manqiangrexue
Brigadier
Absolutely, but the scope of that discussion was very specific and limited to nominal GDP as it has greater implication to global imprint.China is not actually comparable to US on consumption in dollars because as you said before they got 4x the mouths to feed. It is more important to compare in PPP because 90% of consumption is local for foods and goods in China. In nominal dollars US is ahead and will stay ahead for a long time, unless china's Yuan appreciates significantly. The problem with all these grow another Canada a year or percent growth per year is that it is all relative. The supposedly slow down in Chinese growth is not slowing down, because in absolutely numbers, they are growing faster! They are decelerating, not slowing down. The same apply to consumption, where the price to feed one person with local produce is 1/4 the cost of US. If all we are comparing are LV handbags and Mercedes then it makes sense, but when it comes to daily goods, PPP is the way to go. The Chinese government don't give a hoot how big their consumer market is to the US, as long as they know they got leverage over foreign companies and a giant tax base from it. The key for them is growth, absolute growth and not percent.
I'm sure that PPP-wise, Chinese consume more. You couldn't convince anyone that 1.4 billion people eat less food and need less resources to live and function than 325 million but it wasn't a part of the specific discussion we were having on specific figures.
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