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So, it seems to be limited to a specific area of Shanghai and not the entire city. It's a good sign, but an even better sign would be not starting the blocking in the first place, so eh. As for Chinese people, I feel like Weibo/Renren have been around long enough (and China has a large enough population) that they may continue to use them even if Facebook/Twitter are available. If you're a Chinese person living in China, there's a 99% chance that everyone you wanna communicate with is also Chinese. Look at Chinese university students in the States even -- they have every reason to use Facebook but most I know stuck to Renren/Weibo unless they were very very outgoing/internationalized.
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Sep 25, 2013 11:45
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Basically, the only reason they'd switch is if Facebook/Twitter had concrete advantages over the local service. This being China, I'll assume the local service is a plagarised copy with some censorship software thrown in and consider the point moot. Still, access to information that ain't party credo is a nice step. Like the switching to capitalism, only slightly less destructive on the environment.
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Sep 25, 2013 11:52
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SCMP posted:Hong Kong homes are the least affordable they have been in the past 10 years, according to the latest figures showing that private household income failed to catch up with soaring home price growth - and the trend is set to continue. SCMP posted:The centre's index reading was calculated using official figures that show a 400 sq ft flat in an urban area costs an average of HK$3 million, with a typical family paying around HK$21,000 a month for nearly 13 years to buy such a flat. The average individual income here is something like $11,000-$12,000 a month. And that's including super gazillionaires. I don't understand how anyone can look at this and think it's not a recipe for imminent disaster. But people are still lining up to buy new homes. SCMP posted:Chong Tai-leung, an associate professor of economics at the university, said a housing affordability index should not rise beyond five - meaning that families should not have to spend more than five years of their total earnings to buy a flat.
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Sep 27, 2013 03:46
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But how else can you ever get married?
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Sep 27, 2013 06:16
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Holy poo poo, I had understood that there was a severe problem, but I guess I didn't have a handle on the sheer scope. It makes looking for upscale places in Los Angeles seem incredibly cheap, and this is an expensive city to live in.
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Sep 27, 2013 06:29
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sincx fucked around with this message at 05:42 on Mar 23, 2021 |
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Sep 27, 2013 07:47
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sincx posted:Wait, 400 sq ft? Like a 20 x 20 ft box? For $400,000?! What? Welcome to Hong Kong  It's not uncommon to divide 400 square feet into two bedrooms, a living room and of course a kitchen and bathroom. In fact I've found it pretty hard to find a one bedroom apartment in Hong Kong.
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Sep 27, 2013 08:06
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I lived in a shithole apartment, I mean like every window and fixture needed replacing, every wall needed spackle and paint or to just be torn out and redone, and the wiring needed to be removed and redone, heat didn't work, no AC, about 1.5 times that size in Beijing, which sold for more than that. For 400,000 dollars do you at least get someplace that that doesn't threaten to burn you to death in Hong Kong? WTF is wrong with people? edit: The ratio of annual rent to selling price was over 50 to 1. VideoTapir fucked around with this message at 09:36 on Sep 27, 2013 |
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Sep 27, 2013 08:23
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VideoTapir posted:WTF is wrong with people? 7 billion of em basically.
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Sep 27, 2013 08:52
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VideoTapir posted:For 400,000 dollars do you at least get someplace that that doesn't threaten to burn you to death in Hong Kong? Yes. Building standards are very good in Hong Kong. There was an ancient tenement that collapsed in Hung Hom three years ago, but only 4 people died (tragedy, yes, but not too bad for a residential building collapse). It was a 50 year old building that the government had ordered repaired and refurbished, but the greedy rear end landlords (some of whom are in prison now) didn't do it. In response, the government said it would start inspecting 50+ year old buildings more often, I think monthly. I hate the British imperialists and their goddamned tea taxes with every fiber (not fibre) of my red, white and blue being, but they did a lot of good in Hong Kong. Their stuffy white engineers designed roads that move traffic remarkably well in the super dense parts of the city (to the detriment of pedestrians), building codes that keep people way safer than over the border, and hideous cyberpunk nightmare housing blocks that provide homes for teeming hordes of people. I never lived in pre-handover Hong Kong, and I wasn't even 10 years old at the time, but what I've read suggests that the administration during and post-MacLehose was pretty great and the jerks in charge now are ruining everything. If they don't cut off one of Timothy Tong's hands I'm gonna riot.
