This 6-pillar curriculum teaches the basic literacy we need to be personally and financially successful and to do so in a manner in which together we evolve a culture that supports the emergence of an advanced human civilization.
“Physics teaches us that momentum is a powerful force to arrest. Psychology tells us that it is hard to break old habits. And economic experience demonstrates that structural changes tend to be painful and glacial. But time and again, history has been altered by the unexpected….”
~ Stephen Roach, Unbalanced: The Codependency of America and China (2014)
Thank you, to the three of you. This was mind blowing. I’ve just downloaded Carlos’s book. And Catherine, where else could we subscribers find content like this? No where I know of. I’m now feeling very informed and empowered.
Patricia:
It is a such a blessing to have subscribers who appreciate deep research into the primary trends. Lots of work went into these reports. Although I understood China’s real estate challenges and their demographics as well as their pension fund challenges, Carlos and Ed added many layers of depth that were very welcome. The tariff policies make even more sense.
(The above is one of the only decent descriptions in English I’ve found so far.)
Not sure about the contests of lying down from the tabloid Catherine mentioned, but the “movement” has been a legitimate and pragmatic reaction to living in Chinese society.
There’s so much mis- and dis-information coming out of China that a deep understanding of the culture is necessary to even begin to scratch the surface and parce out what is going on there. Knowing the Chinese language certainly also helps.
As another example, I previously sent a video of an alternative experience of China’s bullet trains that is much less ideal than the West may be aware of… yet those living in China are well-aware of it.
When Carlos assumes a similar path for China as for Japan in the 1990s (around 40 minutes into the interview), i am reminded of Richard Werner and his conclusion in “Princes of the Yen, that the Central Bank of Japan deliberately prolongued the crisis by austerity and then QE into non-productive sectors.
Therefore is it really a given, that China is bound to go down the same path? Is the way this will go really a purely structurally explainable process instead of a conscious effort by central planners?
And if it’s the latter, is the chinese monetary policy influenced by the same interests that influenced and probably still influence the Bank of Japan?
Wow this was an amazing deep dive into China. I could ask and say so many things, but I will just keep it (kind of) short.
First comment is that all GDP comparisons are relative. Its not only how an economy is doing by itself, but in relation to all others. Even a bad performing economy can be good if others are worse.
Second thing I will say that since about 2020 the productive forces that used to work in housing construction have been deployed to build and upgrade industrial capacity. I believe any and all capital intensive industries with evem a marginal competitive advantage have been affected. Think EVs, coal power, paper industry. This has likely been the biggest industrial boom since the industrial revolution.
It has been argued here that Japan understated its GDP by reducing consumption and increasing investment in industrial R&D and modern production. We talk about 30 lost years in Japan but how is it that Japanese industry is still strong?
So to sum it up. In terms of physical stuff, US is a consumer and China is a producer. This dynamic has not changed since 2016; in fact if China EVs could be sold in US and Europe, the entire auto US and EU industry would go close to bankrupt. Just one example – go down the line of antidumping duties and those China industries would put pressure on all local manufacturers. And while the developed markets are closed off, China is now taking the developing world market share away from others.
My main question is – take two economies growing 5%. One has 1% consumption and 3% production and investment; the other has 3% consumption and 1% production and investment. Which one will be better off – from a 30000 ft policy level – in 10 or 20 years? Even in this demographic sunset period – someone has to dig the dirt and pour the concrete. Would you rather be doing heavy industrial construction in your 50s or light mechanical maintenance on an already built factory?
I would guess that even though all of the topics covered here are real trends, China has positioned itself well to be a future industrial leader for many years to come. Even AI in manufacturing has the best proving ground in China simply because the factories are actually already there.
From US side, all the MAGA talk in implementation has been trade barriers and geopolitical rebalancing. I have seen a lot of data centers being put up, but I have not seen some huge boom in industrial capacity stateside. There are changes but they will take decades. You need to train an entire generation in math and hard science (civil, mechanical engineering etc) before it used to be finance and computers. And in the end someone will have to pick up a shovel.
