The Way To Enlightenment
The New Zealand Herald. “It is hard to know what I am more excited about this week, our dollar or our houses. Records all over the place. Barfoot & Thompson, who sell the bulk of Auckland’s homes, saw an average price of 776 grand. And in one of those lines with an appropriate amount of flourish, they said that ‘never had there been a March to compare’ to the month just past. I, like so many, am obsessed with housing, but unlike so many I have loved every bit of it. With the possible exception that young people are being locked out.”
“What the house prices represent is not dissimilar to what the dollar represents: success. People want what you’ve got, they want the houses because they have decided to live here, or they feel confident enough to borrow more money because their jobs are going well and they want a bigger or better place, or they want a second home. The dollar is on a roll, housing is on a roll, we’re on a roll. These are golden days.”
The Cambridge News in the UK. “Hundreds of new homes in Cambridge could be standing empty having been snapped-up by foreign investors, it is feared. An investigation by the News has found so-called ‘buy-to-leave’ investments could be rife in Trumpington, which has seen unprecedented housing growth in recent years. Just under 1,700 new homes were completed in the ward in the south of the city between 2008 and 2014. But numbers on the electoral roll have only risen by around 900 over the same time period.”
“But an overseas investor considering buying property in Cambridge insisted he is not doing it just to make a quick buck. The investor, who asked not to be named, is a global traveller with work and remains a frequent visitor to the city. He hopes his children will study in Cambridge one day. He added: ‘Walking down the alleys in Cambridge, I feel like I’m travelling back in the past. Many of my international friends, they feel that Cambridge has something very unique and they rate it the best city in the world, even though they travel a lot.’”
Business Vancouver in Canada. “From Albertan black gold to globetrotting wealth to lucky heirs, big money is flocking to Vancouver real estate and fuelling huge price increases that show no sign of stopping, according to Ross McCredie, the CEO of Sotheby’s Canada. The high-end real estate markets in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal are all ‘heavily influenced’ by international buyers, according to the report. Buyers from China dominate in Vancouver, from China, Russia and the Middle East in Toronto, and from the Middle East, China, Europe (especially France) in Montreal.”
“While some observers have called for policy makers to take a look at reigning in foreign investment through higher taxes or restrictions, McCredie balked at that suggestion. ‘If the government came out and prevented foreign buyers from buying real estate, it would have a huge impact in our market,’ he said. ‘And you would see a correction.’”
The South China Morning Post. “New developments in the Quebec Immigrant Investor Programme (QIIP) - long one of the world’s most popular wealth migration vehicles - suggest rich Chinese are deserting the scheme which has brought thousands of mainland millionaires to Canada, most of whom end up to living instead in faraway Vancouver via an immigration loophole. This was despite the application window having been repeatedly extended and pushed back three times, before ultimately closing on March 20 this year. Initially slated to open only for 12 days last September, the traditional annual rush of Chinese millionaires who have dominated the scheme never happened, the source said. That was even after the application window was widened to two months.”
“Quebec runs an independent immigration policy. For years, the QIIP was run in parallel to the federal IIP. Both schemes most recently required applicants worth a minimum of C$1.6 million to loan the respective governments C$800,000 for five years, in return for permanent residency visas. The federal IIP was shut down last year, but the lucrative QIIP continues. The QIIP is of major significance for the distant west coast city of Vancouver. Housing affordability in Vancouver is now the second worst in the world, behind Hong Kong, with the average detached house price now C$1.4 million. ”
“Maxime Lapointe, head of the legal department for Hong Kong-based immigration consultants Yelo Consulting, said three Quebec-based financing companies - which earn their cut from the industry by loaning immigrants their C$800,000 ‘investment’ - had approached him to ask if he could refer them to any non-Chinese clients to fill their quotas issued by the Quebec government, since the Chinese market had apparently dried up. ‘Quebec is now not so competitive,’ compared to other popular schemes, such as the EB-5 or Portugal’s ‘golden visa,’ he said. ‘Maybe Quebec has forgotten that there is now a global competition for immigration.’”
