[HN Gopher] China Mortgage Crisis Boycott Data Erased by Censors...
___________________________________________________________________
China Mortgage Crisis Boycott Data Erased by Censors, GitHub
Remains Data Source
Author : throwaway_1928
Score : 155 points
Date : 2022-07-16 16:37 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com)
| pessimizer wrote:
| Sounds like the government caused this boycott by trying to rein
| in the exact activity that the boycotts are protesting. If
| they're censoring it, it's probably because they're trying to
| soften the effect on overextended banks. If the government hadn't
| insisted on functioning in the first place, the mortgage holders
| would still be in ignorant bliss.
|
| If China could afford to damage these banks (or if the people who
| run them fail to have the right connections and attitude), it
| seems like it would actually benefit the government to publicize
| these boycotts as further support for the crackdown.
|
| In the US, we'd just call the papers and get them to all run
| stories about a new trend among right-wing conspiracy theorists
| to stop paying their mortgages, relate them somehow to tax
| protesters and sovereign citizens, call them freeloaders, and
| insist that the figures being spread around about the number of
| people involved are probably from covert Russian sources.
|
| edit: I mean, after that we'd start censoring, demonetizing,
| think-tank fact-checking and downranking, but only after accusing
| everyone involved of being a terrorist.
| [deleted]
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| Which means that this GitHub repo will soon go down.
|
| China has enormous leverage both on GitHub and especially on
| Microsoft.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| They can't block GitHub because a lot of chinese tech firms
| depend on it. That is something very hard to develop locally
| because the entire world can contribute
| vkou wrote:
| They can't block GitHub, but all it takes is one phone call to
| Redmond, and their problem will go away.
|
| Microsoft has no issue with getting rid of politically
| problematic repos.
|
| https://www.technadu.com/github-removes-protest-organizing-a...
| - when Microsoft won't respect the right to protest in Spain,
| they won't give two figs about that same right in China.
|
| https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vice.com/amp/en/article/8xe...
| - for another example, this time in the US.
| [deleted]
| sofixa wrote:
| If you can't see how the two examples you sites are
| problematic, i don't know what to tell you.
|
| There's a difference between protest and sedition, and the
| Catalan independence movement went full in on treason.
|
| The second is doxxy, so it is understandable to an extent.
| ganyu wrote:
| What I can tell you is that GitHub is barely accessible in
| Mainland.
| crazysim wrote:
| They try to really degrade GitHub though to encourage non-
| GitHub use and probably weaning off of it. clones, pulls, etc.
| are very slow and unreliable and it's definitely not due to the
| size or reliability of the pipes.
| schleck8 wrote:
| They are trying with https://gitee.com
| coliveira wrote:
| I don't see any difficulty in replacing Gibhub... just create
| clone repos and you'll get everything. It is easier than
| youtube or similar.
| newsclues wrote:
| Yeah, just steal/copy GitHub and offer a local version with
| censorship, and ban the uncensored version.
| cronix wrote:
| I'm not sure I'd use the word "steal" with open source
| projects.
| newsclues wrote:
| It's about stealing the platform for a locally controlled
| version and banning the western equivalent.
| noselasd wrote:
| github isn't open source
| stickfigure wrote:
| If you're just trying to get the content, sure. If you want
| your citizens to be able to earn $ by working remotely for
| other companies around the world, this won't work.
| [deleted]
| cuteboy19 wrote:
| Freelancing is very niche. Otherwise corp vpns do the
| job.
| newsclues wrote:
| It's not about the content, it's about CONTROL.
|
| Control what people can say, share and do.
|
| Obviously GitHub is essential an essential tool for
| modern day programers, and the CCP only needs to give the
| access to a version of that tool under the control of the
| CCP.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| I don't think they want that though.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| The slow motion train wreck of evergrande continues at its
| glacial pace
| helge9210 wrote:
| Let's assume, there is no censorship and anyone can join the
| boycott. What is the intended successful outcome of the boycott?
