Even just 5 years ago I would never have expected to see self-proclaimed Marxists posting Austrian school libertarian crap, but here we are.
xiaohongshu
joined 1 year ago
To be fair, it is very difficult to govern a country with 1.4 billion people, and many problems began their rot at the municipal/provincial level that were not adequately or incapably addressed by the central government. This is why there has been so much corruption scandals across all levels being exposed in recent years. Almost scary to see a never ending number of corruption cases, almost on a daily/weekly basis. A long-term consequence of post-Mao decentralization, which clearly needs to be reformed.
As an enjoyer of Chinese history, I cannot help but notice the recurring pattern across the dynasties: centralization of power led to inefficient bureaucracy and economic calcification, while decentralization led to a flourishing economy but also set in the rot of corruption with disastrous consequences down the road. A cyclical trend that has gone on for thousands of years as dynasties rose and fell. Sometimes I wonder if the Communist Party in China will also succumb to the same cyclical pattern that has so pervaded the entire history of our civilization? What does the future even look like? After all, the country is not even 80 years old - a mere blip along the 5,000-year civilizational history.
Adam Tooze was famous for saying that Germany can take a 5% GDP hit by cutting off Russian energy without having to go through deindustrialization. Look where Germany is heading today lol.
He was also adamant that the countries could just export their goods to one another when Trump went off with his Liberation Day tariffs because the US comprises only a small proportion of the world trade.
I really want to like Adam Tooze because he seems very knowledgeable in many things but also incredibly naive in others.
Regarding China, it was never about economic collapse. The real questions to ask are why hasn’t China’s incredible GDP growth and technological advancements translated into wage growth and social safety nets for the poor? There lies the answer to China’s deflation problem.
I’ll just give one example to make the point: China absolutely dominates the solar panel industry, and easily took 90% of the global market share. It has no peer competition in the world. It produces twice the amount of global solar panel demand in a single year!
And yet all major Chinese solar panel companies including their entire supply chain are now making huge losses and none of that growth ended up being transferred to income growth for the workers in the sector. If anything, we’re looking at production and investment downsizing simply out of sheer overproduction crisis, and that means unemployment down the road.
A major reason that the solar panel industry has not yet imploded was because the local governments had invested so much wealth (guess where did the money come from) into giving massive subsidies to the solar panel companies that it has become a sunk cost for the local governments. If the solar panel companies shut down their production, it’s going to incur even more losses to the local governments (the main tax revenue for both central and local governments is value-added tax) this will in turn impede their operating expenditures (somebody has to run the subways, trains, road maintenance, public services, and pay the civil servants etc, you know) and their ability to pay off the massive amount of debt these governments have owed to the financial institutions.
And so, even more wealth (again, where did those money come from) had to be invested to keep the industry from imploding, and then they wonder why the average working class people refuse to spend their money to consume?
PS. does anyone know what’s the beef between Tooze and the Chapo boys? The last time I heard about him being mentioned on the pod (maybe 2021 or 2022, some time around Covid, Matt was definitely still around) they got really sarcastic about him. I remember something about Felix insinuating that he was hitting on their partners or something?
China releases plan to improve rural workers' skills, CCTV reports Reuters
HONG KONG, July 7 (Reuters) - China on Monday released a plan outlining 14 specific tasks to promote retraining of the rural workforce to improve their job prospects, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
The announcement comes after China in April announced a 10-year plan to build an agricultural powerhouse, amid escalating tensions with the United States, an economic slowdown and challenges posed by climate change.
The plan, issued by several government departments including the Commerce Ministry and National Development and Reform Commission, announced policies including vocational education for rural workers.
China has close to 300 million rural migrants in cities, with around 100 million of them reaching retirement age over the next 10 years, according to official data.
To improve employment security of rural labour, it said it would "strengthen housing security, create favourable conditions for rural workers in cities to enjoy basic public services equally and integrate into the local society as soon as possible," CCTV said.
The report said the scheme would help support job-seeking services for rural labour and support the employment and entrepreneurship of college graduates.
The plan would help improve the supply and quality of workers and better meet employers' needs, CCTV said, citing Zou Yunhan, deputy director of the Macroeconomic Research Office of the Economic Forecasting Department of the National Information Center.
Seems like a pretty good plan.
Xiaomi begins YU7 SUV deliveries as wait times reach up to 14 months CNEV
- Xiaomi has begun its first deliveries of the YU7 in 58 cities across China, with its founder personally handing over vehicles to some owners.
- The wait times for the YU7 has been extended across the board, while the SU7 series has seen wait times shortened.
Xiaomi (HKG: 1810, OTCMKTS: XIACY) has started delivering the YU7, but production constraints have extended the wait times for its first electric SUV (sport utility vehicle) to as long as 14 months.
Xiaomi EV, the smartphone giant's electric vehicle (EV) unit, announced today on Weibo that the first deliveries of the YU7 have begun, with Xiaomi founder, chairman, and CEO Lei Jun personally handing over vehicles to some owners.
Xiaomi EV did not disclose the number of YU7 vehicles delivered in the first batch but said that deliveries began today in 58 cities across China.
With deliveries underway, the wait time for the YU7 has further increased.
Customers purchasing the standard version of the YU7 now face a waiting period of 59-62 weeks for delivery, up from 58-61 weeks as of Friday, according to daily monitoring by CnEVPost.
spoiler
For the two variants of the YU7 -- Pro and Max -- the latest wait times are 53-56 weeks and 45-48 weeks, respectively, up from their previous 51-54 weeks and 39-42 weeks.