The Beijing Review on China. “Zhou Jun is the manager of a Home Link outlet, a ubiquitous real estate agency in Beijing. Recently, Zhou has sensed a new round of intense changes coming, as regulators have loosened housing market policies to stabilize the sagging sector. The housing market has been sluggish since March 2014 following the price surge from 2012 to 2014. ‘The demand is there–you just have to make it cheaper and easier for them to buy,’ Zhou said.”
“Out of 70 major cities surveyed by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), 66 reported a drop in new home prices in February from the previous month. The total floor space of new residential housing projects sold declined 17.8 percent year on year during the January-February period while sales slumped by 16.7 percent, according to the NBS. Sluggish sales and falling prices are partly because of China’s enormous housing inventory. Due to the housing price surge in previous years, real estate developers rushed to build housing projects.”
“According to the NBS, there had been 622 million square meters of unsold homes as of the end of 2014, an equivalent of over 6 million homes if each home is 100 square meters. ‘Generally speaking, China’s housing market still has a large inventory to digest,’ said Zhu Min, Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).”
News Corp Australia. “This is the eighth free property seminar I’ve attended in Perth over the past three months. The products and promotions vary, but everyone promises the same thing — to change my life. For hours, and in some cases days, the hosts work the crowds into frenzies. They’re not salespeople — they’re ‘educators,’ or even ‘philanthropists,’ who have made their fortunes through property investment. And now they want to teach me the way to enlightenment.”
“Some groups are selling education courses that cost tens of thousands of dollars. At one of the seminars on February 28, popular ‘guru’ Dymphna Boholt tried to sell the crowd a $10,000 program she said was actually worth ‘more than $39,000 of value.’ The discount only applied if you signed up on the day. ‘You’re not taking a chance on me, I’m taking a chance on you,’ she told us. Ms Boholt told a crowd of more than 300 that if we didn’t have the financing for an investment property we were ‘just making excuses.’ The self-proclaimed property millionaire said those who don’t invest are bound to lives of ‘mediocrity.’”
“When father-of-three Karl Friehe attended a seminar in 2012 he wasn’t dreaming of becoming a millionaire — just providing for his kids. A construction worker with a big mortgage, he was sceptical about whether he could afford the $300,000 off-the-plan apartment recommended to him. He claimed ParkTrent’s consultants told him to focus on finding a $30,000 deposit and worry about the rest of the financing 12 months down the track.”
“Mr Friehe said the cost of the property, which was purchased through the equity in his home in Byford, left him scraping the barrel for money each week. ‘I was promised rental guarantee, but every month ParkTrent would deliver the rent late. We ended up falling behind in our own mortgage. There were times I was scared we would lose our home,’ he said. He sold the property this year. He estimated he lost ‘about $30,000′ through the venture.”
“A Canberra couple I talked to in March, Suzie and Peter Engstrom, said they struggled for nine years with their ParkTrent property before selling it at a loss of $70,000. ‘We didn’t have the income to sustain it,’ Ms Engstrom said. ‘But we were fed the idea that we needed to invest to survive the future.’”
“In Dianella, pensioner Michael Downer and his wife Kaye are waiting to find out whether they’ll lose the home they’ve lived in for more than 10 years. Their spruiker nightmare didn’t start with a seminar, but a knock at the door from yet another property investment company. They were swept away by glossy catalogues displaying house-and-land packages in Queensland and ended up purchasing a home for $489,000. The doorknockers pitched it to them as a low-risk investment in an area with high rental demand that would set them up for retirement.”
“Three years down the track the property has an estimated value of $345,000 and they are struggling to keep a tenant. The remaining debt on their 30-year interest-only loan still sits at $489,000. Their original loan application form is riddled with errors. Ms Downer’s income was inflated from $12,994 to $28,550. Mr Downer’s income had been raised from $62,751 to $93,500. The document showed valuations conducted by the bank at the time put the value of the property at $64,000 less than the purchase price.”
