Comments on: China’s economy — smaller than the CW suggests

By: Ramdo

Ramdo — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 00:53:52 +0000

Even if the Chinese and Indian economies surpass USA’s by twice their amount, their per capita incomes, etc. will still be significantly lower, due to the high populations. However, they will enjoy MUCH, MUCH cheaper foods, etc. That’s purchasing power. Despite the 1 : 8 ratio of Yuan to US Dollar, I can buy a kg of pork for about 4 Yuan, and the price here is about 1.19 per lb. So really, U.S. dollar is worth a little more than 3 Chinese Yuan. Of course, people in the USA make more dollars than the Chinese make Yuan, but the difference is not as drastic as some of you would think.

By: Karim Duzan

Karim Duzan — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 01:12:46 +0000

It seems that everyone who post in this forum is an idiot. The GDP per capita of the United States in terms of purchasing power parity is 44,000 and the china’s is 7,700. That is almost 6 times for the USA. China’s economy will surpass in some point of the 21st century the US economy in terms of total GDP, but will never surpass the US in terms of GDP per capita at purchasin power parity.

By: Beihai

Beihai — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 00:56:16 +0000

Let’s repeat this again: the average American makes 12 times more than the richest Chinese.
I am an American who has lived in China for 7 years, and I can tell you that is flat out wrong. In fact, it is delusional. According to that liberal magazine Forbes “The 40 richest businesspeople are now worth a collective $26 billion, up from $18 billion a year ago. China is now home to ten billionaires and their families, up from three last year.”
I recently tried moving back to the United States and found the situation intolerable. The cost of living is outrageous. I found that not only was I not able to live on my salary but I also had to dip into my savings. I am now living in Mexico making half the money but actually saving nearly half of what i make. Yes, purchasing power matters you idiot. Obviously you have never bothered to go to China before you make asinine statements.

By: Asian Sam

Asian Sam — Fri, 23 Dec 2005 18:50:01 +0000

You are such an idiot - did you know that 17 out of 20 billion jumbo jets being sold for the next few years are being sold to China and India?

Man you guys are such poor loosers. Accept it man, it’s the Asian century, you guys are the dinosaurs of the last age.

Seriously, have you noticed that the Chinese have 300 million cell phones, consume more PER CAPITA cement than USians (it is rediculous that US citizens call themseleves “americans” when there are so many other american countries- another example of US-centric point of view for everything while being
oblivious to the reality outside).
Also you failied to notice that China is also now the largest market for iron and steel, with PER CAPITA consumption 2/3rds of US. Or number of engineers being graduate (5times of US and rising), number of aeroplanes being purchased, number of new power plants being built, the list goes on and on..

China and India are set
to become the largest market for a host of other products in the next 1,2,3 to 5 years including PCs, cars, heavy equipment, broadband internet, highways, number of highrise buildings.

Or that they are now the largest trading partners of Japan?

How do you explain such humongous per capita consumption if a TINY number of Chinese are rich? Do those “tiny” numbers of chinese like to walk around
with 100s of cellphones on their head as a fashion symbol, live in castles with steel and cement walls 100s of meters thick? Or wear 100 pants and shirts
to work on top of each other to appear as fat as americans?

Wake up buddy, you can still find a decent job in China if you have nothing better to write about in USA.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 04:32:06 +0000

If the US wants to compete with China, it has to lower its prices and wages at least 5 times. That means American average monthly pay will be lowered to $1,000. Otherwise, the US may be bankrupt within 10 years. Don’t just blame China for the Chinese currency. Why only the US and no any other countries (including Japan and EU) have trade deficit with China? The US needs to reconsider its own economic structure and problems in its labor force (e.g., poor background in engineering, bad attitude toward teamwork and working hard, etc).

By: Daniel

Daniel — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 04:11:26 +0000

I’ve lived in the US for four years. The prices in the US are crazy, and people’s actual living standard is terrible. For example, I can buy a very fresh cucumber and for only $0.05 in China, here in the US is $0.99, which has been put in the super for 1 or 2 weeks. I can buy a book for $3-4 in China, here is $50-100. And Chinese don’t pay sales tax. Americans have to pay an extra 5-9% sales tax. In China, I can rent a two-bedroom for $80, here is $ 1,000. It seems Americans are earning much more than Chinese and then you feel very lucky, but your actual living standard is much lower than Chinese. American capitalism is misleading you guys into self-complacement through superficial wage increase (2.5 % a year), but the prices are increasing more every year (e.g., my apartment rent increases 3% a year). Haha…

By: Daniel

Daniel — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 03:49:18 +0000

You guys don’t understand the real China. China is not communist any more but more capitalist than the Europe, though the US media is still cheating you American guys, for political propaganda against China. Aso, a Chinese earning $5,000 a year (probably 30% percent of the Chinese population earn this amount) lives much nuch more comfortabaly than you guys earning $50,000 in the US. This is the real China.

By: OhBloodyHell

OhBloodyHell — Fri, 23 Sep 2005 05:21:33 +0000

> Statistics from the United Nations Development Program show that China’s Gini Coefficient is 0.45 and the income or consumption of the poorest, who take up 20 percent of the gross population, accounts for only 4.7 percent of the total, while the share by the 20-percent richest is as high as 50 percent.

Uhhh, wait, isn’t China a Communist state? Aren’t things supposed to be equally distributed? How can we speak of consumption by rich or poor?

Say it ain’t so!?!?!?

I am so disillusioned!!

:-9

By: Jason

Jason — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 22:35:09 +0000

Isn’t it nice of the Chinese to take low yielding US paper at low valuations against their own currency, to lose substantial amounts of capital funding industries to provide low cost goods to the US, and then to use US paper to recapitalize the institutions that squandered the money. they could save themselves a lot of work by stopping the bank recapitalizations and just asking us to throw 20% of our bond issuances to them in the fire.

By: Robert Genise

Robert Genise — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 21:03:42 +0000

Jack,
I appreciate someone else taking a realistic view of the Chinese economy. Granted it will be a growing, major economic force for a long time to come but there will be some significant bumps in that road. The comments about the bad loans sitting on the banks books is also a reflection of the general lack of transparency across the entire economy.

Best regards,

Bob