At the docks here, the stacks of shipping containers that used to loom above the highway overpass are gone. Logistics managers say they negotiate deeper discounts every week on ships that are leaving half empty.
In nearby Guangdong Province, so many factories are closing without paying employees that some workers are resigning pre-emptively and demanding immediate pay before their employers go bankrupt.
In Sichuan and other interior provinces, municipal officials are desperately searching for ways to provide jobs for millions of out-of-work migrant laborers whose families no longer need them for farming.
“And the Chinese social safety net is in tatters, with families receiving scant government help with education costs, medical care and retirement: The average hospital stay costs the equivalent of two years’ wages for the average Chinese worker.”
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The communist/socialist world’s largest country and the ‘great bird of reality’ comes home to roost.
China’s communist party leadership cannot turn ‘real world reality’ into the glorified goals of their socialist ‘pipe dreams.’ The most interesting citiation relevant to our current healthcare debate is “The average hospital stay costs the equivalent of two years’ wages for the average Chinese worker.”
Stupid, anti-market commies. They should just have the government print money and give it to politically favored industries.
While I deplore communism in China, I don’t think a “desperate” China is necessarily a good thing. Below the government are suffering people, and a desperate government may do desperate things.
I wonder if the Chinese could start doing toys again without loading them with lead paint? Is it too llate???
Historically, countries that are continuously frustrated in their desires to move to higher economic states of development are much more likely to seek that higher state by “official” means (war). I’m never going to be pleased to see stagnation in the economies of China, India, or Indonesia as they have population densities that we can’t even imagine and a declining class of people who feed them, as well as a tough time providing energy for everyone.
It’s not good….KTF!…mrb