Now With 40% More Power

WHEN PEOPLE BACK HOME ASK WHAT I'M DOING IN CHINA

Sat, 22 Sep 2012 22:20:33 -0400

No-Joke Misanthrope: Violent enforcement of property

Sun, 27 Nov 2011 18:18:52 -0500

No-Joke Misanthrope: Violent enforcement of property:

Yes ownership is intersubjective, including the notion of “self ownership”, and private property even in the absence of a state is violently enforced.

So we have a state which claims hundreds of thousands of square miles, proclaims the law, and enforces it violently on mostly untouched land. This…

Whose Economy is Probably Fake?

Sun, 30 Oct 2011 19:22:00 -0400

Finance, Insurance, Real Estate, Government, Education (Gov’t), Healthcare (Gov’t), Credit-Financed Retail Consumption, and Professional Services to Make It Less Expensive for the Rest of the Sodomy Economy to Continue. Yeah, keep worrying about China’s fake economy. You’re not projecting at all.

thispairofpearsofdespair: http://ksabrs45.tumblr.com This guy appears to be a psycho but sometimes...

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 07:12:28 -0400

thispairofpearsofdespair:

http://ksabrs45.tumblr.com

This guy appears to be a psycho but sometimes logical. I can’t stop reading the posts. He seems completely trapped in his own little world.

EvulCapitulist: Why Learning Mandarin is a Waste of Time

Sat, 13 Aug 2011 09:58:21 -0400

EvulCapitulist: Why Learning Mandarin is a Waste of Time:

evulcapitulist:

The new chic, cosmopolitan thing is apparently to learn-or attempt to learn-Mandarin Chinese as a second language. This is because, as we’ve all been told repeatedly, China is going to replace the US as the great world economic power, and therefore the business language of the future is Chinese,…

One Mans Journey: Identity theory.

Thu, 07 Jul 2011 03:56:49 -0400

One Mans Journey: Identity theory.:

dittotl:

I asked the question tonight as i laid in a despaired tumult about cover letters and resumes “who am I”??? while basking in the cold silence of a midnight covered in tears. I exclaimed my doubt, “am I a man that can do this”? I’m a child of intense physical and psychological abuse a mind ravaged…

Comparing Salaries and Costs of Living I hear in Japan you start at $2500. Most people save about...

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 04:11:00 -0400

Comparing Salaries and Costs of Living

I hear in Japan you start at $2500. Most people save about $1000 a month and spend $1500.

In Korea it seems you start at $2000. Most people save about $1000 a month and spend the rest.

In China, you start at about $1000 a month. I save about $700 and spend the other $300. (I know how to use TaoBao, I have a “free” apartment, subsidized utilities, and I can speak Chinese - these things lower my cost relative to other expats).

In order to compare apples to apples - lets assume if you speak Korean or Japanese respectively - your savings will increase by 15%.

This means that in one month..

In Japan you save:$1150

In Korea you save : $1150

In China, I save: $700.

Lets make it a function of the cost of living now - to get a better idea about how far that money goes in each economy.

Where:

Savings/Monthly Expediture = How Many Months of Living Each Month of Savings Affords you

Japan: $1150/$1350 = .85 months of living per month of savings

Korea: $1150/$850 = 1.35 months of living per month of savings

China: $700/300 = 2.33 months of living per month of savings.

Obviously, if you need to service student loans or send money to the US, Japan and Korea are the way to go. If you want to stay somewhere long term - you’ll actually have more purchasing power by living in China - because the cost of everything is still dirt cheap by international standards.

For purely financial reasons, I wouldn’t recommend the tier-one cities for a first job because you’ll only make like $1200 without previous experience and qualifications - but its enough to get by. The benefits of being somewhere like I am, for a first job, can’t be had by all because of the psychological costs of isolation.

Bring on the revaluation….

The Best Blogs on China

Sat, 25 Jun 2011 18:48:00 -0400

These are the blogs I’ve read extensively and like the most. While I don’t agree with everything contained therein - or think that every insight is totally accurate - there is still a lot of value here.

http://middlekingdomlife.com/guide/

They’re the king of China blogs. Invaluable information.

http://www.thechinaexpat.com/

I discovered this one recently. He’s been in China for over three years I think - He’s economically literate so if you like my economic perspectives on China - you’ll be at home here.

http://chinahopelive.net/

Tons and tons of blog entries on lots of issues! My favorite was probably the entry about the lack of a “Good Samaritan” ethic among the Chinese.

http://www.chinarchy.com/

These are some of my friends in BJ. This is actually a network of content now - so there is - and will continue to be - a lot of great stuff here. I guess to sum this up - its a lot of children’s advocacy mixed with a rational and empirical approach to analyzing modern China.

My videos are now part of the “Chinarchy” network of content.

http://www.chinasmack.com/

If you want real stories from the Chinese blogosphere - this is where you go. You get to see insane things that are actually happening in China and read comments from Chinese people translated into English.

Example of How China Has a Freer Market than the US

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 06:08:00 -0400

So you want to send something from FL to PA. What are your options? Basically you have four options: UPS, FedEx, DHL (a more recent development) and the USPS.

UPS and FedEx have remarkably similar prices - most people go with USPS for Ebay and Amazon sales if possible and if the value isn’t exceptionally high. Otherwise, you’re going to pay $10+~ to move the damn thing - just for the privilege of having a tracking number.

Not so in China. So I buy something online or want to send something to Beijing. What are my options? I have identified the following express services as servicing my immediate area:

中通 (ZhongTong)，申通 (ShenTong)，顺风 (ShunFeng)，圆通 (YuanTong)，韵达 (YunDa)- and of course China Post (EMS). A quick google search will reveal an additional 10 or so Chinese express delivery companies - that - more or less - have nationwide delivery.