My ultimate guess is that politicans are aware of this and have decided that consumption will also have to be reduced in the Western world.
Excellent points ]My assessment is that the Western leadership believes that technology can add so much productivity that a small % of the population who is productive can maintain the lead if funded by offsets from significant depopulation of the unproductive.
the population of China is nowhere near the 1.4 billion claimed.
Lei refers to a 2018 Russian study that estimated China’s population at the time was probably between 500 million and 800 million. This was based on China’s 1945 recorded population being 490 million, prior to the CCP’s implementation of the Great Leap Forward, which resulted in the Great Chinese Famine and the subsequent Cultural Revolution, causing tens of millions of deaths (~60 million), followed by decades of the One Child Policy.
Lei states Russian experts determined that it was impossible that China’s population ever surged to 1.4 billion, saying:
“Other Russian experts added-up the publicly-available urban population of every Chinese city and county and got only 280 million people and based on the traditional urbal-rural population ratio of 1-to-1, they estimated China’s actual population being around 560 million.”
According to Lei’s own reckoning, which includes data since 2012 of ~400 million fraudulent Chinese households and university enrollments being removed from government databases, that prior to COVID, China’s population was between 695 million to 890 million.
By Lei’s estimates, since 2019, China has sustained a catastrophic population decline of between 400 and 500 million, which is how she arrives at her estimation that China’s current population is between 300-400 million, which is confirmed by another Chinese émigré YouTuber, Li Muyang:
The question now remains, as to whether a similar fudging of US population data has been perpetrated by the US Census Bureau
My research indicates that the catastrophic population decline since 2019 is not true – that said, happy to keep the population statistics in China in UAQ other than I think Carlos and Ed are right about the demographic winter challenges.
Some months ago, I started following Lei’s Real Talk (https://www.youtube.com/@LeisRealTalk), to which Andrew also referred to. Lei, a Chinese immigrant in the US, shares her understanding Chinese politics, economy, and societal issues with cultural nuances and norms. While her analysis of the economy may not match what Carlos and Ed’s, I find her information on cultural trends, public sentiment, and power struggles within CCP invaluable. Xi family’s money-laundering schemes, rumors of ritualistic killing of a young actor, a major fire with ritualistic meanings, and emerging developments in organ harvesting operation in China were among some of the most shocking pieces of information on China for me last year. Highly recommend her channel.
Her background, as she explained on Danny Jones, does not quite align with what I observe of her and her narrative around organ harvesting is very similar in tone to that of the Epoch Times, the media arm of Falun Gong, a rival cult to CCP, whose trafficking scheme includes Shen Yun. It makes me wonder whether she is backed by the cult, but regardless, both Lei and the Epoch Times do a very good job of presenting an alternative perspective on goings-on in China.
I was working in China for 2 1/2 years, 2013-2015. As my wife and I traveled each week from our university to the center of the city I would count the number of tower cranes. 56 tower cranes in six miles. These buildings were going up next to buildings that were sitting empty. I told my wife, something is fishy. I’ve spent most of my life in construction. This doesn’t make sense. I began going to finished construction sites and speaking with people in the sales office. I started writing about the tiny part of the Chinese housing market that I could access. I interviewed teachers who bought or were interested in buying an apartment in these empty, unfinished buildings. It became clear to me that this was an artificially inflated building bubble. At the same time I was teaching a graduate class on “Language and Culture”. The 22-24 year old grad students would talk frankly about the pressure on the labor market and the housing market on top of the family expectations of caring for parents (who will move into the house you can’t afford. )For the guys, the burden was depressing. Get married, have a child, buy a house, find a job, take care of parents, etc. This list was growing. Many were just opting out. It’s not surprising to hear Ed and Carlos refer to the demographics that aren’t good for China’s growth. The graph on cement was brilliant! That’s actionable intelligence. Thanks Catherine!!
