China's Ghost Cities and Malls

[DeSwiss]

Run time: 14:38 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPILhiTJv7E   Posted on YouTube: March 25, 2011 By YouTube Member: etfideas Views on YouTube: 277154   Posted on DU: April 11, 2011 By DU Member: DeSwiss Views on DU: 2396

 
- Earth needs an intervention......

[Poll_Blind]

1. DeSwiss- that may be the most amazingly weird thing I've seen all week. Just incredible!

:wow:

PB

[DeSwiss]

6. The Chinese housing bubble built their vacant houses upwards.....

...and our housing bubble built our vacant houses spread out in suburbs.



The important thing to remember however, is never allow them to become occupied. At least not cheaply. That's the sign of when you've become an "advanced civilization."

- That, and an ever-expanding homeless population whom we just can't figure how to help.......

[Poll_Blind]

2. Links to the bonus material mentioned at the end of the video HERE (link)

HERE

PB

[bananas]

4. Thanks nt

[MinneapolisMatt]

3. Wow

That was incredibly scary. I had no idea it was that bad. 64 million empty apartments in China? Yikes.

[Poll_Blind]

5. Honestly, I had no idea that any place on Earth was like that. That was surreal...

..to say the absolute, unimbellished least.

PB

[aquart]

7. What? Paying cheap labor wages DOESN'T create a "consumer economy"?

I'm shocked. And they're building on "agricultural land"? How poisoned is that soil by now? I wonder if they used Chinese wallboard in those buildings.

And I'm thinking of the corporations who feel secure in abandoning the United States for all those vast Asian markets.

Millions who need housing while the government builds millions of housing units none of its people can afford. AND WE THINK WE HAVE PROBLEMS? Worker housing NEVER occurred to them?

I wouldn't put a factory in that country for anything you could pay me.

[texanwitch]

8. So, China has jobs taken from other countries so many people can't afford their imports anymore.

Now they have all these empty places nobody can afford to live in.

This is sad.

[DeSwiss]

9. But only because.....

...they've adopted the capitalist economic model for their country. With the party taking the place of our Wall Street. Had they remained purely communist, all those apartments would now be filled.

- Ironic isn't it? And they poison themselves in the bargain.....

?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJl0cLNptDs

[texanwitch]

10. All those empty places and people living crowded in little tiny places.

So many buildings empty, miles and miles of them.

Totally empty cities.

Spending money just to keep the house of cards floating.

Crazy.

[txlibdem]

11. The Video: China's consumer culture has been grossly over-estimated

Well, DUH!

When you pay workers next to nothing and work them 14+ hours a day where is this consumer culture going to come from??? This is the same lie of Capitalism that America is struggling with now. The workers are the engine that drives any Capitalist economy -- impoverish them at your peril.

[DeSwiss]

12. Capitalism is social cancer.....

...and it does what cancers do, kill the cells (people) of the body (society) indiscriminately so that it might survive while attempting to give little or nothing back. If it can get away with it.

In nature, we all take something from life -- but we almost all give something back to it which becomes food or something of use for others. Without this kind of symbiosity the whole system would come crashing down upon itself eventually. Capitalism attempts to avoid that crash and disrupt the laws of nature. And fails. Every time.

- One doesn't have to be smart to be rich, just ruthless and uncaring. Which is itself another kind of disease....

[txlibdem]

13. We need chemo --STAT

just to continue the medical analogy. And I couldn't agree with you more. Capitalism is indeed a cancer set loose upon a helpless world and we need to eradicate it before it kills us all, of that I have no doubt.

To be rich: one must first be a sociopath*

*From dictionary.com:
so·ci·o·path
   /ˈsoʊsiəˌpæθ, ˈsoʊʃi-/ Show Spelled Show IPA
–noun Psychiatry .
a person, as a psychopathic personality, whose behavior is antisocial and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience.

[physioex]

14. Thank you for posting...Very Informative. EOM

[DeSwiss]

16. De nada n/t

[Canuckistanian]

15. Why do they build so many luxury properites when nobody can afford them?

At some point, don't business principles kick in?

Too much inventory is expensive to keep. Those malls still needed workers to clean and maintain them.

And speculators are buying SOME of the properties, helping to keep those prices too high for the average worker.

Like that analyst said, this is a bubble burst that will DWARF what happened in America.

[DeSwiss]

17. It would be my guess....

...that the communist party is just not that well attuned to the intricacies of operating the capitalist state. They seem to be playing this thing by ear. It reminds me of a modern version of the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potemkin_village">Potemkin Villages mythology of old Russia.

Of course if the Chinese lowered the prices of those apartments to make them more affordable, or worse allowed the poor to just have them, it would disprove the idea that China's economy is booming beyond description and everyone's getting rich via "Chinese-style Capmunism."

[KurtNYC]

18. this section focuses on the overbuilding of apartments and malls

but consider that the Chinese government also builds new factories just as easily.

One modern factory after another, new roads, new bridges, new schools. The Chinese bubble is not like the American bubble because our factories, bridges and schools are falling down. Look at Las Vegas or Florida and you will find ghost towns like the ones shown here. But where are our factories ?

They waste their GDP on empty buildings. We wage 3 wars at once.

[DeSwiss]

19. "They waste their GDP on empty buildings. We wage 3 wars at once."

So another way of saying it is that: "it devolves down to whether it's the US killing people for oil and lithium with bullets, bombs and Predator drones. Or the Chinese killing people by poisoning your environment beyond all comprehension. While at the same time building your "infrastructure" using crooked bureaucrats who look the other way during construction so that buildings fall over or the trash and Styrofoam-stuffed bridges falls apart."



















- Either way what we end up with is two nations run by a bunch greedy, stupid idiots who are poisoning and killing the Earth and us right along with it.....

[txlibdem]

21. One difference between the two

The criminals who have destroyed the US environment went on to become millionaires and billionaires --no consequences.

The people responsible for those falling buildings and environmental disasters in China are more than likely swinging from a rope or are serving a very long prison term.

See the difference?

[DeSwiss]

22. A difference for the actors maybe.....

...not the victims.

Dead is dead.

[txlibdem]

23. 100% agreed there

But when you publicly hang someone and fully explain why it should send a message that shoddy work will get you something you may not like.

Here in the "greatest country in the world" you can lie, cheat, steal, con people, and even commit murder -- and get off without so much as a slap on the wrist. Maybe a token fine that doesn't even come close to the actual amount of your thievery. This sends the message: all hell's broken loose and you can do whatever you want! NO consequences.

[watajob]

20. Workers of the world!

Oh, nevermind.