Chinese Economics Thread

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alfreddango

Junior Member
Registered Member
got it; it's just that I tend to give them more credit than other news outlets since they seem to have some well informed insiders over there (e.g. they guessed correctly most of the new members of the politburo iirc, if not all of them)
 
supercat

supercat

Major
alfreddango said:
not trying to be a smartass, just trying to know more.
Is the news not accurate? is the wsj making it seem bigger than it actually is?
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Since I have no interest in reading the article, I would like to ask you a few questions just in case you read it: were they protesting policies by the central government or local governments? I think a national single-payer healthcare system like those in a lot of European countries and a national pension system like Medicare is the way to move forward for China. Also, did WSJ mention that China has one of the highest home-ownership and savings rate in the world; that China is a Confucius society where the vast majority of its people is willing to take care of their elderly parents? These are all mitigating factors for the current deficiency in China's welfare systems.

I guess most of us already know this.
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https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1624944192756805634
 
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abenomics12345

Junior Member
Registered Member
Patchwork_Chimera said:
As such, take care not to grow overly attached to any of these entities, and always recognize that behind the page, there is just a bro at a computer, staring at a bunch of spreadsheets. This even applies beyond this field (and thus, beyond this thread). When examining work by "professional" organizations, we naturally lend a degree of credence and deference to their representatives and their writings. This is because we trust "experts" to have more access to the relevant data, as well as a more refined mental framework for processing it, leading to more accurate Information being published as the end result. Therefore, without access to more extensive or qualitatively superior data on the subject in question, and especially if they have not shown any exceptional ability to process that set of data into higher quality information, an "authoritative" entity, whether individual or collective, is no different from anyone else.

Relevant to the site, though less so to the thread, this is why I detest public-facing think tanks and their ilk so thoroughly. They have no more access to the data comprising our WESTPAC outlook than any other random person on the internet; and yet, through honeyed words, a veneer of "professionalism," and their grandiose, abstraction-laden, "hard hitting research" (which curiously includes vanishingly little actual quantitative data) on the topic - be it in the form of books, wargames, or otherwise - they've convinced the audience to ignore that fact. While there are actual analysts working long hours, sacrificing personal lives, and putting up with the obstacles a clearance imposes (including those on my team, to whom I owe the knowledge that their hard work is not being wasted), these intellectual prostitutes frolic across DC, parroting the most profitable positions, collecting a generous paycheck from their audience and owners alike, all while poisoning the public and professional discourse with their milquetoast, data-destitute "strategic insight."
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This - replace everything DC with Wall Street and you have the source of the phenomenon in terms of this neurotic and schizophrenic 'China will collapse but it will also dominate the World' verbiage on Chinese economics from all sorts of sources. In this case, two separate teams at Goldman Sachs.

In most cases, the need to produce such garbage is generally a function needing to generate clicks ('look at the gaslight'), or a function of personal need to satisfy some innate need to feel a certain way.

The military facts are going to be difficult for us non-military folks without access to classified briefings to ascertain but the economic facts are a lot easier to ascertain - if people are truly interested in learning about the Chinese economy they should go dive into the NBS database - as much shitty reputation they get - its a useful starting point to actually understand the Chinese economy. Otherwise, you are no better than those producing the garbage - are you really interested in learning about the intricacies of the Chinese economy? Or are you more interested in feeling good about the Chinese economy? Answering this question for yourself honestly before you engage in this subject matter will allow you to better analyze data.

Unfortunately, most people are too focused on the innate need to feel a certain way to actually peel back the onion so to speak to understand the nuance in many aspects of the Chinese economy. For every successful story in terms of the latest breakthrough in scientific research/commercialization, there is likely an equally f'd up story of fraudulent behavior by management teams, the Gordon Chang's of the world focus on the latter while the Justin Lin's of the world focus on the former. Both extreme cases of success and failure and the anecdote, while true, is not necessarily indicative of the median/average and certainly not of the holistic situation.

The final part of the situation I'll point out (as I'm sure @Patchwork_Chimera deals with on a regular basis), is that people who are smart are quite good at deluding themselves into thinking they are not biased even when they are - intelligent people have quite the uncanny ability to manufacture narratives by manipulating data to fit a particular hypothesis). This is further exacerbated by the fact that old 'China hands' were the experts that were considered the SMEs, who, ironically, has the most to unlearn as China's economy evolved.

The favorite line in that book I recommended is as follows:

1676513303777.png

As for Haibin Zhu from JPM, an economist opining on the PLAAF's radar detection capabilities against Pelosi's plane in transit to Taiwan.....is really just:
abenomics12345 said:
WILL
Of course that's your contention. You're a taiwan strait crisis tourist. You just finished some Cold War ASW fiction, Tom Clancy prob'ly, and so naturally that's what you believe until next month when you get to Ian Easton and get convinced that there will be a million man swim across the strait without any preparation.

That'll last until sometime in your second year, then you'll be in here regurgitating moses_the_red about the backwardness of the....
(Well, as a matter of fact, I won't, because moses_the_red drastically underestimates the capability of--)

WILL

"...moses_the_red drastically underestimates the capability of the PLAN/PLAAF to generate 'salivating' salvos of precision fires, especially with PHL-16..." You got that from "@PLAOpsOsint," from Twitter, right? Do you have any thoughts of your own on the subject or were you just gonna plagiarize the whole OSINT community for me?
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S

Stierlitz

Junior Member
Registered Member
abenomics12345 said:
If you bothered to read the actual message, the specific reference to 6.5% is Q4 2023 vs. Q4 2022 - which, given all the covid disruptions, would be an easy comp. Furthermore, that is a Quarter over Quarter number and is not an Year over Year number.

The real irony of this is that GS's official forecast is actually the same as what I said. You really should hold yourself to a higher standard than this. lol.

View attachment 107313
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Goldman Sachs updated their forecast on Feb 10. The table you screenshoted is outdated.
 
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