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(Semi)Independent China Factory Gauge "suspended indefinitely" with no explanation. So one less non-Bureau of Statistics Economic Indicator.
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Jul 21, 2016 20:07
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-25/china-bank-to-transform-1-6-billion-of-bad-debt-into-securities I wonder if they can convince/pressure foreign investors into buying those.
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Jul 25, 2016 20:15
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Puistokemisti posted:http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-25/china-bank-to-transform-1-6-billion-of-bad-debt-into-securities Given the sale price of 29% value, that's effectively a 71% write off on nine figures of debt, yes?
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Jul 25, 2016 21:41
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quote:For a long time, there was a recurring stereotype about China's economy: If growth started to slow significantly, the argument went, prudent technocrats in Beijing could always prop it up with fiscal stimulus and keep the country's financial institutions afloat. Combined with optimistic official data about deficits, this argument sounded reassuring for a while. Bloomberg - Why China Can't Solve Its Debt Problem http://bv.ms/2b1reVY What up bros
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Aug 8, 2016 04:38
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But the innovation economy! Consumption! Tech startups! A very nice government representative led me around Shenzhen and everything looked great!
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Aug 8, 2016 04:54
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Well, all the cool kids are doing it. But props to China for its ability to kick it to 11.
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Aug 8, 2016 05:51
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What is China spending all this Yuan on? I didn't think they had the same entitlement problem as Western governments. I guess they spend a lot on defense, although that's the Central government and not its provinces. Is this what happens when even private sector debt is government owned?
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Aug 8, 2016 22:49
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Krispy Kareem posted:What is China spending all this Yuan on? I didn't think they had the same entitlement problem as Western governments. I guess they spend a lot on defense, although that's the Central government and not its provinces. Stimulus.
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Aug 8, 2016 22:50
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Krispy Kareem posted:What is China spending all this Yuan on? I didn't think they had the same entitlement problem as Western governments. I guess they spend a lot on defense, although that's the Central government and not its provinces. As far as I can tell, Vancouver Real Estate.
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Aug 8, 2016 23:24
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Krispy Kareem posted:What is China spending all this Yuan on? I didn't think they had the same entitlement problem as Western governments. I guess they spend a lot on defense, although that's the Central government and not its provinces. Useless infrastructure, unprofitable state owned enterprises, and more generally subsidies for manufacturing that's no longer profitable in China
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Aug 8, 2016 23:33
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Krispy Kareem posted:What is China spending all this Yuan on? I didn't think they had the same entitlement problem as Western governments. I guess they spend a lot on defense, although that's the Central government and not its provinces. Don't worry, have you heard of "One Belt, One Road"?
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Aug 9, 2016 14:51
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Krispy Kareem posted:What is China spending all this Yuan on? I didn't think they had the same entitlement problem as Western governments. I guess they spend a lot on defense, although that's the Central government and not its provinces. This is the Chinese version of entitlements, basically. They are throwing money at non-productive infrastructure and labor intensive, noncompetitive industries to keep people working, because mass unemployment with no safety net is what gets people in a rebellious mood.
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Aug 9, 2016 15:03
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professor_curly posted:This is the Chinese version of entitlements, basically. They are throwing money at non-productive infrastructure and labor intensive, noncompetitive industries to keep people working, because mass unemployment with no safety net is what gets people in a rebellious mood. keeping people employed....how devious
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Aug 9, 2016 20:15
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Homework Explainer posted:keeping people employed....how devious well they could institute a robust safety net, but that kind of thing has less room for favor trading and graft compared to construction projects
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Aug 9, 2016 20:21
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Homework Explainer posted:keeping people employed....how devious It isn't about employing individuals, its about keeping the grease flowing to your patronage network so that you can continue to afford your bribes and avoid being caught in an anti-corruption purge for refusal to pay.
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Aug 9, 2016 23:12
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Homework Explainer posted:keeping people employed....how devious It depends on how you're employing them. Building highways and dams? Good. Making millions of tons of steel that no one needs or worse, people use to erect unwanted buildings? Not good. I hadn't thought of stimulus as the source of all that debt, mainly because I assumed that'd come from the central government as well. In a sane place like the United States, local governments usually have deficit limits. They have to rely on stuff like underfunded pension plans to bankrupt themselves.