|
| If noone would do anything (no boycott), some customers would
| have to pay mortgage for apartments that won't be finished ever.
|
| With boycott, the blast radius will be bigger, possibly affecting
| the banking system.
|
| What options do authorities have?
| londons_explore wrote:
| It need not be a collective boycott... It can be individual
| people making individual decisions to not pay the mortgage
| because they believe that paying is a waste of money. Ie. why
| pay monthly for a house which will never be completed? You're
| just pouring money away!
|
| If you don't pay, the property will be taken off you, and
| probably valued at a high valuation (because the property
| developer wouldn't want to have their unbuilt properties
| selling for cents on the dollar). That means you probably will
| escape bankruptcy or any further debt.
| rr808 wrote:
| Pretty common situation that happens in a lot of countries. If
| the market is OK the developer takes deposit and the apartments
| and sells them to someone else. If the no one wants to buy the
| developer goes bankrupt and people who bought lose everything
| they've paid so far - bank forecloses on the apt which isn't
| worth much if anything.
| ganyu wrote:
| They don't. That's the point.
|
| When you have an over-estimated stock on the market, it's going
| to drop. Eventually.
| thriftwy wrote:
| Go along with the law?
|
| People who boycott mortgages get their properties confiscated
| by court eventually, and if any developments suffer issues
| government should aid developers to ensure any paid customers
| get their property done.
| pessimizer wrote:
| But the boycotts are rational, because even the Chinese
| government thinks that the developers are overextended and
| may fail. They seem to be taking the most careful, benign
| option.
| naveen99 wrote:
| boycotting a mortgage on a secured loan with 40% down is a
| political statement, not economically rational. The numbers
| are probably minuscule and the "boycott erase story" is
| itself mostly political.
| thriftwy wrote:
| Chinese government should offer hard guarantees that all
| properties would eventually be completed, and at the same
| time that bad lenders may lose theirs.
|
| In Russia it's quite common occurrence that a very late
| project by a failed developer is eventually completed and
| the lenders get their apartments at last, after regional
| government intervention.
|
| In China it should be even simpler as the money never leave
| the escrow account. I wonder if there are un-escrow
| provisions if developer fails to deliver - in theory there
| should be no risk at all.
| lazide wrote:
| Why should they?
| thriftwy wrote:
| I assume they want to have their economy, their real
| estate market, their developers and their banks mostly
| intact.
|
| But if they don't, forget what I've said.
| kristaps wrote:
| Two things that come to mind: whip developers and if that
| doesn't do it, bail them out.
| TheMagicHorsey wrote:
| I know there are enormous profits to be made in China, but I
| wonder if American investors ever think to themselves ... by
| investing in this place I am strengthening a regime that
| ultimately is the enemy of my values.
| downrightmike wrote:
| As we have seen in America, big companies love fascists,
| because corps stand to monopolize and make tons of money.
| vkou wrote:
| China is not at all incompatible with those values. And even if
| it were, that wouldn't be an issue - business interests on the
| whole have consistently been a strong ally of fascism and
| authoritarianism.
| throwaway4aday wrote:
| The current Chinese government certainly is.
| vkou wrote:
| Why? It keeps order, it keeps the proles from getting
| uppity, and it's not much in the business of wealth
| redistribution (unlike it's liberal democracy counterparts
| on the other side of the world).
|
| Likewise, business as a whole in the US (and elsewhere) has
| no issue supporting the more authoritarian and repressive
| of the two political parties. They prefer it, in fact,
| because of what it does for them in limiting worker and
| consumer rights. When you're in the upper class of society,
| most of the repressive rules don't personally apply to you.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| > Likewise, business as a whole in the US (and elsewhere)
| has no issue supporting the more authoritarian and
| repressive of the two political parties.
|
| This is potentially the start of a boring partisan flame
| war. Let's not do that.
|
| The Republican and Democratic parties both have some
| platforms that strike outsiders as authoritarian and
| repressive. But debating them on HN doesn't work well
| IME.
