Credit Suisse Wealth Report: There Are More Poor People In America Than China

[Loren Pechtel]

Y'all are racist as shit

Being racist requires the ability to think. Shit has no such ability. Thus you're actually saying we aren't at all racist.

 

[RVonse]

Credit Suisse Wealth Report: There Are More Poor People In America Than China

This is a wonderfully counter intuitive finding from the new Credit Suisse Wealth Report. There're more poor people in America than there are in China. No, really, this is true, when measuring by wealth. We've not got the detailed number of the United States alone as they're offering the information by region. But Canada's population size means that we don't have to worry about that very much (sorry, Canadians). To a reasonable level of accuracy there's no one in China in the bottom 10% of the world's population by wealth. And yet there's some 10% of those global poor in North America, and another 20% or so in Europe. So, yes, it really is true that there're more poor people in America (and Europe) than there are in China.

Without pointing out all the rationale by other posters of this thread, my gut feeling (having visited China) is that this is true. On average the Chinese are better off than the average person living in the US. And if you include Mexico, I would say it is no comparison. Besides China's obvious increase in GDP each year, there is more technology and infrastructure there as well. They have the beginnings of 5g and have viable bullet trains.

The West is being left behind in the dust. The only thing the West still does have over China is a free democracy. And that is huge. Very huge.

We do not have much time left either.

 

[barbos]

Credit Suisse Wealth Report: There Are More Poor People In America Than China

This is a wonderfully counter intuitive finding from the new Credit Suisse Wealth Report. There're more poor people in America than there are in China. No, really, this is true, when measuring by wealth. We've not got the detailed number of the United States alone as they're offering the information by region. But Canada's population size means that we don't have to worry about that very much (sorry, Canadians). To a reasonable level of accuracy there's no one in China in the bottom 10% of the world's population by wealth. And yet there's some 10% of those global poor in North America, and another 20% or so in Europe. So, yes, it really is true that there're more poor people in America (and Europe) than there are in China.

Without pointing out all the rationale by other posters of this thread, my gut feeling (having visited China) is that this is true. On average the Chinese are better off than the average person living in the US. And if you include Mexico, I would say it is no comparison. Besides China's obvious increase in GDP each year, there is more technology and infrastructure there as well. They have the beginnings of 5g and have viable bullet trains.

The West is being left behind in the dust. The only thing the West still does have over China is a free democracy. And that is huge. Very huge.

We do not have much time left either.

It's patently not true and the article in OP itself explains how and why it's not true. Now, China has made a lot of remarkable progress and it's quite possible that average Chinese is better off than average american but as far as "wealth" concerned it's not true.

 

[RVonse]

Without pointing out all the rationale by other posters of this thread, my gut feeling (having visited China) is that this is true. On average the Chinese are better off than the average person living in the US. And if you include Mexico, I would say it is no comparison. Besides China's obvious increase in GDP each year, there is more technology and infrastructure there as well. They have the beginnings of 5g and have viable bullet trains.

The West is being left behind in the dust. The only thing the West still does have over China is a free democracy. And that is huge. Very huge.

We do not have much time left either.

It's patently not true and the article in OP itself explains how and why it's not true. Now, China has made a lot of remarkable progress and it's quite possible that average Chinese is better off than average american but as far as "wealth" concerned it's not true.

I disagree with that part of the article then. Visit Rome or Los Angeles and you will see homeless spread out all over the streets. You just do not see that in Shanghai or Bejing. Just clean streets with no garbage laying around anywhere.

Loren claims the Chinese government is picking up homeless off the streets and that sounds reasonable to me. But even if true that means they are not homeless anymore.

I read somewhere that in one year (2003?) China layed more cement than the US has in 100 years. They have so many spare unoccupied buildings that most people over there own more than 1 residence. With all the infrastructure they have I do not see how any Chinese could be homeless at this point.

As for overall wealth. Another poster on this board (Steve_Bank) lives in Seattle and claims Chinese investors are bidding up real estate so average people in Seattle can no longer afford them anymore. Does that sound like a US middle class more affluent than China?

 

[Harry Bosch]

Y'all are racist as shit

Being racist requires the ability to think. Shit has no such ability. Thus you're actually saying we aren't at all racist.

I think that PH posted in the wrong thread.

 

[PyramidHead]

Y'all are racist as shit

Being racist requires the ability to think. Shit has no such ability. Thus you're actually saying we aren't at all racist.

I think that PH posted in the wrong thread.

Nope. Google orientalism

 

[Harry Bosch]

I think that PH posted in the wrong thread.

Nope. Google orientalism

Maybe I read the thread too fast. Where was the orientalism?