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Aug 9, 2016 23:47
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Homework Explainer posted:keeping people employed....how devious It's not devious, it's a question of sustainability. A lot of people seem to forget why, keynsianism works so drat well in the US: the US can borrow at absurdly low interest rates even in fairly dim economic periods, sometimes even below 0%, backed by being the worlds reserve currency and sole world superpower status. If need be, the US could be nearly completely self sufficient, perhaps needing to import a bit of fuel (but even that is quickly changing with alt energy), has an incredibly productive economy, and their companies are either top in the world or very close to it. I think a lot of people think that dumping money into any economy works the same way and it just isn't the case. In cases like Greece and China, you just can't dump money into a fire pit forever, eventually financial gravity will return you to earth. The whole 'pay a person to dig a whole and another to fill it up' has a whole shitton of caveats to it. Krispy Kareem posted:It depends on how you're employing them. Building highways and dams? Good. Making millions of tons of steel that no one needs or worse, people use to erect unwanted buildings? Not good. Exactly, it's some some people think economics is like the loving matrix or something and you can just wish yourself a productive economy if only the evil austerity agents would let you to zion. History is riddled with countless examples of how that can lead to complete and total ruin (and a present example in Venezuela, kinda sorta). tsa fucked around with this message at 23:57 on Aug 9, 2016 |
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Aug 9, 2016 23:54
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https://twitter.com/LJKawa/status/763700708361248768?s=09 Lol
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Aug 11, 2016 12:41
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So the New York Times ran a piece today about Chinese internet companies, and especially praised WeChat for having all the services you can imagine inside one application. The thesis of this article is basically that while the rest of the world has ignored Chinese internet businesses because their internet is cut off from us, they have now started to offer us a vision of the future of integrated services which western companies will have to catch up to. My question is basically how much of this article is a different take on the "China is going to take over the world!!111" nonsense, and how much actually deserves praise. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/10/technology/china-homegrown-internet-companies-rest-of-the-world.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur
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Aug 11, 2016 23:28
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It's really easy to integrate a bunch of services into one app when you have a closed economy with very little competition WeChat is less an example of "Chinese innovation" and more an example of how hosed up and weird China's economy is An easy way to tell is to note that Wechat has tried to spread outside of China but has failed every single time to be more than a niche chat app for expats to talk to people in China with, from the US to Europe to India, because integrating such a diverse amount of services essentially requires an unquestioned monopoly in a shitload of different fields. In fact the article actually notes that Fojar38 fucked around with this message at 23:35 on Aug 11, 2016 |
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Aug 11, 2016 23:33
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Ccs posted:So the New York Times ran a piece today about Chinese internet companies, and especially praised WeChat for having all the services you can imagine inside one application. The thesis of this article is basically that while the rest of the world has ignored Chinese internet businesses because their internet is cut off from us, they have now started to offer us a vision of the future of integrated services which western companies will have to catch up to. I don't think that's an accurate description of the article at all. It seems more like the author is saying that China's attempt to create its own little Internet ecology has resulted in an environment so disconnected from the rest of the world that it is nearly impossible for successful Chinese companies to be successful outside of China as all the little integrations and features that make their products useful essentially have to be rebuilt from the ground up in a marketplace filled with companies who have a whole lot more experience with localizing their products.
