Let's first get one thing on the table. When I'm in China I
say" Wo ai Meiguo, danshi wo xihuan Zhongguoren." This translates as
"I love America, but I like the Chinese people." Since my wife is,
originally, from Nanjing, people have no trouble believing this.
I have a belief that I slightly understand the way China
works on its east coast. When I'm there, I stay with my wife's family, which
helps me understand more than if I was staying in a Holiday Inn in Shanghai.
However I would never make predictions on the Chinese economy.
However, there are a lot of dumb financial white guys who
tell us what's going to happen in China every day on Bloomberg or CNBC. The
only guy I would ever listen to on China is Jim Rogers, who once lived in
Dalian.
For example, these people mispronounce the common name for
the renminbi. They say u on for the Yuan. The correct pronunciation is u en. If
they can't correctly pronounce the name of the currency, why should they be
trusted.
They sit on Wall Street, without any meaningful Chinese
experience, and talk about an economy in transition, which has some segments of
capitalism, but is full of SOEs. The state owned enterprises get the majority
of financial assistance in that country. It would be as if America owned
General Electric, IBM, and Safeway. Sounds confusing, doesn't it. However that
doesn't keep these "bai ren" (white guys) from explaining China to us
every day. One Barrons commentator predicted Alibaba's stock price would drop
by half. I watch it climb every day. I'm tired of listening to dumb financial
white guys who have no idea how insufficient their information is.
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