New book details China’s economic rise — and now, its fall | MIT Sloan

Interesting turn of events LTC Eugene Chu

The expected US GDP growth for 2023 is 1.6%. For China it's 5.2%. Now if we account for inflation - in the US its 3.7% so its really 1.6% -3.7% = -2.1% growth, now for China their average inflation rate is .1% - so 5.2% - .1% = 5.1% on the plus side. Seems like they winning.

https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/NGDP_RPCH@WEO/OEMDC/ADVEC/WEOWORLD
https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/inflation-rate

Don't look now, but.....

"China’s economy is stagnating, plagued by a real-estate crisis..."
The US has two interconnected but separate real estate crises looming. High cost of homes / rent, and lack of housing. Not even lack of affordable housing anymore, just lack of housing at ANY price.

"...high unemployment..."
On the surface we are doing pretty good here. Unemployment is very low. But.... when you add in underemployment and folks who have just given up on employment, the picture is much less rosy. China has a problematic unemployment rate at 5.3%, which, honestly, is not that far behind us when you factor in underemployment and non-job-seekers. The big problem in China is the unemployment rate for 16-24 year-olds, which is north of 20% - and they stopped publishing. US, by comparison, is at 8.6 for August - but is rising fast (was 6.5 in April) (source: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS14024887 ). So we are healthier here, but not comfortably so.

"...dwindling confidence among investor..."
Yeah. Big Ol' check mark there.

"... and other setbacks."
The article doesn't go into a lot of detail on "other setbacks," but one thing I did note was:
"In the past, when the Chinese economy succeeded, it was when the private sector was developing and the government was more flexible and tolerant of differences of opinions. And in the past, when the Chinese economy was doing badly, it was precisely because of the opposite dynamics."
We have seen the current administration be increasingly inflexible, and completely intolerant of different opinions - to the point of taking political prisoners and censoring free speech.


I will grant that the housing market is not Biden's doing. This has been building and growing since we started recovering from the housing bubble burst in 2008. Many factors involved, but that is a whole nother topic. So this is not Biden's fault. However, when an industry is already way too expensive, tacking inflation on top is certainly not going to help.

Likewise, unemployment and underemployment is not Biden's fault. The COVID lockdowns killed American employment. Yes, that is a DEMOCRAT fault, but not a specifically Biden one. And I have to give credit, as much harm as the reckless Biden admin spending has done, it HAS significantly lowered unemployment. A large part of this is just people returning to jobs after Democrats forced them out, but without government spending, many of those jobs would not have been there to come back to. The rapidly rising young adult unemployment is concerning, but not yet troubling. So on this one, overall, I would give Biden a thumbs up.

The investor confidence, though... This is all Biden. Biden and his administration have done everything they can to destabilize markets, push policy agenda over public need, and attack business in general. Yes, some sectors have flourished, but these are the exception, not the rule.

And the increased regulation to remove business creativity and punish opposing thought is also all on Biden.

Overall, this administration is moving in the wrong direction to avoid similar economic collapse. At least, as detailed in this article.