Commies! China needs you!

[Pekka]

Kid, there's 1.3 billion people in China. There are endless resources. Sure, the system it runs is a bit weird. Sure, human rights are broken there like we eat cookies. But it will be huge, and even more huge soon. Anyone who tries to bring some last minute stats they got from their convinient arhicves, and has never even visited China or doesn't really know anything about it except it's communist and threatens Taiwan is just being a knucklehead plain and simple. We don't have to like it, but that's the way it's going to be. Armchair economists :shakehead:

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Pekka
There are endless resources.

Correction. There never were endless resources. Now they are reaching their limit. No one's saying China isn't big, it just isn't infinitely big.

[el freako]

Originally posted by Kidicious
If the labor force is going to be decreasing now and they can't afford for wages to increase there might not be any growth. Somethings got to give. Either the crap at Wal-Mart is going to get more expensive or China's economy is going to implode.

(laughs at Kidicious for ignoring productivity)

Rising productivity is by far the main driver of growth in China.

Since 1980 China's economy has grown by around 7% a year (when you adjust it using estimates of PPPs) of which only 2% came from higher employment - productivity is rising at 5% a year.
Back in 1960 the annual productivity of Taiwan and South Korea was around 10% to 15% of the US level (the level China is at today) and they managed to keep productivity growth above 5% for the next 40 years - if China manages this until 2040 then it will by then have an economy larger than the US, Japan, Korea and Taiwan combined.

[Kidlicious]

el freako,

A lot of the productivity improvement is from workers moving from the farm and into industry. Granted a lot of it is improvement over inefficiently run factories, but most of those factories have either been retooled or shut down.

[:) Smiley]

1.05 ^ 40 = 7.04

100 / 7.04 = 14.2

=>

If current productivity is at 14.2%, Chinese productivity will reach present day US productivity in 2045

Current US productivity is growing at 2.5% per year.
1.025 ^ 40 = 2.68

=> For China to pass the USA it will need a population 2.68 times the US in 2045. Looks like it'll be a close call.

[Pekka]

If current productivity is at 14.2%, Chinese productivity will reach present day US productivity in 2045

Current US productivity is growing at 2.5% per year.
1.025 ^ 40 = 2.68

=> For China to pass the USA it will need a population 2.68 times the US in 2045. Looks like it'll be a close call.

.................

Yeah, but that's not how it works, the math of it all. ALso that's not how future works. Sorry . But nice effort.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Pekka
In 10 years? ****, who knows, I might be working in Shanghai making the top dollar, banging asian chicks and doing dope.

That would be the life. All this hot Asian chicks would be blinded by your pearly white skin and think you are a millionaire just because you come from the west. On a modest western salary you could live like a king with a wife and a number of mistresses.

[Dinner]

Those population growth and productivity numbers are bunk. they never get them right 10 years later much less 40 years later. Birth rates change, immigration rates change, and technology always changes everything. In 1960 no one even thought about a personal computer which would cost less then a million or not fill a room but the PC did come and it changed productivity forever. The error comes when people take the current productivity numbers and project it out 25, 50, or even 100 years claiming they will be close to correct. Technology and social situations change far to much for such projections to work.

[Pekka]

That's my plan. Many of the plans I mean . You know, I figure it doesn't matter where life throws me, as long as I'm healthy physically and mentally, I'll be living my dream. It could be in the US, it could be in Canada, it could be in Thailand, in India, it could be in China or Japan. But there's a dream to be lived in every of those places, and chances are, since I have multiple plans and back up plans to them all, that I'll be living one of them. Have you seen the pics of Shanghai business district? It's crazy, 'the mars'. Oh man.... tells you how it's going to be. It'll be THE place in Asia in the near future.

So, if my destiny will be to do my thing in there, then it'll be, and you are welcome to stay at my house for a visit, and I'll introduce you to all my lovers and their sisters and their sisters friends. I bet you'll be hot stuff too, so it'll work out just great. Then I show you the nightlife, and if you're up to it, we can take a 9 day train trip to this old village, where they do the original and rarest form of wu chu, or as we know it, Kung Fu. Check out the Shaolin Monks and ****. It'll be great I'm sure. And then the cuisine too.

[Kidlicious]

And you can't just say SK and Korea's productivity grew drastically over the long haul so China's will. It's two different places and even more significant is that it's two different time periods. China is going to have a major problem going from the chief low wage manufacturer to a modern developed economy because the current modern developed economies aren't even doing that hot right now.

[DanS]

While it is smart to be humble about these projections, some projections are more solid than others. Immigration is the least solid projection. Although that doesn't really impact China (having the largest number of people makes any net immigration insignificant), it impacts the US greatly. China's population and workforce projections are probably the most solid of the bunch, although of course the further you go out, the less solid they are.

[el freako]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Those population growth and productivity numbers are bunk. they never get them right 10 years later much less 40 years later. Birth rates change, immigration rates change, and technology always changes everything.

I agree about the population figures - for example using the 1980 forecasts europe's population should now be falling, instead it's growing at the fastest rate since the 1970's

Originally posted by Oerdin
In 1960 no one even thought about a personal computer which would cost less then a million or not fill a room but the PC did come and it changed productivity forever. The error comes when people take the current productivity numbers and project it out 25, 50, or even 100 years claiming they will be close to correct. Technology and social situations change far to much for such projections to work.

I do not use productivity (either GDP per worker or GDP per hour worked) in my long-term forecasts, I prefer to use trend GDP per person of working age (15-64) as this is far more stable: for example for the US over the last 30 years this measure has averaged 2.0% a year growth with the highest 5-yearly average at 2.3% and the lowest at 1.7%).
This stability is itself intriguing as it implies that when a country is having above-average productivity growth it will have below-average employment growth - a situation that has been bourne out by what has happened in both the US and EU over the last generation.

[Ben Kenobi]

europe's population should now be falling, instead it's growing at the fastest rate since the 1970's

That's like saying it's an accomplishment to be taller than a midget.

As for China, predicted this some time ago. Everywhere is going to be facing a shortage of skilled labour, rather than a surplus, and people are going to have to pay more to attract quality labour.

This one china policy means that china's pop is going to implode, and this is the harbinger.

[Frankychan]

I'm already employed by the Communist Party of Apolyton, baby.

(Pacific Division)

[el freako]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
That's like saying it's an accomplishment to be taller than a midget.

Your ignorance knows no bounds does it Ben?

The EU's population is growing as fast (at half a percent a year over the last 4 years) as that of the Northeastern and Central states of the US (specifically New England, the Great Lakes, the MidEast and the Plains areas).

So that part of the US is a midget then?