China - Tópico principal

[jeab]

Interessante ... GDP Americano sensivelmente o dobro do Chinês, mas com uma diferença grande no crescimento, 1,7% nos States contra 9,28% na China.

[deMelo]

Jeab...

Isso dá 3-2 para os USA.
Mas eu não percebo como atribuem o edge de potência militar aos EUA. Nem em abstracto, nem concretamente após a leitura dos dados que aí apresentam...

O resultado, pelo que eles escrevem, deveria ser já de 3-2 para a China.

[Local]

Para mim é incrível que existem mais pobres nos EUA que na China.
Tinha ideia que na China a população do campo vivia miseravelmente.

[Incognitus]

Para mim é incrível que existem mais pobres nos EUA que na China.
Tinha ideia que na China a população do campo vivia miseravelmente.

É a tal coisa, a pobreza é definida de forma relativa.

[Zel]

Para mim é incrível que existem mais pobres nos EUA que na China.
Tinha ideia que na China a população do campo vivia miseravelmente.

essas comparacoes nao fazem sentido nenhum, na china um pobre eh alguem que nao tem de comer e nao tem dentes, nos USA ate tv cabo com 100 canais tem com acesso a saude gratuita

eu vivi nos USA e era considerado pobre, nao me faltava nada e estava numa das cidades mais caras e a pagar uma renda elevada que me consumia o grosso dos rendimentos

[Incognitus]

Eu pergunto-me até que ponto esta definição relativa de pobreza não é motivada ideologicamente. A lógica ditaria que a definição deveria ser absoluta.
 
Criar uma pobreza relativa abre a porta ao parasitismo.

[jeab]

Eu com $10 diários em NY ando aos caídos , mas em Nova Deli sustento um harém ...

A comparação de pobreza deve ser pelo poder de compra local.  Os 10K indigentes de lisboa são  1% da População alfacinha + reformas de €250,00 a comerem uma sopa por dia (os tais $10/dia), etc e tal.

Há muita miséria nos States. A passarem fome ... e sem tecto.

[Local]

Para mim é incrível que existem mais pobres nos EUA que na China.
Tinha ideia que na China a população do campo vivia miseravelmente.

essas comparacoes nao fazem sentido nenhum, na china um pobre eh alguem que nao tem de comer e nao tem dentes, nos USA ate tv cabo com 100 canais tem com acesso a saude gratuita

eu vivi nos USA e era considerado pobre, nao me faltava nada e estava numa das cidades mais caras e a pagar uma renda elevada que me consumia o grosso dos rendimentos

Pois tens razão. Não vi as coisas dessa forma.

Eu com $10 diários em NY ando aos caídos , mas em Nova Deli sustento um harém ...

A comparação de pobreza deve ser pelo poder de compra local.  Os 10K indigentes de lisboa são  1% da População alfacinha + reformas de €250,00 a comerem uma sopa por dia (os tais $10/dia), etc e tal.

Há muita miséria nos States. A passarem fome ... e sem tecto.

Os considerados pobres têm muitas vezes excesso de peso. Vi isso quando foi do Tufão Katerina, em que filmaram um bairro social e entrevistaram diversas pessoas, todas elas pobres e todas elas com excesso de peso.

[Incognitus]

Eu com $10 diários em NY ando aos caídos , mas em Nova Deli sustento um harém ...

A comparação de pobreza deve ser pelo poder de compra local.  Os 10K indigentes de lisboa são  1% da População alfacinha + reformas de €250,00 a comerem uma sopa por dia (os tais $10/dia), etc e tal.

Há muita miséria nos States. A passarem fome ... e sem tecto.

A comparação deveria ser feita com base no acesso a um determinado cabaz fixo de bens e serviços. Não monetariamente ou de forma relativa.

[karnuss]

Nos states isso é normal, local... Aquela malta pouco cozinha, e comendo fora regularmente, os pobres comem muito McDonalds e junk food semelhante por ser barato. A malta endinheirada, além de ginásio, consegue fazer uma dieta saudável com alimentos frescos e não processados, que por lá é caríssima, mesmo nos supermercados.

Um artigo interessante sobre este tema:

The Economics of Obesity: Why Are Poor People Fat?

 
This is what poverty looked like in the Great Depression…



This is what poverty looks like today…



For most of recorded history, fat was revered as a sign of health and prosperity. Plumpness was a status symbol. It showed that you did not have to engage in manual labor for your sustenance. And it meant that you could afford plentiful quantities of food.

