Debt-ridden Chinese cities face brutal cutbacks

American Thinker ^ | 05/23/2023 | Thomas Lifson

[sauropod]

Bkmk

[texas booster]

Note the complaint about the lack of indoor heating.

District Heating

In the South we do not see district heating very often. Austin TX is one place that has a large piping system for hot water circulation among downtown, but we do not see it in many other places. Some friends lived in Russia, and the date that the heat would be turned on (and off) for the city was announced each year.

It is used in northern climes and in top down economies, on the theory that it can be more efficient than low pressure boilers in each home.

The same argument against centralized planning works against district heating. The system efficiency is only as good as the technology and design, less differed maintenance.

Which is why most Americans prefer to manage their own heating and cooling systems.

Now onto to distributed power generation.

[Truthsearcher]

Yeah but no one is as leveraged as the Chinese government.

In some municipalities, their tax revenue is only enough to cover 25% of their budget.

[bert]

The media and pundits are all, that is every one of them, entirely missing the historical point. Some are staking their very careers on their misconception blunders

Here is what is really happening.

Chairman Xi is attempting to go forward by going backward. Xi is attempting to reinstate a more Maoist, more pure, state of communism. The current CCP under his leadership is all about reverting to the communism prevailing previously. Capitalism and relative personal freedom have crept in polluting the purity of communist thought

To achieve the desired end, the current economy and all capitalist, entrepreneurial and personal freedoms must be destroyed.

The bankruptcy of all businesses not directly controlled by the CCP is therefore mandatory. The existing corporations will become CCP controlled entities and all the jobs restored under CCP auspices.

The question the press should be asking is will the young people permit the reversion? Will they submit to government control over every aspect of their lives?

[Worldtraveler once upon a time]

--- "In some municipalities, their tax revenue is only enough to cover 25% of their budget."

And in some of our inner cities? I understand your comparison, but the essentially "perpetual debt" to be paid without ever being paid off is building around the world. The Congressional Accounting Office sees a continual acceleration in ours. So it's not a contest declaring that the last entity to declare bankruptcy wins. All lose. As an example, our "world beater" DoD budget is now less than our interest payments, so says the news. I care far, far less about China than this nation. I don't think "we" have a palatble answer to this. Regards.

[Mr. Jeeves]

The Pudong area of Shanghai is stupefying - it would easily be the world’s #1 city under a different central government. As an American when you come back and look at Los Angeles you just want to cry.

I haven’t been back to Shanghai in a while. Used to go to Guangzhou every year, but that ended with COVID.

[PGR88]

You are absolutely correct to see this as a global, marxist/progressive governance phenomenon.

Only central banks and governments can print money to monetize and inflate-away debt (and by default, they all will)

But for local governments, whether its Chicago, Caracas or Hegang, running a progressive, nanny-state, surveillance-state government is expensive, and there is NEVER enough money.

If it becomes bad enough - the central government will print money, create “stimulus” programs to bail them out, and resort to political oppression to keep their marxist cronies in power.

Same in the USA.

[Truthsearcher]

We have our own problems, no doubt, and if we don’t resolve them eventually we’ll end up where they are.

But make no mistake, they are already there.

The reason people have been talking about the Chinese collapse is because if their financially situation were applied to any Western country, that country would have had a financial meltdown long ago.

The CCP have been able to use their power to control society to keep everything together. But even their power cannot change the laws of mathematics. They are barely keeping it together and things are close to falling apart at the seams now.

[PGR88]

In some municipalities, their tax revenue is only enough to cover 25% of their budget.

Hello. You've just described, more or less, the finances of places like Buffalo NY and Detroit MI

[datura]

Yes, Pudong is where we will stay.