"China’s obsession of high speed rail is costly. The world’s largest highspeed rail network brought not only skyrocketing freight costs but also inflation and debts. China Railway Corporation’s debts are three times the size of Evergrande’s debt. Its impact on the China’s economy is being felt as transportation cost rises amid debt and energy crisis."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kB0N6Ne2LwI&ab_channel=Lei%27sRealTalk
Construction, and associated industries, are a major part of the economy in China which helps employ the masses and keeps them content.
China is pretty much in the same boat as the United States. That is in the too big to fail category. Highly unlikely it will ever suffer a debt crisis. The normal government reaction of too much debt is to print more money leading to massive inflation and reduction of the debt in real terms and paying back of the debt in less valued money. It is kind of a hidden tax because the loss of monetary value comes directly from your retirement savings and any savings you have elsewhere.
Only much smaller countries have a debt crisis and only because the creditor countries say enough funds for you. There are no real creditor countries for China or the United States (who can afford to loan us $22-30 trillion?, the other countries on the face of the Earth combined do not have that extra money). Soo the bulk of the National Debt for each are the people of each country that hold the bulk of the debt. Likewise at some point investors will lose confidence in our ability to repay the debt which will spike inflation and interest rates both when that happens. It has not happened yet. China will go the same way.
I suspect China will be more severely impacted when that happens because they are more dependent on us and other countries buying imports from them then vice versa. We'll see when it happens, if it ever happens. We can go on like this forever......theoretically as long as nobody calls the bluff and we are able to make our interest payments.
JoeBlow economy in China which helps employ the masses and keeps them content.
They had that with steam railroading, which is why they kept it for so long.
Word leaking out from China said the professional Chinese railroaders weren't too happy about the wholesale rush to abandon steam, and it wasn't for reasons of nostalgia. Steam worked, it was reliable, and it kept people employed.
Flintlock76 JoeBlow economy in China which helps employ the masses and keeps them content. They had that with steam railroading, which is why they kept it for so long. Word leaking out from China said the professional Chinese railroaders weren't too happy about the wholesale rush to abandon steam, and it wasn't for reasons of nostalgia. Steam worked, it was reliable, and it kept people employed.
Could that be the difference between West and East?
West views technology in the eye of how many jobs can be eliminated.
East views technology in the eye of how many jobs can be created.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
China has implemented a lot of unnecessary infrastructure and construction projects, but I don't see the high-speed rail network as one of them. If/when the cost of air travel starts reflecting the actual environmental cost as the world moves toward limiting carbon emissions and pollution, having a ground-based and relatively energy efficient alternative mode of transportation for people to move between major cities should pay big dividends.
Maybe I missed it, but why is a stand-along High-speed passenger network causing freight costs to skyrocket? Freed of subsidizing passenger, freight should more than pay the bills.
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