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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">I read US "headlines" that Beijing is
doing this and <br>
Beijing is doing that and Beijing is plotting this or that.<br>
Psalm 2 in capital letters.<br>
<br>
Expressing Chinese GDP in US dollars can be rather misleading.<br>
<br>
In the late 1990s the black market exchange rate <br>
(and hence the true exchange rate was 10 RMB for one us dollar)<br>
<br>
However, for the purposes of daily living, One RMB could buy as<br>
much of the stuff you need to live in China as One us dollar could
<br>
buy if you lived in the USA. That means that the correction
factor was 100.<br>
<br>
In 1998 I got a haircut in Qi county for $0.08 (8 cents) including<br>
getting my hair washed before and after. Now you<br>
may say it is a function of my sparse natural tonsure<br>
but I assure you friends I was charged a complete price. No
finders fee<br>
for the haircut.<br>
<br>
It is impossible to compare the similar but much poorer service in
Urbana<br>
and who is scalping who.<br>
<br>
There are also gradients of money value across China.<br>
Beijing is a very expensive place to live as compared with<br>
some more remote yet modern regions. For the daily life,<br>
(food, clothing, etc.)<br>
it probably is fair to say that the prices in Beijing are <br>
twice to three times the prices in Qi County.<br>
<br>
In the early '90s Forrest Gump said "People in China ain't got
nuthin'".<br>
At that time it is relatively true and one could say that relative
to the <br>
stagnation of the USA an economic miracle has occurred in China.<br>
<br>
If you really want to know something about China, Bill Holm's
"Coming Home Crazy"<br>
is still a decent read and insightful.<br>
<br>
Modernisation has a fractal boundary at the interface between old
and new.<br>
It is not a crisp Euclidean wavefront. At all.<br>
<br>
<br>
David Green via Peace-discuss wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAOiGAyFmSxWtbb2ZSeFByjCsnvHv_Z2rtpkdca9+MZbPy+RRdg@mail.gmail.com">
<pre wrap="">It's important to note that according to one credible data set, China in
1969 had a per capita GDP (in 2010 dollars) of $193, almost the lowest in
the world, except for Cambodia, Mozambique, and Djibouti (the latter $17
!!). By 2014, their per capita GDP (again 2010 dollars) was $6,000, a
multiple of about 30 (that is, doubling almost 5 times) over 45 years.
Nothing else like it, obviously in terms of rapid development, although S.
Korea & Taiwan grew by multiples of 10 to over $20,000. I assume that the
cultural revolution had something to do with the low baseline in 1969,
nevertheless...
DG
On Sun, Jul 15, 2018 at 7:08 PM Brussel, Morton K via Peace-discuss <
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net">peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net</a>> wrote:
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<pre wrap="">
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.peoplesworld.org/article/china-opens-to-world-as-trump-erects-protectionist-walls/">http://www.peoplesworld.org/article/china-opens-to-world-as-trump-erects-protectionist-walls/</a>
Over-optimistic? Yet impressive in its comprehensiveness.
—mkb
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