Posted on 10/03/2015 9:41:12 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Why China Is on an L.A. Spending Spree: "It's Just Monopoly Money to Them"
by Seth Abramovitch
10/2/2015 6:00am PDT
"$20,000 on drinks is a plain night on the town," says one local restaurateur, as big-time Chinese money pours into Los Angeles, consuming everything from wine to diamonds to watches to cars to prime real estate (in one case, 25,000 square feet for a teenage college student).
The ultra-wealthy Chinese tend to get what they want, and right now most of them want one thing: to get out. More than 60 percent of China’s most affluent citizens have already left the country or are planning to leave it, according to the Los Angeles Times. And L.A. — a politically stable and always-comfortable metropolis where catering to the rich is a way of life — is among their most coveted destinations. The numbers don’t lie: In 2014, a full 20 percent of the city’s $8 billion in real estate sales was purchased by Chinese buyers. Showing no signs of slowing down, this injection of Chinese capital and influence can be felt at every level of L.A.’s culture of consumption.
Thanks to big import and consumption taxes introduced in recent years by President Xi Jinping, most wealthy Chinese consider the cost of homes and luxury goods in L.A. to be something of a bargain. “They’ll buy high-end watches in threes and fours,” says Korosh Soltani, owner of Rodeo Drive jewelry store David Orgell, of his Chinese clientele, who’ll typically drop $200,000 on gifts in a single shopping spree. (Soltani has so many Chinese customers, he asks companies like Corum and Baume & Mercier to send him watches bearing the Mandarin logos they are more familiar with.)
(Excerpt) Read more at hollywoodreporter.com ...
P!
I wonder what they see coming?
Government has laid to waste the middle America, as they import millions of wealthy foreigners from all over the planet.
Looking sharp America.
I have argued on other forums that the Chinese are moving in same pattern as the Germans and Japanese from 1880-1910.
Both countries got rich in the space of three decades, then invested their new wealth in arms and went to war.
(In the case of the Japanese, the arguments of the Imperial Army and Navy were pretty similar to that of PLAN. They need to secure resources for the mother country.)
It looks like the Chinese are following the same pattern. They have gotten rich in the space of three short decades and are now investing their new wealth in arms.
Next step war.
Do you buy that argument?
It’s no just “ultra-wealthy” Chinese. In Seoul, Chinese tourists are the dominant force. They are buying everything in sight—merchants and stores vie for their business. They aren’t wealthy, they are “middle class.” If they are typical of where the modern Chinese are at, they have replaced the U.S., at least in terms of the lifestyle of their citizens. It shows how far the U.S. has collapsed in the last few years.
Monopoly money. I live a couple of blocks away from where Apple is building it’s new spaceship HQ. I’ve noticed a lot of Chinese families buying nearby houses. If some Chinese financier wants to buy my dump for $2 mil, I’m in.
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