Comment by endswapper | Hacker News Reader

Comment by endswapper | Hacker News Reader

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Your out of date and worthless references don't do you, or anyone else any favors here. The article from 2011 about China overheating is laughable.

China's economic numbers have long been known to be fiction, regardless of the truth or facts that may play a small part in their creation. http://www.economist.com/news/china/21689628-chinas-obsessio... http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527023034481045791521...

Current articles about energy oversupply only reinforce, in a current context, the fact that their GDP, growth and other financial numbers are fabricated: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-26/china-ener...

The only way to understand Chinese financial conditions is through hindsight. This is problematic for the global economy, but it's even more problematic for China. While their resources are massive, they are not infinite. The point is that it is not sustainable and eventually they will be forced to operate in reality and communicate their reality.

Not sure what you mean by "out of date" in 2011 they launched a policy of reducing growth by raising the reserve ratio massively, they are targeting "high single digit growth".

That growth is all mostly coming from the urbanisation policy. from 98% of the population living and working in the paddy fields a few decades ago to their target of 90% living in modern super cities.

They can literally double their output from now simply by spreading technology from the early 1900s, rather than pure manual labor. But they are going straight for "next-generation manufacturing".

"Energy oversupply", "city oversupply"... Those would be those "flawed assumptions" I was talking about. Its only "oversupply" if you think it impossible they get from the 56% urbanisation rate they are currently at, to somewhere near the 95% urbanisation rate of countries like the USA. Which is the current policy.

And pretty much anything is much much more productive than picking rice from a paddy field by hand, which is the current working day of 46% of the Chinese population - more than 600 million people - or twice the population of the US.

http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/china/publication/urban-...

By 2030, up to 70% of the Chinese population - some one billion - will be living in cities.

If they wanted to they could target high triple digit growth because it is all fiction.

China's diminishing growth, and a current, global energy oversupply are not flawed assumptions, they are global economic realities. I provided credible, current references to support this point in my previous post.

You can beat the drum about growth, urbanization or broad assumptions, but you fail to address the primary problem that this merely propaganda not grounded in credible, objective data.

I was more concerned my comment about China in hindsight and your out of date references would be misconstrued as contradictory. Your reference was out of date and already proven false and thus irrelevant. China can only be viewed in hindsight because it takes years to disprove the current propaganda.

is this a cause and effect thing you are struggling with?

didn't they teach you in school the effect (lower growth) has to come after the cause (raising the reserve ratio)?

Or is it just that because US policy has had all policy levers thrown on full speed and they still can't manage an inch of growth that you don't believe in them?

If that is the case, newsflash, that is because the workforce population isn't growing and the education system is shit.

You fail to address the elephant, so why chase the mice?

I thought the article was an interesting perspective because China does own manufacturing today. This is suggesting that next-gen manufacturing will present new challenges and benefits that will make it more difficult for anyone, in this case China, to own it in the future. In particular, this creates opportunities in engineering and automation, which from the comments, seem to be of particular relevance for this audience.

If you can't elevate your debate while acknowledging the fictional nature of China financial information this isn't much of a conversation.

Thanks for your perspective though.

The article does not in any way address the fact that China has the very low cost base (massive numbers of highly trained human capital and substantial investment in physical capital and R&D) to guarantee pretty much no other country can compete.

Does it?

Instead, it seems to start from the premise that they are not already the world leaders in "next gen technology".

Which is a total fallacy.

You know lines like:

China’s manufacturing engine has largely stalled

and

Even though China is graduating far more than 1 million engineers every year, the quality of their education is so poor that they are not employable in technical professions.

->utter BS. For a start, their "top 10%" is greater than the total number of US graduates. And their "Bottom 10%" is still more employable in a technical profession than an average US graduate.

Unfortunately, when you focus on human capital in China, you can't dismiss the fact that China, particularly in the manufacturing sector represents modern day slavery. The fact that no other country can compete only supports this.

In fact, the article does address this (cheap Chinese labor/slavery), and proposes that the shift in need of labor through robotics and automation, essentially resets the playing field in that regard.

They are not already the leader in next-gen technology because it is next-gen, is is in the formative stages. It is the leader in manufacturing, the current generation.

I don't agree with the statement that their manufacturing engine has stalled. Their growth is diminishing and their dominance is at risk.

I agree that the statement that their education is so poor they are not employable sounds like b.s.

That was never my point. If you can respond to my points, that would be a start. If you could refute them rather than promoting the propaganda I would be impressed.

->They are not already the leader in next-gen technology because it is next-gen, is is in the formative stages. It is the leader in manufacturing, the current generation.

Erm. They are the leaders in everything from manufacturing to supercomputing. What does that exclude?

-> Unfortunately, when you focus on human capital in China, you can't dismiss the fact that China, particularly in the manufacturing sector represents modern day slavery.

Maybe, maybe not. Working for western companies like Apple, sure.

Alibaba

probably somewhere between conditions at Google and Ebay.

At least you are funny...

So, it's the Western companies, like Apple? I don't think so. Western society may provide the demand and the capital to create the conditions, but the Chinese are the perpetrators of slave labor.

Can you provide some examples of where they are already leading in a field that doesn't exist yet?

nuclear: msr projects and their fusion reactors.

various space based warfare kit (shooting down satellites for example)

that quantum communication satellite.

Im sure there is more.

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