 

[PyramidHead]

I think that PH posted in the wrong thread.

Nope. Google orientalism

Maybe I read the thread too fast. Where was the orientalism?

In the immediate assumption that something must be fishy about these data, it can't be the case that China has been consistently on a path of eradicating poverty at home and in its relief work in Africa and elsewhere, because that would mean they are actually genuinely trying to build a society where people don't go hungry and aren't constantly in fear of invasion by Western powers. That would defeat the narrative that the Chinese cannot be trusted, and are a hivemind devoid of independent thought, such that even when they overwhelmingly voice their support for party policy it must be due to brainwashing or Orwellian subterfuge. It's simply too bizarre, too "counterintuitive", to think that a state emerging from the dust of centuries of colonialism would prioritize its poor people over its rich people. Westerners project their own broken social priority system onto everybody else and use it as a barometer even when it doesn't apply.

 

[RVonse]

Maybe I read the thread too fast. Where was the orientalism?

In the immediate assumption that something must be fishy about these data, it can't be the case that China has been consistently on a path of eradicating poverty at home and in its relief work in Africa and elsewhere, because that would mean they are actually genuinely trying to build a society where people don't go hungry and aren't constantly in fear of invasion by Western powers. That would defeat the narrative that the Chinese cannot be trusted, and are a hivemind devoid of independent thought, such that even when they overwhelmingly voice their support for party policy it must be due to brainwashing or Orwellian subterfuge. It's simply too bizarre, too "counterintuitive", to think that a state emerging from the dust of centuries of colonialism would prioritize its poor people over its rich people. Westerners project their own broken social priority system onto everybody else and use it as a barometer even when it doesn't apply.

At this time you might have a point. President Xia appears a benevolent dictator genuinely concerned with helping the poor and the middle class.

But what happens if/when Xia is replaced with someone not so benevolent? The main concern giving far too much power to a centralized non democratic government. Even now (with Xia) there are stories heard about organs being harvested from political prisoners. So it is one thing to hear of a totalitarian government with no real power. But a whole different world when a superpower totalitarian government has influence over the whole planet.

Freedom and democracy is very precious. Once gone you might be wishing you had fought harder to keep it.

 

[PyramidHead]

Maybe I read the thread too fast. Where was the orientalism?

In the immediate assumption that something must be fishy about these data, it can't be the case that China has been consistently on a path of eradicating poverty at home and in its relief work in Africa and elsewhere, because that would mean they are actually genuinely trying to build a society where people don't go hungry and aren't constantly in fear of invasion by Western powers. That would defeat the narrative that the Chinese cannot be trusted, and are a hivemind devoid of independent thought, such that even when they overwhelmingly voice their support for party policy it must be due to brainwashing or Orwellian subterfuge. It's simply too bizarre, too "counterintuitive", to think that a state emerging from the dust of centuries of colonialism would prioritize its poor people over its rich people. Westerners project their own broken social priority system onto everybody else and use it as a barometer even when it doesn't apply.

At this time you might have a point. President Xia appears a benevolent dictator genuinely concerned with helping the poor and the middle class.

But what happens if/when Xia is replaced with someone not so benevolent? The main concern giving far too much power to a centralized non democratic government. Even now (with Xia) there are stories heard about organs being harvested from political prisoners. So it is one thing to hear of a totalitarian government with no real power. But a whole different world when a superpower totalitarian government has influence over the whole planet.

Freedom and democracy is very precious. Once gone you might be wishing you had fought harder to keep it.

You need to seriously dedicate some time to learning about Chinese democracy. I would recommend starting here:

What kind of democracy does China have?

China’s Constitution says, “The State organs of the People’s Republic of China apply the principle of democratic centralism. The National People’s Congress and the local people’s congresses at various levels are constituted through democratic elections. They are responsible to the people and subject to their supervision. All administrative, judicial and procuratorial organs of the State are created by the people’s congresses to which they are responsible and by which they are supervised”. America’s Constitutional documents do not mention the word ‘democracy’.

But what about elections? China’s huge, transparent elections are designed and supervised by The Carter Center, the gold standard for fairness and transparency. China’s 3,200 democratically elected congresspersons must vote, almost unanimously, on all senior appointments and all legislation. In the U.S., an unelected Electoral College chooses the chief executive.