“‘If they had shared the valuation with us, there’s no way we would have ever gone ahead with it. Looking at the document it’s obvious that the loan was always going to implode,’ Mr Downer said. Legally they are also arguing the bank broke their code of practice in administering the loan. ‘We’ve been customers with them for more than 20 years, they knew our incomes, it was obvious to them we could not afford it. Yet not once did the word risk come up,’ Ms Downer said. ‘We were foolish.’”
‘Ross Garnaut is well connected in China owing to his three year stint as Australia’s Ambassador from 1985-88. Writing in today’s Financial Review, Garnaut’s predictions make chilling reading for any iron ore producer:
“Australia’s resources boom was a China boom. From 2007 to 2014, China accounted for more than the whole of the global increase in steel production. Chinese production rose from 489 million to 823 million tonnes. The rest of the world’s production fell from 855 million to 839 million tonnes. Chinese production will fall this year.”
“My Chinese friends from the 1980s include the technical and business leaders who in the past two decades guided the building in China of almost as much steel-making capacity as had accumulated in the rest of the world in the whole of industrial history. My old friends say that Chinese production should fall from a bit above 800 million tonnes today to about 600 million tonnes in 2030.”
“As Chinese economic growth matures, recycling of scrap becomes more important. Not for the foreseeable future in the proportions of the old industrial countries, but enough to lift steel production from scrap from 100 million tonnes a year in the recent past to several hundred million tonnes by 2030. So demand for the blast-furnace raw materials, iron ore and coking coal, will fall more rapidly than total steel production.”
This isn’t Garnaut, but the article writer:
‘In case there is any confusion, let me spell this out succinctly: Australia is screwed.’
A year and half ago, maybe two, when we were seeing significant downward moves in copper, etc, it occurred to me this commodity thing might be revealing a bigger picture. They way it’s played out, like the real estate bubbles leaking in Alberta, coal-Australia, Brazil, Texas. Resource economies and RE bubbles. All leading back to the BRIC booms and especially China.
The weekend topic on that Hodges guy was clarifying for me, when he said the reason oil went way over $100/barrel was because of QE. The markets take the cue, over-produce, and a bust ensues. It’s been the same with ore and metals.
To tie it together, what’s been going on? Since at least the 90’s, we’ve seen lots of money created, and no wage inflation. Many have commented we get bubbles not inflation. The theory that is looking more likely to me is the role of globalism. IMO, we underestimate the significance of it. Globalism has undoubtedly driven wages down, so of course you wouldn’t have general inflation. Globalism has also caused economic downsides, which are met with more money creation, interest rate cuts here and there. The money going into China for example, liberated by globalism, also seeks out assets in, say Vancouver or New Zealand.
OK, I’m not the first to string this together. But it does explain our situation. And if that’s where we are, what’s next? First, I have to get one thing out of the way; some will point to this.
‘The dollar is on a roll, housing is on a roll, we’re on a roll. These are golden days.’
Sure, people feel good in a boom. Euphoric even. Don’t be fooled by euphoria. It’s dangerous.
The thing I’m rolling over in my mind with the developments in China is, globalism has run its course. There isn’t going to be another China. It was a once in many lifetimes event that over a billion people would be dragged into modernity via trade liberalization. It was spectacular; in 10 or so years, they used more cement, more steel, more energy than had been used in a century all over the world.
It’s over; there isn’t going to be another China miracle. Remember what we were told about globalism; wages would rise overseas and eventually they would join the global economy and float all boats. What do we get? Higher house prices? That just makes us more broke!
Now it’s reversing. The resources have collapsed. Many years in the making, juiced by the idea China would never slowdown, and funded by ever larger amounts of new money, loaned at ever lower rates. We read above the most expensive city in the world will ‘correct’ if the Chinese can’t buy there? You’re screwed Vancouver, you just don’t know it yet.
