Brands that you never knew that were owned by Chinese/Taiwanese companies.

[touchring]

Re: Brands that you never knew that were owned by Chinese/Taiwanese companies.

I think a lot of people underestimate the capital in China that can be invested.

A typical risk adverse Chinese senior engineer in his late 30s who knows nuts about investment maybe earning only $1.5k a month, but may have $100k in savings plus $300k in positive equity from a $80k apartment he bought in 2000 that had appreciated 5 times in value.

And this is for someone who doesn't invest and a below average performer. An above average investor who flipped real estate and stocks or a higher income earner may have many times more.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Brands that you never knew that were owned by Chinese/Taiwanese companies.

I'm not surprised. The Chinese must have acquired thousands of companies in Germany in the past couple of years. For every billion dollar deal you read on the papers, there maybe half a dozen of hundred million dollars deals, dozens of tens of millions of dollars deals, and hundreds of 1-10 million dollar acquisitions and thousands of 500k-1 million dollar deals.

Even an idiot will know what happens if this continues for another 10 more years. The question is, if the bankers realize they are not winning the game, will they change the rules? It may well be too late by then because they don't own the game.

I think you're assuming that western bankers have the tiniest shred of nationalism in their bones. So long as they are winning personally, I doubt they care if the West goes down in flames. They have a jet ready to go on the runway. Dubai? Shanghai? Doesn't matter where. What I'm saying is that they're for sale, and cheap. Competition from China has already led to consolidation the likes of which was unimaginable a few decades ago. But we have no equivalent to CCP oversight in the West. They'll dutifully break laws and chase money right over the cliff, one lemming right after the other. Even the flood of Chinese money into domestic real estate just exacerbates local western inequality and makes home ownership unaffordable for urban youth. Finance will not be the salvation of the West. But the day you see them fleeing the sinking ship, get ready for something much darker.

[touchring]

Re: Brands that you never knew that were owned by Chinese/Taiwanese companies.

I think you're assuming that western bankers have the tiniest shred of nationalism in their bones. So long as they are winning personally, I doubt they care if the West goes down in flames. They have a jet ready to go on the runway. Dubai? Shanghai?

Even Mark Zuckerberg is learning Mandarin (not from his American Chinese wife), probably from a tutor. As one of the most influential and probably wealthy person in the US, he doesn't need to learn Mandarin. He doesn't live in China. FB also doesn't have any business in China. He is thinking further than the average person.

[GRG55]

Re: Brands that you never knew that were owned by Chinese/Taiwanese companies.

Even Mark Zuckerberg is learning Mandarin (not from his American Chinese wife), probably from a tutor. As one of the most influential and probably wealthy person in the US, he doesn't need to learn Mandarin. He doesn't live in China. FB also doesn't have any business in China. He is thinking further than the average person.

Seriously?

Mark Zuckerberg is NOT your "average" person.

The wealthy have the money to be able to make the time (by hiring people to do routine daily tasks for them) to indulge in such pass times (note Jim Rogers made a big deal out of moving his family to Asia many years ago, ostensibly so his daughter could learn a Chinese language).

The "average" person is just trying to pay their mortgage, keep their job, feed and educate their kids, and maybe have something left over for retirement. Learning Mandarin ranks up there with signing up for a quantum mechanics class at night school.

At this point the well off Chinese are trying to get both their money and their families OUT of China. Until I see a clamouring of Americans trying to get their families into China (to enjoy its remarkable economic opportunities, world class education institutions and advantageous lifestyle) I will remain sceptical of any claims regarding the so called "superior" Chinese economy.

[touchring]

Re: Brands that you never knew that were owned by Chinese/Taiwanese companies.

At this point the well off Chinese are trying to get both their money and their families OUT of China. Until I see a clamouring of Americans trying to get their families into China (to enjoy its remarkable economic opportunities, world class education institutions and advantageous lifestyle) I will remain sceptical of any claims regarding the so called "superior" Chinese economy.

I know what you're talking about, but as difficult it is to imagine, it can happen when Mark Zuckerberg's daughter has grown up.

Here's a 1973 documentary filmed in Shanghai about the backwardness and poverty in China.

Compare to a recent vlog on Shanghai.

[GRG55]

Re: Brands that you never knew that were owned by Chinese/Taiwanese companies.

There is no doubt there has been remarkable progress economically and socially in China over this period. And equally there is no doubt that in many respects there has been insufficient progress in some other areas of that society as well (or people wouldn't be trying to leave,or at least get their kids out if they can).

