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Cultural Imperial posted:http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/05/26/tycoon-sees-titanic-moment-for-chinas-housing-market/ Putting that little share price change tag next to the guy's company name doesn't do much for his credibility though.
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May 26, 2014 21:28
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| # ¿ May 6, 2024 09:31 |
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Working with absolute values of net imports is rather disingenuous. Without trends in global production and consumption, there is no way to see whether that deficit is actually a big number or not. Australia never struck me as a major wheat producer.
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Aug 12, 2014 10:26
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Arglebargle III posted:But are they making economic profits? Okay, that was a poor choice of thing to focus on. Still, we are talking about China having a deficit in grain, and comparing it to production in Wheat of a country whose production, while large, is still only something like 5% of global production. Looking at global grain figures, I don't see Chinese imbalance as particularly significant: http://www.igc.int/en/default.aspx 2013 was also, it seems, a rather anomalous year. Fangz fucked around with this message at 23:42 on Aug 12, 2014 |
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Aug 12, 2014 23:39
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While China is a large country and so a major factor in any global issue, I still don't see a fixation on any individual country as justified. World population rose by a billion between 2000 and 2014. China's share of that rise is actually small relative to its share of the global population. I also don't really see long term extrapolation as reasonable here. Yes, Chinese people are eating more meat, but is the amount of meat eaten at all likely to grow unstoppably at the same rate for the next ten years? Doubtful. This is what the OECD is predicting, anyway: quote:Crop prices are expected to drop for one or two more years, before stabilizing at levels that remain above the pre-2008 period, but significantly below recent peaks. Meat, dairy and fish prices are expected to rise. In real terms, however, prices for both crops and animal products are projected to decline over the medium term. The expected stock-to-use ratios for cereals improve significantly, which should ease concerns about their price volatility. http://www.oecd.org/site/oecd-faoagriculturaloutlook/overview.htm EDIT: The majority of China's grain deficit is a -10Mt trade balance in coarse grains, which sounds like a lot, until you note that the US is exporting 30Mt more than they are importing for coarse grains. EDIT2: quote:Future projections for Chinese per capita food energy use in kcal forecast a steady, constant growth in China until the 2050s. Yes, and those projections are bunk for that reason. Constant growth is *assumed* in those forecasts, but there's literally nothing to back those projections up. No one expects say, Chinese economic growth to proceed at the current rate for 50 years. If it was 10 years ago and we're making projections, we would have an extremely different result. Look at this graph, do you really think it's reasonable to make the extrapolation (dashed line) from the historical trend (solid line)? Hey, continue this line for long enough and you'll be predicting that chinese people will each eat a cow every day. 
Fangz fucked around with this message at 16:42 on Aug 13, 2014 |
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Aug 13, 2014 16:13
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TheBalor posted:Now, before people go too crazy, wouldn't the deposal of the CPC, or at least breaking of their monopoly on power, be overall very beneficial for China? With real competition in the halls of power, there's a reason to go all-out against corruption, raise civil servant salaries, cut waste, etc. Everyone won't be holding each other's dicks at the highest level. Uh, no, democratic China would probably fracture instantly between the rich ultracapitalist cities and the countryside who are still dreaming of Cultural Revolution Part 2. Also it's a hell of a big ask for the Chinese institutions of power to deliver free and fair elections.
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Sep 25, 2014 13:32
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On what basis do you think that suggesting tremendous ideological and economic division would lead to political divisiveness is just scaremongering? In case there is confusion, I am not saying that Shanghai will seceed. I am saying that we would get a turbo charged version of the rural-urban political divide that defines most democracies, and that conflict would dominate instead of stuff like sorting out corruption.
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Sep 25, 2014 14:09
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| # ¿ May 6, 2024 09:31 |
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dilbertschalter posted:"fracture sharply" implies some sort of dramatic crack-up. Obviously the rural-urban divide would be a big issue, but many countries are quite intensely divided and manage to be democratic all the same (democratic government is, in fact, a highly effective means of resolving grievances/divisions between competing regions). As for "sorting out" corruption, the corruption isn't something that is actually tackled or reduced by "anti-corruption campaigns" of that sort we're seeing now- rather, it depends on the existence of a rule law and of general trust in government, both of which are awfully non-existent in the current Chinese system. I never used the word sharply, I said instantly. You are going to have give me some examples about how democratic government is "in fact, a highly effective means of resolving grievances/divisions between competing regions", when it seems the recent history of democracy in producing solutions for divided countries is *horrible*. See e.g. Ukraine, Thailand, Venezuela, Iraq .... Globally speaking, Chinese trust in government is actually anomalously high: http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/jan/24/trust-in-government-country-edelman (More recent version: http://www.edelman.com/insights/intellectual-property/2014-edelman-trust-barometer/trust-around-the-world/ ) In case we go there, I'm not saying democracy sucks lol, but I am saying that democracy is falsely portrayed as a magic bullet to all of a country's ills, that democracy is an inherently unstable situation under some conditions and that making democracy work in China is going to take a hell of a lot of socio-economic preparation. Fangz fucked around with this message at 17:23 on Sep 26, 2014 |
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Sep 26, 2014 17:08
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