I didn’t intend to do an all “China is Screwed” video roundup weekend, but the videos keep stacking up and I need to post some rather than producing a giant unwieldy post with hours of footage.
First up: Young people’s whose job prospects and futures are so dim that they’re actually living in concrete pipes.
Takeaways:
Certainly America has no shortage of transients living rough, but in contrast to ragged drug addicts, alcoholics and dangerous lunatics, the people living in these pipes look to be normal, healthy 20-something Chinese.
Just because you’re living in a concrete pipe doesn’t mean you can’t be a live-streamer. Like the under-the-bridge streamers seen in previous videos, you wonder how widespread this behavior is, or whether we’re just seeing the edge of the freak show.
“Despite the female hosts not being beautiful and the male hosts not handsome, it doesn’t affect viewership.” I do rather want to check their numbers, here.
“This is because it’s happening in the industrial city known as the world’s factory – Dongguan in Guangzhou.” It’s on the Pearl River Delta near Guangzhou and Hong Kong. “After more than thirty years of China’s reform and opening up, Dongguan, which has always been at the forefront of economic development, has recently seen a wave of business closures and foreign capital relocation.” See also: all those previousChina is screwed videos.
“When foreign capital withdraws, thousands of Chinese workers lose their jobs. Among these people, some have worked in factories for decades and are now middle-aged. It’s overwhelming to be suddenly faced with unemployment and consequential cost-of-living pressures, coupled with labor competition against millions of university graduates.” I’m sure that sucks, just like getting laid off here sucks. But in a capitalist economy, even a flawed one like we have, is always going to be more flexible about creating jobs that one ruled by a communist party’s aristocracy of pull.
“Those who are single simply adapt to homelessness, creating their own personal space amongst the concrete pipes.” Or, you could have, you know, lived modestly, saved money, and shared housing with other people. The fact they haven’t gone this route and are instead living in pipes suggests something in the Chinese economy is even more broken than we think.
Foreign companies like Microsoft and Nokia are now moving to Vietnam and India. “Japanese companies like Panasonic, Daikin, Sharp, and TDK are planning to move their manufacturing bases back to Japan. Well-known companies like Uniqlo, Nike, Funai Electric, Samsung, and others are also accelerating their withdrawal from China.”
Like industry is also fleeing from elsewhere in China.
“The once bustling Bund in Shanghai is now overgrown with weeds due to lack of maintenance and tourism, presenting a scene of desolation. Everywhere in Shanghai’s luxury residential communities, there are messages about subleasing and selling at a loss. The elites, celebrities, and tycoons left Shanghai at the first chance they got after the lifting of the lockdown. The political uncertainty in China and the frequent changes in regulatory clauses by the authorities have made entrepreneurs miserable.” Communists making entrepreneurs miserable? This is my shocked face.
“Domestic entrepreneurs are reluctant to invest further, and foreign investors are hastening their departure.”
Various Chinese company specific layoffs and financial difficulties snipped.
“Wall Street leading figures, after enjoying three years of benefits from the broad opening of China’s financial market, are planning large-scale cuts to projects and staff in China…Goldman Sachs has lowered its five-year plan expectations, and Morgan Stanley has decided not to set up a securities dealer in China, reducing its derivative and futures business investment to $150 million. JPMorgan Chase & Co. began cutting its dedicated staff in China earlier this year.” There’s not a violin small enough.
In a capitalist economy, there would be some sort of middle ground between the empty ghost cities and people living in pipes near megalopolises. If you don’t regulate the economy so heavily as to make building housing impossible (I’m looking at you, California and NYC), then profit will drive developers to create housing to fill a market need. With China’s crazy misallocation of loans to unprofitable housing to satisfy regional government growth targets, supply has been so severed from demand that such market-making is impossible.
China is going to come out of it’s decades-long growth spurt with crumbling cities and people that mostly are still poor.
Until recently, China has used its dollar holdings, earned from a favorable trade balance with the US, to purchase US Treasuries. This has allowed the US dollar to remain strong compared to the renminbi.
With a strong dollar, China was able to continue its export trade to the US. Now, their trillion dollar Treasury holdings have been devalued through inflation. The bonds they bought then were worth more than they are now. Casting around for a safe haven for their trade surplus, they have begun buying gold.
