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Conley
06-10-2012, 05:25 PM
Interesting article...


China is a kleptocracy of a scale never seen before in human history. This post aims to explain how this wave of theft is financed, what makes it sustainable and what will make it fail. There are several China experts I have chatted with – and many of the ideas are not original. The synthesis however is mine. Some sources do not want to be quoted.

...

This however is only the beginning of Chinese fraud. China is a mafia state – and Bo Xilai is just a recent public manifestation. If you want a good guide to the Chinese kleptocracy – including the crimes of Bo Xilai well before they made the international press look at this speech by John Garnaut to the US China Institute.

...

The other key fuel for kleptocracy is a copious supply of domestic savings to loot. The reason Chinese savings levels are so high is the one-child policy.

In most developing countries the way that people save is they have multiple children hopefully to generate a gaggle of grandchildren all of whom are trained to respect their elders. Given most people did not live to old age if you did you became a treasured (and well cared for) family member.

This does not work in China. Longevity in China is increasing rapidly and the one-child policy results in a grandchild potentially having four grandparents to look after. The “four grandparent policy” means the elderly cannot expect to be looked after in old age. Four grandparents, one grand-kid makes abandoning the old-folk looks easy and near certain.


http://www.businessinsider.com/how-the-chinese-kleptrocracy-works-2012-6

MMC
06-10-2012, 06:45 PM
Yeah what can one say. Although the family unit is more in step with keeping their elders around them.

Conley
06-10-2012, 06:48 PM
Yeah what can one say. Although the family unit is more in step with keeping their elders around them.

But they make a good point with the one child policy - that leads to one kid being responsible for four grandparents...impossible situation. I never thought of it from that angle, only from the parents.

MMC
06-10-2012, 06:55 PM
But they make a good point with the one child policy - that leads to one kid being responsible for four grandparents...impossible situation. I never thought of it from that angle, only from the parents.


Hmmmm maybe we can start up a buisness. Adopt a Grand-Parent from Around the World. For those that like to keep up with the Jones'.

waltky
10-21-2012, 11:37 PM
China economy losin' steam...
:huh:
China's new leaders face tough economic choices
Oct 21,`12 -- China's economic model that delivered three decades of double-digit growth is running out of steam and the country's next leaders face tough choices to keep incomes rising. But they don't seem to have ambitious solutions. Even if they do, they will need to tackle entrenched interests with backing high in the Communist Party.


The cost of inaction could be high. The World Bank says without change, annual growth could sink to 5 percent by 2015 - dangerously low by Chinese standards. Some private sector analysts give even gloomier warnings. The government's own advisers say it needs to promote service industries and consumer spending, shifting away from reliance on exports and investment. That will require opening more industries to entrepreneurs and forcing cosseted state companies to compete. State banks would have to lend more to private business that is starved for credit.

The ruling party's latest five-year development plan promises reforms in broad terms. Premier Wen Jiabao apologized at a news conference in March for not moving fast enough and vowed quicker action. But many changes could face opposition from China's most influential factions - state companies, their allies in the party, bureaucrats and local leaders. "If the challenge is, can they do radical reform all at once, we know that won't happen because these leaders aren't powerful enough," said Scott Kennedy, director of Indiana University's Research Center for Chinese Politics & Business in Beijing. "They are facing interests which wouldn't possibly allow that to occur."

Also at issue is how much Communist Party leaders are willing to cut back state industry that provides jobs and money to underpin the party's monopoly on power. Li Keqiang is the man in line to lead reforms as the next premier, China's top economic official. Now a vice premier, Li is seen as a political insider with an easygoing style, not a hard-driving reformer. Along with the rest of the party's Standing Committee, the ruling inner circle due to be installed in November, Li will govern by consensus, which could blunt their force. "They are under pressure to change the economy, but they will not demolish party control," said Mao Yushi, an 83-year-old economist who is one of China's most prominent reform advocates. He co-founded the Unirule Institute of Economics, an independent think tank in Beijing.

MORE (http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_CHINA_POLITICS_TOUGH_CHOICES?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-10-21-20-48-49)

See also:

Japanese exports to China fall amid territorial dispute
21 October 2012 - The BBC's correspondent in Tokyo, Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, says exports are down for a fourth consecutive month


Japanese exports to China tumbled in September compared to the previous year, as a territorial dispute between the two countries weighed on the economy.


Exports from Japan declined at their sharpest pace since the aftermath of last year's earthquake and tsunami.


Overseas shipments fell 10.3%, compared to last year, the Finance Ministry said.

Relations between China and Japan have soured in recent weeks.


Islands dispute (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20024571)

RollingWave
10-23-2012, 01:57 AM
The Demographic crisis is a legitimate problem, though that is hardly by design, or rather, it was a desperate attempt to fix another ugly problem, that China was way over populated.

How bad will it get? how much will it really effect China and the world? what will it's reactions be? who really knows until 20-30+ years down the road. It should be pointed out, that the USA has largely avoided this problem which also plagues much of the developing world because the USA is a large immigrant society.

Given it's natural restriction, it is unlikely that China will come close to surpassing the USA in terms of per capita income, though there is a decent chance that it passes the USA in terms of total GDP if only because they only need a per capita income roughly equal to Eastern European / Latin America countries and it's not really that far from that now already.

waltky
10-23-2012, 05:08 AM
R.Wave wrote: How bad will it get? how much will it really effect China and the world? what will it's reactions be?

Uncle Ferd says dey gonna load dat Chinese aircraft carrier up with dat 200 million man army...

... an' come over here an reposses the White House...

... den dey gonna load it up with white womens an' carry `em off back to China...

... `cause dey ain't got enough womens to go `round over there...

... `cause o' dat one-child policy.

(Granny say she might not object to havin' a young Chinaman.)