Writes Anne Stevenson-Yang, author of 'Wild Ride: A Short History of the Opening and Closing of the Chinese Economy,' in "China’s Long-Promised Consumer Boom Is a Mirage" (NYT).
March 14, 2026
"Even if Communist Party leaders want to unleash more spending, formidable obstacles stand in the way, including..."
"... a work force increasingly trapped in insecure, low-wage employment, a rapidly aging and shrinking population and a weak social safety net that encourages people to save for emergencies. China’s people, perhaps more than at any time in the last few decades, are in no mood to go out and splurge. Many have been airing growing anxiety online, posting about falling incomes and scarce jobs. The average income was just over $500 a month in 2025. Unemployment is high.... An estimated 200 million people, or at least one-quarter of China’s work force, are now engaged in insecure 'gig' employment — delivering meals or packages, driving ride-hailing cars, selling goods online or doing other short-term work.... Adding to worker insecurity is China’s household registration system, which restricts access to social services like schooling and health care outside one’s hometown. This effectively ensures that people from China’s vast countryside serve as cheap migrant labor for megacities like Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen.... These are hardly a foundation for a vibrant consumer economy...."
Writes Anne Stevenson-Yang, author of 'Wild Ride: A Short History of the Opening and Closing of the Chinese Economy,' in "China’s Long-Promised Consumer Boom Is a Mirage" (NYT).
Writes Anne Stevenson-Yang, author of 'Wild Ride: A Short History of the Opening and Closing of the Chinese Economy,' in "China’s Long-Promised Consumer Boom Is a Mirage" (NYT).
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47 comments:
Dems in CA would probably like the household registration system. Trap people in a certain area and force them to attend crappy unionized public schools.
Mirage? Wouldn’t chimera have been more appropriate?
The internet informs me that there are about 8,000 Starbucks stores in China.
They also have avocado toast in China, especially in regions like Yunnan.
That is the economic system the Dem-Socialists would like to bring to the US.
tommyesq: "That is the economic system the Dem-Socialists would like to bring to the US."
They have: "people from [the rest of the world's] vast countryside serve as cheap migrant labor for megacities." CC, JSM
Maybe we need a "Red China is like America" tag. CC, JSM
And this is why they abet the transport of so many Chinese illegals to low-wage jobs in American restaurants and the ex-commie millionaires have made their children 10% of all American college and graduate students. This is why your kid can't go to college to earn a living wage, but lazy leftist New York City residents happily get food delivered every day by starving, freezing Chinese delivery guys who live ten to a room to support their family back home -- and never wonder why while spouting the virtues of collectivism and diversity.
May they choke on their egg foo yung.
Russia is broke. China is going broke.
Good times.
Tina, that is a good point. The most dangerous illegals are not MS13 gangsters - they're the millions of hard workers suppressing American wages. Plus the legal H1Bs doing the same at the other end of the social economic scale.
It frustrates me that no MAGA spokesperson ever emphasizes this. Builds the trap for the left to say 'the Home Depot guys aren't the worst of the worst! The kids in grammar school aren't the worst of the worst!'
Because they are. CC, JSM
Russia is broke. China is going broke
…us, US, too. Slowly, then all at once. Somehow blue cities are ramping up spending like crazy. Boston’s commie Mayor is running every blue city scam they can dream of- sports stadium boondoggle, convention center boondoggle, Harvard tech hub transfer payment boondoggle…this is just the new ones. How they’re able to issue debt for this crap I don’t know. I guess this is what political ‘all in’ looks like…
Im sure plenty do, but the press covers it with a pillow look at the flying monkeys here
“ The internet informs me that there are about 8,000 Starbucks stores in China.”
That is the thing about countries with over a billion people. They can have 200-500 million with the means to buy Starbucks and 200-500 people who can’t. Starbucks still has a potential market bigger than the US and China still has a significant problem.
