A comment on the Reddit post, a video titled "China demolishing unfinished high-rises."
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"One of the biggest things that stuck with me was condo developments dotting the country side but no supporting infrastructure what so ever. Food, retail etc."
"Absolutely not normal when developing a new neighborhood and it stuck with me.
When I got back to [my friend's Chinese] city we met up again and I asked her about it and she said it's something she shouldn't talk about.
But she did and said that those buildings may lead to to a collapse for two reasons. They have a large population of laborers they need to keep busy and people who want to invest. You can buy them but you can't live in them or rent them. Eventually it will fail."
A comment on the Reddit post, a video titled "China demolishing unfinished high-rises."
A comment on the Reddit post, a video titled "China demolishing unfinished high-rises."
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Thanks to Biden and the Dems, we will be supporting China’s economy with all the demand for rare earth minerals needed for wind and solar.
I blame kieth Romney
John LGBTq+ Henry
serious question: what's Chinese for Potemkin Village?
This is what happens in a centrally planned economy. Things get built because a small number of people think it is a good idea.
Then nobody moves there.
There are so many variables when running an economy that a government just cannot keep up.
The more a government involves itself in planning the economy the more waste and failure there will be.
The other issue is that the people who work for government are generally mediocre and cannot succeed in competitive environments. That is why they work for the government.
They need to be given as little importance as possible.
America has all these unhoused people and China has all these empty homes. Surely we can find some sort of deal here?
Why not just build few strip malls in the surrounding areas?...Did they install plumbing in the high rises? You can really save a lot of money on those high rises if you don't install plumbing or wiring.
One can see some of these in California as well. Sometimes atop hills so steep no one would ride a bike or walk anywhere from the condo. It would be so terrible to be a kid living there.
Investment with no return = lenders hit = counterparty fails all over. The safe end of the chain gets hit by the dangerous end failing.
If fake cities interests you, I suggest you pull up Google Earth and zoom in to North Korea's capital.
It's almost completely devoid of people. No cars on the roads. No people milling about. Nobody getting street food. Nobody at parks. It's like everyone is dead. Straight out of Firefly.
If you build it, they won't come.
Here's one for you, AA:
"what so ever"
I've never seen it broken up into three words...
They have a large population of laborers they need to keep busy
Demolishing buildings also keeps people busy. Reminds me of the old joke about unions doing road work. One guy digging a hole, the other guy filling it in. A passerby asks what's the point? One of the workers replies that the guy who was supposed to put the posts in the post holes is out sick. Gotta keep those workers busy!
People pay mortgages on apartments in buildings not completed, and builders take the payments and use it to start new projects sold to new buyers of stuff not completed, etc. The people are starting to not pay mortgages any longer (until they see some progress on their building) and the system collapses, there being no completed buildings and no money coming in. Lots of uncompleted buildings though.
Nobody tell Thomas Friedman.
Search on Peter Zeihan China and you'll get an idea of the scope of the problem. Their demographics are horrific. There won't BE people to live in those towers.
If the CCP is still a viable ruler of the entire Han nation in ten years, it will be an amazing feat. They may or may not know this, but who will tell Xi?
But but but the Chinese are eating our lunch! They're unstoppable! All the bad economic news out of there is just propaganda so we let our guard down!
In reality the Chinese are on the verge of another major cataclysm, and it's our best interest to stand well back and avoid the crash.
But I'm sure the US Government's planning for semiconductor manufacturing will be flawless, completely integrated into the rest of the economy.
Sounds like downtown Hartford.
Remember, our leaders wish they had the power of the Chinese government.
William said...
Did they install plumbing in the high rises? You can really save a lot of money on those high rises if you don't install plumbing or wiring.
a lot of them were never finished. The 20 of them that they dropped all at once, were exposed to the elements, and the rebars rusted.. So they were NEVER fixable let alone inhabitable
if you watch, they don't even do a half assed job of dropping them.. many of the towers just fell over, and landed intact. If you can't ever do implosions.. maybe you Shouldn't be building towers
Graft and central planning go hand in glove.
