36 cents an hour in some provinces, as low as 21 cents in others, making it difficult to compete with Chinese manufacture. It can be done, it is difficult. <br /><br />The major problems are the US governments active program to deindustrialize the US - and the PRC's aggressive programs to lure foreign technology to the area. <br /><br />The US has lost more than thirty million manufacturing jobs since Willie Clinton took office - and the big push seems to be to make that "all of them." It is really hard to have an economy when people are not allowed to make or grow anything. <br /><br />StrangerStrangerhttp://extranosalley.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6322916946732811685.post-35707694132528745502011-04-26T19:30:12.681-04:002011-04-26T19:30:12.681-04:00Good post and ALL good points! Thanks!Good post and ALL good points! Thanks!Old NFOhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16404197287935017147noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6322916946732811685.post-1918901920587108072011-04-26T16:16:26.323-04:002011-04-26T16:16:26.323-04:00Dead on the money. China is a long way from surpas...Dead on the money. China is a long way from surpassing us, and the predictions otherwise are all based on the Very Wrong Assumption that the Chinese are being upfront and honest about their economy.<br /><br />Reality: things are BAD in China, but official government stats sweep this away. The value of the RMB is artificially inflated inside the market; if the Chinese became the World's Favoritest Economy, a massive amount of dirty, horrible secrets would come tumbling out of that currency.<br /><br />Too many folks, admiring on the left, terrified on the right, see China as she wants us to see her. Look deeper, and you realize it's a source of concern, all right, but for darker reasons.The Czar of Muscovyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15002679456122392387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6322916946732811685.post-89706520113516784132011-04-26T15:18:24.236-04:002011-04-26T15:18:24.236-04:00Another constraint on their future is China's ...Another constraint on their future is <a href="http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=china+population+distribution" rel="nofollow">China's demographics</a>.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6322916946732811685.post-1342303463224746712011-04-26T09:18:15.141-04:002011-04-26T09:18:15.141-04:00Thank you. I've been making the same argument ...Thank you. I've been making the same argument about China for months now, but I'm too lazy to do the research. I've just been relying on anecdotal stuff like "gee, remember how back in the 1930s all the Really Smart People thought Mussolini, Hitler, and Stalin were going to bury the liberal democracies? And whatever happened to Japan, Inc.?" I completely forgot about the Lisbon Agenda. <br /><br />It's true that the US will eventually be #2, but it does not therefore follow that it'll happen immediately, nor does it follow that our successor as #1 will necessarily get there by growing faster. When that time comes, it may just be that they're collapsing more slowly. And if they're growing, why assume that they won't grow by the same means we did? We <em>did</em> grow pretty big, y'know. #1, in fact. <br /><br />Overcentralized economies <em>can</em> look pretty good for a while: Hitler in the 30s, Japan in the 70s and 80s. But they never keep it up for more than a few decades at best. Rigid, top-down systems do not cope well with change, and change always happens. <br /><br />History is littered with this stuff, in government and in business. What kind of idiots do people have to be to look at history and conclude that One Point of Failure to Rule Them All is a uniquely robust design? Easy: They're not looking at history. They're plotting a curve based on one single point. <br /><br />Krugman is a perfect example: When he was young, he was a real economist. In his old age, he is committed to protecting incumbent people, institutions, and ideas at any cost, right or wrong, reality be damned -- and many of his old ideas be damned, as well, if they don't serve his current interests. Imagine if there were no space for young thinkers, engaged with the present rather than the past, to bubble up alongside of him. That's <a href="http://www.losthighwaytimes.com/2008/08/dinosaurs-by-william-s-burroughs.html" rel="nofollow">Krugman's paradise</a>. It's the paradise of old men with tenure. <br /><br />If academics ran the world, you'd have to wait to buy an iPod until Bill Gates died. Hell, in that world, Obama would now be promising to "invest" in more acreage of PDP-25s, and Krugman would solemnly tell us how lucky we were that Big Government (PBUI) had given us such magnificent technology.Retardohttp://stfuretard.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6322916946732811685.post-49646850382458401802011-04-26T08:57:12.769-04:002011-04-26T08:57:12.769-04:00I was going to talk about that, but the post was a...I was going to talk about that, but the post was already too long, Alan. ;-)<br /><br />But since you brought it up, at that ratio (4.5:1), the $300B the Chinese wasted on the high speed rail is the equivalent of us wasting $1.5T.<br /><br />I guess it was their "Obama Stimulus" moment, but this is only one example among many over there. Their central planning is screwing things up, big time.Borepatchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05029434172945099693noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6322916946732811685.post-33065935752393711452011-04-26T08:32:09.063-04:002011-04-26T08:32:09.063-04:00You also have to look at per capita GDP.
$19 Tri...You also have to look at per capita GDP. <br /><br />$19 Trillion GDP in the US is $62,000 per person<br /><br />$19 trillion GDP in China is $14,000 per person<br /><br /><br />Not even close.Alanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18382683082580500698noreply@blogger.com