That is really worth a laugh, it is hilarious. A real "spy" or whatever the term is, will report WITHOUT saying anything. A self-appointed sheriff will scream of reporting without being able to do anything, it he do the authorities will probably send him to a lunatic asylum for wasting their time. Something similar also happened in this forum just few days ago.
Chinese Economics Thread
- Thread starter Norfolk
- Start date
That is really worth a laugh, it is hilarious. A real "spy" or whatever the term is, will report WITHOUT saying anything. A self-appointed sheriff will scream of reporting without being able to do anything, it he do the authorities will probably send him to a lunatic asylum for wasting their time. Something similar also happened in this forum just few days ago.
It just proves my points when it comes to this board. In short - 'Western medias are laughable'. I thought that you will post something like 'Those photos of factory looks like it was abandoned years ago' or something like that but I was wrong in that case. I will just stick to 'strict military' forums from now on. When it comes to collecting infos leaked from ministry to the Chinese Internet it's number one when you don't want to go through that for hours.
manqiangrexue
Brigadier
Janiz, yes, there is a bias here against articles that attempt to use Western metrics of determining economic health to conclude that China is failing. And a huge part of that bias exists because articles that predict China's failures have continuously been debunked for the last few decades by solid growth data and big picture trends coming out of China. In the short term, they all seemed plausible theories by educated economists, but in the long run, everyone who bet their credibility against the rise of the Chinese economy, has lost. You can't maintain a neutral level of credit when you've been wrong again and again for 30-40 years; the credibility of the theory will shrink with each time it is wrong until it's just laughable. It's the boy the cried wolf. To summarize, 1. when you make conclusions that are severely against the big picture, there will be doubt and bias against your words. 2. When what you've said has been repeated thousands of times a year for the last three decades and has always been wrong, you will face extreme prejudice against what you say.
Depends on the article's content and the argument you're trying to make with it.
Not every single article from western media is called "laughable" but most of them definitely will be put through a few smell tests at least, to judge its validity, especially if they fit the mold of pushing a specific narrative that has been demonstrated to have a poor track record.
Given this is the economics thread, it is articles about the impending threat of an economic collapse which receive the most scrutiny, which includes the exaggeration of things like the stock market (last year mostly), supposed capital flight and forex reserves, GDP growth rate debates, "ghost cities," employment rates, etc.
===
In the specific case from Fathom Consulting, it's not necessarily correct to call it manipulation by the media, because Bloomberg is merely reproducing what Fathom themselves have produced.
Fathom has a rather nifty titled "China Momentum Indicator" which uses Premier Li Keqiang's famous index as the basis for judging what they deem as "real growth"... and from it, they've consistently argued over the last few years that growth is actually under half of what's officially reported.
Of course the problem with the CMI/Li Keqiang index, is that railway volume, electricity consumption, and loans disbursed by banks was useful for the old economy, but not useful for the new economy where retail consumption and service jobs are the new important indicators.
Fathom's underemployment rate, also appears to use the CMI as the basis of projecting their underemployment rate -- specifically "It has been calculated by looking at the employment shortfall implied by using our own CMI in place of China’s official GDP statistics"...
The problem is that their CMI is almost definitely not an accurate reflection of China's current economic prospects, so by using a bad ingredient into the analysis, they're going to get a bad product out as well.
I remember saying at the beginning of the year that I've noticed a trend between differing financial consulting groups and economists in terms of their China growth predictions and economic prospects, and the ones which have far more bleaker and negative views seem to be the ones who focus mostly or only on indicators of China's older growth sectors. It seems like this is true as well for Fathom Consulting.
solarz
Brigadier
Do you realize how many factories there are in China? What are pictures of a few empty factories supposed to prove?
AssassinsMace
Lieutenant General
It's just like when the New York Times published a picture of a homeless person in China and declared China's economy was collapsing and that was before the 2008 Western financial collapse. No homeless people in the US apparently. And they think they don't engage in propaganda...
Samurai's posts are pretty good when it goes to military matters. He's well informed, knows what he's talking about (90% of the time at least). The same can't be said about many users who post here (usually on on this sub-forum or about PRC's disputes with it's neighbours) on the other hand. There's not much value in their knowledge of military aspects. I can post something like this here
It's not my bias but I will be damned as 'anti-Chinese' and whatever else for not praising PRC as a country which, as we all know, doesn't have any problems or flaws... There's no room for discussion about problems because it will immediately result in personal insults.
EOT for know.
Good thing you brought that up.
Can you explain it to me how can Japan possibly maintain a quite low unemployment rate of 3.2%, that is seasonally adjusted rate, or 3.4% if un-adjusted, given rather abysmal quarterly growth rates which occasional dipped into negatives barely escaping technical recessions?
The truth will put the above chart you picked up from a polish site to shame.
Are they cooking something as it smells quite fishy?
Are you Polish?
antiterror13
Brigadier
because in Japan, whe you are not looking for a job ...you are not unemployeed. For instance for retired people (even not productive obviously) are not unemployeed, also housewives or young people who look after elderly ... all are not part of unemployment figure
Also most women in Japan are housewifes, unlike in many countries and more and more young Japanese left the jobs to look after elderly.
So when you add up retired people, housewives, young people no looking for a job, etc ... very very big number in Japan ... so no wonder the unployment figure in Japan is so low
Perhaps samuraiblue can verify or deny it ... maybe
manqiangrexue
Brigadier
Well, and also, I don't know if this is true, but my AP macroeconomics professor told me that in Japan, when the company doesn't need you anymore because they're not getting as many orders as they used to, they don't let you go; they just ask you to paint the walls 15 times or sharpen all the pencils in the warehouse or check that all the electrical outlets are working 3 rounds a day LOL