As that infamous financial product/mutual fund disclaimer states "Past performance is not indicative of future results".
If you give me Trillions of Yuan, I'll show you a good time too!

[touchring]

Re: Brands that you never knew that were owned by Chinese/Taiwanese companies.

I can empathize with you on wealthy Chinese buying up second homes in Vancouver. You're not the only one facing this problem, many cities in different countries are suffering from this problem although not as badly as it is in Vancouver. Are the Chinese buying because China is having issues? I see it differently, they are buying because their business in their home country is doing well. As for future performance, we'll know for sure by November.

There is no doubt there has been remarkable progress economically and socially in China over this period. And equally there is no doubt that in many respects there has been insufficient progress in some other areas of that society as well (or people wouldn't be trying to leave,or at least get their kids out if they can).

As that infamous financial product/mutual fund disclaimer states "Past performance is not indicative of future results".
If you give me Trillions of Yuan, I'll show you a good time too!

[Milton Kuo]

Re: Brands that you never knew that were owned by Chinese/Taiwanese companies.

Are the Chinese buying because China is having issues? I see it differently, they are buying because their business in their home country is doing well. As for future performance, we'll know for sure by November.

I've spoken to and listened in on enough Chinese people to get the impression that they intend to leave China. There are no obvious issues in China so they're still there making money while they can. Perhaps they'll stay if there is substantial governmental reform there, too. But they're not buying houses in other countries just because they have a lot of money.

If it's just a matter of having a lot of money, how many masters of the universe and Silicon Valley tycoons are queueing up to buy homes in Shanghai or Beijing?

[touchring]

Re: Brands that you never knew that were owned by Chinese/Taiwanese companies.

I've spoken to and listened in on enough Chinese people to get tphhe impression that they intend to leave China. There are no obvious issues in China so they're still there making money while they can. Perhaps they'll stay if there is substantial governmental reform there, too. But they're not buying houses in other countries just because they have a lot of money.

If it's just a matter of having a lot of money, how many masters of the universe and Silicon Valley tycoons are queueing up to buy homes in Shanghai or Beijing?

This is not new. The Hong Kong people were the first to leave Hong Kong for Canada. There were also HK people that went to China and did very well. This Chinese migration had been going on for at least the last 2 generations.

If the future were so easy to predict, I won't be on iTulip forum seeking for answers. A very old investor who was a financial controller of some sort in an International company once told me that the West is going down, and that was in 2011.

I had no idea what he was talking about and didn't believe it in then. How can the West be going down when it was proven (at least in the last 50 years) that democracy works better than autocracy and communism?

The West had an 7-10 year economic cycle in the past, so won't this only be a temporary recession and we should see a recovery within the next couple of years. China would then peak and experience an economic crisis.

This was what I believed then. But after having seen the events that happened in the last 5 years since 2011, I come to the conclusion that there is something more sinister than just economic theory going on.

Duterte, an elected President of the Philippines just announced that he will realign the Philippines with China - http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ch...-idUSKCN12K0AS

This doesn't make sense. China is trying to gobble up Philippines sea territory and yet Duterte wants to ally with China.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Brands that you never knew that were owned by Chinese/Taiwanese companies.

If it's just a matter of having a lot of money, how many masters of the universe and Silicon Valley tycoons are queueing up to buy homes in Shanghai or Beijing?

They tend to choose Singapore instead. The dictatorship there tends to orient itself towards wooing and coddling wealthy westerners while oppressing and killing its own people. But Hong Kong is also popular.

The point is that wealthy people attempting to decouple from their citizenship is a worldwide phenomenon, not localized to China or the US or any other country. Just look at the numbers of Americans who have renounced their citizenship by year:



Believe it or not, these numbers aren't bad. China led the pack with 76,200 people leaving with over a million dollars over the last decade. That's a bit north of 12% of China's millionaire population, likely as heavily due to the new anti-corruption push as the US spike was due to FACTA. India came next at 43,400 wealthy people out, which is a huge number--over a quarter--of its millionaire population on the books. France was down 31,700, about the same percentage as China. Then comes Russia at 14,000. Most of them like to go to London.

Speaking of which, who gained? The UK actually led the pack with 114,100 foreign millionaires arriving over the last decade, about 17% of the UK's millionaire population. Now, lots of these may be in the tax shelter islands, but still, it's substantial. Singapore took in 45,000 ex-pat millionaires over the same timeframe. The US took in 42,400 over that time. Australia took in 22,200. And Canada took a bit fewer than that.

