huangthomas

Three Beneficiaries of China's Healthcare Reform

One of the main goal of Chinese health care reform is to cut down over prescription of medicine in China. The main source of income in clinics and hospitals is the profit from selling excessive quantity of drugs to patients. If reform is successful, sell of drugs will drop precipitously. I emphasize again that universal health insurance is not even mentioned in the reform.

Three Beneficiaries of China's Healthcare Reform

Have you read the Chinese government report on "Health Care Reform"?

Healthcare Reform, China Style

China's health care reform is to reform the structure of the medical care systems which are in shamble. Currently, the health insurance of civil servants, CCP members and employees of enterprises are covered by health insurance. Rural residents, so called "farmers", are not covered. The current reform proposals suggest farmers to organize into cooperatives for health insurance purpose.

There is no increase in government spending for the health care reform. The central government subsidizes the current systems to the tune of $120 billions a year. The reform does change the ways money is spent, without increase in funding by the central government. There is no national health insurance proposed in the reform, although most Chinese wish they have one like in Germany, other European countries and Canada, a single payer system run by the government.

There is one interesting feature in Chinese health "insurance". The employers set a limit on their liability to pay for the health care. For example, they refuse to pay if the expense goes over 3 to 5 times of employees' annual salaries. It means patients are doomed if they have cancers or other cardiovasular illness require surgery.

Much of the thinking in the article is based on false assumptions and imagination.

Ramping Up China's Domestic Consumption: What's Taking So Long?

There are three legs to the Asian development model. The first two are well known: export and saving. The third leg is rarely mentioned, which is to subsidize export by the domestic consumption. The same export items are sold at a higher price in the domestic market than in the foreign market. Even if they are sold at the same price abroad base on the artificial official foreign currency exchange rate, they are more expensive for Chinese domestic market if we take into consideration of the purchasing power parity (PPP). For China the PPP is 3.5 based on the data from the World Bank. If an item is sold in China at the same price as in the US based on the official exchange rate, it is 3.5 time more expensive for Chinese consumers.

Ramping Up China's Domestic Consumption: What's Taking So Long?

This is not an intelligent article. Do you spend more money because of the wealth of Bill Gate or Warren Buffet? Would Chinese spend more because of their GDP is ranked the third in the world or foreign exchange reserve is No. 1? You don't spend national GDP or forein currency reserve. They are just the number on the paper. The average annual per capita GDP is $2,000.00 for Chinese, instead of $46,000.00 for American. How much spending power Chinese have when retirement income, health care, and education are not properly provided?

China Stockpiles TIPS, Anticipates Commodities Bubble

In 70's, the house cost was replaced by rent or rent equivalent of your own house in calculating cost of housing. During the last housing bubble, house price rose and the rent fell because renters were buying into the bubble. If you don't like the inflation figures you don't like, you can always manipulate the way it is calculated.

Most people feel that the government's inflation figure of 3% is too low. We can feel the price increases close to 8%. The government argue that 5% are due to "quality improvement" of goods and services and not due to inflation. Ha! what a "quality improvement" of our daily living.

China Stockpiles TIPS, Anticipates Commodities Bubble

China didn't raise any questions regarding investment in treasuries until US started "quantitative easing" (printing money). This is a prelude to inflation. China intends to protect their future investment in treasuries against inflation and ask for inflation-protected treasuries. It is so simple. I must admit I can't stand to finish reading the post. Make it simple, s.........

Miraculous Recovery of Chinese Migrant Labor Market

Correction: average farmer plow 0.4 acre of land, 2 mu in Chinese land unit.

Miraculous Recovery of Chinese Migrant Labor Market

The average Chinese farmers plow 0.2 acre of land. The American homestead unit of land is 120 acres. Almost all farmers require additional works to escape poverty and there are 800 million of them. They are referred to as "farmer workers" in Chinese. Migrant workers are those who have to travel thousands of miles to the coastal cities to work and can only return home 2-3 times a year. You can play with the statistics and say they may lose their job in the cities, there are 20 to 25 million of them, but they can go back to farming at home. Then they will be condemned to eternal poverty. There are 100 million poor people in rural China.

Can China Manufacturers Make the Transition from Products to Services?

Talk is cheap. I like to see what has been accomplished. Set up Shanghai to compete with Hong Kong without a trustworthy, reliable judicial system? That is only a pipe dream.

Can China Manufacturers Make the Transition from Products to Services?

but don't tell you that he works two shifts a day and 7 days a week without paid vacation (except national holidays) or sick leave. You can figure out the hourly wages! Sorry I have some difficulty with this computer.

Can China Manufacturers Make the Transition from Products to Services?

Imagine China becomes a service-driven society: you cut my hair, I clip your nail......You wash my cloth, I map your floor... China needs to export manufactured goods to accumulate wealth. The wage is much lower than you think. A migrant worker can tell you he makes $150 a month.

Chinese Economy May Be Heading into an Iceberg

The Chinese stock exchanges started in 1991 by Deng Xiaoping. The market is young and Chinese investors are inexperienced. They "invest" as though they are gambling.

Marc Faber: China's Economic Numbers Are Fake

Their solution is to borrow directly from large state-owned banks. China has been doing it for years. Just look at the bank lending!


On Jul 31 08:08 AM doubleguns wrote:

> Let us not forget they have had continuing failed bond sales recently
> which should be a great predictor of things to come.

Is China Really Warning Banks About Asset Bubbles?

This is someone who does not really understand how financial system in China works. Four trillion yuan of stimulus package is financed by central government (30%) and local government (70%). The local government has limited authority to issue bonds to finance the projects. They borrow from the state-owned banks to finance the projects. The bulk of Four to five trillion yuan bank lending in March were for the stimulus package. There is no denial that part of the lending has been misused and siphoned to the stock market, but we should not lose sight to the fact that Chinese economy requires stimulus. Premier Wen Jiabao said if the first stimulus is insufficient we'll have second, third......... The bank lending is a form of monetary easing policy in China. I agree that the danger of asset inflation in the future is real. The danger is mainly in the stocks.