For most people, however, being fat was simply not an option. The constant struggle to hunt and harvest ensured that we stayed active. And for those with little money, the supply of calories was meager. This ensured that most of the working class stayed slim.

Rich people were fat. Poor people were thin.

Today, the polar opposite is true. Numerous studies show that low-income children and adults are far more likely to be overweight than those of greater means. And the statistical distribution fits a nice, neat curve – as income falls, the rate of obesity rises.

The following graph from a population study in Utah puts this in perspective. The tallest bar on the left represents the lowest income group… and the highest rate of obesity.


Logically, this makes no sense and it is contrary to our historical experience. How is it that the people with the least money to spend are the most likely to be overweight?

There is no shortage of suggestions for why this is the case. Here are just a few I’ve come across:

Poor people are uneducated and ignorant about nutrition. (They never learned that Doritos and Twinkies are not a healthy meal).
Poor people are too lazy (or too busy working) to cook real food.
Poor people are too tired after working two jobs to get enough exercise.
Poor people don’t have access to fitness centers and farmers markets.
There is some truth in all of these statements. But they certainly do not apply to all lower income workers. Each exhibits a significant misunderstanding. And none of them identify the real reason why modern poverty is so closely correlated with obesity.

The Real Reason Why Poor People Are Fat

Professor and obesity researcher, Dr. Adam Drewnowski set out to determine why income is the most reliable predictor of obesity in the U.S. To do this, he took a hypothetical dollar to the grocery store. His goal was to purchase as many calories as possible per dollar.

 
What he found is that he could buy well over 1,000 calories of cookies or potato chips. But his dollar would only buy 250 calories of carrots. He could buy almost 900 calories of soda… but only 170 calories of orange juice.

If you are poor and hungry, you are obviously going to buy the cheapest calories you can find. And in today’s world, the cheapest calories come from junk foods – whether those foods are found at the grocery store, the gas station, or in the fast food restaurant, conveniently located just down the street.

But this raises another question. How can industrially-processed foods and their associated marketing costs be so much cheaper than real, whole foods produced from water, seeds and sunlight?

In a New York Times article, author Michael Pollan asks this very question…

“Compared with a bunch of carrots, a package of Twinkies is a highly complicated, high-tech piece of manufacture, involving no fewer than 39 ingredients, many themselves elaborately manufactured, as well as the packaging and a hefty marketing budget. So how can the supermarket possibly sell a pair of these synthetic cream-filled pseudo-cakes for less than a bunch of roots?”

Pollan goes on to answer his own question…

“The Twinkie is basically a clever arrangement of carbohydrates and fats teased out of corn, soybeans and wheat — three of the five commodity crops that the farm bill supports, to the tune of some $25 billion a year.

The primary reason that lower-income people are more overweight is because the unhealthiest and most fattening foods are the cheapest. If you were broke and had just three dollars to spend on food today, would you buy a head of broccoli or a Super Value Meal with French fries, a cheeseburger and a Coke?

Because you’re reading this publication, you might choose the former. But for most people who have very little to spend on food, the choice is clear.

And make no mistake. This does not represent a failure of the capitalist free-market system. Modern agri-business and government food policy represents a perverted version of capitalism – crony capitalism – where those with the most money and the most powerful friends in government control the markets.

What they have done is use your tax dollars to subsidize certain commodity crops (at the expense of others) to ensure that the cost of oils, sugar and grains stay artificially low. With low input costs, food manufacturers can turn a tidy profit. The end result is that processed foods – even though they require more technology, more labor and more marketing to produce and sell – are cheaper to the consumer than real, whole foods.

Consider that between 1985 and 2000, the inflation-adjusted prices of fruits and vegetables increased by an average of 40%. During the same period of time the real price of soft drinks fell by almost 25%.

There is no doubt that obesity has become a public health crisis. But because most politicians either do not understand the issue or because they are too corrupt to do the right thing, most “solutions” to this crisis are completely wrongheaded.

Some politicians are calling for a tax on fat people themselves. Currently, many state governments have imposed taxes on soft drinks and junk foods. And calls are growing louder for similar taxes at the federal level.

