"it’s clearly had something of a real estate bubble, its financial system appears to be an over-leveraged mess of shadow banks”. It's clear everywhere except in the numbers. RE is down 1.6% from its peak, and shadow banks are far fewer – and far better supervised – than ours.
"What I’m talking about here is the simple fact that it’s a totalitarian society”. Not even close. Xi chairs two committees. That's it. When he was hired, he was given a to-do list, with KPIs, prepared long before his ascent. He can neither choose his cabinet nor even his PM. He cannot hire or fire anyone. He cannot advance legislation to Congress without the unanimous support of his cabinet. When Legislation reaches Congress it must attract at least 60% support to go to a vote – a process that can take decades. Xi got a third term because he accomplished so much: eliminated poverty, reached 96% home ownership, doubled real incomes for all workers and pensioners, built the world's most powerful navy... it's a very long list.
"India managed to deliver more excess deaths from malnutrition and preventable disease than China had in the 1958-61 famine”. Nobody starved to death during the confected 'great famine,' and there would be few excess deaths had the United States not embargoed grain exports to China.
I corresponded with Sen many years ago about his take on this and found that he relied on ratbags like Frank Dikotter for his data. Frank is nuts and his book is a sick joke.
Thanks for the link back to the posts on famines--have got a copy of Sen's book and keep meaning to actually read it. Had not heard of Jean Drèze but his work looks interesting--any particular books by him that you recommend?
A bit of a "Best of the Beatles" reply, but the one I have is "The Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze Omnibus", which compiles the three major books they wrote together about India.
"it’s clearly had something of a real estate bubble, its financial system appears to be an over-leveraged mess of shadow banks”. It's clear everywhere except in the numbers. RE is down 1.6% from its peak, and shadow banks are far fewer – and far better supervised – than ours.
"What I’m talking about here is the simple fact that it’s a totalitarian society”. Not even close. Xi chairs two committees. That's it. When he was hired, he was given a to-do list, with KPIs, prepared long before his ascent. He can neither choose his cabinet nor even his PM. He cannot hire or fire anyone. He cannot advance legislation to Congress without the unanimous support of his cabinet. When Legislation reaches Congress it must attract at least 60% support to go to a vote – a process that can take decades. Xi got a third term because he accomplished so much: eliminated poverty, reached 96% home ownership, doubled real incomes for all workers and pensioners, built the world's most powerful navy... it's a very long list.
"India managed to deliver more excess deaths from malnutrition and preventable disease than China had in the 1958-61 famine”. Nobody starved to death during the confected 'great famine,' and there would be few excess deaths had the United States not embargoed grain exports to China.
I corresponded with Sen many years ago about his take on this and found that he relied on ratbags like Frank Dikotter for his data. Frank is nuts and his book is a sick joke.
Thanks for the link back to the posts on famines--have got a copy of Sen's book and keep meaning to actually read it. Had not heard of Jean Drèze but his work looks interesting--any particular books by him that you recommend?
A bit of a "Best of the Beatles" reply, but the one I have is "The Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze Omnibus", which compiles the three major books they wrote together about India.