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Thursday, January 6, 2011

The China Bubble

Ghost towns in China? Apparently so. Note this photo of Zhengzhou New District. The photo shows huge and numerous public buildings that have never been used (Click directly on the image to enlarge it):


From Dinocrat.com, via THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS:
Of the 35 major cities surveyed, property prices in eleven including Beijing and Shanghai were between 30 and 50 per cent above their market value, the China Daily said, citing the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Prices in Fuzhou, capital of the southeastern province of Fujian, had the worst property bubble with average house prices more than 70 per cent higher than their market value…

According to research carried out by Time magazine, fixed-asset investment in the Asian country accounted for more than 90 per cent of its overall growth — with residential and commercial real estate investment making up nearly a quarter of that. Regional governments across China have been building massive real estate projects, including Kangbashi in Inner Mongolia and Zhengzhou New District, which have remained empty…

Regional governments across China have been building massive real estate projects…Kangbashi, which was built in just five years, was meant to be the urban centre for Ordos City — a wealthy coal-mining hub home to 1.5 million people. It was filled with office towers, administrative centres, museums, theatres and sports facilities as well as thousands of homes, but remains virtually deserted.
Read more, and see more photos HERE at the Daily Mail in an article entitled "The ghost towns of China: Amazing satellite images show cities meant to be home to millions lying deserted."

Time Magazine has more photos.

Reliapundit of THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS comments:
* AND MAYBE IF-AND-WHEN THE CHINA BUBBLE BURSTS, IT WILL BE WORSE THAN THE OIL BUBBLE AND THE FANNIE MAE BUBBLE?

* THEY MAY BE IN WORSE SHAPE THAN THE USA AND IRELAND AND SPAIN AND GREECE AND CALIFORNIA AND SO ON.
China hasn't had a recession for three decades. Furthermore, right now in China, property prices in some major cities are overvalued by as much as 70%.

What will China, holder of a significant portion of United States Treasury Securities, do to try to head off a possible economic meltdown?

Is China's reduction in exports of rare-earth minerals an attempt to shore up China's economy instead of that nation's meeting an intra-China demand for those minerals? All those ghost towns in China do seem to belie China's official statements as to why the reductions are taking place.

The present worldwide recession, a depression really, isn't over. Not by a long shot.

11 comments:

  1. Regional governments across China have been building massive real estate projects...

    Reagan was right: Government is the problem--here, there, and everywhere.

    ReplyDelete
  2. And it's not just the real estate bubble. They have demographic problems. An aging population due to the one child policy, and the man/woman split is around 48/52, which equates to millions of men who cannot find mates.

    Environmental issues are real, and social unrest.

    Compared to China, we're in great shape!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Silverfiddle,
    Thank you for pointing out that additional data!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for a great story. Sounds like they need some "immigration". I may have a solution for them! Have them give me a call!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I have thought for awhile that the impending new world order with China at the top has been overblown. They have too many things against them.

    -a work force that will want to get paid more. This is an old story that has been repeated again and again and again in Japan, Mexico, etc. The country builds an economy on the backs of a cheap work force. The work force starts making some money, gets a little education, and realizes that they are being screwed so they start demanding more money. Labor costs soar in the country so some other third world crap-hole moves in with cheap labor and the plants move. China's economy is built on the business this cheap labor brings in. The cheap labor goes, the money goes, they have to feed a billion+ people with no money. I think it is just as likely that China implodes as it is that they become a super power.

    -while China does have technology, a lot of it's people are still basically peasants. A lot of their farming is still done by hand. Their manufacturing is still labor intensive.

    -their Communism, like everyone else's is doomed to fail. Communism's worst enemy is information. It is what killed the communism in Eastern Europe. As long as the governments there could keep the population ignorant, they had them under their thumb. As they became educated and realized there was a better way, it collapsed. China is on the verge of this now. Look to their battle with the internet. Who really thinks they are going to be able to censor the internet forever? The message gets out. People get educated, they communicate, this communication leads to organization, the organization leads to the fall of Communism.

    I think the whole thing is a house of cards waiting to fall, likely in our life times.

    ReplyDelete
  6. So true, but do not ask Obama, according to him the "global world" and the United States are flourishing. He even has the gall to take credit for some great financial gains in the U.S. - Pfffft! As for China and any place else, let the chips fall where they may.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I don't trust the ChiComs one bit
    and, although I don't think they can beat us intellectually, they are cheaters who will do and say anything they want and will get away with it.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Silverfiddle is correct, but it is still a house of cards on both sides. How long until we become what China is now?

    ReplyDelete
  9. Seems like they Chinese has a ton of porkulus money out there.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Many in the west are pining for the success of China and that China would overtake the US and finally show us the true way.

    Thankfully these western morons and haters are wrong.

    ReplyDelete

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