| vkou wrote:
| I deliberately didn't name names (because in this
| context, it doesn't matter which is more authoritarian
| than the other, the statement works regardless of which
| side of that question you take.) My point is that
| business interests have no issues with authoritarianism,
| so long as it doesn't get in their way.
|
| If you're waiting for the S&P500 to optimize for freedom
| and democracy, and justice, and reasonably-priced love,
| you're going to be in for a very, very long wait. It
| actively optimizes for the comfort of its executives and
| shareholder value first and second, and for the rest of
| society not at all.
| mullen wrote:
| I call bullshit on statements like this. You think
| corporations would love authoritarianism until the
| corporations realize that one day someone who is really close
| to the head authoritarian could just demand 10% of their
| corporation and there is nothing they can do about it. They
| would also realize there is a whole class of people that can
| do whatever they want, when ever they want, to whomever they
| want (As long as the other person was not above them) and
| there is nothing to be done about it.
|
| Corporations, while it might pain them on some level, want to
| exist in a free, open and democratic sociality since it gives
| them access to courts and people in power. In Authoritarian
| systems, people at the top, just take whatever they want and
| there is nothing to be done about it.
|
| Also, a foreign corporation is never going to have access to
| the higher levels of the Authoritarian government because
| they are foreign. Places like China don't care about foreign
| corporations because at the end of the day, there is nothing
| they can do to help the head authoritarian.
| fuckcensorship wrote:
| https://archive.ph/6fC1Q
| marianatom wrote:
| Animats wrote:
| Better coverage in South China Morning Post.[1]
|
| [1] https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-
| economy/article/3185326/c...
| Erlangen wrote:
| The censoring is so horrible that Chinese are using other
| country's name to substitute China. For example, there is a
| question in Zhihu, "Will China become the next technological
| powerhouse?". The answer is talking about Russia literally, but
| it's about China. (Below is the answer translated by deepl).
|
| I don't want to talk about China, I want to talk about Russia.
|
| Can Russia become the next technological powerhouse? Of course
| not.
|
| Because the ceiling of Russian intelligence or wisdom is Putin.
| There is no one in Russia who can claim to be more intelligent
| than Putin. Russia can do without anyone, but not without Putin.
| Although we do not know whether Putin has any relevant
| qualifications or experience in the industry, all Russian
| businesses and professions depend on Putin's guidance and must
| hold up Putin's ideas and banners, otherwise they will not be
| able to move forward. Putin is the ceiling of Russia. How can a
| country with a ceiling become a technological powerhouse?
|
| Look at the United States. Who dares to direct the work of Musk,
| whether Trump or Biden? Who dares to direct the business
| strategies of Apple and Google? I find that in the US, it seems
| that anyone can say they are smarter than the president, it seems
| that anyone can say they are smarter than the president. The
| technology companies in the US seem to be able to run smoothly
| without the guidance of Biden's ideas, and they seem to be able
| to develop technology without raising the banner of Biden's
| ideas, and they seem to be doing quite well. I find that the US
| is a country that has no ceiling in terms of intelligence or
| ingenuity, and that is always improving. Only such a country can
| become a technological powerhouse.
| rr808 wrote:
| I know this is supposed to be about China, but is true of
| Russia and many poorer countries. The elite of the country can
| siphon money of simple industries like oil and primary
| industries, but they can't control high tech. Kamil Galeev
| writes some great threads on this
| https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1501360272442896388
| bigcat12345678 wrote:
| Links please? I'll have to keep this in my archive for funniest
| workaround of censorship...
| ganyu wrote:
| Somewhere under this thread:
| https://www.zhihu.com/question/307148675
|
| Remember to ORDER BY time DESC
| Erlangen wrote:
| The answer above has been deleted, but this answer is even
| better. Replace US with China. But to understand it, you need
| to be familiar of modern Chinese history.
