Skip to main content

China demography

Everything in China can be explained by demography.   China's biggest problem is that the world in which it sells, and sells very successfully is also changing.  America and Europe face the same demographic challenges that China faces.

What it means is that an ageing population consumes less and invests more, then it stops investing, producing and consuming.   Aging is the great equalizer.   Americans are aging as are Europeans so their respective economies are slowing, hence China's export market is shrinking.

The pressures are not only with the clients but also internally.  China's population is no longer growing, but it is aging.   When you are 60 in China you start to look at your savings, and a surprisingly large percentage of the middle class savings are in real estate.  75% of all savings are real estate and 95% of this real estate produces no income.

In 2019, in a town unknown to most foreigners the government demolished 15 high-rise towers that had been abandoned for 7 years by the developer that had gone bankrupt.  The 15 towers where 6,300 apartments were demolished.   This demolition was just one of the most extreme cases of very poor-quality unfinished housing.

China has a few problems, a shrinking foreign market, a limited domestic market and an aging population.   None of these variables are positive for economic growth. My point is that China like any nation faces challenges.

China Real estate crisis:  Chinese are aging and using their savings (aka the spare apartments they bought)

China local government crisis:  100% of local governments were financed by the real estate boom

China MIlitary:   Ok that has nothing to do with demographic, except that the theft of resources was known for years.

China is facing the same demographic challenges as Japan and Korea, yet /100% of its solution are based on mercatntile solutions. It says more about China's leadership than about China itself.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ok so I lied...a little (revised)

When we began looking at farming in 2013/14 as something we both wanted to do as a "second career" we invested time and money to understand what sector of farming was profitable.  A few things emerged, First, high-quality, source-proven, organic farm products consistently have much higher profit margins.  Secondly, transformation accounted for nearly 80% of total profits, and production and distribution accounted for 20% of profits: Farmers and retailers have low profit margins and the middle bits make all the money. A profitable farm operation needs to be involved in the transformation of its produce.  The low-hanging fruits: cheese and butter.  Milk, generates a profit margin of 5% to 8%, depending on milk quality.  Transformed into cheese and butter, and the profit margin rises to 40% (Taking into account all costs).  Second:  20% of a steer carcass is ground beef quality.  The price is low, because (a) a high percentage of the carcass, and (b)...

Spray painting Taylor Swift G650 aircraft (updated)

 First, a bit of paint will not harm anyone.  These climate activities are going to learn two things in the next few days:  (1) Trespassing at an airport is a felony almost anywhere in the world.  That means criminal prosecution.   (2) removing paint from an aircraft is expensive.   So these climate activists are about to find out the reach of the British criminal system and it will not be pleasant, the UK has very strict laws about that, I would be surprised if cleaning the aircraft of all the paint will cost less than $100,000.     I am sure that when they planned (premeditation) this little show they had a very valid logic to doing this.  Tonight, they are probably realizing the depth of their troubles.   I understand that in the UK it's a minimum one-year jail sentence.    Also, good luck travelling with a criminal trespass charge against you.  I am relatively certain that the airline industry will ...

Janet Yellen from China supporter to Hawk...

There is rarely serious news in the world these days, it seems that most newspapers are filled with headlines and little else, and then Ms Yellen went to China.  Secretary Yellen has long been known in the Biden administration as the voice of moderation when dealing with China, yet as her trip which concluded yesterday a hawk was born:  She warned the Chinese against dumping goods in the United States.    fighting words! The American administration is very concerned about the lack of Chinese domestic consumption.   Even before the COVID-19 epidemic, there were already the beginning signs of a slowdown, automobile sales were off.   China is facing domestic deflation (a clear sign of collapsing demand) China imports few consumer goods, they import raw materials and intermediary goods.   It seems that the American administration is concerned that the Chinese administration will dump consumer goods abroad to keep its manufacturing machinery ...