The same thing happens here with Green Energy.
Boy. Those guys, Xi and Biden. Those two know the road to prosperity. Don't they.
"The other issue is that the people who work for government are generally mediocre and cannot succeed in competitive environments."
Certainly explains the usual suspects.
There are two Chinas. One built for the eyes of western investors and the one the everyday Chinese get to use. Which is deteriorating, shabby and polluted.
In Arlington, they like to build up these high-rise buildings to create high-density neighborhoods, but they do nothing to upgrade, much less increase, the infrastructure that was constructed 50 years ago for a population that was 25 percent of what it is now.
If you're inside China and you press a friend to discuss a political issue which reflects negatively on the government you are not their friend or you are a jackass. I spent two years there.
The party (Around 5% of the population. Membership by invitation only.) has informers everywhere. They run the government, they run the society and they are everything that Communist Party cadres have always been.
It's Lenin's system. It works very well if you can find enough bloody minded followers for the initial takeover.
"what so ever"
I've never seen it broken up into three words...
It. Is. Linguistic. Emphasis. But on a syllabic level, rather than a word level.
The same gross misalignment progressed with State's Choice.
Money isn't actually money. It's information. Information about what people want, what they're willing to sacrifice for, and what they actually need.
Socialism tries to substitute some idiot's vision for what people actually do want and need for reality. So, it does away with "money" as a concept, and substitutes central planning.
Human beings not possessing the omniscience of God, this does not work at all well in practice.
While you can work temporary wonders of "development" with centrally-planned socialist economies, you wind up performing stupidities as China has and the Soviet Union did. It eventually catches up with you, and the economy craters when all the human-imagined delusional decisions eventuate in disaster. You see the same thing in traditional economies, but it's only the individual investor that faces reality, not the entire system.
Go big, you're automatically going fragile and brittle. That's what killed the Soviets, in the end, and did for the Japanese, who were going to dominate the world's economies. See any of the MITI "initiatives" that actually worked, out there?
China is going to cave in on itself, yet again. They have only the CCP to blame for it.
Socialism is basically the premise that 20 "smart guys" sitting in a centralized planning office are smarter than the mass of the populace out at the various and sundry coalfaces of the nation. They're not. You can't "plan centrally" and have anything at all work, over the long haul. Not even the short haul, because those rarefied autistic cretins who imagine they know better than everyone else are almost always wrong about everything they do. Put them in charge of sand, and the Sahara will shortly be suffering from shortages of said granular soil.
This reminded me of Heinlein's "For Us, The Living" (though it has been quite some time since I read it so the details my be hazy.) It described a future society where products are manufactured in a manner unrelated to demand. All overproduction is purchased by the government and scrapped ensuring full employment. What stuck with me was they were building cars without engines or other important components. This was explained that these cars were going straight to be scrapped so they didn't need engines, etc..
Somewhat similar to the CCP building condos that will never be occupied and, ultimately, demolished.
Back in 2008, visited one of these "ghost cities" some distance west of Hefei. Complete with a huge (unused) soccer stadium. Basically not a soul around except people like us -- tourists looking at unusual sights.
"This is what happens in a centrally planned economy."
Capitalism is an absolutely brilliant system. It amazes me that people think they can produce better results through "planning".
Achilles is on to something:
"There are so many variables when running an economy that a government just cannot keep up.
The more a government involves itself in planning the economy the more waste and failure there will be.
The other issue is that the people who work for government are generally mediocre and cannot succeed in competitive environments. That is why they work for the government."
Substitute Global Climate, the Homeless Crisis, Illegal immigration, Gun control, rampant crime and others and the statements hold pretty true.... At least under this administration.
"what so ever"
I've never seen it broken up into three words...
Ab so lute' lee.
