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Recently Shenzen, China, surpassed us with having more billionaires than in Manhattan, NYC, which once held that crown. Shenzen used to be much much smaller, as did Shanghai. They underwent tremendous growth by essentially robbing the USA secretly, and they rapidly built new mega cities with the stolen funds.
As NYC kids keep promoting communism and socialism as their savior, China is now moving towards a new form of Capitalism. So, China will definitely become the next economic superpower. For some reason the kids in NYC think capitalism is awful, but the track record for Capitalist countries is way, way better than Communist.
Where did you get that bit about Shenzhen having more billionaires than Manhattan?
Shenzhen and Shanghai are very different cities. Shenzhen was designated as a trade city and benefited especially from its border with Hong Kong back before trade liberalization in China proper and so it boomed. Shanghai's a boom city of the 19th and early 20th century and is quite different in character as a major port city and major cultural powerhouse for the Chinese speaking language. They are not similar and while Shanghai did build rapidly, it was also already once one of the most prominent cities in the world over a century ago. Both these cities though did put a lot of emphasis on STEMs education and efficient land use and infrastructure development which is something that the US should, uh, consider.
China is already an economic superpower, but it has some really rough waters ahead of it. It used to arguably have generations of pragmatic technocrats that greatly emphasized science, engineering, and economics, as in the study and analysis of it, even over ideology much of the time and had orderly successive generations of governments that limited their terms so there can be successive generations with new viewpoints. It applied that to a lot of areas of its society and made a lot of pragmatic infrastructure investments in order to efficiently accommodate growth and to develop a very capable workforce especially in STEMs fields. However, Xi's move to a third term and filling the politburo with his lackeys is a strong break from the past few decades and is pretty ominous as they are definitely not pursuing particularly pragmatic actions as Xi's showing signs of being in his own echo chamber and has in the last few years actively cultivated a cult of personality. Meanwhile, the lowest-hanging fruits are already picked up by China and they may be in the middle income trap while their workforce is rapidly aging out. This does not bode well for anyone unfortunately.
Capitalism isn't necessarily awful--it really depends on what people are saying capitalism means when they say it's awful. Capitalism has worked wonders with some fairy generous socialist policies as seen in multiple democratic and capitalist countries with strong social safety nets where quality of life is quite high as well as economic output.
Well you would be surprised. It costs something like 30k to have a drivers permit and own a car.
Yea, and that sentence is missing something that would be understood in East Asia, but wouldn't be caught in the US--which is that's the cost *without* the cost of purchasing and maintaining a car. Basically some things that would be considered pretty basic in the US becomes really expensive especially if you want to feel like you *trust* that it'll be of decent quality / not a scam / not poisonous. In exchange, some things like having hired help like cleaning persons or an errands person was comparatively cheap. There's also the question of how much you're willing to live like a local, but living more of a white collar professional lifestyle at similar QOL was much more expensive in Hong Kong and Shanghai, along with real estate prices per square foot for the quality of construction, than it is (was?) here now. I think there is an argument though that it's probably easier to live as a native poor in Shanghai (provided you are not an illegal immigrant, even "domestic" illegal immigrant without the right hukou which is a massive caveat) than it is as a native poor in NYC when you factor in crime, violence, and access to childcare, affordable transportation, healthcare and nutritious foods and decent education, but for me, that's not how I'm living or judging expenses.
I just went around a bit and looked for a COL ranking from Mercer which does it specifically for white collar professionals and that still ranks Hong Kong at number 1 (and NYC at number 7): https://www.mercer.com/our-thinking/...of-living.html
I think Shanghai was/is as expensive for that kind of lifestyle because of the kind of "trust" cost of things mentioned, but I guess people can have different levels of tolerance. You'll also never be able to afford very fast and relatively open Internet access, because that's simply not an option. One summer working mostly remotely in Shanghai had me dealing with the Internet speed, multiple providers and avenues of getting internet and playing VPN whack-a-mole all of which added up to being really annoying though I do really like the city and the surrounding region. I also think putting Beijing at number 10 makes no sense, because there is no amount of money that would make Beijing worth living in. It's like dividing the costs by zero.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 12-05-2022 at 03:07 PM..
Nice walking around Chinatown and being sneered at by angry Chinese people sitting around doing nothing, collecting freebies, free healthcare for the entire extended family of undocumented people overstaying indefinitely, and freeloading on top of some of the most lucrative real estate in the city - while they are significantly uneducated in our extremely competitive city that has been tremendously generous to them for so long, while hating and sneering at Americans and New Yorkers in a New York City Chinatown.
Very pleasant. I think we need more freeloaders like that, don’t you?
So this is what white supremacy is all about then? One could change the topic from most expensive city in the world to the most overly generous. Like the sad and depressing book, The Giving Tree.
Such BS on this thread. The reason why NYC is expensive is because of the high demand that people around the world have to come and live here. People are attracted to its higher level education, entertainment, finance, culture, and high paying jobs. Welfare and the poor are everywhere, not only in NYC. It's certainly not a reason why the city has become expensive and that will never be the case.
It is undoubtedly expensive, but the only reason that it is #1 is that the USD is at 50-year highs vs. most global currencies. I'm shocked that nobody has mentioned this.
It's not like it's that much more expensive than when it was ranked in the high teens a few years ago. These global rankings are all about currencies.
From the methodology:
The EIU list is benchmarked against prices in New York City, hence cities with currencies that are stronger against the US dollar are likely to appear higher in the rankings.
There are almost no currencies that are stronger than the USD right now, hence the list is flooded with American cities. The fact that Zurich and Geneva are so high despite the Euro right now tell you crazy expensive they really are.
Such BS on this thread. The reason why NYC is expensive is because of the high demand that people around the world have to come and live here. People are attracted to its higher level education, entertainment, finance, culture, and high paying jobs. Welfare and the poor are everywhere, not only in NYC. It's certainly not a reason why the city has become expensive and that will never be the case.
Nice example of NYC tunnel vision.
Note: NYC will not “bounce back” from the invasion and the “migrants” or refugees. The city is going to be wrecked Permanently. Same goes for Europe which will be a majority Muslim place.
Queen Elizabeth was the dumbest leader of Europe ever. Soft on being invaded. She actually promoted the invasion and ruination.
One could switch the title of the subject line to: NYC is the most Naive city in the World.
You all might as well pay to have your daughters raped to death. That is the brutal reality.
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