Meanwhile, the wait time for the entry-level version of Xiaomi's first model, the SU7 sedan, has also increased, while the two higher-priced variants have seen shorter wait times.
The standard version of the SU7 now has a wait time of 38-41 weeks, slightly higher than the previous 33-36 weeks. The SU7 Pro now has a waiting time of 35-38 weeks, down from the previous 49-52 weeks; the SU7 Max is 33-36 weeks, down from the previous 38-41 weeks; and the SU7 Ultra is 15-18 weeks, down from the previous 18-21 weeks.
Following the launch of the YU7, there were concerns that the SUV might cannibalize SU7 orders, but Lei had downplayed these concerns.
Less than 15 percent of total YU7 orders were transferred from the SU7 and SU7 Ultra, Lei said during a live video stream on July 2.
Xiaomi launched the YU7 on June 26, positioning it as a competitor to the Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) Model Y. The three variants start at RMB 253,500 ($35,380), RMB 279,900, and RMB 329,900.
The YU7 received 200,000 firm orders within the first three minutes of sales and over 240,000 locked-in orders within 18 hours, Xiaomi previously announced.
Xiaomi has already produced some YU7 vehicles and allowed consumers to directly lock in orders, enabling a swift start to deliveries.
The company has not previously mentioned when deliveries of customized YU7 vehicles will begin, though its mobile app previously indicated this would occur in August.
The launch of the YU7 further intensifies Xiaomi's production capacity challenges. Currently, the company's operational factory is the phase 1 facility of its EV plant in Beijing, with an annual production capacity of 150,000 units.
Starting in June 2024, the phase 1 factory began implementing a two-shift production to meet demand for its first model, the SU7 series.
Last week, local media outlet Sina Tech reported that Xiaomi EV's phase 2 factory was conducting large-scale hiring to prepare for mass production.
Previous reports from some local media outlets indicated that the phase 2 project of the factory would be completed by mid-June and officially commence production in July-August.
Very very impressive with 800km range. This is going to give BYD a good run for their money.
This is like when you send a generic letter to all the recipients with the Find and Replace function.
Therefore, we invite you to participate in the extraordinary Economy of the United States, the Number One Market in the World, by far.
lmao. this timeline is not real!
This is quite common. In the 1980s, a few Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia had hoped to receive some technology transfer by giving massive tax breaks to multinational semiconductor companies (Intel, AMD, Hitachi etc.), but mostly they ended up doing the finishing packaging, assembly and testing work for foreign corporations to sell to their export markets. The core technologies are usually kept protected.
China can of course choose to democratize the technology by sharing them with the developing countries, but that would end up killing their own private companies that needs to survive on the market economy.
As they say, if you borrow a bit from a bank, the bank owns you. If you borrow a lot from a bank, you own the bank.
Similarly, if you import a bit from an exporting country, the country owns you. If you import a lot from that country, you own their economy.
Covid was practically a trial run for a supply chain shock of the eventual global trade war the US would launch.
China's BYD to start assembling electric cars in Brazil Reuters
- Chinese electric vehicle maker ready to open Bahia factory
- BYD eyes Brazilian assembly of some 50,000 cars in 2025
- Executive says labor lawsuit will not derail factory timeline
SAO PAULO, July 7 (Reuters) - China's BYD (002594.SZ), opens new tab is poised to start assembling electric vehicles at a new factory in Brazil as early as this month, a top executive said, reducing imports as tariffs start to rise in its largest foreign market.
Alexandre Baldy, senior vice president for BYD in Brazil, said the goal is to assemble 50,000 cars this year at the plant in Bahia state from imported kits, adding that he is negotiating a lower tax rate on those vehicles.
"We should inaugurate in the coming days," Baldy said in an interview late on Friday, without specifying a date, as final regulatory approvals are still pending. "We've already completed this year's imports, taking advantage of the period before the import tax increase that took effect on July 1."
BYD had sent a surge of finished cars into Brazil this year to take advantage of temporarily lower tariffs, shipping some 22,000 from China in the first five months, according to Reuters calculations.
That stirred complaints in Brazil's auto industry that BYD was privileging Chinese manufacturing over production from Bahia, where a labor probe and heavy rains have disrupted plans. A state labor secretary said in May that the plant would only be "fully functional" at the end of 2026.
However, Baldy said it would begin full production in July 2026, after assembling vehicles from "complete knock down" (CKD) kits for the next 12 months.
Once fully operational, he said, the complex in Camacari is likely to generate up to 20,000 direct and indirect jobs. Expectations for the operation, on the site of a former Ford plant taken over in 2023, suffered in December when labor inspectors leveled accusations of labor abuses involving Chinese contractors hired to build the complex. Brazilian prosecutors filed a lawsuit in May holding BYD responsible for human trafficking and submitting workers to "slavery-like conditions," after talks on a settlement fell through.
"BYD has always sought to respect Brazilian law and human dignity in all operations," Baldy said, adding that the company wanted to reach a resolution. He did not say why efforts to negotiate a settlement had fallen through.
All it took was for China to halt Brazilian beef import for Brazil to cave. Amazing. Brazil has less leverage than it thinks it has.
Better than Ukraine trying to rewrite history and erase the contribution of the USSR there.
From today’s Naked Capitalism links:
At the Rio Summit, signs of BRICS in retreat – just when we need serious anti-imperial muscle CADTM
article is very long and detailed (recommend reading the full article), but here are the 10 “pessimistic” summary points from the author: