

China's 'Wealth Drain': New Signs That Rich Chinese Are Set on Emigrating - tokenadult
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2077139,00.html

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stretchwithme
I'd be considering it too if I lived there and had the means. Property rights,
while somewhat respected lately in China, could certainly be revoked with a
change of the political winds. The Cultural Revolution wasn't long ago, after
all. And the imminent collapse of the property bubble can only destabilize
things.

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kabushikigaisha
This coupled with the ridiculous on-going property bubble, yet lack of
affordable housing, sky-rocketing food prices, and other social and economic
ills makes me wonder how the Politiburo and Party in general will act to
control the situation. What is happening in all the massive, empty cities
being built everyday is ridiculous and makes the USA's housing bubble look
benign in comparison.

Thank you for the article, tokenadult. Quality translation as well.

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kajecounterhack
I imagine it wouldn't be beyond them to mandate staying in the country.

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kabushikigaisha
Mandating business and rich folk to keep x% of assets in country is not
unreasonable (it's what Putin has done in Russia, and so far it's worked over
there). But I think the bigger worry for the leader group is the huge
population of poor and 'middle class' Chinese living in rough conditions with
little to no hope for betterment, worsening conditions in lots of sectors, and
growing wealth gap. To see city after city of gleaming malls and towering
housing developments but almost completely devoid of actual residence was
astonishing last winter when I visited for 2 months.

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Volpe
They've seen rapid betterment in the last 60 years going from an average
(inflation adjusted) yearly wage of $364/year in 1950 to $7226/year today.

How does that translate to 'little to no hope for betterment'? It's still not
great, but it seems the govt are doing as much as they can (and better than
anyone else) to improve things.

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potatolicious
The average/mean only represents something if it's distributed about the mean.

One of the major issues in China right now is that that's _not_ the case - the
creation of a minted upper class is skewing the data and hiding the
distribution - which is that there is a _sea_ of poor, below the poverty line,
with little to no hope for improvement, and an increasingly wealthy upper and
middle class.

Keep in mind that the gap between the lower and middle class in China is much
wider than the equivalent gap in the US. In reality people in the "middle
class", in relative terms, would be far into the upper classes in the US.

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Volpe
From my other comment: > China's millionaires account for 0.015% of the
population

0.015% is hardly skewing the other 99.985%... How about people start actually
referring to fact rather than just rhetoric...

Some stats:

36% of the population of china are below poverty line ($2/day) (2005) (down
from 98% (1980)) (Little hope for improvement?)

16% of population below extreme poverty line ($1.25/day) (2005) (down from 84%
(1981)) (Again little hope for improvement?)

China ranks 42 on the inequality index, the US ranks 41 (That doesn't equate
to 'much wider gap')

See how some simple data just rendered most of your statements wrong.

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hvs
Ah, the wonders of the rule of law.

China is certainly making progress (as is India, not so sure about Russia) in
this area. But anywhere you have to bribe ten people to get things done and
your property can be confiscated on a whim you're going to find people that,
once they start making real money, want to get out before those in power
notice.

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gaius
Yep, we see this a lot in London, lots of Russians move here as soon as they
can afford it. French too.

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pixpax
Im not sure the French come here for the same reasons as Russians.

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stygianguest
Unfortunately no word on the current state of Chinese capital controls. I
thought it was quite hard to get money out of China.

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PakG1
I live and work here right now. If I want to wire money to my home account, I
have to prove I paid the tax on the money first. No such restrictions on
bringing money in though, of course. :D

So I imagine it's a bit more complicated for some rich people who acquired
their funds through _ahem_ certain means. Of course, if they've already been
playing that game, I'm sure they have tricks up their sleeve.

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dvdhsu
Some of my Chinese friends say, "If you can solve it with money, it isn't a
real problem."

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iwwr
Lots of these 'real problems' end up as bottomless money pits.

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dimmuborgir
My Chinese online friend has similar sentiments. Her main concerns are rampant
corruption and lack of religious freedom.

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batterseapower
My father-in-law is a Chinese millionaire (in GBP terms) and wouldn't dream of
emigrating. The things that tie him to his homeland are all the usual
elements: shared culture, shared language (very important, as he can't speak
English), a huge range of cuisine.

China is a very nice place to live, especially if you are a millionaire, and I
would be surprised if a larger proportion of rich Chinese emigrated than do
e.g. the USA-born rich.

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mcritz
Another article making the case that money does not buy happiness, in fact,
money is some sort of emotional burden.

Perhaps the accumulation of personal weath means nothing if everyone around
you suffers.

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anamax
> Another article making the case that money does not buy happiness

Huh? It's buying them things that they can't get in China.

Sure, you can argue that they'd be happier with those things in China, but
that's not up to them. They're using money to get their second choice, those
things, but not in China.

Do you want to argue that they would be happier in China without those things?
(Note "should" isn't "would".)