|
| https://www.zhihu.com/question/439676867/answer/2559528806
|
| 1. The United States has not been fascist until recently, but
| has been a fascist state since its founding. However, the US
| has not always been so fascist since its founding, and there
| was a period of relative normality during the Reagan years.
| In contrast, the fascisation of recent years has been
| particularly striking.
|
| 2. In terms of internal causes, the relative openness of the
| US was due to the fact that the McCarthy movement had gone
| too far and not only did the people become unhappy, but
| eventually the government became unhappy. So there was a
| temporary social consensus that fascisation had to be curbed.
| However, Trump himself was not a victim of the McCarthy
| movement and has been in good government since its end. He
| therefore did not personally resent it much. And in order to
| preserve the shining image of the Republican Party and to put
| an end to the leftist media of the Democratic Party engaging
| in the practice of Fake News. When Trump was in office, he
| directly disallowed statements that publicly denied the
| history of the Great Depression to the McCarthy movement. In
| this way, the new generation in the US also became
| predominantly favourable to the McCarthy movement, promoting
| the return of fascism to American society.
|
| 3. Externally, the US has been eager to strengthen its
| control over Canada, Mexico and Cuba, the 'backyard' of the
| US. This has not only caused resentment among the local
| population, but has also been widely criticised in
| international public opinion. If you talk about the Wilson
| Doctrine at this time, then the scandalous things you have
| done in the US are in themselves the opposite of what you
| want to do. The theory you preach turns out to be a slap in
| your own face, and you might as well not preach it at all.
| Instead, by picking up the ragged flag of fascism, you can
| explain the justification for these hegemonic acts of the US.
| And so its propaganda tone leans more and more towards
| fascism. This is the reality that needs to dictate the
| discourse.
| cuteboy19 wrote:
| >Externally, the US has been eager to strengthen its
| control over Canada, Mexico and Cuba, the 'backyard' of the
| US
|
| This is so true. China has either directly invaded or has
| bad relations with every one of its neighbours. Even the
| communist ones. Even those seperated by sea. Only reason
| why this bullying is tolearted is because they are rich now
| thriftwy wrote:
| It looks to me that China has decent relations with
| Russia, Mongolia, and even central asian
| Kazakhstan/Kirgisia/Tajikistan (of course there are some
| ethnic and economical tensions dragging this back, not to
| mention the issue of Uighurs who are related). China also
| has good relations with Pakistan.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| The linked story kind of buries the context info:
|
| > Nomura said the refusal to pay mortgages stems from the
| widespread practice in China of selling homes before they're
| built. Funds from presales are kept in escrow accounts to use for
| construction. But confidence that projects will be completed has
| weakened as developers' cash woes intensified.
|
| > "Inappropriate usage of presale proceeds and the lack of
| adequate supervision of escrow accounts by local regulators and
| banks are likely associated with these mortgage suspension
| cases," Zerlina Zeng, a senior analyst at CreditSights, wrote in
| a note.
| la64710 wrote:
| And the linked story demanding open sourcing data is itself is
| behind a paywall. :D
| [deleted]
| ganyu wrote:
| Short (?) intro for those who don't know how it works in CN:
|
| 1. Local govts are in heavy debt and sell land to pay back
| their debt.
|
| 2. Real estate corps pay a hell lot of money (don't care where
| they get them) to purchase a land ownership (for 70 years max)
| from the govt.
|
| 3. Before construction even begins, the real estate corps start
| selling the houses to citizens.
|
| 4. Citizens pay up to 40% of the total price on their own, and
| ask the bank to lend them the rest of the 60% and get it paid
| back in the NEXT 30 YEARS (often paying as much as twice as the
| original price).
|
| 5. The bank gives 60% directly to the real estate corp. So in
| fact the citizen IS OWING MONEY TO THE BANK, and not to the
| estate corp.
|
| 6. Often, the real estate corp uses this money to pay back
| previous loans, or use this money to purchase more land from
| the local govt. So current (future) constructions pretty much
| depends on whether this Ponzi scheme could continue.