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Sep 27, 2013 09:08
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VideoTapir posted:I lived in a shithole apartment, I mean like every window and fixture needed replacing, every wall needed spackle and paint or to just be torn out and redone, and the wiring needed to be removed and redone, heat didn't work, no AC, about 1.5 times that size in Beijing, which sold for more than that. How is this at all rational when the per capita income in China is like 1/3 that of the US or Western Europe?
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Sep 28, 2013 05:08
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Vladimir Putin posted:How is this at all rational I think you've nailed the fundamental issue with Chinese real estate here.
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Sep 28, 2013 05:09
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Are there any good english articles about actual real-world chinese rationalizations of their current property bubble(s)? "It's different because..." Searching the phrase "not a bubble" yields some results. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2011-01/11/content_11825458.htm This article uses some mental gymnastics in that it describes a chain of events which is DEFINITELY A loving BUBBLE but simply refuses to call it that, because if you ignore everyone who isn't rich, incomes are rising fast enough to cover it, while simultaneously chastising critics for only looking at first tier cities (because income to price ratios in 2nd tier cities that are only 2 to 3 times normal rather than 5 to 10 times normal are perfectly okay I guess). I want to see something along the lines of the "look how wrong these guys were!" articles that came out in late 2008 early 2009. Or is it too early? Grand Fromage posted:I think you've nailed the fundamental issue with Chinese real estate here. Bubbles in general. You don't even like tulips! VideoTapir fucked around with this message at 05:33 on Sep 28, 2013 |
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Sep 28, 2013 05:21
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VideoTapir posted:Bubbles in general. Yep. There's no secret to Chinese real estate, it's a bubble like any others. The only big difference is the government has been using this mass construction to prop up the economy as a whole, so it collapsing will possibly be even more damaging than, say, the US real estate bubble. Tulip bubble is still the funniest bubble.
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Sep 28, 2013 05:26
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Grand Fromage posted:Tulip bubble is still the funniest bubble. 1990s American comic book bubble, or perhaps Magic: The Gathering. No, wait...Beanie Babies. Beanie Babies are the funniest.
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Sep 28, 2013 05:42
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VideoTapir posted:1990s American comic book bubble That sounds hilarious, care to elaborate?
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Sep 28, 2013 05:44
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Don't people just buy homes with cash in China? I don't think I've ever met anyone with a mortgage. Sure people might lose a bunch of money on an individual basis with a collapse but the whole financial system isn't really in danger like it was in America.
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Sep 28, 2013 05:48
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Arakan posted:Don't people just buy homes with cash in China? I don't think I've ever met anyone with a mortgage. Sure people might lose a bunch of money on an individual basis with a collapse but the whole financial system isn't really in danger like it was in America. While buying with cash seems more common in China, tons of people have mortgages. Usually people put 20-30% of the total value of the home as a down payment.