It is completely insane that in a country where the surgeon general has identified “an epidemic of obesity” that we are simultaneously subsidizing the production of high-fructose corn syrup. It is equally insane that the government is helping to artificially lower the cost of foods that are driving up national healthcare costs (i.e. killing us), while having a national healthcare debate about how we are going to pay for those costs.

So What Can You Do?

I am a strong advocate for free markets. If I had my way, I would not suggest shifting the subsidies from unhealthy commodity crops to crops that are considered healthy. I suggest leveling the playing field by ending food subsidies altogether.

But that is clearly not going to happen…

Within the current system, the best we can hope for is a situation where public funds are diverted from the corporate Agri-Giants (which is nothing more than welfare for the wealthy) to family farms and fruit and vegetable growers. Currently, almost 70% of farmers receive no subsidies at all, while the biggest and strongest take the bulk of public funds.

Public funds for farms and food should be directed to help build local and sustainable food systems. These funds should favor natural, organic and sustainable methods, rather than the chemical and industrial practices that pollute our rivers and our bodies.

Publicly funded cafeterias in schools, prisons and hospitals should be required to source a percentage of their food from regional sources. And federal food assistance programs like WIC cards and food stamps should be accepted at farmers markets and other healthier alternatives than the local Safeway.

This would do a lot more to help the “obesity crisis” than taxing soft drinks at a penny per ounces.

But you want to know the truth?

Very little of what I have just proposed is likely to happen. It doesn’t matter how much sense it makes. And it doesn’t matter how vocally the population howls in protest to the current system. The corporate powers that be are simply too powerful and too well-entrenched in Washington.

You best bet is to vote with your dollars and your feet.

Choose whole, natural foods over those that are processed. Most of the foods you bring home from the grocery store should not have ingredients. They should BE ingredients. If possible, buy your food directly from small farms and family-owned farms. And whenever you can, choose foods that are grown locally (www.eatwild.com, www.realmilk.com and www.localharvest.org are three organizations that can help you find farmers in your region).

http://naturalhealthdossier.com/2011/04/the-economics-of-obesity-why-are-poor-people-fat/

[Arte_Sacra]

Os considerados pobres têm muitas vezes excesso de peso. Vi isso quando foi do Tufão Katerina, em que filmaram um bairro social e entrevistaram diversas pessoas, todas elas pobres e todas elas com excesso de peso.

Curioso.
Dito por um chinês:
"Na China é exactamente ao contrário. Os gordos são os que têm maior poder de compra.
Salvo as excepções por problemas de saúde, Na China não há pobres gordos."

[Visitante]

Ao que parece a terceira revolução industrial vai trazer de volta a produção aos países ricos.

[valves1]

Na China é exactamente ao contrário. Os gordos são os que têm maior poder de compra.
Salvo as excepções por problemas de saúde, Na China não há pobres gordos."

contudo mesmo a china está a mudar, os salarios sobem, os dias de ferias aumentam e  não vamos precisar de 10  anos para que volte  a ser competitivo produzir nalguns países da Europa versus china
 em algumas circunstancias  já começa  compensa trazer a produção para Portugal quanto incorporamos na comparação os custos  de transporte ... Não tarda os chineses vão também  começar a engordar há medida que vão comprando mais ao mundo exterior
é claro que o mundo emergente não se limita á china evidentemente

[Arte_Sacra]

Bom bom, seria a China abdicar do câmbio fixo do Yuan. 

[Zel]

a comida nos USA eh muito barata, os pobres sao todos gordos pois comem muito e comem mal

em parte isto tb acontece pq os negros e indios tem mais tendencia para engordar do que os brancos e em parte pq nao tem cuidado com o que comem e vao para as comidas processadas viciantes e sem necessidade de serem preparadas

conheci la gente cujo pequeno-almoco eram tacos com coca-cola, um pouco louco

eh preciso ver que a pobreza eh em grande parte pobreza-de-espirito

[hermes]

Asian economies turn to yuan

By Gao Changxin
2012-10-24 00:57

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2012-10/24/content_15840495.htm

A "renminbi bloc" has been formed in East Asia, as nations in the region abandon the US dollar and peg their currency to the Chinese yuan — a major signal of China's successful bid to internationalize its currency, a research report has said.

The Peterson Institute for International Economics, or PIIE, said in its latest research that China has moved closer to its long-term goal for the renminbi to become a global reserve currency.

Since the global financial crisis, the report said, more and more nations, especially emerging economies, see the yuan as the main reference currency when setting their exchange rate.