Thank you, to the three of you. This was mind blowing. I’ve just downloaded Carlos’s book. And Catherine, where else could we subscribers find content like this? No where I know of. I’m now feeling very informed and empowered.
Patricia:
It is a such a blessing to have subscribers who appreciate deep research into the primary trends. Lots of work went into these reports. Although I understood China’s real estate challenges and their demographics as well as their pension fund challenges, Carlos and Ed added many layers of depth that were very welcome. The tariff policies make even more sense.
Catherine
On Chinese youth “lying flat” 躺平 (tǎng píng) ; it’s been going on since 2021: https://sites.gatech.edu/china-cultural-odyssey/2025/04/12/laying-flat-%E8%BA%BA%E5%B9%B3/
(The above is one of the only decent descriptions in English I’ve found so far.)
Not sure about the contests of lying down from the tabloid Catherine mentioned, but the “movement” has been a legitimate and pragmatic reaction to living in Chinese society.
There’s so much mis- and dis-information coming out of China that a deep understanding of the culture is necessary to even begin to scratch the surface and parce out what is going on there. Knowing the Chinese language certainly also helps.
As another example, I previously sent a video of an alternative experience of China’s bullet trains that is much less ideal than the West may be aware of… yet those living in China are well-aware of it.
When Carlos assumes a similar path for China as for Japan in the 1990s (around 40 minutes into the interview), i am reminded of Richard Werner and his conclusion in “Princes of the Yen, that the Central Bank of Japan deliberately prolongued the crisis by austerity and then QE into non-productive sectors.
Therefore is it really a given, that China is bound to go down the same path? Is the way this will go really a purely structurally explainable process instead of a conscious effort by central planners?
And if it’s the latter, is the chinese monetary policy influenced by the same interests that influenced and probably still influence the Bank of Japan?
Wow this was an amazing deep dive into China. I could ask and say so many things, but I will just keep it (kind of) short.
First comment is that all GDP comparisons are relative. Its not only how an economy is doing by itself, but in relation to all others. Even a bad performing economy can be good if others are worse.
Second thing I will say that since about 2020 the productive forces that used to work in housing construction have been deployed to build and upgrade industrial capacity. I believe any and all capital intensive industries with evem a marginal competitive advantage have been affected. Think EVs, coal power, paper industry. This has likely been the biggest industrial boom since the industrial revolution.
It has been argued here that Japan understated its GDP by reducing consumption and increasing investment in industrial R&D and modern production. We talk about 30 lost years in Japan but how is it that Japanese industry is still strong?
https://www.fingleton.net/inthejawsofthedragon/
So to sum it up. In terms of physical stuff, US is a consumer and China is a producer. This dynamic has not changed since 2016; in fact if China EVs could be sold in US and Europe, the entire auto US and EU industry would go close to bankrupt. Just one example – go down the line of antidumping duties and those China industries would put pressure on all local manufacturers. And while the developed markets are closed off, China is now taking the developing world market share away from others.
My main question is – take two economies growing 5%. One has 1% consumption and 3% production and investment; the other has 3% consumption and 1% production and investment. Which one will be better off – from a 30000 ft policy level – in 10 or 20 years? Even in this demographic sunset period – someone has to dig the dirt and pour the concrete. Would you rather be doing heavy industrial construction in your 50s or light mechanical maintenance on an already built factory?
I would guess that even though all of the topics covered here are real trends, China has positioned itself well to be a future industrial leader for many years to come. Even AI in manufacturing has the best proving ground in China simply because the factories are actually already there.
From US side, all the MAGA talk in implementation has been trade barriers and geopolitical rebalancing. I have seen a lot of data centers being put up, but I have not seen some huge boom in industrial capacity stateside. There are changes but they will take decades. You need to train an entire generation in math and hard science (civil, mechanical engineering etc) before it used to be finance and computers. And in the end someone will have to pick up a shovel.
My ultimate guess is that politicans are aware of this and have decided that consumption will also have to be reduced in the Western world.