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Aug 12, 2016 02:01
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Fojar38 posted:It's really easy to integrate a bunch of services into one app when you have a closed economy with very little competition Just because you have some monopoly and trade barriers doesn't mean you can magically create something as good as alipay. Heck EU, Australia are comparatively bad. Japan with its closed portal of cellphone makers, RFID payment system from the 90s was really advanced but nowadays haven't changed much. internet consumer services in China is really awesome and leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of the world. Alipay simplifies everything and loves to hire young ambitious graduates to do more crazy poo poo. It's actually a huge battle between wechat and alipay. And other internet apps are fighting each other for respective market share. China apps suck overseas because they don't know how to localize properly and there's the touchy issue dealing with foreign banks and sovereignty. The real protectionist in China is union pay where they don't innovate. Then you have the giant old cartel like VISA and MasterCard who do gently caress all and charge crazy high merchant fees. That's why you can't pay your taxes or use tap and go for low cost transactions like public transportation. Google wallet, Apple Pay, square, heck even PayPal tried to make improvements to consumer finance but got stonewalled by the old guard of banks and credit card systems. Wechat is actually doing pretty well in African countries because no bank wants to go there. But again, localization is a bit iffy and the money they earn is not much. Chinese app makers are more focused on China because they see the rest of the world as too backward and given up on them. If someone can find the number of transactions between wechat/alipay and compare it with visa/master that would be great
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Aug 12, 2016 02:16
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That's exactly what I meant by "requires a monopoly of a variety of different services." Alipay and whatnot can do the stuff it does mostly because there aren't any competing services to present an obstacle. "Stonewalled by old guard credit card companies" is just another way of saying there are competing ways to pay for consumer services in the West, creating an environment where Alipay basically just does the same thing everyone already uses their credit cards for. The exact same thing that kneecapped things like Google Pay.quote:internet consumer services in China is really awesome and leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of the world. "Leaps and bounds" in what way, because even the most glowing article about things like WeChat basically just says that the only thing that makes it distinct is that it consolidates a bunch of different things into one app, something that other companies have tried elsewhere but haven't succeeded because Western markets are more diverse in methods of payment, music delivery, game downloads, etc. Like yeah, I'll bet that it's a lot simpler to not have any real alternative in payment/chat/social media apps aside from one bloated Chinese conglomerate with cozy contacts in the CCP but that doesn't really have anything to do with technical innovation. These articles act like consolidating a bunch of different poo poo into one app/program is something that hasn't occurred to Western tech companies/something that Western tech companies don't have the "knowhow" to do when in actuality the only reason it hasn't become A Thing in the west is because of the West's more advanced economic environment compared to China's closed crony capitalism where Chinese companies are shielded from competition and domestic success depends on personal contacts with officials. Fojar38 fucked around with this message at 02:36 on Aug 12, 2016 |
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Aug 12, 2016 02:33
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I feel like alipay etc. makes good use of economy of scale. In Guangzhou I could order stuff on Jingdong and a guy would show up on a bike at my workplace the next day with my stuff. I can also order food and have it delivered for free within an hour from my house. Back home though this stuff would be impossible because outside of L.A. Chicago and N.Y. the density isnt there to make these kinds of services viable.
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Aug 12, 2016 02:48
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EasternBronze posted:I feel like alipay etc. makes good use of economy of scale. In Guangzhou I could order stuff on Jingdong and a guy would show up on a bike at my workplace the next day with my stuff. I can also order food and have it delivered for free within an hour from my house. I'm in Toronto and can do both of these things
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Aug 12, 2016 02:49
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Fojar38 posted:It's really easy to integrate a bunch of services into one app when you have a closed economy with very little competition The Economist had a similar article in last week's issue. If I'm remembering correctly it was much more complimentary to China's ability to compete (i.e. look at how cool Wechat is, now Western tech firms are taking cues from China). I mean, it's cool you can send payments, but there's a really good reason Western apps don't do that and that's because we live in an open, largely urban society where money is easy to send both inside the country and out of it. The fact Chinese need a messaging app to send money isn't necessarily a good thing.
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Aug 12, 2016 02:57
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Krispy Kareem posted:(i.e. look at how cool Wechat is, now Western tech firms are taking cues from China) I remember this article and this left me scratching my head; the article never really goes into WHAT Western tech firms could learn from China and I'm still struggling to see what's actually innovative about just condensing a bunch of different services that have existed for a long time already
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Aug 12, 2016 03:03
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WeChat is excellent for contacting Chinese prostitutes no matter where you are in the world.
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Aug 12, 2016 03:16
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Sinica did a show on this exact question last week with Clay Shirky http://supchina.com/sinica/.