And now seven out of 10 economies in the region — including South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand — track the renminbi more closely than they do the US dollar. Only three economies in the group — Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Mongolia — still have currencies following the dollar more closely than the renminbi, said the report, posted on the institute's website.

The South Korean won, for example, has appreciated in sync with the renminbi against the dollar since mid-2010.

China has long vowed to raise its currency's global sway, along with the rise of its economy, which became the world's second-biggest last year.

The goal has seen significant development in recent years as the country promotes renminbi-denominated cross-border trade and gradually loosens control over its capital accounts.

As a result, Hong Kong has quickly risen to be the world's biggest offshore renminbi trading center, with about 600 billion yuan ($95 billion) in deposits.

According to the latest report by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or SWIFT, renminbi-denominated trade accounted for 10 percent of China's total foreign trade in July. The figure was zero just two years ago.

From July 1 to Aug 31, global payments in the renminbi rose 15.6 percent, according to SWIFT, as payments in other currencies fell 0.9 percent on average.

The renminbi had a market share of 0.53 percent in August and has overtaken the Danish krone to become the 14th-highest global payment currency, the member-owned cooperative said.

Cross-border trade settled in renminbi will triple to 6.5 trillion yuan ($1.03 trillion) within three years as relations with the world's second-largest economy grow, Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC was quoted as saying by Bloomberg on Oct 9.

Settlements will grow 12 to 20 percent this year, reaching $1.03 trillion in two years, up from $330.8 billion in 2011, said Janet Ming, head of the China desk for RBS in Europe, Middle East and Africa.

"We're seeing a lot more customers starting to practice in renminbi," Ming was quoted as saying by Bloomberg. "For most companies and banks, China and India is where the growth is. If you're dealing with China, ignoring renminbi is not the right thing to do."

Wang Jianhui, chief economist with Southwest Securities Co Ltd, agreed. "Investors are looking for new reserve currencies at a time when both the dollar and euro are under pressure. This is a good opportunity for the yuan," he said.

The Royal Bank of Scotland predicted in a report on Monday that renminbi will become a fully convertible currency in 2015.

The PIIE said that renminbi could rise to the status of an international currency in 10 to 15 years if the country can reform its financial market and allow greater access for foreigners via capital account liberalization.

Forming the new renminbi bloc is the result of China's rise as the main trading partner in the region. China's share in East Asian countries' manufacturing trade has risen from 2 percent in 1991 to about 22 percent this year, according to the PIIE report.

In fact, trade is also propelling the rise of the renminbi outside East Asia. The currencies of India, Chile, Israel, South Africa and Turkey all now follow the renminbi closely, in some cases, more so than the dollar. The renminbi would be more attractive if the country could further liberalize its financial and currency markets, the report said.

Some fear that China might follow Japan's rise and fall over the past decades, but the institute thinks otherwise.

"They should take note that even during the heady days of the Japanese miracle, the yen never came close to rivaling the dollar as a reference currency. There was never anything close to a yen bloc in East Asia," the report said.

[Kin2010]

Está a haver uma forte recuperação dos títulos chineses, como uma busca no Finviz demonstra.

Eu próprio tomei uma posição especulativa na SFUN - uma empresa de Internet para imobiliário. Parece que as vendas de casas estão a crescer lá, os fundamentais da empresa são baratíssimos (P/C=1.8, P/E=9.1), e a cotação está com bom aspecto técnico.

No entanto estou pronto a saltar fora rápido, sei que há riscos em usar um critério tão simples.

[Kin2010]

Why investing in China is good while things look bad
 
While next week's headlines will be dominated by the US Presidential election, something equally significant will be getting underway in Beijing where a once-in-a-decade leadership transition begins on Thursday.

 By Tom Stevenson, on the Markets
4:26PM GMT 03 Nov 2012

While next week's headlines will be dominated by the US Presidential election, something equally significant will be getting underway in Beijing where a once-in-a-decade leadership transition begins on Thursday.

While the impact of Tuesday's US election will be felt almost immediately thanks to the ticking time-bomb of the fiscal cliff, the implications of the Chinese leadership change will be a slower burn, but no less important for that. Both countries face profound economic and social challenges but China's contribution to global growth and its still seriously unbalanced economy mean there is even more urgency about finding the right answers than there is in Washington.