Xi is not a dictator; his power is specifically and materially constrained by the limits set by the party and its constitution. The word "dictatorship" in democratic centralism does not mean the same thing as when liberals use it; to Marxists, all societies are dictatorships, all of them without exception, namely the dictatorship (control, oppression, coercion, etc.) of the ruling class over the lower classes. In Western societies, that's the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, the capitalists who use the state to manage the conflicts between themselves and the workers they rely upon for their wealth. In China, it's the dictatorship of the proletariat, which is responsive to the mass of people and uses the state to arrest and execute wealthy capitalists when they run afoul of the limits set upon their behavior. Under Xi's sweeping anti-corruption platform, these activities have heavily intensified; China is not a plutocracy!

This is all in keeping with China's long-game strategy to open itself up to foreign investment while maintaining a firm grip on the socialist direction of the country as a whole, to develop its productive and social forces to the point where it no longer needs the small number of billionaires it allows to exist.

 

[Bomb#20]

Without pointing out all the rationale by other posters of this thread, my gut feeling (having visited China) is that this is true. On average the Chinese are better off than the average person living in the US. ... The West is being left behind in the dust. ...

Which direction are the shipping containers full of would-be illegal immigrants going?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Credit Suisse Wealth Report: There Are More Poor People In America Than China

This is a wonderfully counter intuitive finding from the new Credit Suisse Wealth Report. There're more poor people in America than there are in China. No, really, this is true, when measuring by wealth. We've not got the detailed number of the United States alone as they're offering the information by region. But Canada's population size means that we don't have to worry about that very much (sorry, Canadians). To a reasonable level of accuracy there's no one in China in the bottom 10% of the world's population by wealth. And yet there's some 10% of those global poor in North America, and another 20% or so in Europe. So, yes, it really is true that there're more poor people in America (and Europe) than there are in China.

Without pointing out all the rationale by other posters of this thread, my gut feeling (having visited China) is that this is true. On average the Chinese are better off than the average person living in the US. And if you include Mexico, I would say it is no comparison. Besides China's obvious increase in GDP each year, there is more technology and infrastructure there as well. They have the beginnings of 5g and have viable bullet trains.

The West is being left behind in the dust. The only thing the West still does have over China is a free democracy. And that is huge. Very huge.

We do not have much time left either.

You're looking at the tourist areas of the big cities.

I'm thinking of the street we walk down to get from the subway station to her youngest sister's house. I do not have a good measurement of the dwellings we pass by but I would guess them to be about 10' x 15'. No running water--there are sinks out front every few houses, toilets down passageways. This is in a major city! Out in the countryside I've seen worse.

There's a good reason we don't have bullet trains--we don't have the sort of population density needed to support them.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I disagree with that part of the article then. Visit Rome or Los Angeles and you will see homeless spread out all over the streets. You just do not see that in Shanghai or Bejing. Just clean streets with no garbage laying around anywhere.

Loren claims the Chinese government is picking up homeless off the streets and that sounds reasonable to me. But even if true that means they are not homeless anymore.

Our homeless choose homelessness over getting treatment for their mental illnesses. And I've seen homelessness in Shanghai.

And you certainly do see garbage on the streets in China, it's just they hire more people to clean it up. Note that such jobs pay pretty badly--last I saw a low-end job over there paid something like $500/mo. Note that most goods over there have prices similar to what they are here, being a big city a place to live is more expensive than typical US. (Services generally are much cheaper there than here.)

I read somewhere that in one year (2003?) China layed more cement than the US has in 100 years. They have so many spare unoccupied buildings that most people over there own more than 1 residence. With all the infrastructure they have I do not see how any Chinese could be homeless at this point.

The cement doesn't surprise me--China is trying to keep it's economy going by useless construction funded by insane loans (Beijing says to make loans, banks make loans.) I disagree on most people owning more than one residence, though--most people don't have the money for even one. (For some data points--I'm picturing the only property anyone in her family owns that I know the price of--it's worth about $1.5m by now. Compare that with the highest income I'm aware of anyone in her family currently making being around $50k. You think the average person is buying up real estate???)

As for overall wealth. Another poster on this board (Steve_Bank) lives in Seattle and claims Chinese investors are bidding up real estate so average people in Seattle can no longer afford them anymore. Does that sound like a US middle class more affluent than China?

What that shows is the elite in China are parking their ill-gotten gains outside the country.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Maybe I read the thread too fast. Where was the orientalism?

In the immediate assumption that something must be fishy about these data, it can't be the case that China has been consistently on a path of eradicating poverty at home and in its relief work in Africa and elsewhere, because that would mean they are actually genuinely trying to build a society where people don't go hungry and aren't constantly in fear of invasion by Western powers. That would defeat the narrative that the Chinese cannot be trusted, and are a hivemind devoid of independent thought, such that even when they overwhelmingly voice their support for party policy it must be due to brainwashing or Orwellian subterfuge. It's simply too bizarre, too "counterintuitive", to think that a state emerging from the dust of centuries of colonialism would prioritize its poor people over its rich people. Westerners project their own broken social priority system onto everybody else and use it as a barometer even when it doesn't apply.