It's the investor side that seems like the problem. If there's a "need" to keep labourers employed, that must be government, not investors (who wouldn't care), but labourers could just as easily be employed building out useable infrastructure, rather than empty condo buildings. If investors (and banks) are driving that, it seems like a combination of unscrupulous land developers overselling useless condo developments and unsophisticated purchasers falling for it. And probably local government sonewhere in the mix. And banks financing construction. But investors and banks are where the money's ultimately coming from.
At the same time, moving money in and out of China is not that easy, so maybe there's just nothing else domestic better to invest in. Perhaps "land" (=condos) seems like a more real/concrete investment than a company or government bonds or whatever the alternatives are. In the hierarchy of how easy it is to cheat investors, maybe companies and government bonds are worse than condo developments in the middle of nowhere.
Some of us actually foresaw this over 20 years ago. I had a friend in the state department (He unfriended me because I wouldn't celebrate his SSM- or any other.) rave about how smart the Chinese were building all these empty cities for their future population increase. Since I'm on the maintenance/operation side of things- I was more then skeptical. Empty building deteriorate. Birds and bugs move in. Where's the water going to come from for the population? The water plants aren't built. Where's the water going to after it's used? No wastewater system. And too be honest, I wonder just how much China has invested in actual wastewater treatment plants in places that are occupied...
Something often emphasized on instapundit- something that can't go on forever won't. CHina is approaching the endpoint. Sri Lanka arrived in force. Vox Day has an exerpt from the paywalled NY Times article he linked in today's post of his The Canary Died.
Office space vacancy in the USA in many cities is at record highs. In other cities, the supply is tight. Difference between here and China- it's much easier to move between our 50 states, and all the states are run differently, not the entire nation centrally run. So we're able to kick the can further down the road. There's a huge population shift going on. But it's hard to tell. NY's population since just the 2020 census is either up OR down depending on who you're going to believe. Or maybe it hasn't changed... But everyone seems to universally agree there's a population shift going on. U-Haul one way rental rates reflect it.
china also take the money - then doesn't finish the building. People are forced to move in without running water etc..
Pelosi Biden thing to do.
Rabel - the corrupt Democrat insiders/ FBI want that here in the USA.
rhhardin said...
People pay mortgages on apartments in buildings not completed, and builders take the payments and use it to start new projects sold to new buyers of stuff not completed, etc. The people are starting to not pay mortgages any longer (until they see some progress on their building) and the system collapses, there being no completed buildings and no money coming in. Lots of uncompleted buildings though.
The very essence of a Ponzi Scheme writ very large. Bernie Madoff would be proud.
South of Denver, in what is now Littleton, CO zip codes, the unincorporated community of Sterling Ranch is being built in the Front Range foothills with prices set north of $600K. The prices are boosted by the problem of clay soil with large bentonite content which causes the dirt to expand when wet. So dig up the soil, grind and remix and lay it back down.
But land is land and the Front Range parks and views are part of the magic that will end up with more than 13,000 new homes. Water, sewer, and drainage are all built into the plans and the government is seeing to the construction of schools and increased manning at the sheriff's department and there is a small medical clinic. But just one tiny shopping center has been added within five miles. Of course, we are talking Denver Metro and adequate road access to more distant centers is already in place.
Started out as a Ponzi Scheme and is ending as a Ponzi Scheme. China will fall before this year ends. Taiwan has nothing to worry about. No one does.
Potemkin Village -- 波將金村 (Bō jiāng jīncūn)
gadfly... AND?
I live here and bentonite in the soil is nothing new.
What does a new housing development In Littleton CO have to do with China?
the Chinese government will take your money and then give you a crappy unfinished box. You will be grateful.
China's homeowners living in unfinished apartments – BBC News
Xi and Pelosi will not be happy you know this.
"china also take the money - then doesn't finish the building. People are forced to move in without running water etc.."
Eh, no. No one has any plans to move into these buildings. These buildings are "investments". And those "investments" have been responsible for more than half of China's GDP. It's as if everyone's retirement savings were invested in tulip bulbs.
China is done.
Peter Zeihan
https://youtu.be/Namr1mTbhcE
Broken glass economics writ large.