As in the US, the economic backdrop in China has started to brighten at just the right time as far as the leadership is concerned. The latest manufacturing data show activity in the country's factories finally picking up in October after a slowdown which has now lasted for seven straight quarters.

Last week's figures suggest that the near two-year retreat from a growth rate of more than 12pc to 7.4pc may finally have stabilised – and at a level that we can only dream of, mired as we are in Europe's economic sclerosis. Amid all the soul-searching about whether China might be the new Japan – on the cusp of a prolonged stagnation driven by anaemic consumption and a rapidly ageing population – it is important to remember that, relatively speaking, China is still the humming engine of the global economy.

There is some speculation (and historical precedent) that the election of a new Central Committee next week could kick-start a renewed wave of government stimulus and this is a key component of the bullish argument for Chinese shares. I think the latest figures actually make this a bit less likely. They suggest that the modest monetary tweaks so far this year have been more effective than the outside world thinks. There may well be some modest pick-up in spending once the uncertainty caused by the very public infighting at the top of the Party dissipates, but China does not rush things and a detailed blueprint of the new leadership's plans will become clear only
over the next 12 months or so.

That said, the direction of travel is obvious from the latest five-year plan. Its key
focus, the rebalancing of the economy to domestic consumption, will continue.
And it is essential that it does because an economy as dependent on investment spending as China's is – around 50pc of
total output – is not sustainable.

The comparison with Japan 20 years ago
is not as far-fetched as you might think because China has arguably become as addicted to building "bridges to nowhere"
as Japan was. In 1990 consumer spending represented only half of Japanese GDP, compared with 70pc in the West, so when the investment boom ended the Japanese consumer was unable or unwilling to plug the gap. However, little more than a third of Chinese GDP is down to the consumer today and the savings rate is a staggering 25pc, so arguably the challenge is even more severe than Japan's was.

The key question for investors is the extent to which all this has been factored into Chinese share prices because on most measures they are historically very cheap. With both Shanghai-listed A shares and the
H shares in Hong-Kong trading on only seven or eight times next year's expected earnings, a case can be made that much of the bad news is already baked in. Valuations stand
at roughly a third of the peak level reached
in 2007 at the height of enthusiasm for Chinese stocks.

The significant underperformance of
the Chinese stock market, reflects indiscriminate selling of fundamentally sound companies and that continues to throw up
a wealth of stock-picking opportunities, especially in the consumer-related companies which I continue to believe will
be the main beneficiaries of a rebalancing of the economy, continued urbanisation and
double-digit wage inflation.

Given the scale of the economic
challenges facing China and the uncertainty that necessarily accompanies a once-in-a-decade change at the top, it would be a bold call to unequivocally signal the turn for Chinese shares. But investing when
everyone else thinks it's a bad idea makes for better outcomes than jumping on a bandwagon.

[tote]

Ora viva,

Esta semana reuni-me com empresários chineses.
Às tantas, à volta da mesa onde almoçávamos, um deles diz que a vida na CHina não foi sempre assim (como se eu  não soubesse, mas fiz-me de desentendido), pois a mesa estava cheia de carne, algo que os chineses não podiam dar-se ao luxo de consumir, pois era caríssima. Todos eles confirmavam humildemente que no passado era assim. Agora encaram o futuro de uma forma absolutamente notável - eles querem ser "os primeiros".
Isto é só um exemplo, mas os chineses são nacionalistas e humildes. Mas têm outra caraterística notável - empreendedorismo impressionante. Alguém consegue imaginar um país onde há 100 mil Belmiros de Azevedo? É a CHINA.
Os empresários deles, na sua maioria, para não dizer totalidade, andavam a plantar batatas há 40 anos. Esta malta sabe MUITO.... a Europa que se cuide, pois eles estão aí para ficar em... PRIMEIRO.

Abraço de Pequim.

[JoaoAP]

Sem dúvida!
Têm uma força de trabalho e vontade que é de bradar aos céus.

Mas aos poucos, dezenas de anos, eles vão ficar com o bichinho mau dos ocidentais. Tem sido assim.
uma geração que trabalha, trabalha, e começa a (des)educar os filhos... de outra forma e isto tem implicações mais tarde!

Depois tem de vir assim umas crises... dantes eram as guerras, que fazem mexer com o pessoal. A ver atinam novamente...!

edit: Tote... negócios para Portugal ou para o Brasil (parece-me que estarias por lá)?