Do rich people not understand that money= life or death for poor people but not for rich people? Therefore protecting poor people is more important? Are they stupid, lack empathy or both?
It's both, Isn't it?
It's important to recognize that the story is, first and foremost, bullshit. They're lying liars who lie.
Chinese folks in the upper classes are living high on the hog in every sense. They're traveling. They're eating out lavishly. They're driving big imported SUVs. They're blowing fat stacks at casinos and resorts. They are having wild sex and doing tons of drugs.
What they aren't doing is maxing their scores out on the USD leaders board. We don't have a handful of aspiring trillionaires demanding that the Hansang Index double every five years. Major media centers and industrial hubs aren't being collected and traded like baseball cards. Housing is not for speculation, it is for living in.
That's what The Economist is agitating over. Not that Chinese elites are suffering, but that they're failing to ante up into the Blackjack table that is American Capitalism.
So it all amounts to one great big "GIVE US YOUR MONEY!! WE WANT YOUR MONEY!!" after casually committing every sinophobic libel and slander to parchment and news page... Death to Amerika.
Do rich people not understand that money= life or death for poor people but not for rich people? Are they stupid?
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i mean, if a rich person loses their money, they become a poor person, which is a fate worse than death.
so yeah, i think they understand, they just have a different take on it. also they really really hate the poors.
I sort of meant that if a rich person loses a little money they're still pretty rich, if a poor person loses a little money they can't feed themselves.
This is what makes a socialist project so neat in my mind. The rich are the reason that poverty is so hellish. It's the imperialism, the cop violence, the homeless, the hunger, the grueling hours of labor, etc. It's all contrived, it's not like there's not enough houses or enough food - nor does it take all hands on deck to create it like it used to. Without a project people fuss around like "well, I can't change the system, I'm a victim as much as anyone else!" But then you have China doing something about it as a cohesive unit. Being poor is a dignified life and being wealthy with the fruit of your labor is a dignified life. You can give all your money to a cause you feel is worthy and still have a meal that night and a place to sleep. Your job as the torture manager at the adrenochrome factory isn't going to be filled in by someone even worse when you leave because the socialist project is going to make sure that the adrenochrome factory will become a library/community center instead. You're not gambling homelessness when you leave a job. You're not panicking when you need an ambulance because of the cost. You're not going to be tortured in a cell by a sadistic cop if you do drugs - hell you even have a dignified path away from addiction! Under socialism you would have this beautifully maximized way to actualize yourself and you get to contribute to a society that isn't maximally cynical.
under capitalism if someone made robots that freed everyone from labor the only people that would benefit are the people who own the robots.
Oh I just had an idea - why don't the rich simply give away money until they're poor, and then they'll get all the protections poor people get? Let some other dumb sap deal with the burden of having money.
They're crying because their investment portfolios are being hurt. What's funny is that if the collapse were so bad that they risked losing their own lixury high rises or wherever they live, them they would absolutely qualify for the kind of assistance that's currently wrecking their investment portfolio.
Didn't expect the Economist to put out such a positive story about China
One of the major disconnects between China’s financial class and the central govt right now is that the former got the message that the govt would protect them from the side effects of the controlled demolition of the real estate bubble through a surge of state financial support. They think that just because Xi wants to shift the financial system toward a more developed equities and bonds market to cover the finances of local governments that they would be the recipients of that restructuring and that measure for progress should be how quickly the govt directly pumps liquidity in their direction.
The chinese financial class thought that they could win the govt’s efforts to pivot the financial system because they believed the govt would have to bail them out with fresh credit injections while RE finance was dismantled. That the CPC was line brained enough that they wouldnt do anything too disruptive that would kill vibes for the stock market while also leavung them unprotected. And that fantasy being jilted is at the root of prevailing anger toward the govt. Every rich chinese's financial positions were built around real estate bets with those RE bets backing their equities portfolios, and since real estate based assets are getting repriced downward across the board in the correction they are becoming the main losers from multiple angles. They saw themselves as indispensable actors who the govt could not deny needing in this pivotal moment. What they forgot is the govt is engineering this transition for a future economy. And not for those who’ve already made enough money to gamble on stocks or speculate on real estate beyond owning the house they reside in. The hard reality for the financial class is the Chinese govt does not in fact consider incumbent financial actors as indispensable or in any way the focus group towards which future growth and prosperity will be directed towards. And since the whole restructuring has many years to go still they have to accept that this is the way things are gonna be from now on. Its maybe only just begining and they arent offered a "well just become somewhat less rich and restricted for only a couple of years and then things will again go your way and you will have new opportunities to do the same thing you were doing before in maybe a different way" deal.
Seeing the once "empty" slogan of "paying lip service to the ghost of socialism" - now being so materialy present that is held "responsible for China's malaise" is a remarkable change, isn't it?
it's been a real treat watching the headlines go from
"China is going to have a bigger real estate crash than we did"
to
"China has absorbed the crash by doing all the things you thought Obama had promised to do and didn't"
I want to read that second article. Are there any good English deep dives on how the Chinese government had handled this situation?
https://www.economist.com/briefing/2024/02/08/chinas-well-to-do-are-under-assault-from-every-side
https://archive.is/kKoeg
the rich are a different story
Oh no, not the billionaires! Where are the wokes when this minority is being persecuted!
Economist unintentionally making China sound cool af again
the maoist uprising against the landlords was the largest and most comprehensive proletarian revolution in history, and led to almost totally-equal redistribution of land among the peasantry
we've found it. The perfect Economist article
