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Comment by xtian | Hacker News Reader

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xtian·

How would that activity allow one to purchase ever greater quantities of energy imports?

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You still need energy to build cities even if no one lives there.

And how does unproductive activity enable one to purchase that energy on the global market?

Are you saying you aren't aware of china's current economic woes and partial bust of real estate market?

I'm aware that China's economic collapse has been continuously predicted for the last 30 years, but they nevertheless continue to produce more and more real commodities and infrastructure. Of course that doesn't hold a candle to our services-rent-IP-speculation economy here in the US.

Do you deny that China recently had a downturn in the real estate market?

Sure, central gov _chose_ to cracked on on the sector, but the denial is that will lead to doomer level of collapse portrayed in western media. Here's a recent primer on PRC land finance and why market remains resilient / impact on gov finance overblow.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-03-25/china-...

The real denial is western analysts with little understanding of why real estate crack down won't lead to PRC collapse. At end of the day, realestate is about as wasteful as US extravagant health care spending in % terms. Inefficient sure, but not end of the world in terms of misallocation. Even less so when ~100m surplus/vacant housing units still not enough for 200m that needs to be rehomed to bring urbanization from 65% to 80% in next 20 years.

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