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Comment by pianopatrick | Hacker News Reader

China is a mixed economy with some capitalist parts and some socialist parts just like us. Their mix is just a bit more effective than our mix than our mix and they have higher scale.

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It's more effective at depressing wages and at shovelling other people's money at whoever the politicians want to win. They are also much better at hiding debt -- in manufacturing companies, in banks, and in provincial governments. A lot of their successes lose money but they are awesome at hiding it and they might well outcompete Western companies and thereby cause a lot of harm.

> They are also much better at hiding debt

Through bonds? or SVPs to fund the building of datacentres?

What do you mean “hiding it”? Are you suggesting Chinas manufacturing capacity is entirely fraudulent or cooking the books? Or that the state is providing subsidies? Because if its the latter… have you seen the brouhaha over Amazon HQ2? Or seen the number of tax credits/incentives doled out by US cities to companies that “promise” jobs but don’t even deliver them? (but keep their subsidies).

China is capitalist on a state level, that's where they are winning. The US lets things get mired in red tape and special interests because nobody wants to take responsibility for growth.

In China, I imagine that if your company does something relevant to the five year initiative then you get a lot of red tape cut for you.

> China is capitalist on a state level, that's where they are winning. The US lets things get mired in red tape and special interests because nobody wants to take responsibility for growth.

i.e. in China, the government controls capital; in the US, capital controls the government.

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