Hacker News Reader

Comment by rqs | Hacker News Reader

> what we have in China is much worse than japan since artificial intervention is much deeper and prolonged

I think it's the question of whether or not it's going to pop.

If the housing bubble did popped, then we are screwed a big time, worse than what Japanese once had. But if it didn't, then the leverage is still there and economy maybe low at worse, but stable.

I don't think everything is concluded at this point, because SSE 000001[0] is showing sign of very slow recover. And the censorship on economic news in my opinion is rather one effort to preventing domino effect.

[0] https://www.google.com/search?ei=P3KzW_6LF4fUwQKM77uYAg&btnG...

View on HN

If the property bubble doesn’t pop, you are more screwed as the asset and real economies further diverge. China can’t be world competitive if a 70sqm apartment goes for a million bucks, people/companies will start relocating to cheaper places like say San Francisco.

A lot of economic potential is directed toward real estate and away from more productive endeavors. I remember the shops outside of my old office in zhongguancun all concerting to real estate offices. Cafes, restaurants, stores can’t compete.

If China wants to take the next step in their economic development, they have to give up on this bubble. It will suppress a lot more economic activity than it stimulates, even if capital is preserved it isn’t doing anything useful.

> China can’t be world competitive if a 70sqm apartment goes for a million bucks, people/companies will start relocating to cheaper places like say San Francisco.

"China is Now More Expensive than the USA": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32t8d2eQJAA

Almost everyone laughs when I say they should get some of their news from people who actually live in China rather than thinking something needs to be printed in the newspaper before it is true.

From the comment section of that very video, I quote:

> Freda Du: are you guys comparing one of the most expensive chinese cities with the average american (suburban/rural) rent? And comparing fine western dining (cuz apparently you think the $2 chinese meals will kill westerners..) with dollar menu? I lived in Shanghai, LA and NYC, let's make a major city to major city comparison here.. a single metro ride is $0.5 in shanghai vs. $2.75 in NY and $1.75 in LA (which goes nowhere); cellphone bill costs $10 in China and $40+ in the US; you can get food as cheap as $2 in a sit-down restaurant in China, but at least $10+tax&tips in America; have you guys just been living in China for too long and forgot how damn expensive america can be? the small Chinese cities can be dirt cheap too but you guys think it's too inconvenient for people who refuse to speak Chinese. so there you go.

For your reference, I'm living in a small city in China, where ￥15 can supply my diet-mode food for a week, for better diet, that's ￥22 ($3.2 dollar) (Just to clarify, If however I don't want to diet, then that's ￥50~80 or $12 a week). That's even when I buy most of my foods from supermarket[0].

The key point is, you CAN live an expensive life in China if you want to, but you don't HAVE to.

[0] https://i.imgur.com/X9Gm4Zl.jpg

Reality is what it is regardless of your or my opinion, and it seems to be human nature for individuals to have a tendency to want to paint it in one way or another (for example: "cuz apparently you think the $2 Chinese meals will kill westerners" - purely a figment of that person's imagination, regardless of it's accuracy).

If you're serious about trying to discern the reality of this situation as accurately as possible, the most useful metric I know of to look at is the affordability ratio, assuming you can find a source with genuinely honest, unmassaged data.

To me, the fundamentally important question seems to be: has the ability for the average person to own/rent the average shelter increased, decreased, or stayed constant over time? My opinion on the matter would be the whatever the answer to that question is. I don't happen to know the correct answer but I think a related question, how broadly is wealth distributed throughout the population (completely ignoring the "righteousness" of it), would be helpful in making a good guess at it.

Let me guess. Did you just been triggered by the $2 a week diet thing? Then don't be, I'm actually not very proud of it.

I did it from time to time for about few weeks so I can quickly lose my belly fat. And I don't like it at all let alone recommending it.

> the most useful metric I know of to look at is the affordability ratio

Of course. I just searched a bit, the DPI seems to be ￥7,815 or $1,137 for the first quarter.

However, I don't have any information other than that, and dig the information needed is too hard for me :(

> Let me guess. Did you just been triggered by the $2 a week diet thing?

Not at all, my point was more referring to the human tendency to take one example and use it as a representation of the norm, according to the internal desires of how one thinks the world is, or "should be".

> Then don't be, I'm actually not very proud of it.

I can't think of too many countries that could feel more righteously "proud" of themselves than China, considering what they've accomplished in the last 20 years, I don't think anyone comes close to touching this progress in the history of the world.

> Of course. I just searched a bit, the DPI seems to be ￥7,815 or $1,137 for the first quarter.

I'm not familiar with this term (Dynamic Price Index?), but I can't think of a single number that would be an accurate representation for "China", considering how large of a country it is, with incredibly high variances of wealth and living expenses.

China is not expensive. Rent is actually cheap: that place on the market in beijing for $1 million USD will rent for less than $2k/month, for example. Food can be cheap, not as cheap as 22 RMB/week (heck, even in Chenzhou I'm not sure who could do that), but $5/person for a decent meal out and cheaper if cooking in.

Cars are super expensive compared to the states, so is gas. Real estate prices are insane, but again rents are much cheaper because most of that run up is imaginary and unsustainable. Education is super expensive if you don't have a hukou (which foreigners will never get). Clean air is impossible to buy.

Chenzhou: Population (2001): 4,559,600; GDP (2015): ￥201 billion. For comparison, Our city: Population (2017): 1,700,000; GDP(2017): less than ￥120b.

I've searched the price of fast food restaurants in your city, the result: https://t.dianping.com/list/chenzhou-category_189

Base on that, I can see the average price is ranging from ￥13 to ￥45 ($2~7) per person. So I guess $5 is really pretty decent.

However, I have lived in few other cities in China, I know that live in another city other than your hometown is expensive, let alone when that city is in another country. Simply too many extra costs (like Rent and education).

Speak of educational cost,

> Education is super expensive if you don't have a hukou (which foreigners will never get).

It's actually location depended. You may want to talk with local schools or departments see if they can help you with it or at least give you a direction. It likely results a cold shoulder but you won't get warm one if you don't try. Plus, ask them directly is better than complaining online.

Also keep in mind, not many Chinese teacher can speak English. So.

That population number is for the entire county, the urban city will be much smaller (about 1 million). I’m not sure what you are counting for yours. Note we live in the states these days, just my wife has hukou in Chenzhou.

Then I'm glad you have escaped from all those problems :)

BTW: The population is the total number.

Note that was a hypothetical: a 70 sqm apartment in Beijing ATM is around $500k, but if the prices keep rising. That is still more expensive than most places in the states, but not more than SF (if you could find such a thing). Beijing isn’t even the most expensive market in China.

I think what the government is trying to do is to increase people's income, so it can match the level of housing bubble.

Many people think it's a goal that is to hard to reach in time (year 2025 or so), but the overall direction is about right.

However, all of that is before the trade war thing. So what does the future actually holds is a bigger unknown by now.

That makes no sense and would be much worse than just popping the bubble: either China will be extremely uncompetitive with the rest of the world, or they will deprecate the RMB like crazy.

The property bubble really isn’t worth preserving.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com