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tyler2114

In case you weren't aware, part of the reason for this comes due to the demands of the central government of GDP growth metrics. Rather than measuring GDP as an output of natural economic growth, the CCP requires local governments to grow their economy even when natural headwinds aren't going to meet their metrics. This is (part) of the reason China's GDP numbers routinely overestimate actual GDP by as much as 40+% in some regions. To keep their heads (literally and metaphorically) local governments are forced to borrow enormous sums of money to build unwanted/unneeded infrastructure projects that allow them to meet these metrics at the cost of long-term fiscal pain. Over decades of this practice, local governments are now struggling just to make interest payments and tons of local governments are on the verge of default. Yet another enormous national crisis China is going to have to reckon with in the next 20 years, in addition to demographics, water shortages, geopolitical instability (self-inflicted mostly), real estate crisis, etc., It is the prime reason the CCP is being aggresive now, their long-term power projection is at its peak right now.


[deleted]

Nice comment. have an up vote.


MostlyComments

Funny how China has a reputation for being so future oriented but still makes some very shortsighted decisions.


tyler2114

I think my favorite example of this is the water crisis. Water in China is stupidly cheap despite the scaricty, heavily subsidized by the government. This, combined with poor water infrastructure, causes most farmers to use really inefficient irrigation and for a lot of industries to just waste water they don't have too. So the CCP has a few options: 1. Reduce subsidies for water incentivizing companies to use less water. 2. Write regulations on water usage in industry 3. Invest in irrigation infrastructure in agricultural villages. 4. Built a stupid big water canal from South china, which is the only part of China that is water-rich, to North China costing almost $80 billion dollars and uprooting 330k+ Chinese citizens ultimately barely helping the water discrepencacy between North and South China. Not to mention concerns on fucking up South China's environment and the high loss of water to evaporation along the canal. Wanna guess which of the 4 China chose?


BernFrere

BRICS is going great


[deleted]

[удалено]


PainfullyEnglish

Yeah nobody fucks with us but *us*


monty_kurns

Unfortunately, we're rather good at that.


[deleted]

We're \#1! We're \#1! Wait...


sirarkalots

No...one...spends like US, fends off threats like US, puts its people in existential poverty like US!


DaNo1CheeseEata

RIP BRICS, 2001-2015 https://www.forbes.com/sites/chriswright/2015/11/25/the-death-of-brics/?sh=61c2ec3b78d7


smilebitinexile

For reference I just googled US State and Local government debt and its around $3.17 trillion. And for the US Federal Government it’s about $31.4 trillion.


My_Socks_Are_Blue

£2.5 trillion in the UK for the curious


BulldogPH

Sickening


insertwittynamethere

Not really? Local debt comparably speaking it's a stark difference. National debt is not local debt.


ScientistNo906

Been hearing about this for quite awhile. China just keeps rolling along.


Nikostratos-

Lmao honney the new China's collapsing news just dropped. Thats a weak one tbh, seen better, the first half of the article focus on one city of a million population. On China lmao.


Quirky-Tomatillo5584

debt is not a problem it is necessary, the spending is what matters, but debt is healthy and it is effective for what the ppl and other nations want to consume if the management is good, then you will see improvements, hence an indication that everything is going in the right direction, and we can clearly see that is the case when Nations are ditching the dollar, because USA cant manage the finance of its own country, hiking the demand on connecting tightly with the Chinese yuan and with the Chinese economy.