Much like the tech bubble and housing bubble, by the time you read these articles in the mainstream press, it is FAR too late to invest. You've already missed 10-15 years of explosive growth in the Chinese economy.
If you got into China 15 years ago, you had no idea how things were going to pan out (and you deserve compensation for holding that risk). If you get in now, there's a more likely chance (I'd argue) that you'll do well, so the risk, and therefore the compensation you deserve, is lower. And holding currency is a lot less risky than equities, anyway.
The people that would be interested in a Yuan bank account up to $20000 aren't really sophisticated investors anyway.
Lets take the dot-com boom as an example. There were people saying that dot-com companies were overvalued in 1997, when the Asian currency crisis hit. Those people were, in retrospect, probably right. However, the next two years made them look like complete fools, as the bubble maintained exponential growth for another two years before completely collapsing.
Same thing with China. Yeah, the bubble might have another couple of years left. If you get in now and get out when the crash hits you'll make a modest profit. But, if you mistime the crash, you could stand to take huge losses, as the value of your currency investments falls far below the price you paid for them.
The original argument was that there was no point in investing, because if you'd invested 10-15 years ago, you'd have made a lot of money. That argument is wrong for obvious reasons, which I will spell out anyway; just because something did well in the past is no reason to think you'll lose money on it in the future.
Your argument is that if you invest in something and it goes down in value, you lose money. That's true but not relevant.
Eli's point seems to be that it's possible to make money on an investment after it's had an explosive growth stage; the obvious truth in counter to the initial falsehood, and in no way addressed by your comment.
1. Explosive growth is over, you can't make money anymore.
2. That's not true, you *can* still make money.
3. But attempting to make money at this stage is riskier.Your argument would make just as much sense without these words, and leaving them out would help keep HN a place for civil discussion.