|
| 7. With the money earned from selling the land, the local govt
| could pay back the loan and ask for more, in order to build
| more infrastructure so as to pull up estate prices, from which
| it can earn more by selling more land.
|
| 8. ...until no typical citizen will be able to afford it.
| itronitron wrote:
| 9. Apparently banks in China are blocking people from
| removing money from their accounts.
| rfoo wrote:
| It is not yet a widespread thing. For now.
|
| Also, there is no evidence that the disappeared money goes
| into real-estate/local govt, though it is plausible.
| fma wrote:
| What happens after 70 years? Especially if the lease isn't
| renewed.
| [deleted]
| ganyu wrote:
| Legislation states that the lease is automatically renewed
| (40yrs, 50yrs or 70yrs depending on how the land was
| purchased) for residential housing, but there have been
| rumours saying that related laws will change so the
| property will be taxed during renewal.
|
| Considering that commercial housing started in PRC in the
| 1980s and the first batch of houses aren't technically
| _expired_ yet, I think it 's pretty hard to say what
| exactly will happen.
| yorwba wrote:
| Wenzhou had 20-year land leases and originally planned to
| charge a third of the value as a renewal fee when the
| first ones began expiring in 2016, but ended up waiving
| the fee after protests. https://www.mingtiandi.com/real-
| estate/research-policy/china...
| sbierwagen wrote:
| >get it paid back in the NEXT 30 YEARS
|
| Why emphasize that? 30 year mortgages are common in the US.
| At current rates of 5.5%, the total paid in interest will be
| bigger than the original loan.
|
| Of course, most US mortgages are taken out on housing units
| that actually exist.
| kevinventullo wrote:
| I agree with you, and just wanted to add that saying one
| pays "more" in interest than the original loan value is
| implicitly ignoring the time value of money, in particular
| equating 2022 currency with 2052 currency.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| The other difference is that the vast majority of US
| mortgages are insured by FHA and so are actually fairly
| cheap. It's probably the single biggest market distortion
| in the housing market.
|
| Most countries do not have this.
| ganyu wrote:
| 30 years are pretty common, but paying for some property
| that never came out of the blueprint (and seemingly never
| will) does sound a bit odd..
| dirtyid wrote:
| Preconstruction sells at 30% discount, people gamble with
| their life savings considering PRC housing prices to
| income, but flip side is also massive speculative profit
| if things work out.
| Animats wrote:
| > Of course, most US mortgages are taken out on housing
| units that actually exist.
|
| Construction is usually financed by a construction loan, at
| a higher rate than a mortgage, and the builder is the
| borrower. But not always. Here are some US failures from
| the 2008 housing crash.[1]
|
| China has an unusual problem - the Party really, really
| doesn't like elections. For anything. But China has buyable
| apartments, which work like condominiums. Some organization
| has to run the building and maintain the common areas. That
| led to the creation of homeowners' associations with
| elected officials. This got party officials upset, and now
| efforts are being made to make HOAs subordinate to the
| local Communist Party units.[2]
|
| [1] https://www.mortgagefit.com/construction/loan-
| default.html
|
| [2] https://ebrary.net/153835/law/condominium_china
| [deleted]
| unicornmama wrote:
| ~96% of us humans don't live in America, most of us don't
| have 30 year mortgages.
| thriftwy wrote:
| I'm pretty sure large portions of Latin America, Europe,
| ex-USSR and perhaps India/South East Asia have 30 year
| mortgages.
| WheatM wrote:
| 30 year mortgage are normal in New Zealand and Australia,
| as well as the UK and at least some parts of Europe.
| ganyu wrote:
| What's the household leverage ratio there in US? That in CN
| is 72% in 22Q1, and even bigger in big cities.
|
| Edit: CN definition: (household leverage ratio) =
| (mortgages paid in 22Q1) / (total disposable income in
| 22Q1)
| HPsquared wrote:
| What ratio is that measuring, loan-to-value or loan-to-
| income?
