CNN: On some luxury resort developments, prices went up 60 percent in two weeks.

[GRG55]

Re: CNN: On some luxury resort developments, prices went up 60 percent in two weeks.

There is an easy way to end this.

Both of you just have to answer two simple questions.

Who has been to China?
Who speaks Chinese?

Be careful with this one.

It's the same logic that leads to the belief that only women can write about feminism, only blacks can interpret America's slavery past, only ___________[fill in your favourite religion] are capable of understanding ________________[fill in your favourite religion], and so forth.

In a recent interview China uberbear Jim Chanos said that some people have been attacking his bearish prognostications about China with "he doesn't speak Mandarin" and "he's never worked in China". His response is that he never worked in Enron either...

[touchring]

Re: CNN: On some luxury resort developments, prices went up 60 percent in two weeks.

I strongly disagree with you on this one. Mao was a visionary leader and great strategist and thinker. He is one of those genius that would only shine once in a few centuries. Despite the western propoganda, many Chinese people still see him a god like figure.

Since we are talking about economies, I am analyzing from the economic point of view, of course, there are nationalistic and political aspects that I am not considering, such as the fact that Mao created the PRC, just like Sun Yat Sen was the pivotal force for overthrowing the Qing.

The air and water pollution is also staggering in scale, but I suspect it could be cleaned up quickly if the community decided to clean it up.
Generally I would say China is adopting the worst from the west, industrialism, greed, excess consumerism, agri business and fatty sugary fast food, and disregarding the best from their own culture, Confuscianism, art, medicine, farming systems and religion.
I put the possibility of a building bubble collapse at 95% and the liklihood of revolution at 0%.

Shanghai can easily and quickly recover from any bubble collapse since it is the hub of commerce in that region, the problem is in the smaller cities. I believe that the extent of overbuilding in small cities is greatly underestimated in official statistics.

Water pollution may cause a health disaster in China 20-30 years from now, we don't know the long term effects of drinking carcinogen and industrial chemical laced water. In most cases the chemicals might only be present in tiny amounts, but it will accumulate over time. Unless water distillation is used, I doubt it is possible to remove the chemicals entirely, besides I believe that the river water is just passed through a filter that can barely remove all the mud, let alone the chemicals, and then chlorinated to remove bacterial.

When in China I take great care not to swallow the tap water when brushing my teeth, some people use imported Evian mineral water to gurgle, but even if you do that, you still cannot avoid eating restaurant food cooked with tap water.

I see it differently. Revolution or evolution, the Chinese political landscape will change as the economy develope. Once the middle class strong enough, their demand will be heard, like in Taiwan, South Korea, and Thailand.

I'm not sure if China will evolve the way of Taiwan and South Korea since the the situation is different, besides South Korea and Taiwan have been under the political influence of Japan and the US for half a century, so democratic reforms are only a matter of time. Perhaps it will happen 100 years from now, who knows?

The last 100 years for North East Asia had been very unique. For thousands of year, maybe 10,000 years, the central plains had always been more prosperous and advance as compared to the peninsular of Korea and the Japanese islands. This shows that political system is very important and maybe more important than capitalism itself.