The point? The US is actually not a huge destination for expat millionaires. Tax shelter islands are. London itself is far better for it. Australia and Canada actually make it easier to become citizens if you are wealthy than the US does, so relative to their populations, they attract a lot of rich foreigners.

I'm not sure how great it is to attract all sorts of rich foreigners or foreign real estate investment. It destroys locals' lives and makes everything unaffordable. Of course, the same thing happens when there's too much investment domestically. Manhattan is the most boring place in the world now. Just 20 or so years ago, you could have an adventure and a fun night out in the Lower East Side and really see some crazy stuff and get a story out of it. Now they roll up the sidewalks at sundown and it's tumbleweeds. The whole island has become a hermetic disneyland for bankers and pr account execs and other high powered mucky-mucks. Fun is not allowed. Culture is dead, unless you want it spoonfed to you on Broadway. Any and all of that old street dynamism is totally gone. Replaced with yet another boutique selling Hermes ties and a fru-fru gourmet Korean burger joint run by a white chef from Connecticut who's charging $100 a plate to keep up with rent. Sad.

If you ask me, there might actually be some tangible benefits to exporting the wealthy population for the work-a-day majority, especially when it gets concentrated in a neighborhood and starts squeezing the life out of it like a boa-constrictor that feeds on rents.

[GRG55]

Re: Brands that you never knew that were owned by Chinese/Taiwanese companies.

They tend to choose Singapore instead. The dictatorship there tends to orient itself towards wooing and coddling wealthy westerners while oppressing and killing its own people. But Hong Kong is also popular.

The point is that wealthy people attempting to decouple from their citizenship is a worldwide phenomenon, not localized to China or the US or any other country. Just look at the numbers of Americans who have renounced their citizenship by year:



Believe it or not, these numbers aren't bad. China led the pack with 76,200 people leaving with over a million dollars over the last decade. That's a bit north of 12% of China's millionaire population, likely as heavily due to the new anti-corruption push as the US spike was due to FACTA. India came next at 43,400 wealthy people out, which is a huge number--over a quarter--of its millionaire population on the books. France was down 31,700, about the same percentage as China. Then comes Russia at 14,000. Most of them like to go to London.

Speaking of which, who gained? The UK actually led the pack with 114,100 foreign millionaires arriving over the last decade, about 17% of the UK's millionaire population. Now, lots of these may be in the tax shelter islands, but still, it's substantial. Singapore took in 45,000 ex-pat millionaires over the same timeframe. The US took in 42,400 over that time. Australia took in 22,200. And Canada took a bit fewer than that.

The point? The US is actually not a huge destination for expat millionaires. Tax shelter islands are. London itself is far better for it. Australia and Canada actually make it easier to become citizens if you are wealthy than the US does, so relative to their populations, they attract a lot of rich foreigners.

I'm not sure how great it is to attract all sorts of rich foreigners or foreign real estate investment. It destroys locals' lives and makes everything unaffordable. Of course, the same thing happens when there's too much investment domestically. Manhattan is the most boring place in the world now. Just 20 or so years ago, you could have an adventure and a fun night out in the Lower East Side and really see some crazy stuff and get a story out of it. Now they roll up the sidewalks at sundown and it's tumbleweeds. The whole island has become a hermetic disneyland for bankers and pr account execs and other high powered mucky-mucks. Fun is not allowed. Culture is dead, unless you want it spoonfed to you on Broadway. Any and all of that old street dynamism is totally gone. Replaced with yet another boutique selling Hermes ties and a fru-fru gourmet Korean burger joint run by a white chef from Connecticut who's charging $100 a plate to keep up with rent. Sad.

If you ask me, there might actually be some tangible benefits to exporting the wealthy population for the work-a-day majority, especially when it gets concentrated in a neighborhood and starts squeezing the life out of it like a boa-constrictor that feeds on rents.

The Indians and Russians also seem comfortable with Dubai as a residency destination and an offshore haven for parking their cash, bullion and mistresses.

Have to agree about trying to court the wealthy. Going back a decade or two Canada had some truly idiotic policies to court "investment" from wealthy foreigners - basically selling the right of residency and ultimately citizenship to those that could afford the entry fee. Most often they bought a chi chi residence in Toronto's Rosedale district (at that time Vancouver prices were half of Toronto). That really helped the economy, eh...

[touchring]

Re: Brands that you never knew that were owned by Chinese/Taiwanese companies.

They tend to choose Singapore instead. The dictatorship there tends to orient itself towards wooing and coddling wealthy westerners while oppressing and killing its own people. But Hong Kong is also popular.