What relief work are you talking about?

China loans money to the governments to hire Chinese companies to build things with mostly Chinese labor. It's about getting their hooks into the country, not about charity.

China most certainly does not prioritize their poor over their rich. It's always about corruption, the wealth flows up, not down.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Without pointing out all the rationale by other posters of this thread, my gut feeling (having visited China) is that this is true. On average the Chinese are better off than the average person living in the US. ... The West is being left behind in the dust. ...

Which direction are the shipping containers full of would-be illegal immigrants going?

Yup. This is the ultimate measure.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Maybe I read the thread too fast. Where was the orientalism?

In the immediate assumption that something must be fishy about these data, it can't be the case that China has been consistently on a path of eradicating poverty at home and in its relief work in Africa and elsewhere, because that would mean they are actually genuinely trying to build a society where people don't go hungry and aren't constantly in fear of invasion by Western powers. That would defeat the narrative that the Chinese cannot be trusted, and are a hivemind devoid of independent thought, such that even when they overwhelmingly voice their support for party policy it must be due to brainwashing or Orwellian subterfuge. It's simply too bizarre, too "counterintuitive", to think that a state emerging from the dust of centuries of colonialism would prioritize its poor people over its rich people. Westerners project their own broken social priority system onto everybody else and use it as a barometer even when it doesn't apply.

At this time you might have a point. President Xia appears a benevolent dictator genuinely concerned with helping the poor and the middle class.

But what happens if/when Xia is replaced with someone not so benevolent? The main concern giving far too much power to a centralized non democratic government. Even now (with Xia) there are stories heard about organs being harvested from political prisoners. So it is one thing to hear of a totalitarian government with no real power. But a whole different world when a superpower totalitarian government has influence over the whole planet.

Freedom and democracy is very precious. Once gone you might be wishing you had fought harder to keep it.

Yikes. Sorry, I don't want the kind of dictatorship that Ph advocates. Sure, the current dictator of China currently cares about the poor in China. What happens if he gets in a bad mood tomorrow? The primary reason why I could never support socialists/communists is their believe in absolute power.

 

[barbos]

At this time you might have a point. President Xia appears a benevolent dictator genuinely concerned with helping the poor and the middle class.

But what happens if/when Xia is replaced with someone not so benevolent? The main concern giving far too much power to a centralized non democratic government. Even now (with Xia) there are stories heard about organs being harvested from political prisoners. So it is one thing to hear of a totalitarian government with no real power. But a whole different world when a superpower totalitarian government has influence over the whole planet.

Freedom and democracy is very precious. Once gone you might be wishing you had fought harder to keep it.

Yikes. Sorry, I don't want the kind of dictatorship that Ph advocates. Sure, the current dictator of China currently cares about the poor in China. What happens if he gets in a bad mood tomorrow? The primary reason why I could never support socialists/communists is their believe in absolute power.

China have never had democracy so they can't lose it, same is true with Russia.

 

[Harry Bosch]

At this time you might have a point. President Xia appears a benevolent dictator genuinely concerned with helping the poor and the middle class.

But what happens if/when Xia is replaced with someone not so benevolent? The main concern giving far too much power to a centralized non democratic government. Even now (with Xia) there are stories heard about organs being harvested from political prisoners. So it is one thing to hear of a totalitarian government with no real power. But a whole different world when a superpower totalitarian government has influence over the whole planet.

Freedom and democracy is very precious. Once gone you might be wishing you had fought harder to keep it.

Yikes. Sorry, I don't want the kind of dictatorship that Ph advocates. Sure, the current dictator of China currently cares about the poor in China. What happens if he gets in a bad mood tomorrow? The primary reason why I could never support socialists/communists is their believe in absolute power.

China have never had democracy so they can't lose it, same is true with Russia.

Cool beans! Again, I wouldn't want to live in the kind of democracy that is found in China and Russia.

 

[barbos]

China have never had democracy so they can't lose it, same is true with Russia.

Cool beans! Again, I wouldn't want to live in the kind of democracy that is found in China and Russia.

That's not a choice you are given. Choice is not between US democracy and Russian "democracy"
Choice is between Russian "democracy" and current Ukrainian "democracy".
Something tells me that you would rather live in Russia than in Ukraine. At least this is what immigration data says.

 

[Bomb#20]

China have never had democracy so they can't lose it, same is true with Russia.

Russia had democracy, for a few months in 1917.