In sum; globalism-money creation-artificial interest rates-deflation, the booms/busts and resulting policies of more money creation-artificial interest rates-deflation, may have run their ultimate course because there isn’t another China.
Soon 100k Chinese will dye their hair blonde, don Lederhosen, and take up residence in German Town making the ghost city a bustling metropolis.
The Chinese government will engineer a Sauerkraut bubble that will keep the party going for 20 years.
You have to understand, the Chinese are where we were in 1994.
I have also been watching thinking the commodities bubble was a China bubble, which was unsustainable. Now it is unwinding.
“the traditional annual rush of Chinese millionaires who have dominated the scheme never happened…”
Maybe unwinding really fast. It is ironic. Speculators are holding their breath for the boom to come back. Normal would be a nightmare. Yet I think “normal” will be something we hope comes back after the correction.
From the UK piece:
‘Ed Meyer, Savills head of residential in Cambridge, said a snapshot of sales last year showed buyers from North and Latin American, Europe and Asia Pacific. He added: “In terms of investors, our experience, which reflects the prime market rather than the market as a whole, is that education is a major driver. Over the last three years, we’ve seen a rise in interest from overseas.”
“In the main these investors are parents buying for their children. These purchases are two tiered: they offer a good investment for overseas capital but also are safe, family properties for offspring to live in for a number of years, especially if more than one child plans to study in the city.”
Stop right there: ‘they offer a good investment for overseas capital but also are safe, family properties for offspring to live in’
Why always the ‘two things’ crap. Just say it, “I’m betting it will go up and oh, I can wander the alleys and get drunk with my mates once in a while”. Offspring? What ever happened to hotels or apartments? You people are gambling fools.
Buying an overpriced property as a place to live while receiving an overpriced education. That’s a good one. Even better if you go into debt for each.
“What the house prices represent is not dissimilar to what the dollar represents: success. People want what you’ve got, they want the houses because they have decided to live here, or they feel confident enough to borrow more money because their jobs are going well and they want a bigger or better place, or they want a second home. The dollar is on a roll, housing is on a roll, we’re on a roll. These are golden days.”
The bubble looks real purty when viewed throgh beer goggles.
I almost want to print that and frame it.
And we thought the bubble was bad in the US. I guess “everyone” wants to live down under.
What’s next in the global bubble? $500K starter houses in drug lord ruled Mexican border towns?
I was going to say, looks like a little too much Steinlager. Or some other intoxicant. Talk about euphoria! The focus of the article is the author crowing that, finally, New Zealand is superior to Australia. And inflated housing prices are part of that, apparently.
I found the two countries to be culturally similar, but for the fact that Australian were more casual and used more slang. Both full of friendly people but no less susceptible to financial mania than any other place.
Anne Gibson
Property editor of the NZ Herald
Auckland market ‘a ponzi scheme’
Wednesday, 08 April 2015
The New Zealand Herald
More and more new entrants are needed to keep prices rising in the Auckland property market, says one economist. Photo / NZ Herald
By Anne Gibson
Auckland’s housing market has become a giant Ponzi scheme, one economist says, as residents pay each other to get in and drive prices up and up.
Shamubeel Eaqub, NZIER principal economist, said this decade’s housing market was like last decade’s finance companies, being run as a high-risk money-go-round which could eventually end in misery.
“Essentially it’s a Ponzi scheme because you need more and more new entrants to keep prices rising and that’s exactly what’s happening in the housing market. We’ve seen this in all kinds of businesses, for example finance companies were a classic. Who are the people buying the houses? We’re paying higher and higher prices to each other,” he said.
Eaqub now rents in Auckland, after returning from Wellington late last year, because he says it’s cheaper. But says he will buy at some stage.
…
” ‘We didn’t have the income to sustain it,’ Ms Engstrom said. ‘But we were fed the idea that we needed to invest to survive the future.’”
