China
I rarely start threads but I'll just say it here: the current Chinese regime is evil.
It's running concentration camps th
Yeah, no clue what is going on there except maybe a public foot fetish performance
I read some comments and still couldn't figure out what was going on. The guy was over-dramatizing how much he was hurt so he could sue her some point down the line and the lady getting upset at this was the best I could do. But it could literally be the opposite.
that's exactly what it is
scammers will intentionally get hit and then overly dramatize the injury knowing that the cop is incentivized to avoid paperwork and push the offender to make a swift payment
lady wasn't having any of it and of course the guy was "unable" to defend himself because he was feigning a life threatening injury - but of course no ambulance because he needs to collect the money from her first
meanwhile the cop is like "please stop standing on his head until we resolve this"
i've witnessed this a million times
i've also witnessed first hand people hitting the cop who ruled against them - police in china are given 0 respect
Thus, there is a growing apprehension among analysts that China is becoming a neocolonial power in Africa because it exhibits similar political and economic patterns of interaction as the departed Europeans. A plantation/resource extraction form of colony has been identified based on the above activities and other similar interactions. Mark Langan, for example, remarked, “Chinese interventions are seen to perpetuate (neo)colonial trade and production patterns and to denude the exercise of empirical sovereignty.” Ian Taylor calls China’s engagements with Africa “oil diplomacy,” where Beijing aims to gain access to critical raw materials.
Dozens killed in car rampage through Chinese stadium
Zhuhai is a shot distance from where I was living. Since it was a bigger city, most people would naturally gravitate there and I spent a lot of time there as well. Really horrible.
Not really that important, but if anyone is curious what was going on with India and China a few years ago when they were fighting each other with sticks, here's a clip that was relased:
Graphic.
Spoiler
he's talking about this
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chin...
happened right across the water from macau
whoever that channel is, he totally sucks and is a charlatan - didn't even mention the city where it happened - just pure fear mongering
it wasn't a terror attack, it was a 62 year old man who was upset about losing half his assets in a divorce - china has a big problem with mental health issues in that it's been stigmatized and people don't seek the treatment they need
read the above article for actual journalism
You can immediately disregard anyone talking to a camera in a suit on Youtube. They are all racist and/or grifters
he's lived in China for YEARS and is married to a chinese woman... he speaks the truth about China from someone that lives/has lived there.
Disregarding someone merely because they are on youtube is an issue because more truth comes independently than it does from corporate media outlets.
Independent news is where it's at.
he's lived in China for YEARS and is married to a chinese woman... he speaks the truth about China from someone that lives/has lived there.
Disregarding someone merely because they are on youtube is an issue because more truth comes independently than it does from corporate media outlets.
Independent news is where it's at.
Rickroll is calling him a charlatan and he lived in China for YEARS as well.
Who to believe, who to believe
he's lived in China for YEARS and is married to a chinese woman... he speaks the truth about China from someone that lives/has lived there.
Disregarding someone merely because they are on youtube is an issue because more truth comes independently than it does from corporate media outlets.
Independent news is where it's at.
Look at his body of work, obviously has a bone to pick. I'm smelling fallen gong.
I wrote something pretty long with points etc. but I think I should skip that and make it simple.
One of my best friends is in China and I spoke with him last week. He will be in a first, second and several 3rd tier cities for about 5-6 weeks.
He did tell me that everyone that he spoke to and all of his friends, told him that things are not good at all.
Ie. Hey good to see you. I haven't seen you in a while (2-3 years,) how is it going......
Not good, RE, jobs, economy, outlook, all bad. I will get grill him on how things are when he comes back at the end of this month.
I believe that China is kicking the can down the road one more year by piling on more debt to create GDP, and that
they are still in for a number of hard years to come. The economy has not hit bottom yet.
In other china news there is a MSM news report that china hacked information from the dept of treasury.
As the MSM is hostile towards Trump and Elon, and may view the dependence of their core businesses on China, I expect the MSM will feature lots of stories like this in the next 4 years to drive a wedge to hurt Trump/Elon politically.
There is also a legitimate question whether Trump/Elons dependence on China is actually a double interest that can and will be exploited by China to undermine US interests.
But because of their anti Trump bias I don’t really trust the MSM to be balanced in reporting this type of stuff. I expect they will be much more vigorous reporting this kind of stuff in the next 4 years than the previous 4.
I read the People's Daily and the Global Times regularly. (both Mainland Chinese news agencies published in English)
The positive news is very scarce and when they do publish an article, it is hard not to be skeptical.
The last 'good news' article that I read was about how travel to China is up. In reality travel to China was down in 2024.
The article does not lie, it uses deceptive wording to imply increased travel.
ie. Visa free travel visits to China is up by XXx,XXX. What they don't say is that they added approximately 30 new countries in 2024,
to the list of countries that no longer need a visa to visit China.
As far as my friend goes, he did not want to say anything bad about China. He told me that everything is about the same (from his
point of view) but all his friends in China say things are bad.
He told me that he had to take is girl friend's extended family to a high end Chinese restaurant. (traditional sit down with many dishes served)
He said it was great and he paid $280 USD for 24 of them everything included. (i am quietly thinking to myself that 24 big mac meals in Washington state is more expensive than that)
I asked him how busy the restaurant was. He said that he could not tell as they had to walk down a corridor and were put into a private room.
