[PGR88]

Here is a very brief summary of China’s “5 social security” schemes.

The medical part is something like an American “health care savings account” whereby individuals have the ability to spend on their own specific health care needs.

But it seems local governments have raided the funds, ostensibly to pay for the huge costs of COVID testing and lockdowns.

https://www.hrone.com/blog/guide-chinas-social-security-system-pays/

[volunbeer]

Thanks for that link. Very interesting. One thing that stunned me from these videos was the amount of local government debt in China (estimated to be 5.1 trillion). That is crazy and who really “owns” that debt if it was created via bonds?

From what I can find I think our comparable debt is 3.7 trillion (nothing to crow about) but the push for hyper-growth in China can be summarized by this municipal debt. Ours is not sustainable either, but in almost every category their actual debts are far worse than ours.

We have far more in unfunded liabilities (entitlements) but its hard to read what the CCP has done. In the US our “Fed” holds the debt. In China they seem to play a game of gimmicks where other entities besides the central government holds the note for CCP spending.