That’s one of the key psychological aspects of a mania, IMHO. The idea that not only are you being left out of the winnings everyone else is supposedly enjoying, but that you’ll end up poor if you don’t join in. That’s what ropes in even the cautious, quite often.
“That’s what ropes in even the cautious, quite often.”
Yes! No dollar shall be allowed to escape!
Not one.
“When everyone else is losing their heads, it is important to keep yours.” - Marie Antoinette
That’s EXACTLY what drug most individuals into leveraging over their heads in the run-up to 2008.
“Quebec runs an independent immigration policy. For years, the QIIP was run in parallel to the federal IIP. Both schemes most recently required applicants worth a minimum of C$1.6 million to loan the respective governments C$800,000 for five years, in return for permanent residency visas”
I didn’t realize Canada was essentially granting citizenship (aka permanent residency) in exchange for five year loans. Seems pretty cheap ,especially when there are…
Quebec-based financing companies - which earn their cut from the industry by loaning immigrants their C$800,000 ‘investment’
Oh, Canada.
Now we know why Vancouver is overrun with ChiComs.
Hey, at least they’re putting out the welcome mat for people who bring $$$$ instead of importing “undocumented” deadbeats like we do.
“undocumented” deadbeats like we do ??
Undocumented, uneducated, no english, kids, = Dependents….Expensive Dependents…
= FSA and a permanent democrat supermajority
has Rahm gone BK yet?
“‘Quebec is now not so competitive,’ compared to other popular schemes, such as the EB-5 or Portugal’s ‘golden visa,’ he said. ‘Maybe Quebec has forgotten that there is now a global competition for immigration.’”
________________________________/
There’s not a global competition for immigration, there’s a global competition for dirty Chinese money.
‘It is Bradley’s contention that Americans have misunderstood and misjudged China, wedded as they were to the fantasy that China was yearning to be Christianized, Westernized and Americanized while ignoring that it had and has its own national interests. This was never more obvious than after 1931, when the Japanese –eager to control China as part of its sphere of interest– invaded Manchuria, which the U.S. promptly denounced as an act of aggression. For both nations the great prize was China.’
‘The U.S. managed to avoid a shooting war during the Chinese civil wars but from late 1927 on placed its bet on Chiang. As WWII drew to a close and the UN was being established FDR insisted that Chiang’s China be made a member of the UN’s Big Four, which the ever quotable and opinionated Churchill mocked. “In Washington,” he wrote in the fourth volume of his wartime memoirs, “I had found the extraordinary significance of China in American minds, even at the top, strangely out of proportion.” But FDR and his staff intimates could not be persuaded.’
‘Peter Rees’s attempts to form a residents association after moving into the City of London’s Heron apartment tower were hampered by one major obstacle: he couldn’t find many of his neighbors.’
“We discovered just how difficult it was to trace owners who hadn’t been near their flats,” said Rees, the former City of London planning officer who owns an apartment in the 284-home tower that was completed in September 2013. “They were either unknown or uncontactable.”
‘The phenomenon known as buy-to-leave, with some investors not even bothering to pick up keys to properties, is now becoming an issue in the May 7 national election as more than 460,000 U.K. homes lie vacant.’
‘Islington started its consultation after it found almost half of the 127 full-priced homes at the Bezier project overlooking Old Street roundabout were empty without explanation. Less than a mile away, at the Worcester Point apartment development, it was 33 percent.’
“I don’t mind where the money comes from, but I do resent a waste of good land which is in short supply in London to create buildings that are only there for investment purposes,” said Rees. “They are empty boxes on the skyline.”
This may be new:
‘investors not even bothering to pick up keys’
Makes the jingle mail less expensive to send, I guess.
China is exporting its ghost cities.
‘In Shanghai, Shepard said he found the greatest concentration of ghost cities of anywhere in China, part of the local government’s 20-year master plan, dubbed “1-9-6-6,” to expand Shanghai’s boundaries into the surrounding countryside.’