My 2025 outlook for China in RE (my area of study) is still very negative.
Ageing population
fewer people getting married.
fewer births.
population decline
The Chinese govt does recognize this and is encouraging more children... but the change is like turning the Titanic,
very slow and will be a long time before anyone sees the effects.
RE is no longer considered a store of wealth in China and alternate places to store wealth are looked for.
Capital flight, legal and illegal is happening to preserve wealth for Chinese citizens. They want to invest outside and
not inside China if they can.
Infrastructure investments to support RE investments are non productive.
(ie. adds lots of GDP in the year built but adds lots of debt, recurring costs to maintain, and little to no revenue.)
We are in the recurring cost and interest payments phase.
In the long run this is fewer buyers of RE.
Less demand = prices dropping.
RE prices have declined steadily for 11 quarters.. from a high in Q3 2021.
In Jan 2024 i estimated 60m empty units in China owned by investors and an additional
20m units paid for by citizens but undelivered.
While it is difficult to get any news on this topic, I still estimate 58m?!? empty units and
only 1m of the 20m unfinished units have been delivered. (previously 4-5 m units
would be delivered each year)
I believe that 0 new prebuilds were sold in 2024. (prebuild = units paid for NOW to be built at a future date)
There has been a huge growth in the 2nd hand market for empty units for sale. Ie. 2m of the
60m empty units have had their prices drop enough for new buyers to buy them from previous owners.
This was rarely ever done before 2022. RE prices will continue to drop in 2025.
While Evergrand and Country Garden were big news in 2022-2023 additional companies are being mentioned
as being in serious trouble. In my mind there are three levels of serious trouble.
level 1 Bankrupt (usually this is the end of the line for a western company)
level 2 Debt Restructuring (has a chance because it has some assets to manage/liquidate. The investors get 50% haircut)
level 3 Owner is being 'detained' (nothing left to manage.. so Govt needs to blame someone.)
again at the beginning of 2024 i estimated 75% of China's top RE companies are level 1.
additional RE Companies that made it into the news in 2024 include
Vanke
Shimao
Sunac
China Aoyuan Group
(also Zhongzhi Ent. Group not an acutal RE company but sells investments related to RE)
haven't seen the whole thing but saw a snippet clipped from youtube shorts and it looked solid so will watch later when i have the time
93B seems like a deal.
In other news a Taiwanese coast guard ship just apprehended a Chinese ship suspected of cutting underseas cables. I guess this is just the new norm now that the rest of the world has to be constantly vigilant of China and Russia sabotaging our underseas infrastructure.
i don't know who the annoying joe rogan lite guy is who he's talking to (but he always has lots of stupid stuff in the clips i see in these shorts) nor the guy who is talking but this is very accurate except that what this guy is leaving out when and how he definitely got screwed over later
i highly suspect it was +40% and instant agreement, more like an extra 6% and then after some back and forth brought down to +3% of the previously negotiated price
every single time i was involved with another company we were planning on screwing them over at some part from the very start, sometimes the plan was to wait a few years first and then screw them over, but it was always to screw them over, ideally in a manner they don't recognize as getting screwed over to continue it
it was always super awkward for me as i was usually involved in any partnerships with non chinese companies and i like kind of didn't want to get fired but also kind of wanted to wink wink hey buddy be careful with us etc warn them
talking to other expats in similar jobs in chinese companies this was always the norm - i think it works in china because they view all partners as combatants whereas in the west we don't and thus get super exploited because we're not guarding against it/letting it all even out with the stuff we suceeed in pulling off on our end
I didn't watch the clip but yeah, my dad worked in manufacturing in China for 20 years and was like no matter what, business relationships were always going to end up the same way. No matter how beneficial and profitable the business partnership was it was basically known one side was going to blow it up eventually trying to take the whole pie. I guess it kind of works because it's a known thing between both parties.
A study published in Nature estimates that 17.4% of urban housing in China stands unused.
This number gets even more spectacular when you read the article and definition of unused:
Researchers and policymakers typically adopt the term “vacancy” for all underoccupied housing held by households but without residents at the time of investigation.
[...]
...this study focuses on an extreme type of underoccupied housing in urban China that is closest to resource waste—dwelling units that remain unoccupied for an extended period after completion. Specifically, we define a dwelling unit as “unused housing” if it (1) has been sold to a household, (2) has been completed for at least two years (so that the owner/renter has sufficient time to decorate the interior and move in), and, most importantly, (3) has never been occupied by the time of investigation.
chinese don't trust the stock market, they put their nest egg into owning multiple properties, there's no taxes on real estate so it doesn't cost them anything to hold it and the value will drop dramatically if it has been lived in because a "fresh house" has a premium price attached because chinese don't like bad vibes from prior occupants who weren't in their family
ie this american life has an episode about people finding apartments in hong kong where occupants died as cheap housing because only the poor would want to live there
articule clearly states the problem would go away in a heartbeat if they just imposed a tax on properties because then the prospect of buying and sitting on it goes away so they either sell to someone who either wants to live in or rent out or will rent it out themselves
china has millions of people living in bunk beds in converted storage/parking spaces underneath buildings - with the right policy leverage and carrots and sticks those "empty apartments" will get filled asap
