Amazing video emerges out of China: Ghost Cities
 

According to Business Insider, some estimates say that nearly 64 million properties are vacant in China. The country is plagued with empty homes, malls, and businesses.

?There?s city after city full of empty streets and vast government buildings, some in the most inhospitable locations. It is the modern equivalent of building pyramids,? BI quotes the group Forensic Asia Limited as saying.


http://www.theblaze.com/stories/amaz...-ghost-cities/

Old video but still facisinating.

There was a piece on Vice last night (HBO) about that. The worst part is the people who were threatened and run off their great farm land to build these "props" to fool the rest of the world. China is good on paper, but trying to force yourself to be a superpower won't make you one. This kind of bullshit, plus their shitty ass products, blatant disregard for standards and civil rights and the environment will catch up with them.

and they probably all have little dicks too.

Here is the dumbo view:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=LhCJD4-npew

How many of you have actually visited China and been to a number of its cities?

I'm sure they'll experience economic problems and a probably a crash (just like all economies) but then it will be back to growth again...... Sure there's a bubble there but actually to be honest, China's economic miracle is TOTALLY real, whether you'd like to believe it or not.

north korea will copy this

Here's the intelligent view:



Zhang Xin, one of China's richest real estate moguls.

Well worth watching this one.

lol, china doesn't even release accurate economic data, they don't calculate gdp.

2nd, the entire system is based on fraud and corruption. centrally-planned economies don't work.

Economic data of most governments is fiddled but that doesn't mean that the country isn't fast growing. It just takes a few trips over to see the very obvious signs. Sure there's corruption but there's less corruption in China than in say Russia or India.

By the way, how many times have you actually been to China?

*fiddled* with, how many of those economies have a significant portionof their economies based on counterfeit goods not to mention china's artificially manipulating currency markets to maintain, stop hyper-inflation, etc.

don't get me wrong, the shiney new highways and ghost cities are real, they produce a ton of shit, but i don't think it's accurate to claim their economy is totally real is not accurate.


i've only been 1 time. 2008.

Well China's economy is not based on counterfeit goods (that's a tiny part). As for currency manipulation, if it goes on in China how is that any different from the USA where massive amounts of money are being printed and the US dollar is being debased?

I said China's economic miracle is real.... bottom line those ghost cities do exist and there is a problem in those markets for sure but its a small part of the picture.

Incidently, ive been to China six times (since 2008). Im doubtful you've even been once.

I wish that for once you could discuss something without showing your capitalist prejudges and making arguments that only say "they do not work because they are not in free market", without giving real reasons. You actually look more like someone discussing religion than someone discussing economy. It is ridiculous and it shows how alienated you are.

Better keeping quiet instead of shouting a pray for your capitalist church.

:1orglaugh i'm trying to have a discussion with you and you feel the need to spout how many times you've been to china whilst negating my experience.

enjoy your day.

this sums up your agenda. yay, you've been to china, let me double-check how many flights are leaving my local airport for china today, brb.

:)

i can leave tonight and be in bejing in the morning, round trip = $1542

ZOMG, it's like going to themoon huh!

I eat Chinese food 3-4 times a month, anyone have any questions about China feel free to ask me.

.

take-out or actually in a chinese restaurant?

In order to get the full cultural experience one must of course dine in.

.

fully credentialed!


:thumbsup

WILD shit going on in China.
But how will this affect my $20 tv sets at Wal-Mart?
That's all i care about.

I have been many tines recently, just back a month ago. I can back up what you say China is a powerhouse, boom is everywhere. On a scale you really need to see to believe.

There are empty buildings but that is just until people can afford to live in them. People will move in.

Go to a mall anywhere in China and it ispacked.

Within 10 - 20 years most of the west will be working like slaves in factories producing goods for asian consumers. Funny thing is people in the EU, UK & US are too dumb to realize what is currently happening :)

A big thank you must go out to the corrupt western governments who deregulated our financial systems, handed it to the bankers and allowed them to create the biggest financial heist in history!

I'll take the time and watch that carefully, really interesting.

I fully agree with you. I visit asia once a year at least and it is BOOMING. There was a time, when I left Asia due to several reasons, poverty and desperation being one of them but now it is totally opposite. West is decaying and heading for disaster like the one unfolding in Spain and Greece whereas Asia is where the money is. Just go to any malls in Thailand/India/Singapore/China and see for yourself how things are flying off the shelves, how the middle class is much larger than all of west put together and how much packed they are.