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Aug 12, 2016 03:53
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tsa posted:It's not devious, it's a question of sustainability. A lot of people seem to forget why, keynsianism works so drat well in the US: the US can borrow at absurdly low interest rates even in fairly dim economic periods, sometimes even below 0%, backed by being the worlds reserve currency and sole world superpower status. If need be, the US could be nearly completely self sufficient, perhaps needing to import a bit of fuel (but even that is quickly changing with alt energy), has an incredibly productive economy, and their companies are either top in the world or very close to it. I think a lot of people think that dumping money into any economy works the same way and it just isn't the case. In cases like Greece and China, you just can't dump money into a fire pit forever, eventually financial gravity will return you to earth. The US government enjoys low rates because it is stable and controls its own currency so there is negligible default risk (continued debt ceiling fiascos could threaten this, god forbid an actual brief default). China is similar, as are the UK, Japan, Canada and so on. Greece is completely unlike China because it doesn't control its own currency so can default involuntarily, which is why it had the problem it had: it simply didn't have the money to continue to function except at the sufferance of the powerful Eurozone countries, which demanded austerity as a condition of funding, which further imploded the Greek economy and worsened the government's fiscal position. The 'dim economic periods' you mention otherwise contribute to low rates in these countries. All the advanced economies that didn't suffer the self-inflicted debt crisis of the Eurozone have had low rates in the recent depression. That the USA has a unique benefit of low bond rates and high debt capacity due to the reserve currency is a common misconception. It may gain some additional benefit, but it's not that important. A quick look around gives a current rate of 1.55% for a US government 10-year bond, compared to 2.69% for China, 0.54% for the UK, and -0.1% (negative) for Japan. Euro-area rates are also low these days since the ECB indicated it would act as a lender of last resort, but those countries are capable of a Greek crisis in a way that China simply isn't. The example of Japan's stratospheric public debt suggests that a Chinese deficit is sustainable for a very long time. What China isn't going to get is a return to the good old days of double-digit growth, and if both the state and the private sector are diseased in their ability to find productive investments (which the vanishing of economic information under a fog of bullshit will contribute to) it could be depressed instead. If they try to do too much, the standard Keynesian logic would give them higher inflation but no material benefit. That lack of material benefit could lead to unrest in the longer term, even if they avoid unrest in the shorter term. Peel fucked around with this message at 04:24 on Aug 12, 2016 |
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Aug 12, 2016 04:22
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Peel posted:The US government enjoys low rates because it is stable and controls its own currency so there is negligible default risk (continued debt ceiling fiascos could threaten this, god forbid an actual brief default). China is similar, as are the UK, Japan, Canada and so on. Greece is completely unlike China because it doesn't control its own currency so can default involuntarily, which is why it had the problem it had: it simply didn't have the money to continue to function except at the sufferance of the powerful Eurozone countries, which demanded austerity as a condition of funding, which further imploded the Greek economy and worsened the government's fiscal position. The 'dim economic periods' you mention otherwise contribute to low rates in these countries. All the advanced economies that didn't suffer the self-inflicted debt crisis of the Eurozone have had low rates in the recent depression. That the USA has a unique benefit of low bond rates and high debt capacity due to the reserve currency is a common misconception. It may gain some additional benefit, but it's not that important. What about when local governments default on their debt? Looks an awful lot like Grexit: Commie Boogaloo to me.
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Aug 12, 2016 05:23
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My Imaginary GF posted:What about when local governments default on their debt? Looks an awful lot like Grexit: Commie Boogaloo to me. No one's defaulting while they have the central government to bail them out. And then central government has a ridiculously high credit capacity. China is completely different from Greece in size and scope, and it's not shackled to an artificial gold standard.
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Aug 12, 2016 06:07
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quote:UBS: China's Already Started Bailing Out its Banks http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-11/ubs-china-s-already-started-bailing-out-its-banks
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Aug 12, 2016 08:22
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Fojar38 posted:That's exactly what I meant by "requires a monopoly of a variety of different services." Alipay and whatnot can do the stuff it does mostly because there aren't any competing services to present an obstacle. "Stonewalled by old guard credit card companies" is just another way of saying there are competing ways to pay for consumer services in the West, creating an environment where Alipay basically just does the same thing everyone already uses their credit cards for. The exact same thing that kneecapped things like Google Pay. China Bad, must BASH! I'm always up for a nice bit of China bashing when it's deserved, but your post makes you seem like either the bitterest of bitter expats or someone who just hasn't used Wechat in the last few years. Wechat is a better service than is offered by similar products in the west, but you're barely acknowledging that and attempting to completely deflect the discussion onto the inferiority (real or supposed) of China's economic model compared to the west. Nevertheless, in spite of the awful way that you framed your point, there is something here that no one else has addressed appropriately. Do Wechat and Alipay actually deserve to be held up as examples of Chinese innovation. As technical achievements, almost certainly not. But in terms of design and market strategy, they absolutely are. These products didn't become successful compared to their numerous competitors just because