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hardly any country in the world reach the levels of Americans.
Did the British, Japanese, Australians, Germans? No. If you compare average wage and local cost of living, west Europe, Japan and Australia are all much poorer.
America's moderate population and massive resource make it richer than any other country. Norway may boast a much higher GDP per capita, but try to live in Oslo for a year and tell me you have a much life than in Los Angeles.
Much poorer? Lol, you obviously don't know much about those countries. I went to America, the place has a lot more poverty than a first world country should...
Much poorer? Lol, you obviously don't know much about those countries. I went to America, the place has a lot more poverty than a first world country should...
only because the US didn't subsidize those poor people using other taxpayers' money. It is a zero sum game in case you didn't know.
Again, make $3000 in Los Angeles and Chicago, and the same amount in Oslo and Milan, and see who enjoys a better life.
only because the US didn't subsidize those poor people using other taxpayers' money. It is a zero sum game in case you didn't know.
Again, make $3000 in Los Angeles and Chicago, and the same amount in Oslo and Milan, and see who enjoys a better life.
Environment is part of quality of life. I'd rather a nice apartment or townhouse and live in a walkable, historic, aesthetic city in Europe than a sprawling wasteland like Houston in a big mansion and drive a posh car.
Environment is part of quality of life. I'd rather a nice apartment or townhouse and live in a walkable, historic, aesthetic city in Europe than a sprawling wasteland like Houston in a big mansion and drive a posh car.
But Houston may make you feel better for a great job, small Europe country cannot provide that at all.
Of course, if you a billionaire, everywhere is nice to you...
Make no mistake, we no sympathy for Chinese, not at all. Here in the San Francisco Bay Area we have suffered from the many electronic companies leaving for China so bad.
Lots of people loosing their jobs and getting into the unemployment ones.
Environment is part of quality of life. I'd rather a nice apartment or townhouse and live in a walkable, historic, aesthetic city in Europe than a sprawling wasteland like Houston in a big mansion and drive a posh car.
But only a few people in Europe are able to do that. Most likely you either have to live in a boring small city or you have to live in a not so good apartment far outside the city.
For instance in Paris, a nice place would cost you at least 2000 euros per month. But it is hard to earn more than 1500 euros after tax even with a degree. You can move to smaller cities like Nice, but rent is still 1000 euro per month. Buying an apartment in the city centre can cost up to 500K euro.
In Houston it is easy to get 3000 dollars after tax but rent for a decent place is 1000 dollars per month and you can buy a decent place for 150K. The difference in standard of living is huge.
Also, exports as a percentage of GDP is 26% in China while it is 88% in the Netherlands. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/...alue&sort=desc Yes it is true that chinese exports are not doing too well due to the international climate, but China is a huge market itself and its domestic market is doing well.
Each year the transport links are getting better, the factories are becoming more efficient, new apartments are constucted, services are becoming more efficient and this helps growth. It is not hard to improve efficiency because China started from the bottom. Also, don't forget internal migration. Each 5 years almost 100 million people move from the poor countryside to the richer cities. That also leads to growth in GDP per capita.
funny the story talks about China's debt and credit - shouldn't the BBC worry about that for the UK and US first?
China's public debt seems to be about 30% in 2012, compared with 90% for the UK and 75% for the US. japan has 220% and seems to be doing ok.
In terms of external debt, China has 37.5%, compared with 106% for the US and 406% for the UK. Seriously, which is worse?
As much as the UK/US will hate to see China replacing US as the world's largest economy soon, it WILL happen. Why doesn't the BBC stop repeating the "Oh, China has so many internal problems and it is gonna implode and collapse" wishful thinking. Adapt to the new world where the US ceases to dominate... is it really that hard?
I can see there being recessions, but it's incredibly unlikely for China to be singularly in a collapse--it would, at this point, mean a worldwide slump rather than a singular economy going down. China is at this point either the number one or number two import and export partner of the Philippines and a collapsed Chinese economy would mean a double digit recession for the Philippines and many other countries in the world. It'd also mean a collapse of many industries and something seriously going haywire for everyone given China's export.
Here's the thing. China's economy is massive and the number of well-educated people and the number and sheer expanse of areas with fairly matured infrastructure means that a globalized economy puts China as a very important node. Hopefully China doesn't screw it up terribly (a brief recession might be okay as we've seen in the US where other countries, including China, were able to pick up the slack), because if you are asking for one of the primary nodes of the global economy to truly terrible levels, then those closest to ground zero and those who already have a pretty terrible HDI and GDP per capita such as the Philippines would be in absolute collapse as they would not be able to weather such a thing nearly as well.
One of the odd attributes of the Chinese economy and political structure is the number of people involved in the STEMs field and the number of technocrats in office. It's interesting because the 90s and 00s version of China as a copycat for the global driver in the economy has at least structurally, though not yet in reputation, started to give way to China as a major node in primary research. At this point, China has tied or surpassed the US as the largest publisher in scientific research and it is a growing trend. China had shifted its economy, whether via some prescient top-down approach or some other more deeply culturally-embedded reason, to one of innovating and this kind of innovation from a different context could be massively helpful on a global level. I understand the dislike of several Chinese political maneuvers, but the wholesale desire for China to verge on collapse seems suicidal on a global level for humanity.
Though honestly, I partly share your sentiments. The Philippines, and in contemporary accounts, Burma/Myanmar, were projected to be the most prosperous and advanced nations after WWII and by a large margin. Both had amazing advantages but for various reasons wasted them away. If the Philippines had been even halfway as productive as Japan had been in the post-war years up to now, who knows how much humanity would have advanced. It's unfortunate how things worked out the way they did.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 08-06-2014 at 11:22 PM..
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