Even a straight shooter like Homan dodges with "well when we go after an illegal with a criminal record and we see other illegals, we have to take them too," instead of just "we're trying to reduce a buildup of over ten million people destroying our economy and way of life, no matter how they may tug at your heartstrings." CC, JSM
If we could incinerate hundreds of thousands of German and Japanese children, we can make a few Latin American kids cry, ffs. CC, JSM
China's population is grossly overestimated.
The reason the propaganda machines are going batshit right now is because China is actually paying market price for oil and the price of oil has gone up.
the correction is at hand.
---- ...us, US, too [going broke]. Slowly, then all at once. Somehow blue cities are ramping up spending like crazy. ... How they’re able to issue debt for this crap I don’t know. I guess this is what political ‘all in’ looks like… [rehajm]
The warnings about our government's unfunded liabilities have been around for 40 years. But the Fed kept the game going. Now something has changed. This bear market is barely over a month old -- its top and the breakdowns preceded the attacks on Iran, fwiw. DJI breakdown by one day only, came on Feb. 27, so maybe murky as to source.
When the indexes are down 40-70%, and a huge amount of paper wealth has been destroyed, there won't be any blue fantasies left around. No red ones, either. Easy money has made anything and everything seem possible, from California to Chicago to NYC.
Please don't shoot the messenger.... : (
China has 2/3 of the USA GDP and twice the manufacturing capacity. This is more the usual "Rah Rah USA propaganda" you sometimes get from the MSM. The Japanese are weird and live in rabbit hutches. The Chinese arent as rich as they seem. Russia is on the verge of collapse. Etc.
'murican lap this crap up.
BTW, i thought those Chinese were Goddamn socialists. If so, it seems to have worked out pretty well for them. Constant massive economic growth since the 1990s. That's 30 years. When will they overtake the USA in total GDP? 10 years?
--- Constant massive economic growth since the 1990s. That's 30 years. When will they overtake the USA in total GDP? 10 years? [RCOcean]
Constant economic growth of 10% that looks a lot like 1%. A big boulder the size of a small boulder. Now they can knock all the empty cities down and do it again.
Why is Chinese politics the business of the American people? This is just pro-Iran war propaganda. It was not ordinary Americans who sold out our industrial base to China, maybe our problem is closer to home.
"It was not ordinary Americans who sold out our industrial base to China, maybe our problem is closer to home."
The enemy within. Their clubhouse is Pratt House, 58 East 68th Street, New York, NY.
"...Why is Chinese politics the business of the American people?..."
Oh dear... something awkward has happened. Look ! A squirrel !
It sounds like an amazing retirement location.
What is wrong with gig work and why is it demonized?
Not for everyone, I know, but a great opportunity for many.
I think the real objection is that gig workers are harder to control.
I've been mostly unemployed since 1/15/85.gig working as an independent salesman, and for 2p years as a consultant.
Even when employed by universities, it was still gig work, term by term.
Scary as hell at times, working without a net. But it paid my kids through private school and college and has provided a comfy, if not Trump Ian, life.
I woulynot have it any other way.
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A permanent underclass of unemployed and underemployed adult males is a dangerous social problem with serious political implications.
Our small Not Illinois city has a HUGE sushi restaurant, staffed by Chinese employees with little English proficiency, as well as a HUGE Indian restaurant, staffed by Indo-Pakistani employees, also with little English proficiency, Ordering involves pointing to menu items at both restaurants, menu questions requiring assistance from hostess on duty. Suspect most restaurant staff have no legal residency status, not paid minimum wage, if any wages at all, nor receive credit-card posted customer-tips. Also suspect staff are indentured labor, paying for communal housing provided by employers, their passports probably locked away by employers. We don't patronize these restaurants after realizing the dynamics at play, but City Hall and local progressive Dem party leadership has zero interest regarding welfare of folks despite weekly No Kings protests at local Walgreens/Starbucks/CVS intersection.
The thing that concerns me is that 90% of China’s economic problems could be solved by taking over Taiwan, and they’re probably starting to realize this. They just need to find a way to do it without damaging the goods.
Theyll have a more compliant workforce surely not
Smilin' Jack said...