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Sep 28, 2013 05:50
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Torka posted:That sounds hilarious, care to elaborate? Older comic books (First Superman, first X-Men, etc) were valuable due to their rarity and were often sold at auctions for lots of money. Soon everyone is either buying up the old ones or trying to sell old ones and with the help of speculators for a brief year value of comics exploded. Seeing a chance to make money, the comic industries flooded the market with one issue with four diffent covers and special editions and by 1995 the comic market was wiped out with both DC and Marvel nearly going under and the two biggest distributors merging to prevent dying out altogether. Here's a good article about it. LP97S fucked around with this message at 06:07 on Sep 28, 2013 |
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Sep 28, 2013 06:04
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MeramJert posted:While buying with cash seems more common in China, tons of people have mortgages. Usually people put 20-30% of the total value of the home as a down payment. Well from what I read it looks like 30-40% down payment on a first mortgage, and they upped it to 60% this year on second mortgages. So not great, but it seems they are trying to head in the right direction. I didn't really see any concrete figures on how many people take out mortgages, somewhere between 50-70% it looks like. Then there's this (page 3 section 5) http://www.pbc.gov.cn/image_public/...81%EF%BC%89.pdf Which pretty much says that the only thing putting controls on lending in major cities did was shift lending to rural areas in greater quantities. I wonder why they don't just implement lending controls everywhere, instead of only implementing reactionary controls when a problem arises in certain cities? It seems like a really easy problem to fix since unlike in America, where people get beside themselves when there is government intervention in the market, the Chinese government can just do whatever. And China is still only at like 15% of America's value of outstanding mortgages before the crash, so while there is a housing bubble there's no mortgage bubble yet...unless they keep being stupid I guess. Arakan fucked around with this message at 06:42 on Sep 28, 2013 |
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Sep 28, 2013 06:28
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Arakan posted:Well from what I read it looks like 30-40% down payment on a first mortgage, and they upped it to 60% this year on second mortgages. So not great, but it seems they are trying to head in the right direction. I didn't really see any concrete figures on how many people take out mortgages, somewhere between 50-70% it looks like. The housing "bubble" only really is impacting a handful of cities (where strangely enough half the country wants to live in). To understand housing, you have to understand hukou. A hukou is basically a registered official address and changing that hukou ain't easy.... unless, of course, you do it during or immediately after college by working for a state company. Even then, what you end up with is 集体 hukou instead of 个人. The problem with a 集体 hukou is that most are not going to let you have a kid added to it for anything other than temporary basis. To transfer it to 个人 status, you have to have your own property, your own address. This moves the books from the collective address and into your own possession. Failing to do so can basically result in you having to revert your hukou back to where it started to ensure your kid(s) have a valid hukou. The stupid crazy prices tend to center around locations with good schools. The reason? Being able to modify the hukou address, gaining access to the best schools, or at the very least having first go at them during admissions. Housing is also pretty damned useful for a number of reasons. First off, there's the housing fund. It comes out of the paycheck pre-tax and is matched by the employer. Buying a property is the easiest way to access those funds. Also, it's stability. If you lose your job and are unable to pay, there are legal hoops to jump through, but as long as you can demonstrate that it's your ONLY property and you are living it in yourself, it cannot be seized and auctioned off. The villas and whatnot have crazy prices mostly due to the neighbors and the fact that you now have some land as well. You cannot just simply buy land and build a house. Land is sold off in large chunks and must be developed to certain requirements, failure to do so loses the land rights. China has a home ownership rate of something stupid like 90% and the majority of it is owner outright. HELOC really isn't much of a thing... it's doable to a certain degree, but the interest rates on it are horrible. Everyone rushes to the highly-priced cities due to the notion of easy money, few it seems, take into account the living expenses. So they either live like poo poo to save everything they can, or they save nothing and cry about housing being "too expensive". Whole lot of other cities that have lower paying jobs and much more affordable housing.
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Sep 28, 2013 07:30
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Arakan posted:Don't people just buy homes with cash in China? I don't think I've ever met anyone with a mortgage. Sure people might lose a bunch of money on an individual basis with a collapse but the whole financial system isn't really in danger like it was in America. The problem is the same, the sticking point is just elsewhere in the system. The American financial system crashed because huge financial institutions either were insolvent or didn't know if they were insolvent or not. Who the bad loans go to isn't actually that important. If a property developer takes out a rock-bottom loan to build a housing complex in Buttfuck, Henan and can't recoup the investment then that loan is still going to default. Corporate real estate was actually a huge part of the American collapse but it wasn't reported on as much because a) corporate mortgages were a minority of the problem and b) corporations are rarely blamed for bad decisions in the US media. Over the long term a bunch of people losing money at once and a financial crash are not that dissimilar. In both scenarios you have people who have lost a lot of money on a bad investment and need to cut spending. I'm having a hard time phrasing this right but the point is that a bank-based debt overhang and a ton of households with negative equity is actually pretty similar in the long run, the biggest difference is whether the transaction was made with future money (debt) or past money (lost equity).