Yepp, thats how I feel as well. These bastards have let all the technological advances/capital/jobs flow to the east and in next decade we would all be struggling while Asia and other continents will surge ahead.
Most westeners have their heads buried in the sand, can't see it coming but for fucks sake take a look at GDP and per capita income growth in Asia in last 10 years and compare it with drop in US and EU at the same time.

the chinese are spending like crazy in all the packed shopping malls with their new-found wealth, driving their fancy chinese rolls royceS to the mall huh!

the New South China Mall has been 99% vacant since its 2005 opening as very few merchants have ever signed up.[3]
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...Mall-Court.jpg

I am sure there are some slow cities and poor areas, however that is not my experience. All I ever see is people everywhere buying things up non stop. Even street vendors have line ups.. lol
I should post some of my pictures.

China may have a future slowdown, property prices may moderate slightly, but there will be no bubble bursting or USA style housing market crashes.

Every day there are new millionaires and multimillionaires at the top end and more and more people entering into or enjoying an average middle class income bracket.

Sure there are ghost towns, but that's what happens when you have a central government dictate funding to local/regional governments. They are told to produce growth or don't get funding from Beijing. Of course they are going to build shit. It keeps people in jobs and produces results.

Are property prices high for average people in capital cities? Sure, but that's the same as most western countries as well, it's all relative. Can't afford to buy city central? Move out into the suburbs.

Here on the island of Hainan, in the main city Sanya, a 2bedroom, 80sq meter apartment, with water views will cost you 2million RMB (18,000 to 25,000RMB) per square meter.

But if you drive 1-2hours away, the price drops massively. Down to around 5,000 - 8,000 RMB) per square meter. It's all relative.

The biggest social issue is not property, or income, or human rights (but of course it's something you can't ignore). It's the fact that there is a massive gender imbalance.

If there is one thing that keeps the government awake at night, it's the fact that there is 40 million single men, that will never get married or have a girlfriend, due to the one child policy. If shit were to kick off, it would be them first.

Source: Me, 3 years living in China, not in an expat bubble, talking to locals that don't speak English.

i'm not the sort to discount people's personal experiences or to challenge them on what they tell me is their reality/experience.


i hope you do the same, i didn't say china economy is not booming, i am saying there is a lot we don't know and a lot of sketchy things that comprise that *boom*,
it's certainly no miracle economy.

this pic is a ghost city pic..

they're either accounting tricks to represent 'growth'

or they're planning on billion people migrations..

Incidently, Im in China next week (Beijing)......... any of you people heading out there?

Lets grab a beer and grump about our failing western economies, haha.

What about YOUR reality/experience when you "supposedly" visited China back in 2008. At least confirm to us that this trip wasn't imaginary. What did you see in China?

China is BOOOOOMING man, deal with it.

There is a LOT of leverage in china, no doubt about it - and the property is something of a bubble. I reckon a lot of Chinese are in denial about that but the government is basically acting to slow it down by taking all sorts of measures. Whether they'll be successful is another matter because it could crash and that will create problems.

If China does actually crash its going to raise the AGI (AMERICAN GLOAT INDEX) over 5000%. Whatever happens, China isn't going anywhere but up in the long term. Don't forget China is a second largest economy in the world and will over take America sometime in the next 20 years (probably sooner). They also have massive reserves, more than any other country in the world.

i've already let you know you don't know how to hold a discussion.

case in point, you have no problems with those here who agree with you, i have a different view so i'm a suspect and need to prove something to you in order for you to validate me.

lolz, fuck off.

that's weird, usa is not on the list of currency manipulators.

http://i.imgur.com/8WWTGtV.jpg?1

maybe we should make sure peeps talking about the usa on teh gfy know wtf they're talking about by confirming they've been to nathan's famous dogs, like this chinaman!

http://www4.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/N...-ejhLLEZ7l.jpg

There is a difference between costs being high, and costs being impossible. Here in the US you can buy a nice condo in the city for $500k or $600k, which isn't too bad when you are making $60k to $100k a year. In China... They want $300k for these pads, but the average income is $6k a year. They want half down - $150k - and the balance due in three years. $150k down is twenty-five years of their average salary... That's impossible for the average person to buy, which is why all of these places are empty.

That's why I say theres a bubble:

(1) High leverage used in purchases.

(2) Property out of line with incomes.

(3) Yields which will not cover mortgages.

Now compare that to another bubble economy like India.

I know many, many people in India in cities like who bought properties 13 years ago at like $50k and those properties are now worth $600k plus. They've gone up over ten times in value since 2000. A lot of this was zero interest rate money coming from western institutions during the financial crisis.

Property in Delhi and Mumbai is now some of the most expensive in the world much like in Beijing and Shanghai. There are lots of rich people out there sure but generally incomes do not support those high prices. That's just my view anyway, I know in India a lot of inherited wealth as well like with China.

Its actually impossible to work out how much of those values are bubble money and how much of it is economic growth and demand/supply related.

I'm gonna go buy a toy race car from that dude.

There may be a future for China if it survives the internal problems growing at exponential rates these days. I doubt rummy boy is aware of much of that.