A superheated climate (e.g. social, economic) forces a recession, and, with stagnation, a depression, which when sustained is reset with war and mass abortion fields.
Those are not apartments and condos, those are savings accounts for the growing middle class. If you look at it that way it starts to make sense.
Steve Schainost said:
"This reminded me of Heinlein's "For Us, The Living" (though it has been quite some time since I read it so the details my be hazy.) It described a future society where products are manufactured in a manner unrelated to demand. All overproduction is purchased by the government and scrapped ensuring full employment. What stuck with me was they were building cars without engines or other important components. This was explained that these cars were going straight to be scrapped so they didn't need engines, etc..."
There are actual parallels to that exact thing happening in China, with regards to vehicles. The "entrepreneurs" sign up for government subsidies on "clean vehicles", build them, register them for the subsidies, and then put them into storage. Just like with the electric bicycle sharing "boom".
Hubris:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/embattled-chinese-property-tycoon-turns-to-electric-cars-cue-87-billion-valuation-11621433065
Nemesis:
https://youtu.be/JKiITsxoP4Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDfLWFv3ixk
The thing to remember here is that this doesn't represent some idiot venture capitalist who threw chunks of big money at ideas like pets.com, and then lost their shirts. This is the government of China, right down to the municipal level, throwing away the money of their people. Those bicyles? Those cars? Those buildings being blown up? That all represents the wealth that was created by the hard work of Chinese workers, siphoned off and then blown on things that result in no economic return.
The cat is away, and the mice have been playing. Cat's at the door, and the denouement is coming due. Lots and lots of hard lessons will be learned in the coming years, and many of them are going to be learned by the statist freaks of the world, who think they're smarter than everyone else.
I watched the video.
It looks like they went cheap on the demolition effort as well.
Indigo,
According to my local Chinese person, that's a phonetic transliteration.
Anybody have a more semantically / culturally appropriate Chinese phrase? My local C.P. is stumped.
I have a friend who bought a house at the edge of the suburbs. It was a lovely house, but there were no stores near it. When he bought it he and other families in his neighborhood talked about how one nearby (1/2 mile away), plot of land was zoned commercial so it would be be developed soon and probably get a decent shopping center. Five years later that commercial property was still not developed. Three years later he and his family moved 20 miles to a different neighborhood that had more than just residential housing.
It’s a facade to show that the Chinese are ahead of the game and are more advanced than they really are. There was never any intention of anyone living in them.
A gentle reminder
IMHO Achilles nails it:
This is what happens in a centrally planned economy. Things get built because a small number of people think it is a good idea.
Then nobody moves there.
There are so many variables when running an economy that a government just cannot keep up.
The more a government involves itself in planning the economy the more waste and failure there will be.
The other issue is that the people who work for government are generally mediocre and cannot succeed in competitive environments. That is why they work for the government.
At the same time, moving money in and out of China is not that easy, so maybe there's just nothing else domestic better to invest in
This. And the situation was created deliberately by the Communist Party. The coming collapse and wipeout of private wealth and capital is a feature, not a bug.
China has been playing a game with their GDP for political reasons. Constructing buildings counts as production for the GDP numbers. It does not matter if the buildings are literally useless; it still counts. China wanted X% growth numbers forever and producing crap that no one wanted or could use counted towards the GDP, so everyone was onboard the real estate bubble train. It was bound to collapse eventually, but COVID sped up the process.
Thomas Friedman hardest hit.
Shovel ready jobs.
related: China's homeowners living in unfinished apartments – BBC News
That video is chilling on so many levels. levels..
The environmental degradation is off the charts. Yet - all you hear from most western china-friendly propagandists is how China is upping their game with regard to the environment.
Obvious rubbish.
The waste - off the charts. Xi is a failure. Too bad a demolished pile of building rubble doesn't spell the end of Xi corrupt Chinese communism. (the west will dutifully blame capitalism)
Jupiter - see here
This is what happens in a centrally planned economy. Things get built because a small number of people think it is a good idea.