With decreased demand for dollars comes declining exports. With exports declining, demand for Chinese factory labor has fallen. Domestic demand cannot pick up the slack because China is undergoing a contraction in the real estate market. This has led to financial losses among the greater part of Chinese households and created job losses in the construction industry.
It is difficult to see a way forward for the Chinese. They surrendered political liberty for the promise of economic security, which turned out to be a false hope.
Add to this China’s demographic death spiral and the future is one of China remaining a third world country with a burgeoning elderly population outnumbering the productive young. China’s so called economic mirage is now a thing of the past and just another government dream that never came to fruition. Don’t believe the UN forecast by 2050 China will have roughly 700 million people not 1 billion. Demographics are destiny and China is dying. It’s ‘best days’ are in the rear view mirror.
Sounds like the US but without the petty crime and drug addiction. Don’t underestimate China. Unlike the West… China is part of the fastest growing half of the world…. the BRICS and not the dying half.
lawrence- I would be careful of using China Observer. I watch a number of China based channels, and although yhey are all reporting on dire economic issues there, I have noticed that CO is highly slanted ant-China. I have been suspecting they are some sort of propaganda arm. They recently reported that the EV market was a huge scam, that 60% of domestic cars sold are never registered and parked in fields to pump up sales figures. They had long range visuals of cars parked and claimed it was in the thousands. claimed they were BYD’s. would be a huge scandal.
But a UK based journalist found the park using landmarks, and they were old taxis and rideshare vehicles. and it was only hundreds, CO had used deceptive visuals.
I have also noticed that they reuse a lot of video from different angles to be deceptive.
Just a word of warning, I take their stuff skeptically.
Can we have pipe communities for our homeless. I mean big pipes, not those smoking pipes they give to the homeless for free. Because nothing says giving someone a hand up than encouraging them to smoke meth!
If you want to see China’s future, look no further than Japan. Back in the 80s, all the “smart money” was in thrall of the Japanese economic Leviathan. Japanese “methods” were all the rage, and other economies were scrambling to replicate their success. (I put “methods” in quotes because, although they all had exotic Japanese labels attached to them, most were merely retooled American methods and processes that had been discarded in the U.S. – some with good reason, others not so much.) It was widely assumed and predicted the Japanese would become the permanent dominant player in the global economy. Well, they had a good run, and there is still plenty of gas in their engine, but with 30 years of roadwear and hindsight, the Japanese model isn’t quite hitting on all cylinders the way it used to. For all their medium-run success and extrapolative predictions of continued growth into infinity, there were always countervailing fundamentals in play that now appear obvious in hindsight. Looking at China, I see even more of the “countervailing fundamentals” in play than with Japan, and fewer of the mitigations that are allowing Japan to manage its reckoning with economic reality.
China’s new espionage law puts a big target on the back of every foreign owned business. Nobody wants their firm raided and them and their staff hauled off to some gulag just so the CCP can seize their assets.
Years ago I saw a photo from India. A mother and her children lived in a discarded concrete pipe, and in the photo, she’s dressing her child in a pretty, clean dress to send her off to school with her classmates. In the background, other pipes with similar scenes played out, with a caption describing how common this is, and how dressing their children well was a point of pride – the least they could do to help give their kids their best shot.
This photograph was taken in India, by Gautam Basu, and won CIWEM Environmental Photographer of the Year in 2011.
The area they are in is referred to as the ‘Pipe Slum’ and are old pipes that were discarded by the city after the completion of a water project. The rest of the slum is made up of ramshackle shanties that are built over and around the pipes. The area is also home to a number of children attending a nearby compassion project.
Like India, Manila in the Philippines also has homeless people and families living in similar concrete and steel pipes. These steel pipes were intented to be used by the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) on the construction of a water system.
Until recently, China has used its dollar holdings, earned from a favorable trade balance with the US, to purchase US Treasuries. This has allowed the US dollar to remain strong compared to the renminbi.
With a strong dollar, China was able to continue its export trade to the US. Now, their trillion dollar Treasury holdings have been devalued through inflation. The bonds they bought then were worth more than they are now. Casting around for a safe haven for their trade surplus, they have begun buying gold.