‘Many of these new outposts were designed as European-themed utopias, with audacious names like German Town and Thames Town, intended to lure “high-resource-consuming” middle-class masses away from Shanghai’s crowded core. But prospective colonists didn’t take the bait, and years later these faux-suburban villas still remain vacant.’
‘As Shepard told the Global Times: “…currently developers are having a difficult time populating these properties, and part of the cause of that is because the central and local governments have taken massive measures to cool down the housing market. Combined with the general economic slowdown, this has had an impact on the number of people who are looking to buy new properties…But the general thinking is that property will always be a secure investment, prices will always go up. There has always been a big push to buy property in Shanghai, because it’s the economic center of China.’
‘Some expatriates in the 50-strong RAS audience remained unsure about China’s emerging markets when they spoke with the Global Times after Shepard’s speech to discuss trends in Shanghai’s real estate boom and share predictions about the country’s growth.’
‘Nora Wuttke, architect, Germany. I work in urban planning in Shanghai, and what I’ve learned is that urban planning here is not about the people, it’s only about the math - the GFA (gross floor area). There is a huge need for housing here, but unfortunately if you ask Chinese developers what people want to buy, they say they don’t care, they will build what they want to build.’
‘Liz Hingley, researcher, the UK. I conducted a project that took me to the ends of every metro line in Shanghai, so I’ve seen these new developments. I find them quite scary. The lack of public resources and social services - you wonder how anyone can live there. And the lack of environmental life - the promotional plans are always very nice and green, but in reality there are no trees out there. Also, the materials that are being used are so cheap; really these cities aren’t meant to last very long.’
‘Those properties have been left to turn to rubble, and people will have to reinvest even more money in them to make them habitable again. But then again, how can we as Westerners put any expectations on China when this isn’t happening anywhere else in the world?’
‘An exploration firm has announced the discovery of billions of barrels of oil reserves at a site near Gatwick airport. UK Oil & Gas Investments (UKOG) said drilling of the 55-square mile site at the Weald Basin had discovered 158 million barrels per square mile.’
‘Together with another discovery, Portland Sandstone, it was a “possible world class potential resource”. Mr Sanderson told the BBC: “We think we’ve found a very significant discovery here, probably the largest (onshore in the UK) in the last 30 years, and we think it has national significance.”
‘Even with global oil prices remaining low, China has slowed down oil imports as most domestic oil storage facilities have been filled to capacity, according to the website of Shanghai’s China Business News.’
‘Li Li, general superintendent at CBI Research & Consulting, noted that the government appears to be rethinking the plan for strategic oil reserves, in view of the major changes taking place on the global market.’
‘In a reversal of their initial enthusiasm, many local governments have become lukewarm in having national strategic oil storage facilities built in their jurisdiction, aware of the limited benefits for themselves. As a result, progress for the building of second- and third-stage storage facilities has apparently slowed down.’
I want my $1/gallon gas!
On that point, a musical interlude from Grant Peeples:
High fructose corn syrup/Reality TV
And Taylor Swift/and Burger King
Jesus/Cheap gasoline
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HU9OeYMk40Q
Janis Joplin: Lord won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz…..
A while back I found an article saying developers would build luxury hotels because the ‘local officials’ got some prestige, and would then sell the developer land to build houses.
‘Sixty five-star hotels in Beijing reported severe losses last year, with an average of 40% of rooms left vacant amid the government’s anti-extravagance and anti-corruption campaign, reports our Chinese-language sister newspaper Want Daily.’
‘Hotels that made the majority of their revenue from officials spending public money were hit the hardest and have since been forced to change their business model. Some five-star hotels have even lowered their ratings to survive.’
‘The capital’s financial bureau has excluded all five-star hotels in the city from a list of 318 hotels approved as acceptable venues for official meetings.’
‘Some of the five-star hotels in the capital have also lowered their prices since their location is not close to the city center and demand for their rooms is low.
