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Registered
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Cave Creek, AZ USA
Posts: 44,530
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MRM
While Tabs' grammar and punctuation are particularly good, his analysis of the issue is completely correct. I hate it when I have to say things like that.
The people who think the Chinese (and before that the Japanese, Arabs, French, Germans, etc.) are about to take over the US economy have never been there. Or if they have, they've never strayed far from the Beijing Crowne Plaza. (Sorry Todd, I know you stay there but it's the only good Chinese hotel I've stayed at recently). When I go to China I don't stay at a hotel unless the Crowne Plaza comes as a package with my airline ticket. I stay at my in-laws' apartment in what passes in China for an upper middle class apartment. That means it is poured concrete with no finishing other than the coat of military green the builders left on the walls, a bathroom that includes a sink, toilet and a drain over which you can hang a hose as a shower, and that it has both electricity and running water. Hot water requires an aftermarket gas hot water heater that is too complex to describe.
This is a middle class to upper middle class apartment that was built in the late 1980s. To put it in perspective, Chinese are awarded housing based on their employment. My grandfather in law was the head of the Chinese import/export house in the pre-communist government. He was the Chinese signatory to the General Agreement on Tarrifs and Trade (GATT - rememeber that term?) in 1949. A direct ancestor was Chen Bao Shen, the tutor to the last emperor of China as seen in the movie. He was a big deal in China. The apartment my in-laws have came from him and was awarded to him in the 1980s to replace the apartments that were confiscated from the family in 1966 when the family was banished to the edges of Beijing where my wife grew up. I've seen that apartment; it still stands. All I can say is I was appalled.
Anyway, this is the apartment a man of his statuture was given. It compares favorably with Apalachia, but not much else in the US. A relative recently bought it for about $65,000 USD because the in-laws don't need it anymore. That's a fortune in China for an apartment that US authorities would condem. About 90% of all Chinese would kill to live there. Did I mention you can't drink the water?
China recently figured out how to feed most of its popoulation. That is a huge development because it is the first time in a millenia that starvation is not a way of life in China. China has not figured out how to employ or house its population. A short walk from the Beijing Crowne Plaza will bring you to parks where able bodied young men from the country sides sleep as they compete for day labor jobs. The subways are filled with mothers who thrust children with horrible tumors at you and regular beggars who merely thrust missing limbs in your face as they ask for a few Yuan.
The Chinese population is mostly underemployed and underfed. The entire population is either ill-housed or housed in substandard conditions. While the progress in the past 20 years is breathtaking, I won't worry about China taking over the world until they have figured out how to feed, clothe, educate, employ and house their population - not just the few who make it to the US or who run the government.
And that ain't happening any time soon.
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This has been my own experience in China too and I've been mostly to other cities and off the beaten path there. But China's rise is not a result of their own genius. It's a result of our own failure, our horrible schools, our over-spending, our lack of longterm vision, our over-consumption, the fact that we graduate more lawyers than engineers and that number doesn't even approach their number of honor students.
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08-08-2007, 03:44 PM
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Only Porsche
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1979 Porsche 911SC 3.0