With decreased demand for dollars comes declining exports. With exports declining, demand for Chinese factory labor has fallen. Domestic demand cannot pick up the slack because China is undergoing a contraction in the real estate market. This has led to financial losses among the greater part of Chinese households and created job losses in the construction industry.
It is difficult to see a way forward for the Chinese. They surrendered political liberty for the promise of economic security, which turned out to be a false hope.
Add to this China’s demographic death spiral and the future is one of China remaining a third world country with a burgeoning elderly population outnumbering the productive young. China’s so called economic mirage is now a thing of the past and just another government dream that never came to fruition. Don’t believe the UN forecast by 2050 China will have roughly 700 million people not 1 billion. Demographics are destiny and China is dying. It’s ‘best days’ are in the rear view mirror.
[…] China Is Screwed: Pipe People. “‘Those who are single simply adapt to homelessness, creating their own personal space […]
Hence the increasing number of Chinese illegals crossing our border.
Sounds like the US but without the petty crime and drug addiction. Don’t underestimate China. Unlike the West… China is part of the fastest growing half of the world…. the BRICS and not the dying half.
lawrence- I would be careful of using China Observer. I watch a number of China based channels, and although yhey are all reporting on dire economic issues there, I have noticed that CO is highly slanted ant-China. I have been suspecting they are some sort of propaganda arm. They recently reported that the EV market was a huge scam, that 60% of domestic cars sold are never registered and parked in fields to pump up sales figures. They had long range visuals of cars parked and claimed it was in the thousands. claimed they were BYD’s. would be a huge scandal.
But a UK based journalist found the park using landmarks, and they were old taxis and rideshare vehicles. and it was only hundreds, CO had used deceptive visuals.
I have also noticed that they reuse a lot of video from different angles to be deceptive.
Just a word of warning, I take their stuff skeptically.
Can we have pipe communities for our homeless. I mean big pipes, not those smoking pipes they give to the homeless for free. Because nothing says giving someone a hand up than encouraging them to smoke meth!
If you want to see China’s future, look no further than Japan. Back in the 80s, all the “smart money” was in thrall of the Japanese economic Leviathan. Japanese “methods” were all the rage, and other economies were scrambling to replicate their success. (I put “methods” in quotes because, although they all had exotic Japanese labels attached to them, most were merely retooled American methods and processes that had been discarded in the U.S. – some with good reason, others not so much.) It was widely assumed and predicted the Japanese would become the permanent dominant player in the global economy. Well, they had a good run, and there is still plenty of gas in their engine, but with 30 years of roadwear and hindsight, the Japanese model isn’t quite hitting on all cylinders the way it used to. For all their medium-run success and extrapolative predictions of continued growth into infinity, there were always countervailing fundamentals in play that now appear obvious in hindsight. Looking at China, I see even more of the “countervailing fundamentals” in play than with Japan, and fewer of the mitigations that are allowing Japan to manage its reckoning with economic reality.
China’s new espionage law puts a big target on the back of every foreign owned business. Nobody wants their firm raided and them and their staff hauled off to some gulag just so the CCP can seize their assets.
Years ago I saw a photo from India. A mother and her children lived in a discarded concrete pipe, and in the photo, she’s dressing her child in a pretty, clean dress to send her off to school with her classmates. In the background, other pipes with similar scenes played out, with a caption describing how common this is, and how dressing their children well was a point of pride – the least they could do to help give their kids their best shot.
Ugh, I might as well say “daughter” instead of “child” since this is 20fucking23 and so much of the world is bonkers.
… aaaand, found it!
https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/6ukcnb/i_look_at_this_picture_whenever_i_think_life_has/dltg2tj/
From the top comment:
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Some back story of the image:
This photograph was taken in India, by Gautam Basu, and won CIWEM Environmental Photographer of the Year in 2011.
The area they are in is referred to as the ‘Pipe Slum’ and are old pipes that were discarded by the city after the completion of a water project. The rest of the slum is made up of ramshackle shanties that are built over and around the pipes. The area is also home to a number of children attending a nearby compassion project.
Like India, Manila in the Philippines also has homeless people and families living in similar concrete and steel pipes. These steel pipes were intented to be used by the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) on the construction of a water system.
[…] This is a sign. […]