|
| In the UK at least, a buyer can borrow up to 95% of the
| home's value and I think 4 or 4.5x the borrower's annual
| income.
| ganyu wrote:
| +HPSquared For total value it's up to 80%, and when
| comparing to income you can borrow up to 50% of the
| (before tax) monthly income, for up to 30 years.
| [deleted]
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| Aside from the fact that this is a pyramid scheme, it sounds
| pretty similar to how it works in the U.S. when building a
| new house.
| bombcar wrote:
| The US will often have guarantees on a construction loan,
| and sometimes the bank will even inspect the property as it
| is being built and only release funds when certain points
| are hit - 30% to start, 20% when foundation is poured, 20%
| on framing, 30% on completion. And then the loan will be
| refinanced to a traditional mortgage (construction loans
| are usually short-term and higher rate).
|
| Many builders will therefor "self-finance" and sell the
| customer a "built home" direct into a normal mortgage.
| ratsmack wrote:
| Three years ago I built a house to sell (I was general
| contractor) on a city lot my family owned. Before a single
| shovel of dirt was turned over, we had to pay around
| seventy thousand dollars for plan review, power connection,
| water, sewer and gas.
|
| This really opened my eyes as to how much mitigation costs
| have risen over the years. I had built a house in the same
| area in 1989 and the initial costs were one tenth of that.
| zo1 wrote:
| Did most of that money go-to or was mandated-by your
| local government?
| ratsmack wrote:
| Pretty much, yes.
| bombcar wrote:
| Lots of it is a tax on non-residents; because other tax
| forms are kept low but nobody "pays" for the permit
| costs, etc (it's wrapped in the cost of the house).
| everybodyknows wrote:
| Seems a punitive tax on the entrepreneurial middle class.
| Such fixed costs might be insignificant for a palatial
| home. At the other end, large-scale developers know all
| about negotiating discounts and otherwise offloading
| costs.
| treeman79 wrote:
| I briefly was looking at getting some cheap land in
| Tennessee get utilities and a trailer to live on to save
| money.
|
| Was Shocked at connection cost for everything
| refurb wrote:
| To add on top, there are very few trustworthy investments
| available to citizens.
|
| Real estate is one of the few assets that is quite secure
| when it comes to ownership.
|
| Other Asian countries are similar. It's why your average
| house in Saigon is more expensive than San Francisco despite
| a per capita GDP that is < 1/10th that of California.
| [deleted]
| toinewx wrote:
| the github repo mentionned in the article (16k stars):
| https://github.com/WeNeedHome/SummaryOfLoanSuspension
| schleck8 wrote:
| > Have faith in the party and the government. The party and the
| government will definitely give the people a satisfactory
| explanation, here is only for statistics, do not have excessive
| remarks!
|
| Then a link to a Mao speech. Weird
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| The protesting citizens do this as a plea for help from the
| national government. They know that the true believers in the
| national government need to be kowtowed to.
|
| It is a risk to your life to protest the national government,
| but the national government allows protest to local
| governments as a means to reduce steam buildup.
|
| This results in over the top worship of Mao during local
| government protests as a hedge, because it creates a
| potential photo op where the local government is tearing down
| praise to Mao.
| elteto wrote:
| They have to remove the risk of being labeled anti-party or
| dissidents. They do this by appealing to the ideology, at
| least superficially.
|
| Of course, this is a double edge play. Notice how the message
| boils down to "the party is right! It's probably the fault of
| some dark, greedy figure(s) somewhere!". But by absolving the
| government from ever being wrong you remove the possibility
| of them ever improving and fixing themselves. So someone(s)
| get sent to jail, others are demoted, and everything is swept
| unde the rug, but the structural problems remain and will
| appear again and again.
| refurb wrote:
| All problems in China are due to reactionary elements that
| are trying to overthrow the Party!
|
| And since the Party represents all Chinese, these elements
| are clearly attacking the Chinese people themselves so the
| only solution is to rally around the Party and help it
| solve the problem!
|
| /s
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-07-16 23:01 UTC)