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Sep 28, 2013 09:08
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Arakan posted:Don't people just buy homes with cash in China? I don't think I've ever met anyone with a mortgage. Sure people might lose a bunch of money on an individual basis with a collapse but the whole financial system isn't really in danger like it was in America. This is also the best excuse for why the Chinese bubble will never stop. People buy houses with cash, so when everyone runs out of cash, they can just start taking loans. Problem solved. I actually had a Chinese person say that to me.
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Sep 28, 2013 10:05
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VideoTapir posted:This is also the best excuse for why the Chinese bubble will never stop. People buy houses with cash, so when everyone runs out of cash, they can just start taking loans. Problem solved. We need  but for economics and finance.
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Sep 28, 2013 10:40
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I also strongly suspect more people take loans to mortgage houses than are willing to admit it. With the prices of houses and the incomes of Chinese people having such a large disconnect, I think for many it would be impossible to not take a mortgage, even accounting for rich parents' savings.
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Sep 28, 2013 11:54
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Grand Fromage posted:Tulip bubble is still the funniest bubble. Tulip bubble was like Pokemon Cards but for an entire country. hitension posted:I also strongly suspect more people take loans to mortgage houses than are willing to admit it. With the prices of houses and the incomes of Chinese people having such a large disconnect, I think for many it would be impossible to not take a mortgage, even accounting for rich parents' savings. This probably also ties into how many people rent versus buy their house (or related living arrangement). If you have a small amount of people actually buying the properties then it could just be a landlord/leaser arrangement.
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Sep 28, 2013 13:45
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Don't forget how a unknown-but-probably-enormous portion of this home equity comes from the alternate 'shadow' banking system that is just generally Patient Zero for the impending /future Chinese banking crisis. Just because its not a 'mortgage' doesn't mean it isn't leverage.
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Sep 28, 2013 13:48
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Fine-able Offense posted:Don't forget how a unknown-but-probably-enormous portion of this home equity comes from the alternate 'shadow' banking system that is just generally Patient Zero for the impending /future Chinese banking crisis. Elaborate? "Shadow banking?" Got any good articles? Hah, when I search for "china shadow banking" most of the links I try get the connection reset.
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Sep 28, 2013 15:21
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VideoTapir posted:Elaborate? "Shadow banking?" Got any good articles? There are like a dozen different highly suspect elements in the soup people commonly refer to as the Chinese shadow banking sector. The most 'legitimate' (cough cough) are "wealth management products", which are pretty much just ways for the banks to get around reserve restrictions. To give you a sense of scale, last year Xiao Gang (the PBC CEO) estimated there were over 20,000 wealth management products floating out there. Beyond WMPs, there are: -illegal loans written by various politically connected state-owned corporation poobahs, where they either mortgage their land/commodities and loan the money out, or flat out just loan their capital because they can always get more due to having priority on new bank loans; -Weird-rear end private loan networks; -Or just garden-variety money laundering So yeah, there is a LOT of money floating around China, and in the last five to ten years most of it has plowed into a residential real estate bubble. Traditional concepts like "having a mortgage" don't really apply because the source of that much cash pretty much can't be based on local incomes, even in prime coastal cities.
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Sep 28, 2013 15:43
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I don't know the details of it, but I know a guy here that got mega rich by operating an illegal business that has something to do with credit card fraud and dozens of small bank accounts. If you've ever seen those stickers with a phone number stuck to the ground in big cities, they're often advertisements for these businesses. The guy I know stopped doing it and used his money to open a legitimate travel agency after he had a daughter and one of his friends that did the same thing got caught and went to prison.
