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Wed, 17 Jan 2024 01:18:07 -0800
Wily from private IP
/all
AMA China
The overall economy is moderately to mostly screwed here depending on how the next 2-3 years play out with whether Xi will be forced to be pro-business again
and China-US tensions. Deflation is real, though manufacturing and exports are still doing OK for now. Housing market is in a slow-motion bubble burst with no
way out until real estate prices take a 50% haircut, no matter how the Party spins it here.
The Chinese birth rate is completely shot. Like last year there were half as many births as 6 years ago. I had a Child last year and the Shanghai government
just gave me wife $9000 for No Reason just for having a baby. Had a stay-at-home nanny for 5 months and it's so easy to hire them now because there's no kids.
The maternity center where I take my kid for infant swimming is closing in May because No Kids.
Shanghai lockdowns pissed the shit out of this city. I have many stories about the lockdown and locking people up in the boxes / mass quarantine sites. Mass
protests last year were worse than Western media reported - half the French Concession was shut down for days, and cops were looking for Telegram on people's
phones in the subway.
For me, luckily my business has been counter-cyclical so far - the worst the lockdowns and anti-US sentiment is, the less competitors we have and the more rich
families want their kids out. There's still tremendous concentrated wealth here. I basically set our prices at more expensive than anyone else in Shanghai and
we get more business, not less, whenever we do that. At the same time, I'm looking to partially reshore to the US next year and build up our tech products.
AMA for an inside scoop on China. Let's hope Andy's encryption holds up haha.
Wed, 17 Jan 2024 06:52:16 -0800
Andy from private IP
/all
Haha, the Great Firewall has no block on my sites yet. Which means I can work from China if I so desire...bastion of freedom, lol. I once criticized the
Chinese Communist Party 20 years ago on my personal website, but that's the only black mark on my record in China so far.
What does the low birthrate mean for everyday life? Do you see any baby strollers on the street? What is going to happen if they have a fertility collapse?
Wed, 17 Jan 2024 07:04:36 -0800
Wily from private IP
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What I mean by encryption is preventing others from knowing who I am. But honestly I'm always behind a few proxies, as are basically 100% of expats here, so my
main concern is that JDU long-termers basically all know who I am (I self-doxxed basically a decade ago).
So it's not like there's no babies - I live in an foreigner-heavy, pretty bougie area of Shanghai with a few international schools nearby, so there's still
plenty of families with young kids. But not a lot of
Wed, 17 Jan 2024 07:05:15 -0800
Wily from private IP
/all
So it's not like there's no babies - I live in an foreigner-heavy, pretty bougie area of Shanghai with a few international schools nearby, so there's still
plenty of families with young kids. But not a lot of under 2 year olds - the peak birth year of late was 2016 after One Child Policy lifted, so there's plenty
of 7 year olds around. Shanghai was locked down hard for 2 months in 2022. I lived through it drinking on our rooftop with my building's neighbors and being
an official Covid Volunteer just get some exercise and ignore all the rules, but a lot of people got hit hard in the pocketbook and probably delayed plans for
having families. Plus the prime generation for having kids is small to start with.
So the effects are cheaper nannies (I had 2 for a while, 1 live-in and 1 hourly, but I'm just down to the hourly), but in a few years it'll probably mean a lot
nursery schools and kindergartens are gonna close, and then private schools will have problems holding up, etc. It'lla ripple all the way up. And it probably
means the giant real estate bubble will continue to deflate without hope, since no one is going to invest in extra apartments with smaller generations coming
up.
Wed, 17 Jan 2024 07:09:59 -0800
Andy from private IP
/all
No problem, the only thing I retain (have to for compliance purposes) is the username, email, and IP address that the registration came from. No one can doxx
you because no one has access to those files, which was the intention behind making this site semi-anonymous. I think you're safe from the CCP as long as you
don't start posting Taiwan-related content (lol).
Wed, 17 Jan 2024 12:19:12 -0800
cowgod from private IP
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But if you retain all that then posters here are easily outable if you wish.
Wed, 17 Jan 2024 12:27:06 -0800
Andy from private IP
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It's the same with any message board. If people want to be anonymous, they can use the anonymous posting feature but then their IP addresses will be recorded.
Registered users have their IP's concealed. It seems like a reasonable trade-off.
Wed, 17 Jan 2024 18:00:25 -0800
zerosugar from private IP
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Do you think year of the dragon could bring a baby boom?
Wed, 17 Jan 2024 19:26:23 -0800
Wily from private IP
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No way. Birth rate is gonna go down just based on how many people are like age 22-35, which is smaller and smaller each year that passes. Also, most people in
cities don't have the hope they had a few years ago in the system and long term progress, which is always a dampener on birth rates.
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