I'd look at huge building projects and millions of resulting apartments that were built but now had no buyers and were sat empty on some zombie bank's balance sheet. And I would not know whether they were worth sticker price (and China was very productive) or nothing (and China was very unproductive) or anywhere in between.
I'd look at FoxConn with >350000 workers making some of the worlds most popular and profitable consumer electronics, but then I'd see they only make 3.6% profit in a country with >3.7% risk free rate of return and think: they're wasting their time and would be better being liquidated.
It's almost as if big chunks of China are run to keep people busy and employed and meet arbitrary central targets and not to make things people want at a price they will pay...
Actually understanding what productive means, and how to measure it is really really hard. And at every step companies and governments have all sorts of perverse incentives to disguise it.
> I'd look at huge building projects and millions of resulting apartments that were built but now had no buyers and were sat empty on some zombie bank's balance sheet. And I would not know whether they were worth sticker price (and China was very productive) or nothing (and China was very unproductive) or anywhere in between.
That's just being confused by propaganda. If you look back at all of the Chinese ghost city stories and note the names, virtually all of those cities are full and productive now. I always thought the stories were a line to make excuses for US lack of investment in infrastructure.
I'd look at huge building projects and millions of resulting apartments that were built but now had no buyers and were sat empty on some zombie bank's balance sheet. And I would not know whether they were worth sticker price (and China was very productive) or nothing (and China was very unproductive) or anywhere in between.
I'd look at FoxConn with >350000 workers making some of the worlds most popular and profitable consumer electronics, but then I'd see they only make 3.6% profit in a country with >3.7% risk free rate of return and think: they're wasting their time and would be better being liquidated.
It's almost as if big chunks of China are run to keep people busy and employed and meet arbitrary central targets and not to make things people want at a price they will pay...
Actually understanding what productive means, and how to measure it is really really hard. And at every step companies and governments have all sorts of perverse incentives to disguise it.