The thing that concerns me is that 90% of China’s economic problems could be solved by taking over Taiwan, and they’re probably starting to realize this. They just need to find a way to do it without damaging the goods.
What do you think China's economic problems are?
Are there a bunch of young people in Taiwan?
Is there oil in taiwan?
“China has 2/3 of the USA GDP and twice the manufacturing capacity. This is more the usual "Rah Rah USA propaganda" you sometimes get from the MSM. The Japanese are weird and live in rabbit hutches. The Chinese arent as rich as they seem. Russia is on the verge of collapse. Etc.”
Well, maybe. But the Chinese lie a lot. They lie to their bosses, who lie to their bosses, etc. it’s built into the system. Everyone lies to those above the, out of self preservation.
You have a quota of 100 widgets a month. You officially are given the materials, subassemblies, etc, for 100 widgets. But something upstream happened. Maybe a subassembly broke. Maybe someone upstream sold it. Happens a lot there. So, at the end of the month, how many widgets do you report having been made? Obviously 100. Maybe, miraculously, 110. Of course, the people downstream who were supposed to receive your 100 widgets, didn’t get them. But they have quotas too. So, how do they make their quotas? They lie too, and tell their bosses that they too made their quotas.
This is endemic in ChiCom industry. It’s not racial (Taiwanese don’t do this). It’s their economic system. The Ruskies under Communism did the same thing, until the USSR collapsed. It can also be deadly, and was part of why the SARS-2 virus escaped from the WIV lab. Everyone lied to the people above them.
It’s also part of the reason that the Chinese economy is not nearly as robust as they claim. One big problem is that they have no real investment opportunities. Buying stock is a scam. Banks not much better. So, many of their middle class invested in real estate. They bought condos. Put all of their savings into them. But then, it turns out that they got caught in the Chinese” “good enough” trap. Lower quality concrete was utilized, along with everything else. Many of their units fell apart before they were ever occupied. Elevators not working on 50 story condo buildings. No heat or electricity. Hundreds of thousands of units, entire buildings, long rows of these buildings, all but uninhabitable. And the life savings of millions of middle class Chinese wiped out. At a time when the middle class is rapidly shrinking, thanks to competition from lower cost countries, and Pressure by the US.
You would think that people would go to jail for this sort of fraud, or selling critical parts for their latest 6th generation (whatever that means) fighter jets, etc. They do. They even execute a lot of them.
One of the funny parts of this is, that Chinese leaders aren’t fired for incompetence. They are fired for corruption. Almost always. When Xi shook up the top of his cabinet recently, those pushed out were done so for corruption. It was really for lack of loyalty, but since their entire leadership is corrupt, it’s a great catch all, and inevitably, evidence of their taking bribes, nepotism, selling critical things, is easy to find - because they all do it.
So, do I believe the GNP figures for China? Nope. GNP is supposed to reflect an increase in a country’s store of wealth. And, for example, the millions of falling down, uninhabitable, condos didn’t increase the country’s store of wealth. They just consumed a lot of resources.
The thing about a Chinese collapse is that an hour later you want another one.
I'm a simpleton, so I look around and see that everything around me is made in China, and much of it is very high quality, and I think how could China possibly be in worse shape than all the other countries making nothing around me? It's a mystery.
Is it really high quality or do they cut corners
bagoh20 said...
I'm a simpleton, so I look around and see that everything around me is made in China, and much of it is very high quality, and I think how could China possibly be in worse shape than all the other countries making nothing around me?
High quality stuff? Might want to ask some ayatollahs about that. Or the Russian railways. Seems that Chinese railcar bearings have 1/3 the lifetime- or less - of German bearings. Which Russa cannot buy today. Korean appliance manufacturers moved into China many years ago- and it wasn't long before they started pulling out. Seems that over time- quality goes down. Which has been the history of China since the West first started trading with them. The first things they sell you are high quality, and each shipment thereafter is of lesser quality until you stop buying.