of crony capitalism, they are successful because they're better products and they made it extremely easy and intuitive for people to use them by, for example, facilitating the transition from using your chat and social media app just for chat, to using it to give 20 kuai to a friend to split a taxi ride when you don't have change, to using it to buy things in the store, book plane tickets and pay your bills. Wechat didn't just throw all these features together and call it a day, they approached it very cleverly by introducing the wallet feature first as hong bao, then expanding from there into a more full featured payment service after everyone realized how awesome it is to have a wallet connected to your social media app. Tencent identified a huge potential space to grow their company and innovated an extremely successful way to do so through a thorough understanding of the characteristics of their market. Surely, that's more difficult in western markets because of our more advanced economic environment, but the fact is that none of our companies have succeeded in doing so yet and I suspect it will be 5-6 years before they do. Once one of them does, it will be lionized as greatly innovative in bringing together existing technologies in a way that makes them convenient to everyone and accessible to Grandma. Fojar38 posted:I'm in Toronto and can do both of these things That's not countering his point at all, Toronto also has high enough population density to make it work. However, while I've never been to Toronto, I still suspect you don't have access to anywhere close to the range of online to offline services available in big cities in China. This is another way that tech companies in China are innovative, which is that they've figured out they can create online to offline models that wouldn't work in other countries because of lower population density and better labor laws and have rolled them out on a huge scale. You can order practically anything on the internet in China, from a massage to fresh fruit to flowers to piano lessons and expect it to arrive soon. This isn't any kind of huge innovative leap, but it is innovation. I take the basic point of the article to be that Chinese tech companies are starting to innovate and will continue to do so at an increasing rate as the number of returnees grows, they start reforming their education system and as the 90s and 00s generations start to grow up. But, the government's insistence on a walled off tech environment is seriously hampering that because not enough people have access to full knowledge of both markets and models that are successful in China are doomed outside of it and likewise successful companies outside of China have an awful time adapting to the Chinese environment.
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Aug 12, 2016 16:08
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Doesn't innovation require inventing new things, though? All these services that are currently being rolled out in China are copied from things I was using in Korea years ago. I've never seen anything genuinely new in China, and I live in one of the three places that argues over the Chinese Silicon Valley name. Which is amusing in itself that they're even copying that. Copying what works from other countries is a valid way to begin an economy but you can't do that forever and expect to be taken seriously. You can predict what new apps will show up in China with near perfect accuracy by looking at every new one that gets popular in the US and waiting a few months.
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Aug 12, 2016 16:33
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Shifty Pony posted:I don't think that's an accurate description of the article at all. the 5000 year old galopagos economy
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Aug 12, 2016 17:00
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Grand Fromage posted:Doesn't innovation require inventing new things, though? All these services that are currently being rolled out in China are copied from things I was using in Korea years ago. I've never seen anything genuinely new in China, and I live in one of the three places that argues over the Chinese Silicon Valley name. Which is amusing in itself that they're even copying that. Even assuming that they are just copying features, localizing it to a new customer base always involves at least some amount of innovation because every country and culture will have a bunch of differences which get in the way of success. It won't be innovative to people in that market but it will be new for the company. I'd guess that a lack of experience in that area makes it even harder for Chinese companies to break out. If an American or European multinational wants to start offering services in Country X where EMV doesn't exist or television ads aren't really a thing that isn't a big deal because they probably have already run into that trouble before in a different market. Even if they haven't they can learn relatively easily due to the free flow of information or there are all manner of consultant companies who will help you make the required changes. For the Chinese company trying to expand out of China not only do they have to do modify a whole lot more stuff but they have limited experience doing it and (in the Internet-related field) it is difficult to gain that experience thanks to the Great Firewall. The article compares it to a difference in rail gauge but it is more like one country using gasoline for all fuel and another running exclusively on diesel. Sure a company in either country can make a car with the same outer appearance that is successful in both countries but it is going to take an obscene amount of work under the hood in addition to all the little things like how one country needs larger cupholders or responds more to ads about safety than performance. Meanwhile Ford or BMW just tweaks their already existing gas or diesel engines to meet emissions and calls it a day.
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Aug 12, 2016 18:28
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What would be a good article to write regarding China's stock market?
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Aug 12, 2016 19:09
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Grouchio posted:What would be a good article to write regarding China's stock market? Obituaries.
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Aug 12, 2016 19:11
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I dunno, obviously it's sort of hanging on still but it's neutered as far as being an actual market goes. More interesting is the upcoming debt crisis I think.
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Aug 12, 2016 19:56
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