Then nobody moves there.
Nobody was ever going to move there. That's why there is no infrastructure. Infrastructure is a sunk cost with no buyers. There simply was no where else to invest the money being made after the Communists loosened up the economy than real estate. So they developed real estate simply to provide an investment opportunity, and not to satisfy a market need.
The beautiful and exquisitely intricate ecosystems that graced our planet before modern humans arrived showed what an economy based on simple rules, but without planning could produce. Those who imagine that the best economy must be planned, if they are consistent, must be creationists, all of which raises the question: Is the “Texas sharpshooter” really a fallacy?
another video - the 2:13+ mark they discuss the intermingle of corruption in governmetn and the industry (controlled by gov)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUZ74CcQFPo
Back in the 1990s, NY Times ran a feature on a Shanghai suburb that was called "Orange County.' It was built of California style homes and looked just like a community in Orange County. The only difference was that kitchens were outside the home as Chinese cooking was far more smokey. I wonder if it is still there?
I found other Chinese demolition videos. The whole affair seems to have commenced 11 months ago. I had heard about the demolition, but I failed to understand the scale of the demolition.
They are only imploding the first 3 floors, and letting the rest fall to natural forces. It seems like a metaphor of pending economic collapse. What's the saying???.......at first slowly, and then all at once.
I read somewhere that the national government pushed local governments into creating these ghost cities, but I forget the mechanism.
I've learned a lot from the comments. I've watched China GDP for decades run in range of almost 10%. A lot of the comments here explain why that number may be (may have been) inflated.
FullMoon said...
Shovel ready jobs.
Exactly.
Kondos that aren't sparking joy. Throw them out.
Who is Yuhana Galt?
"the paywalled NY Times"
One can read the NYT online without paying. Nearly all other paywalled news sites as well (should news sites be compounded? I have no idea whatsoever). All you have to do is stop the page's download as soon as you see it start to load. It make take a few tries, but it rarely doesn't work.
It's been estimated that China's population will decrease by half in the next 50 years. If their economy also goes stagnant, they may solve global climate change all by themselves.
Capitalism is an absolutely brilliant system. It amazes me that people think they can produce better results through "planning".
^^^This^^^^
Back in the 70's the teachers were shameless leftists also. The Teachers all had the same mantra. Communism just hasn't been done "right"...yet.
A quick mind game is a great example. How many tubes of toothpaste does the City of Chicago need for next week. No big carry over, no shortages.
Nobody knows. But 5,000 retailers make short work of it.
So, Field of Dreams, as a metaphor for "liberal" economic theory was bs? Of course, if you build it, they won't come, unless there is an economic reason to come or unless, of course, compulsion is used.
"Back in the 70's the teachers were shameless leftists also. The Teachers all had the same mantra. Communism just hasn't been done 'right'...yet."
Really? Where did you go to school? I entered high school in 1969/70 and I graduated college in Spring 1978. I did not have any teachers in high school or professors in college who ever espoused or discussed the wonders of "communism...if done right," much less did I ever have eveb glimpses of a cadre of teachers "all (having) the same mantra." Your complaint suggests to me the no-nothing gripes people make about things whereof they know little or nothing.
Robert Cook said...
"["Back in the 70's the teachers were shameless leftists also. The Teachers all had the same mantra. Communism just hasn't been done 'right'...yet."]"
"Really? Where did you go to school? I entered high school in 1969/70 and I graduated college in Spring 1978. I did not have any teachers in high school or professors in college who ever espoused or discussed the wonders of "communism...if done right," much less did I ever have eveb glimpses of a cadre of teachers "all (having) the same mantra." Your complaint suggests to me the no-nothing {know-nothing} gripes people make about things whereof they know little or nothing."
I went to one of the Cal State Universities about the same time, and while not all the professors were on board with the 'socialism/communism hasn't been done right' mantra, those who were on board were very vocal and made it part of whatever course they led, every single session.
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