Whatever Krugman says, Michael Roberts (and his fan here) is all wet: Roberts sarcastically laughs at the idea that “China using probably faked data.” Well, a careful analysis says, yes it does. The Rhodium Group has a track record of valid corrections to the numbers released by Beijing. For 2023 GDP, “As in previous years, our analysis builds from four expenditure-side GDP components: business investment (gross fixed capital formation), government spending, net exports, and household consumption.” --https://rhg.com/research/through-the-looking-glass-chinas-2023-gdp-and-the-year-ahead/ The result: the actual growth rate was 1.5 percent. Unemployment of young adults rose so high last year that the government stopped issuing its measure of same. In the U.S. that would be like the Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics refusing to break down unemployment tallies by age. So Roberts’ post becomes an exercise in what-aboutism: India manipulates its GDP data, too. The Western economies are anemic in comparison. Fine, if you will accept some more what-aboutism: the Japanese historical record of industrial development just about equals what the PRC has done since 1978. Fine, so long as you don’t claim that China is a socialist country. Fine, so long as you overlook the horrendous income inequality, the pitiful retirement plan for the poorest workers and farmers, the government now forcing middle-income people to put savings into mutual funds, stocks, and bonds for their retirement, etc. This mess is what happen when one has a mindset of a division between a capitalist sector and a state sector. No, the private sector and the state-owned firms are all capitalist, all run for profit and the gain of the economic owners.
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