This may be true 15 or 20 years ago when the father is running the show. The son does not just woo wealthy westerners, but almost anyone, south asians recently (but not afghans and paks) and especially chinese citizens. It is very easy for a Chinese citizen to get a long term residency permit in Singapore, even with just a high school certificate. But even with such ease, their numbers have dwindled in recent years because you could save and earn much more in big Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen than in Singapore.

The point is that wealthy people attempting to decouple from their citizenship is a worldwide phenomenon, not localized to China or the US or any other country. Just look at the numbers of Americans who have renounced their citizenship by year:

You may want to consider Chinese that have migrated and studied in places like Canada, Singapore and Australia but have returned or their offspring have migrated back to China for business and work. I believe that their numbers can be quite significant.

[Milton Kuo]

Re: Brands that you never knew that were owned by Chinese/Taiwanese companies.

The point? The US is actually not a huge destination for expat millionaires. Tax shelter islands are. London itself is far better for it. Australia and Canada actually make it easier to become citizens if you are wealthy than the US does, so relative to their populations, they attract a lot of rich foreigners.

It might be more interesting to see how many foreigners bought houses in the U.S. but did not immigrate to the U.S., such as children or wealthy mainland Chinese or houses bought to be occupied a few years down the line after the buyers decide to leave the mainland.

If you ask me, there might actually be some tangible benefits to exporting the wealthy population for the work-a-day majority, especially when it gets concentrated in a neighborhood and starts squeezing the life out of it like a boa-constrictor that feeds on rents.

In theory, it's a great idea but it's not working in practice at least currently in the U.S. You only need look at Silicon Valley for the most egregious example of what is happening: rent-seeking on a massive scale as everyone rushes to buy real estate for speculation, for skimming workers' salaries with yearly price ratchets, or out of fear of being priced out forever. A lot of Silicon Valley is not what I would really consider the wealthy population: they're just relatively highly-paid rank-and-file.

Even here in the Houston area, I was quite surprised to see the amount of real estate speculation in the Woodlands, a suburb way out north of the city. At the moment, practically any place close to good-paying, non-executive jobs will have have high real estate prices due to U.S. economic policies that encourage rent-seeking and speculation.

[ER59]

Re: Brands that you never knew that were owned by Chinese/Taiwanese companies.

Why any person with money would consider moving to China, especially to any large city, is beyond me. It is overcrowded, polluted & unhealthy especially for kids. The futuristic modern China (or Singapore, for that matter) strikes me as my worst nightmare, something out of the bleak future from a very dark sci-fi.
“China’s current environmental situation is the result not only of policy choices made today but also of attitudes, approaches, and institutions that have evolved over centuries.”
http://www.cfr.org/china/chinas-envi...-crisis/p12608

“Banking on extinction is the newest, most deadly threat to the survival of wild tigers and other endangered species.”
http://www.takepart.com/feature/2015...-tigers-rhinos
https://www.theguardian.com/environm...ngered-extinct
http://www.salon.com/2014/10/25/the_...ction_partner/

It could be our overpopulated future but why hurry to live that future if you have a choice? Personally, Iwill take US with more land, less population and the systemof National Parks over China anytime for a foreseeable future.

[touchring]

Re: Brands that you never knew that were owned by Chinese/Taiwanese companies.

Why any person with money would consider moving to China, especially to any large city, is beyond me. It is overcrowded, polluted & unhealthy especially for kids. The futuristic modern China (or Singapore, for that matter) strikes me as my worst nightmare, something out of the bleak future from a very dark sci-fi.

I remembered American cities like LA had an air pollution problem in the 1980s. Canadian cities were much cleaner then. In my view, pollution is the easiest thing for China to fix. Demographics much harder.

Why would people move to a major city in China? For the same reason why people move to NYC?

For the CCP, it might not be a bad thing people don't want to come to China, they don't have to deal with a refugee issue.

http://ig.ft.com/sites/2015/special-reports/shanghai/

I knew a surgeon from Singapore who migrated to Perth and now has a practice in Shanghai. The money or the girls are better or both? People move for vanity reasons or in search for "space", but eventually, the economic reality bites in. Shanghai is like 10 times more congested than Singapore.

The 2016 Mercer's ranking of cities by liveability ranks Perth as 21st, Singapore, lower at 26th, the best American city is San Francisco at 32th. The favorite destination for wealthy Chinese Vancouver is ranked 5th. Shanghai is not even in the list, probably ranked 100th or 150th?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercer..._Living_Survey

The biggest obstacle to moving to China is the language. It's the same problem with any other East Asian city, Korea or Japan, where few people can speak English very well.