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Sep 28, 2013 16:05
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoSydvhw7l0 The Hong Kong government finally set a poverty line. The results are not good. About 20% of Hong Kong is living in poverty by the government's measure. It's also hilarious to watch it scale up for bigger households. When you have a family of 3, the Hong Kong's average monthly income (11-12k) is at the poverty line. Then Carrie Lam tells us at the end that the best way to fight poverty is with employment. This is right after she tells us how serious the problem is with the working poor. Maybe we should do something about the fact that incomes have not risen in 20 years?
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Sep 29, 2013 06:03
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Yeah I watched stuff on the news last night about the new poverty line and it just made me angry and I had to turn it off after about 15 minutes. e: The best part was something I saw a few weeks ago, where they interviewed some guy who was saying "I think with hard work, we can reduce poverty to under 10% of the population" and this was before there was even a poverty line at all. fart simpson fucked around with this message at 06:09 on Sep 29, 2013 |
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Sep 29, 2013 06:05
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http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2013-10/06/content_17010973.htmquote:Scientists boycott NASA's ban The legislation in question. Ctrl-f for "chinese" http://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20130318/BILLS-113hr933eas.pdf
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Oct 7, 2013 04:23
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VideoTapir posted:http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2013-10/06/content_17010973.htm It seems like this would fall under the exception noted: quote:(c) The limitations described in subsections (a) and (b) shall not apply to activities which NASA or OSTP has certified— Regardless, I'm kind of glad my career path seems to be going away from the federal government/contracting. it seems like just dating a foreign national, let alone marrying one is grounds for disqualification of a myriad of security clearances.
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Oct 7, 2013 04:45
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If the Chinese find an earth-like exoplanet before we do, then Chairman Yang will have a head start on the Morganites.
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Oct 7, 2013 06:03
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VideoTapir posted:If the Chinese find an earth-like exoplanet before we do, then Chairman Yang will have a head start on the Morganites. Is that a Fallout reference?
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Oct 7, 2013 13:28
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alpha centauri
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Oct 7, 2013 13:56
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Earlier this week, three Hong Kong reporters ambushed Philippine President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino to ask him (scream at him) a bunch of retarded questions about the bus thing at the APEC summit in Indonesia. He ignored them, then APEC staff got pissed at the reporters, threw them out and revoked their press passes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQrpmmKsnzI That reignited the anger about the bus thing and apparently CY Leung has gotten Noynoy to agree to a meeting to discuss this poo poo some more. I guess he's gonna try to get the Philippines to give a bunch of money to the victims? That's really what it's all about. There have been apologies. Hong Kongers are just racists who like to poo poo on Filipinos and here's also a chance to extract free money from a tragedy. They already got insurance payouts. Now here's something fun: Lawmakers propose to ban maids to force apology over Manila bus tragedy A dumbass posted:"Aquino has been humiliating Hongkongers," lawmaker Albert Chan Wai-yip, of People Power, said. "The government has the responsibility to take a tougher stance to penalise the country for its response to the tragedy." If this idiot thinks banning Filipino maids would hurt the Philippines more than it 'hurts' Hong Kong, he's really a big dumb retard. But yessss. Pleeaase. Be my guest. Go ahead. Ban all the maids. From everywhere. Let's flip this poo poo upside down.
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Oct 10, 2013 02:58
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How much does the psychological scarring of Filipino maids cost the Phillipine economy and is it offset by remittances?
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Oct 10, 2013 04:44
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So as an ignorant westerner who has been force-fed media about how China is an economic bogeyman who wants to overthrow the west and take over the world, how are the Chinese generally receiving this default crisis in the US at the moment? Apathy? Panic? Smugness? Does China have a backup plan for their economy if buying US debt becomes less feasible in the near future?
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Oct 16, 2013 08:47
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