• voracitude@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    How’s Evergrande doing? What about Chinese property in general? All that ghost housing the population have sunk their savings into is appreciating nicely, yes? What’s the birth rate like in China now vs 60 years ago by the way? How’s that compare to other powers? What’s the average age of the Chinese population, again? And boy howdy the Uighurs are going to be glad the CCP aren’t into genocide.

    It’s not a good idea to trust the numbers the CCP provides (if you can even get recent ones). I don’t pretend the US is good, but I’m not about to suck the dick of any country like you are just because they’re not America.

    • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      All that ghost housing the population have sunk their savings into is appreciating nicely, yes?

      Funny how everyone complains about US investors sitting on property makes housing unaffordable and also complains that surplus housing in China makes housing a bad investment.

      Everyone hates everything.

      • voracitude@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Are you trying to imply that everywhere is the same? Different places, different problems, different causes.

        Surplus housing was built in China because the population needed a safe investment for their savings. The stock market is too volatile, and investing overseas is tightly controlled, so housing has been the choice because it lasts.

        In the US, there’s a conflux of factors that’s led to a housing shortage, then the pandemic exacerbated that situation, and now spiking interest rates are making it unaffordable to move for the few who did manage to buy a home with their meagre resources. Then, of course, there’s institutional investment buying up single-family homes and driving up prices even more.

        The point is that China is not some perfect übermensch, even compared to the US, and anyone claiming otherwise needs to be corrected.

        • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          The point is that China is not some perfect übermensch,

          I didn’t claim they were.

          Whatever the cause, the surplus of housing in China can’t be seen as a negative for the same reason a lack of housing is a negative in the US.

          You can’t have it both ways.

          The trains ran on time under Mussolini. Just because a dictatorship does bad things doesn’t mean absolutely everything must be bad. Just because a democracy does good things doesn’t mean everything is perfect.

          • voracitude@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            I didn’t claim they were.

            The person I originally responded to was, and you replied to me defending their point, so yeah, you’re taking it up. If you didn’t mean to, fine. The rest of my post stands. To wit:

            Whatever the cause, the surplus of housing in China can’t be seen as a negative for the same reason a lack of housing is a negative in the US.

            What the hell are you talking about? Too much of anything is bad, just like too little is bad. Americans don’t have their entire life savings sunk into investment properties nobody wants. The Chinese population does. If nobody wants those properties they own, nobody buys them, and the value tanks. If the construction of those properties had been funded by the government you might have a point, but when it’s funded by the life savings of 900 million people or more, that’s a major fucking problem, and it’s not related in any way shape or form to the American housing market.

            • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              you replied to me defending their point

              No I didn’t. I specifically ended with, “Everyone hates everything.”

              Too much of anything is bad, just like too little is bad.

              Just like too little of anything is also bad.

              If the value tanks, homes are affordable.

              You can’t have it both ways.

              • voracitude@lemmy.world
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                11 months ago

                So when I said “just like too little is bad”, which you even actually quoted, you just decided to ignore that and the rest of my words to restate your prior, addressed, and wrong point.

                Affordable housing does not depend on bankrupting your entire populace, as in China, nor is it possible in a system like that in the US that refuses to build more housing to sate the demand of the existing populace (let alone population expansion).

                They. Are. Different. Problems. They. Have. Different. Causes. And. Solutions.

                • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
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                  11 months ago

                  So when I said “just like too little is bad”

                  I was highlighting that you see the problem without acknowledging the hypocrisy.

                  They. Are. Different. Problems

                  One is oversupply causing lower prices. This helps new families at the expense of investors. The other is under supply. This hurts new families and helps investors. When housing crashed in 2008, new home buyers were happy while the media lamented the home owner investors who lost value. You can’t have lower prices without oversupply.

                  It doesn’t matter if we don’t like China’s government. The math of supply and demand is the same.

                  If this was 1935, you’d be posting that trains on time in Italy is bad but late trains in the US is different because “reasons”.

                  • voracitude@lemmy.world
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                    11 months ago

                    Hypocrisy? Your point so far has been

                    You say undersupply in America is bad, and oversupply in China is bad, you can’t have it both ways

                    As though one is bad and one isn’t. It’s the most braindead take I’ve ever heard, like you don’t understand that supply and demand can intersect without bankrupting the populace or putting them on the street. Like you don’t understand that the government in China has created this problem by stopping people from sending their money overseas and failing to regulate stability into their stock market.

                    I’ll tell you what. If the above quote doesn’t describe your position, why don’t you quote yourself and explain in more detail for the class.

    • OtakuAltair@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      Last I heard, Evergrade’s chairman was selling their luxury property to pay for the debt. And you guys are still calling planned cities ‘ghost housing’? Lmao. Cool name though. I’d say the US could learn from it, but they’re unlikely to do something that’s not profitable.

      You do realize you can google things yourself, right? China’s demographics are similar to the US, though, afaik.

      the Uighurs are going to be glad the CCP aren’t into genocide.

      Like I said in another comment, even the US State department says there are no mass killings in Xinjiang, and those guys would love to report otherwise. It’s probably not good there, though. Bad Empanada looked into it, and there seems to be cultural repression going on. He has sources in the video’s description.