There is a strong possibility China will split up into 2-3 countries by the end of the decade. As well, most of Asia as well as the western PTB would like to see China knocked back a couple centuries. :thumbsup

Their advances have been based on IP theft and currency manipulations. Construction is faulty. New bridges and buildings collapse. Yeah, top notch. :1orglaugh

Chinese are PRO ethnic group, not PRO China.

I'm next door in Japan. We are having to deal with Chinese fallout and pollution more and more. Soon, much of China will be a really risky place to live for health reasons. Chinese are mostly in the news here for coming to Japan to commit welfare fraud and buy real food. Food they can safely eat. Kinda sad for a "booming" country.

This will be an interesting decade for sure.

Rummy are you a travel agent trying to drum up biz? :upsidedow

Wu Shuliang and Qi Xianyi lost their 15-year-old son to cancer. They blame a hill of Chromium-6 waste dumped next to their rice paddy by a chemical factory in rural Yunnan province. To pay off the debt for his treatment, the couple feels they have no other choice but to sell their contaminated rice into China's food supply.

http://www.marketplace.org/sites/def...?itok=Ttoud1Xw

Significant implications

Officials are worried, because villages like these supply China with its food.



Five years ago, a soil survey taken from rice in three of China?s largest agricultural provinces shocked Chinese consumers.

Sixty percent of the rice samples showed excessive amounts of cadmium, a heavy metal that causes bone and kidney damage. At the time, Chinese scientists openly discussed the widespread contamination of China?s food supply. But these days, they?re not talking. Several scientists declined interviews with Marketplace. That?s because late last year, China?s communist party declared national soil surveys ?state secrets.?

Revealing China?s ?state secrets? can send you to prison.

Captain.... you make some good points but this bit above is rubbish. Its a vastly export economy and IP Theft is a (relatively) small part of the economy. As for currency manipulation US and Japan are the worst.

How much has your Yen depreciated against the USD in the last 6 months? 20%?

The RMB has appreciated a lot against the USD and especially recently. They didn't do it earlier because the US was pressuring them. It was all about what the US wants and all that talk is just US propaganda.

Japan's last government was weak. The depreciating is good for Japan's business sector. Japan has not engaged in manipulation for awhile. Just since Abe came in. Hopefully he will develop Japanese military and a booming Japanese economy.

China's export economy is slowing. If any more manufacturers leave China will really slump. Countries are moving away from China rapidly. And with good cause.

Yeah, Dyna mo - I heard the interview with that couple on NPR. Pretty tragic for them and for anyone eating their rice. Now multiple that thousands of times and its easy to see why China is having problems. of course, US not much better. God only knows whats in fast food here.

i wouldn't even know where to begin on trying to compare the chinese food supply to usa.
we certainly have problems. and that is where i am coming from.

china's cool, usa is cool, japan is cool, but let's be real about it all too, no reason for smoke and mirrors. no one country is necc any better than the other for everyone on the planet.

Its the so-called elite of most countries that are bad, imo. They dont eat the food in the mainstream food supplies. They abuse workers...Its pretty sad, it goes on every where.
On digital tv we watch newscasts from almost every country in asia, usa and europe. What can be believed is sad. Most appears to be propaganda.

A funny question no one has thought to ask. "How many of those unfinished skyscrapers and apartment buildings already need to be demolished for the structural elements non stop exposure to weather?" - exposed steel, rebar and concrete that must be sealed up quickly as they are not intended to be exposed to weather.

The buildings are finished weren't they? Why would that question need to be asked unless of course the buildings were half built then left before being completed years later.

These cities are built and completed, then they move onto the next area.

What you say is true and the locals here would agree with you. But a just few points.

1) Those 2 million RMB apartments, are not aimed at middle income earners, they are aimed at the upper middle income - higher income bracket earners and those with "black money" that needs to be dumped somewhere (because the banks won't take it).

2) Family in China is very strong. They will chip in to help each other no matter what. If a son want's to buy a property so that he can get married to his girlfriend, the family will borrow, beg or steal to get him the funds to do so.

And yes I agree about the empty apartments, but the fact is (at least here in Sanya) they are all sold, just sitting empty. This whole island is a dumping ground for cash. Get fuck all return on it from the banks, plus they ask questions. Stock market is out, doesn't leave too many other places to invest it. :)

Watching the Vice video as one example, shows unreal amounts of unfinished properties that have been abandoned for years.

i've been to florida 6 times, does that qualify me as an authority on it's economy? I go to the bank all the time.. who wants to let me do their taxes??

fuckin children...

you've been to florida 6 whole times??!!!



no way! that's great!

i think all eastern economic scholars and experts should include how many visits to china they have made whenever they write an article on the chinese economy.

they need to also provide proof, such as a pic of them standing on the great wall or next to something chinese, like a neon sign.

my trip to china! now i am an far east economics expert sock puppet!

http://www.bearsac.com/TransHoliday/China.GreatWall.JPG