China has a less regulated express delivery sector than the US. I pay 15 yuan to send a package to Beijing ($2.30) and it seems to cap out at 20 yuan for locations as far as ShenZhen - and I get a reliable tracking number! For Beijing, it arrives two days later - they even operate on Saturday and Sunday - Yes. You can send and receive a package on Sunday afternoon. Judeo-Christian cultural vestige fail.

Bottom Line: Less Regulation, More Competition, Lower Prices, Better Service.

I make about $15 an hour. $2.30 is very little compared to my wage. Lets compare it to the US.

Were I fortunate enough to not be unemployed, I might make $10 an hour as a bank teller (a job I might be considered qualified for because of my Finance degree). Now, I want to send a 1lb package to PA from FL because my good friend Daniel Martin lives up there now. How much does it cost?

UPS will take it via 3 Day UPS Ground for $9-10. Lets assume FedEx and DHL are similar because they operate in a virtual oligopoly.

So, in the US I pay one hour of labor to ship a package from FL to PA. I worked one hour today just to send him a 1lb package.

In China I pay 12 minutes of labor to ship a package from where I am to ShenZhen. Math:

20 Yuan Shipping Fee

$15 an hour = salary wage (100 RMB/hour of work)

$15 USD * 6.48 (RMB/USD) = 100 RMB(Yuan)

20 RMB (shipping fee)/100RMB (wage/hour) = .20- or one fifth of an hour’s work

.20 * 60 minutes = 12 minutes of work

So, that’s it. This is an example of how living over here benefits me and why there is NO reason to go back. Why? To live in poverty and underemployment? To pay $4 a gallon for gasoline?

Americans don’t realize it yet but they’re next in line for the great tradition of scrambling at the last minute to find a new country to immigrate to. Ideas of American exceptionalism give most people comfort from this harsh precedent and so they consider the future of the nation and indeed themselves to be exempt from the lessons of history – but I suspect that many are going to find out the hard way that there is nothing inherently exceptional about the US. I suspect that within the next decades Americans will be desperate to emigrate to countries like China and Korea.

And its not unrelated to the cartelization of the express delivery and logistics industries.

I hopes this adds value to my general effort to explain the China story.

How the Chinese Count Dates

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:52:08 -0400

I’ll never forget the day I realized that the Chinese count days by assuming that today is day 1. Examples follow:

I want to buy a train ticket for June 10. I know that I can buy a train ticket “5 days” in advance. So, I go to the train ticket office on June 5th.

June 5th - 5 Days in Advance

June 6th - 4 Days in Advance

June 7th - 3 Days in Advance

June 8th - 2 Days in Advance

June 9th - 1 Day in Advance

June 10th - 0 Days in Advance

But when I arrive at the ticket office the agent says - “No, you can’t buy those today. You can only buy them 5 days in advance! Come back tomorrow.”

…..

This is how they calculate it apparently.

June 6th - 5 Days in Advance

June 7th - 4 Days in Advance

June 8th - 3 Days in Advance

June 9th - 2 Day in Advance

June 10th - 1 Day in Advance

…..

Any other China people care to clarify or correct me?

fructoric: Adaptations to China

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 07:38:33 -0500

fructoric: Adaptations to China:

fructoric:

I have now been in China almost 50 weeks. Here are some things I have got used to doing in the last year:

— Sleeping on a bed about as soft as a wood floor.

— …without a cotton sheet set. Mainly just some blankets.

— Having cold water at low pressure most of the time.

— Having occasional water…

The economy of the place that I live as described by Wikipedia

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 07:28:00 -0500

More than forty different mineral resources have been discovered in the Huludao region, including gold, zinc, molybdenum, lime and manganese. Just west of the city center, the town of Yangjiazhangzi is an important global center for molybdenum mining.^[7] Huludao boasts a long coastline of 237 kilometers, and the surrounding waters are rich in fish, shrimp and shellfish, with plentiful reserves of natural gas and oil. With a climate suitable for the cultivation of fruit trees, Suizhong county is home to the Qiansuo orchard, Asia’s largest, which grows a wide variety of fruits including apples, pears, nectarines and jujubes.

Huludao’s economy is dominated by some of China’s most important industrial enterprises, providing employment for a large proportion of the population. These include Asia’s biggest zinc manufacturing operation, the Huludao Zinc Smelter, the Jinxi oil refinery and Jinhua chemical engineering, as well as Huludao’s massive shipyard, the building site of China’s nuclear submarines. The oilfield off the coast of Suizhong county produces five million tons of crude oil annually. Electricity generation is set to increase annual capacity to 3.6 million kilowatts.^[8]

Within the city itself are special development areas designed to attract foreign investment to the region, including the Huludao Economic Development Zone and the Huludao Hi-tech Development zone, which is the location for a Siemens turbomachinery plant.

fructoric: China Thin

Fri, 17 Dec 2010 17:26:10 -0500

fructoric: China Thin:

fructoric:

I have never encountered such a direct and obvious obsession with being thin as that which I have seen here in China over the last 9 months.

My brother has had some insightful things to say about it, such as:

partial attribution of the obsession to what we are not calling “the acculturation of…

Of all the fantastic metal cover albums this one has stuck with...

Thu, 09 Dec 2010 05:03:39 -0500

Of all the fantastic metal cover albums this one has stuck with me the longest. Does that make me a repressed homosexual or a male chauvinist? I don’t think it can be both.