Japan and Korea signed on to the idea that quality is it's own selling point, and to maintain a long term trading partner-quality needs to be constant. China and apparently India have never quite caught on to that. It remains to be seen if Thailand and Vietnam and other South Asia countries will follow Korea and Japan or China and India as regards consistent quality over time.
And as for their own internal quality- use your favorite search engine to look up China's empty cities. There's quiet a number of them. With even the completed buildings falling apart. The thing about buildings is- they fall apart over time if they aren't constantly maintained. And when construction is shoddy to begin with, they fall apart faster.
America's big spending spree started when Boomers and subsequent generations replaced those who went through World War II and the Depression and had abstemious habits. At least that was my experience: parents who had their little flutter of spending in the 60s, tightened their wallets in the 70s and they stayed thrifty later. Boomers were more relaxed about spending. Post-boomer generations lived more and more on the credit card.
China needs to go through a similar generational shift. Maybe when people who didn't go through war and revolution and Great Leaps Forward and Cultural Revolutions have gone, China will spend, spend, spend.
Now would be a good time for China to make a deal with Putin for eastern Russia. Or invade. Not much Putin could do.
"America's big spending spree started when Boomers and subsequent generations replaced those who went through World War II and the Depression and had abstemious habits."
Generations prior to the boomers gave us Social Security, Medicaid/Medicare and The Great Society welfare state. So there's that...
Eric the Fruit Bat said...
“The internet informs me that there are about 8,000 Starbucks stores in China.”
I haven’t done a formal survey, but it feels like there are that many in a five mile radius of my house.
Bruce Hayden said…
“ You would think that people would go to jail for this sort of fraud, or selling critical parts for their latest 6th generation (whatever that means) fighter jets, etc. ”
6th generation is a concept for the capabilities of the next generation of fighter jets. Concepts like “AI” or “Unmanned” pop up a lot in discussions on the topic, but they would have other advances as well.
While the boundaries of first 5 generations are not exact, here is an overview: https://fighterworld.com.au/a-z-fighter-aircraft/five-generations-of-jets/
Gospace said...
“High quality stuff? Might want to ask some ayatollahs about that. Or the Russian railways. Seems that Chinese railcar bearings have 1/3 the lifetime- or less - of German bearings. Which Russa cannot buy today. Korean appliance manufacturers moved into China many years ago- and it wasn't long before they started pulling out. Seems that over time- quality goes down…”
Some years ago, aftermarket auto parts companies started getting a lot more complaints from customers who said the parts were working as advertised or they were breaking after a short amount of time.
The parts looked like their parts, but investigations revealed that they were pirated cheaper parts made in China that were stamped the American brand markers on and sold through different channels to unsuspecting dealers in the US.
I think the US government was able to negotiate with China to prevent piracy, but the quality issues did not go away.
I'm sure I have mentioned before about the time I bought some counterfeit, presumably made in China, Lucas headlights.
Pulling on a rope can be effectinve
Pushing on a rope rarely is.
Right now, when it comes to their own economy, pretty much all Xi's CCP thugs can do is push on a rope.
Because their own insanity, like the one child policy, is now coming back to haunt them
At 2:52 PM Bruce Hayden said... a lot of things that were correct and on point.
Here's the key point: when everyone is corrupt, and everyone lies to their boss, the entire system sucks.
It probably can't be taken down from the inside. But it fails when it goes against teh outside.
See: every Chinese weapon in Venezuela and Iran.
The Chinese gave the Iranians a bunch of missiles. The Iranians fired those missiles at teh US.
Nothing was hit.
The CCP is on a glide path to failure. Their only current options are "die quickly" and "die slowly".
Capitalism is the winning system because the price information in a capitalist system leads to punishment for "lie to everyone", and nothing else does
Rustygrommet said...
Now would be a good time for China to make a deal with Putin for eastern Russia. Or invade. Not much Putin could do.
Sure these is. He could give up in Ukraine and get peace, at which point the US would start selling him working weapons he could use to destroy the Chinese invasion.
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