Just recently, a wizened Manchurian fellow with an enormous, yet calming, black mole on the tip of his nose beckoned me over to his rickety rickshaw.
I have no idea what language he spoke to me: maybe Mandarin, perhaps Manchurian – definitely not French – but he felt certain I understood him as we hurtled through the chaotic traffic in Beijing’s ancient Hutong district. And if the cars and buses don’t acknowledge right of way here, why should my hardy pedal pusher?
Maybe he felt invigorated pulling along a young, 143-pound sapling in place of the usual quarter-ton cargo of elderly, flabby American couples. In any case, he certainly cut up a fine share of buses and Honda sedans on our way to the tortuous labyrinth of alleyways and houses of the 800-year-old neighbourhood where Mr Wu patiently awaited me.
Mr Wu is a kind man. He’s a long-retired archaeologist – meaning he most likely excavated dynastic treasure and terra cotta warriors for the glory of Mao. Mr Wu is of the eternally young variety of Asian elders. He smiles with his eyes and mouth as he answers questions through his interpreter – he understands English, but doesn’t speak it.
My companion, Karim Rahemtulla, asked Mr Wu some interesting questions. Here’s a portion of their conversation:
Karim: ‘How has your standard of living changed in the last two decades?’
Mr Wu’s interpreter: ‘Thirteen years ago, his pension was 250 yuan a month. Now it is 2,500 yuan…He recently had a cash offer to buy his home for US$300,000, which he’s lived in for 50 years…and his two sons live here, too. He won’t sell, though. He wants to leave this house on to his sons and his wife after he passes…’
The other folks that joined Karim and myself on the tour asked some questions about Mr Wu’s single outdoor bathroom, his marble-tiled living room, etc…while I noted a subtle cloud of suspicion pass over Karim’s face.
After Mr Wu graciously answered the final questions, I followed Karim outside into the courtyard amid the beautifully painted porcelain dining set and vacantbirdcages.
‘Greg, something doesn’t add up here. His pension shot up 900% in 13 years while inflation snoozed at 2-5% per annum. How could the government pay him that much more in such a short period of time?’
Karim was right – my happiness for the kind old man’s recent prosperity nearly over-awed my critical faculties. A gaping enigma lay somewhere between 900% and 2-5%…something didn’t add up.
In fact, the more I look around, the more I notice that no one seems to know, or care, how so many people can produce so much so cheaply…and sell it below production cost.
How does the Chinese miracle work? Are the Chinese playing with economic fire? All over Beijing, you find people selling things for less than they must have cost to make, like watches – I fended off the 24-cent ‘Woe-lex’ slingers and landed in the comfy cab of my furiously beckoning and smiling Manchu friend…absorbed in confused economic thought, I gazed at the passingShicha Lake.
Back in Beijing’s Grand Hyatt hotel, plopped in a fine fake-leather chair in the lobby, Hyatt, I tried to answer three interwoven questions:
1. How did Mr Wu’s pension jump 900% in 13 years, when the average rate of inflation stayed below 5% annually over the same time period?
2. How can you buy a disposable cigarette lighter in Beijing for 12 cents?
3. Why does the love of my life have to pay back the money she borrows on her credit cards?
Okay, the first two questions look enigmatic to me – the third has a simple, reflexive answer. But the answer to the final question just might unlock the first two.
I recalled the rich Cuban cigars I’ve been smoking with my travel mate, newfound friend and vintage Harley restorer, TM. Offering me ignition, he laughed about the 12-cent lighter he bought from a street monger.
’12 cents…hmm…I know labour’s cheap,’ I thought. ‘Cost of living’s damned cheap, too…but how can it possibly be so rock bottom that they can sell lighters and working counterfeit watches for 12-24 cents?’
The more you look around, the more you wonder. I recalled one of Karim’s recent quandaries: ‘I took a 20-minute cab ride today for $1.50. The gas prices here are the same as in America – crude’s cut in dollars – so let’s say we used a half gallon [US]. The gas alone cost $1.10. Now include the driver’s time, the vehicle’s cost with wear and tear – that cab’s gotta operate at a loss. How’s that possible…?’
Back at the Hyatt, in the realm of numbers that either do or do not add up, Karim and I looked over the books of a Chinese steel company. Its year-on-year gross sales increased at a fine, steady clip. But despite these increasing sales, its debt ascended a bit faster than sales. So its net profits slowly dwindled over time. Convenient – for despite increasing sales, its taxable revenue went down. But it also looked like the company never paid down its debt…which is a good deal, if you can get it.
But if the Chinese aren’t paying their debts…is there any limit to the amount of money that the banks can lend them?
In the land of the world’s greatest capitalists today, there’s one business that isn’t even remotely governed by free markets: the banks. In the simplest terms, China’s banks and its government are one and the same. Like modern US and UK banks, the Chinese banks – read: the Chinese government – freely loan money to fledgling and huge established businesses alike. But unlike modern US and UK banks…or most of them, anyway…the Chinese banks don’t expect businesses to pay back the money lent to them. That’s what the perpetually rolled-over debt on the steel company’s books told us.
So peering down from a panoramic view, here’s how China looks today: domestic steelmakers, lighter manufacturers, and cabbies produce their goods and services for free. Thus can they peddle their wares for far less than production costs.
Free money, via loans not needing repayment, essentially lets the steel company produce steel for next to nothing and then sell it at market price. Which, in the West, is far below what you’d pay for a company that had to worry about profits and paying back loans or selling at ABOVE the cost of production.
That may be how TM bought a 12-cent Chinese lighter to inflame our $20 Cubans…
That may be how Karim’s cabbie barely pays for gas with his fares…
But even more than that, I wish my love, like the Chinese steel barons, didn’t have to pay her credit card bills…
Karim mentioned something about the savings and loan crisis that swept over America. Even if it’s a deliberate policy, an economy can’t be deliberately inefficient in allocating capital. Things cannot, typically, cost less than the value of the raw materials needed to make them. The whole cannot be worth less than the sum of its parts.
Some laws of economics, like the laws of ethical behaviour, can be bent – but not broken. At least, not without consequence.
Greg Grillo for The Daily Reckoning