Free Republic

<p>As of 2016, China’s empty apartment units could house New York City 27 times over.</p><p>Skyline of Shenzhen in Guangdong Province, China, in this undated photo.</p><p>What does this mean to you? There are a lot of carry-on effects from wasting so many resources. As you delve into a thought exercise to get more acquainted with the ruinous consequences of credit bubbles, be grateful that you don’t really have to worry about malicious genies magically tagging you with mortgaged deeds.</p>

We’ve written quite a bit about the decline of America’s once proud manufacturing industry which is now but a shadow of its former self and long ago ceded its place in the public’s heart and mind to the service industry...And if it was already bad, it's getting worse.

Nearly 150,000 Syrian refugees have already claimed asylum in Europe and tens of thousands more are flooding the borders in search of places to live. Meanwhile, in China, there are millions of new apartments sitting completely empty and entire sections of freshly constructed cities that are virtually uninhabited. This disparity between unmet housing need and oversupply has not been lost on many around the world, and after writing a book about China’s ghost cities, I’ve recently found my email inbox getting flooded with suggestions such as this: Do you think the Ghost Cities could be used, even as a temporary...

China’s legendary ghost cities are coming to the USA! Here is an excellent video on China’s ghost cities. China is known for building replicas of London and Paris in China to attract people. But like many of China’s efforts at planned cities, housing is quite expensive and has not caught on. And there is even a fake Epcot in China! Unfortunately, quite empty. ghost_arcade Senator Elizabeth Warren (MA-D) campaigned on centrally planned construction as a solution for the economy. Perhaps the Chinese are taking her advice. With the growing presence of Chinese in the U.S housing market, particularly on the...

There is no doubt about it. The Obama-era represents what Rep. Alan Grayson calls “stealth Socialism” – the government takeover of the bond market (The Fed), the healthcare system (Obamacare) and forced integration of suburbs (HUD Secretary Donovan’s plan). In that respect, the US is becoming more and more like China where their central planners have been busy building massive cities where no one can afford to live. China even has a replica of London (Thames Town) thamestown and Paris. chparis And an abandoned, fake DisneyWorld! wonderland-buildings-arches-turrets_46178_600x450 Not to mention Manhattan. fakenan Of course, China’s population is growing and eventually...

BEIJING —China is pushing ahead with a sweeping plan to move 250 million rural residents into newly constructed towns and cities over the next dozen years —a transformative event that could set off a new wave of growth or saddle the country with problems for generations to come. The government,often by fiat,is replacing small rural homes with high-rises,paving over vast swaths of farmland and drastically altering the lives of rural dwellers. So large is the scale that the number of brand-new Chinese city dwellers will approach the total urban population of the United States —in a country already bursting with...

With all the rhetoric coming out of North Korea it is hard to make sense out of what is happening.  There is plenty of speculation to go around because the recent moves by Kim Jong Un seem suicidal.  I am not a military expert but I have been following this for many years.  My speculation is that this is all being provoked by China.  Bear with me for a few minutes while I try to make sense of this.  If China convinces the DPRK to start a war with the US, they create a huge distraction, weaken the US and...

The long-predicted crash has arrived with a vengeance in China's original ghost city. Home prices have plunged by one third recently, down 60% from 2006, in Kangbashi, the ambitious second city built on the outskirts of Ordos. Developers, investors and migrant workers are all giving up on Kangbashi. "Ordos is the first of a number of these ghost cities that will see similar magnitude price declines

Bloomberg Television did a great little segment (via PragCap) about the infamous "ghost cities" of China. Those are those huge planned, mostly empty cities that Chanos likes to rail on. The typical reaction seems to be: OMG, cities, where nobody is living! But in reality, lots of real estate projects start with nobody in them, and then fill up over time. That's not that weird. Sure, these are city-size projects, but China is a big country undergoing bigger shifts. The bigger issue is the country's apparent addiction to centrally-planned, investment led growth -- a development strategy that's creating inflation that's...

Until I came across this post on redalert.wnd.com I neber even heard of the phrase "ghost cities". But in China they are all the rage! Remarkable as it seems, photographs of these "ghost cities" – after countless billions of dollars spent on their design and construction – reveal nobody lives there. We're talking block after block of empty houses and apartment buildings, glamorous public buildings, magnificent public parks and sports complexes, even art museums, remain entirely empty. The Mail in London estimated that China is building up to 20 new ghost cities a year on the country's "vast swathes of...

Satellite images pulled from Google Maps showing empty Chinese ‘ghost-cities’ surfaced and went viral yesterday, capping months of allegations that there are allegedly over 64 million brand new vacant apartments in China, enough to house over 200 million people.The almost post-apocalyptic images of excess property are said to be the result of Chinese government pressure to increase internal economic activity – and hence net GDP – by any possible means, even building entire cities even when it’s unnecessary.Patrick Chovanec of Tsinghua University explained to English language Al-Jazeera TV: ‘Who wants to be the mayor who reports that he didn’t get...