Excellent points ]My assessment is that the Western leadership believes that technology can add so much productivity that a small % of the population who is productive can maintain the lead if funded by offsets from significant depopulation of the unproductive.
According to Lei’s Talk
https://forbiddenknowledgetv.net/leis-real-talk-chinas-population-is-somewhere-between-300-and-400-million/
the population of China is nowhere near the 1.4 billion claimed.
Lei refers to a 2018 Russian study that estimated China’s population at the time was probably between 500 million and 800 million. This was based on China’s 1945 recorded population being 490 million, prior to the CCP’s implementation of the Great Leap Forward, which resulted in the Great Chinese Famine and the subsequent Cultural Revolution, causing tens of millions of deaths (~60 million), followed by decades of the One Child Policy.
Lei states Russian experts determined that it was impossible that China’s population ever surged to 1.4 billion, saying:
“Other Russian experts added-up the publicly-available urban population of every Chinese city and county and got only 280 million people and based on the traditional urbal-rural population ratio of 1-to-1, they estimated China’s actual population being around 560 million.”
According to Lei’s own reckoning, which includes data since 2012 of ~400 million fraudulent Chinese households and university enrollments being removed from government databases, that prior to COVID, China’s population was between 695 million to 890 million.
By Lei’s estimates, since 2019, China has sustained a catastrophic population decline of between 400 and 500 million, which is how she arrives at her estimation that China’s current population is between 300-400 million, which is confirmed by another Chinese émigré YouTuber, Li Muyang:
The question now remains, as to whether a similar fudging of US population data has been perpetrated by the US Census Bureau
My research indicates that the catastrophic population decline since 2019 is not true – that said, happy to keep the population statistics in China in UAQ other than I think Carlos and Ed are right about the demographic winter challenges.
Some months ago, I started following Lei’s Real Talk (https://www.youtube.com/@LeisRealTalk), to which Andrew also referred to. Lei, a Chinese immigrant in the US, shares her understanding Chinese politics, economy, and societal issues with cultural nuances and norms. While her analysis of the economy may not match what Carlos and Ed’s, I find her information on cultural trends, public sentiment, and power struggles within CCP invaluable. Xi family’s money-laundering schemes, rumors of ritualistic killing of a young actor, a major fire with ritualistic meanings, and emerging developments in organ harvesting operation in China were among some of the most shocking pieces of information on China for me last year. Highly recommend her channel.
Her background, as she explained on Danny Jones, does not quite align with what I observe of her and her narrative around organ harvesting is very similar in tone to that of the Epoch Times, the media arm of Falun Gong, a rival cult to CCP, whose trafficking scheme includes Shen Yun. It makes me wonder whether she is backed by the cult, but regardless, both Lei and the Epoch Times do a very good job of presenting an alternative perspective on goings-on in China.
I was working in China for 2 1/2 years, 2013-2015. As my wife and I traveled each week from our university to the center of the city I would count the number of tower cranes. 56 tower cranes in six miles. These buildings were going up next to buildings that were sitting empty. I told my wife, something is fishy. I’ve spent most of my life in construction. This doesn’t make sense. I began going to finished construction sites and speaking with people in the sales office. I started writing about the tiny part of the Chinese housing market that I could access. I interviewed teachers who bought or were interested in buying an apartment in these empty, unfinished buildings. It became clear to me that this was an artificially inflated building bubble. At the same time I was teaching a graduate class on “Language and Culture”. The 22-24 year old grad students would talk frankly about the pressure on the labor market and the housing market on top of the family expectations of caring for parents (who will move into the house you can’t afford. )For the guys, the burden was depressing. Get married, have a child, buy a house, find a job, take care of parents, etc. This list was growing. Many were just opting out. It’s not surprising to hear Ed and Carlos refer to the demographics that aren’t good for China’s growth. The graph on cement was brilliant! That’s actionable intelligence. Thanks Catherine!!