Coming China collapse?
-
Stock investments: down 30%. Salary package: down 30%. Investment property: down 20%. As Thomas Zhou reflects on 2023, his household finances are front of mind.
“It’s just heart-breaking,” the 40-year-old financial worker from Shanghai said. “The only thing that still keeps me going is the thought of keeping my job so I can support my big family.”
Zhou’s predicament will resonate with many people in China, where slumps in the real estate and stock markets are wiping away household wealth.And as the world’s second-largest economy struggles to regain momentum after years of Covid-19 lockdowns, there’s also the growing threat of unemployment.
Now, middle class households are being forced to rethink their money priorities, with some pulling away from investing, or selling assets to free-up liquidity.
At the heart of the decline in family wealth is China’s real estate meltdown, which having a pervasive effect on a society where 70% of family assets are tied up in property. Every 5% decline in home prices will wipe out 19 trillion yuan ($2.7 trillion) in housing wealth, according to Bloomberg Economics.
“It might just be the beginning of more wealth losses in coming years,” said Eric Zhu, an economist with Bloomberg Economics. “Unless there’s a big bull market, small gains in financial wealth are unlikely to offset losses in housing wealth.”While China’s official data show just a mild drop in its existing home prices, evidence from property agents and private data providers indicate declines of at least 15% in prime areas in its biggest cities.
The housing sector’s value may shrink to about 16% of China’s gross domestic product by 2026 from around 20% of GDP currently, according to Bloomberg Economics. This would put about 5 million people, or about 1% of urban workforce, at the risk of unemployment or reduced incomes.
-
Still, high rise housing sits empty, because investors will not lower the rent.
Perhaps some cash flow is better than none?
-
Still, high rise housing sits empty, because investors will not lower the rent.
Perhaps some cash flow is better than none?
@Jolly One of the problems is that a lot of the developments are only half finished.
Or, if they are finished, no money for maintenance, management, etc.
Kind of like the US housing "bubble" people in China bought not because they wanted a place to live, but as an investment. Now, those people are seeing that their investment is not so good any more. Demographic changes (population getting older and older) make the future outlook not so good anymore either.
-
-
And lucky for us Mr. Biden saw this coming and invited millions of people to come here from other countries.
-
I am a big fan of legal immigration. The only reason the US is not like some other industrial countries (falling population, rapid aging population) is because of immigration. As mentioned above, it is a big problem in North Asia (China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan).
-
Immigrants tend to be more enterprising than the average person too. Takes a lot to uproot and go to a new place. It's not a guarantee, but it's not nothing either.
But agreed with TG - I think this is underappreciated right now. When the global population starts falling and we see the economic effects of depopulation, we'll start competing harder for immigrants.
-
Oh I completely agree. We're stuck in stupid land in this country though. We can't even agree on basics (whether borders should be enforced, what the right number of immgrants are, etc.)
Designing immigration policy is deceptively hard. In Canada they recently did skill based immigration - basically Mitt Romney's idea of stapling green cards to diplomas.
Always sounded like a great idea to me. BUT I've seen the downsides in Canada:
-
A bunch of diploma mill colleges pop up that provide a shit educational product, but satisfy the legal requirements
-
Migrants take on massive loans from their home countries to get here, then massive educational loans, then face massive housing costs on top of that - not a bright future
-
Lots of young people come here without any family - which makes it really hard to assimilate. At least with family migration you have people to show you the ropes, these young immigrants just stick to each other and their old culture
Anyways - I'm rambling now. But immigration policy is hard enough without being stuck on stupid.
-
-
It's not hard. We had a braceros program for years. It worked. Temporary green card, go back home when the farm season is over. Keep a clean record and renewal is automatic.
For more permanent immigrants, vet them and issue green cards by lottery, with exceptions for close family of U.S. citizens or areas of high need, such as physicians.