‘Income primarily from official meetings is not consistent with international norms for five-star hotels, said Wang Qingdao, vice head of the China Convention Society. The ensuing struggle of the hotels suggests that public funds have been controlled and consumer behavior changed, Wang said.’
‘The Communist Party’s drive to curb officials living lavish lifestyles on the public’s dime has been force since December 2012. Guidelines forbid officials from overspending on escorts, meetings and luxury cars, as well as excessive use of power to control traffic signals for their vehicles. They are also forbidden from publishing their own books or sending their own letters and greeting mail. The government has pledged to root out the four evils of formalism, bureaucracy, hedonism and extravagance.’
“Guidelines forbid officials from overspending on escorts, meetings and luxury cars, as well as excessive use of power to control traffic signals for their vehicles. ”
Party officials used to control traffic signals, but now they have to wait at intersections like common peasants. In China that’s called shared sacrifice.
That’s almost comic. Controlling traffic signals from their vehicles and publishing their own books? And they now officially are barred “from overspending on escorts”? Does that mean that paying a reasonable price for companionship is OK?
‘The government has pledged to root out the four evils of formalism, bureaucracy, hedonism and extravagance’
Sounds like something out of those mysticism movies they make over there. Jackie Chan and the Four Evils.
A couple of comments;
The USA now has a ‘buy a passport’ plan.
It’s easy to look it up.
It’s less than the $800,000C mentioned in the article
We went to China to have a look. We stayed in the very nicest hotels, on the nicest floors of Beijing and Shanghai and another big city between.
I recognized in their construction, $100psft onyx, being held in place by the cheapest fast growth pine. They have little concept of cost or quality. A beautiful facade, there wasn’t one hotel we stayed in that did not have ongoing work on floors and walls and ceilings. The foundational work in the drive ways were crumbling and there were old men with trowels trying to do the traditional work, that held up 100 story buildings.
Bored one day, and in a 35th floor perch overlooking a horseshoe shaped complex of offices and hotels, we sat in the window and watched. It appeared they hired people simply to go in the front, ride the elevator, go to the next do the same. Not couriers, sometimes not even a briefcase, but nicely dressed, and in and out and in and out and in and out.
While the mainstreets bustled, a quick glance down a side street showed no activity at all. The unbelievably wide road put in for the olympics was abandoned except for foot traffic.
It is exactly built like disneyland, but without a maintenance plan.
I believe that there is a generations worth of smelted copper and stainless steel in just the handrails and door guards on every building. The bicycle racks alone are fifty years worth of stainless steel.
Gather our goodies, and close the gates. I truly believe that’s the plan.
That’s an amazing report, thanks.
“It appeared they hired people simply to go in the front, ride the elevator, go to the next do the same. Not couriers, sometimes not even a briefcase, but nicely dressed, and in and out and in and out and in and out.”
Potemkin hotel guests noted.
We took a trip to China in 2008, and stayed in very nice, very new 5-star hotels. In Beijing the hotel was a huge skyrise surrounded by 1-story mudbrick buildings called hutongs. There was an army of Chinese workers taking apart these hutongs in the construction site next to us brick-by-brick and stacking them to be used for, I can only assume, another building or garden paths.
There was an army of people painting and repainting the Forbidden City a nice shade of red. I think it is like the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Once you finish painting everything, you just start over again at the other end.
I suspect that the building process that requires constant maintenance is a feature - not a bug. It keeps a lot of skilled tradesmen employed instead of homeless and begging. Our vinyl window-vinyl siding lifestyle wouldn’t employ what digging a six-lane highway by hand shovel can.
Funny, I’ve felt the same way about a portion of interstate highway near downtown Tampa. Every few years, the entire stretch is torn up and rebuilt in a slightly different manner, without demonstrable improvement in traffic capacity or flow.
“There was an army of Chinese workers…”
“There was an army of people painting…”
No shortage of labor keeps wages down.
No shortage of labor keeps wages down.
Providing some kind of occupation for a superabundance of labor, whatever the wage, keeps civil unrest down.