Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: BubbaFred who wrote (25554)	3/14/2005 2:02:21 PM
From: RealMuLan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116555

OT OT: Yes, in China, most people learn British English, not American English. It seems a lot of teachers of English consider British English is for higher class<g>. Even if now, occasionally, one can see some English articles from Chinese media mixed up the two. For example, trillion: British 10 trillion = US 1 trillion. City names – they are simple and sometimes complicated. Each name has its own background. For example: He Nan Province and He Bei Province, get their names by located by the north of Yellow River and south of Yellow River. Here is a Chinese site talks about the provincial names in China and their history. sdx123.nease.net Gap bet. the rich and poor in China is a relative new phenomenon: although bet. 1950 and 1978, there were also rich and poor, but the gap was hardly measurable. Mao himself salary was 450 Yuan a month, and most of high ranking officials (ministers of the Central gov. or a head of a province) earned about 200 Yuan a month, while a new college graduate also earned 54 Yuan. And all the Chinese workers and officials had never had a pay increase during that period, and the GDP, on average, grew at 6% a year. So the country publicly has accumulated a great wealth before 1978. Until 1992, most of farmers had benefited from the economic reform in China. But after that, most of farmers stopped benefited from the Chinese economic reform, and were actually worse off bet. 1998 and 2003. China does not have a decent tax system. And cash business is very prosperous. The rich individuals and private companies, including all the foreign companies, can evade paying right amount of tax very easily, and the Chinese gov. has little resource to audit and chase after them. That is why it can produce plenty of millionaires or even billionaires in only a short 2 decades. There is hardly another country on this planet that one can get rich so fast. And on the other hand, millions of honest people get shortchanged. Hopefully, Hu-Wen’s new policy can redistribute the wealth a little fair. >>And most China's citizens don't turn up the heat in their homes. << I think this guy was talking about the south part of China. Because apartments in the north are heated very well in winter, usually the temperature can maintain bet. 68-70 degree F, some are higher, for the winter months. Ever since 1950, Chinese gov. pays for the heating in winter in north part of China, but not the south (separated from Chang Jiang River). So most of homes in the south have no heating facilities installed. And some of them use electric heaters, but have to pay by themselves. After the economic reform, residents in the north also have to pay a part of heating cost, but still are subsidized by the gov. to a certain degree. Yes, when the living standard in the south getting higher, their energy use definitely should go higher, since now few of their apartments are heated in winter. So stop whining the West<g>. Yes, Chinese have a high saving rate, but those savings come from their own sacrifice of other comfort in life, or in some cases, from their food. This perhaps is hard to imagine for people in the US of A<g> >>BTW, some clothing factories (sweaters) allow workers to keep the rejects (slight defects) and sell them without the labels. If sold in stores, the wool sweaters would have a 300 Yuan price tag. I bought two 100% wool high quality sweaters for 30 Yuan each.<< Yeah, if one knows the trick, he can definitely pick up some high quality clothing at minimal cost in China.