Beijing, aka the Federal government, orders some steel plants to shut down due to pollution and over production, but the local government does not want or can shut down the plant(s) due to the money hit they will take. The local government will have to deal with the unemployed and loss of income so they keep the plant opened. What is good for the locals is bad for the country but does keep the global price of steel low. Which then impacts western producers.
When we visited a part of China last year, we noticed large numbers of empty apartment buildings and huge infrastructure projects. MASSIVE road bridges and highways being built. Everything is built out of concrete and stainless steel. The later was surprising as they make house doors and window cages from stainless steel. Looks pretty nice too. The doors can be pretty detailed and would cost quite a bit of money in the US. We saw one area that was making bricks but brick making is shutting down since the government does not want to consume the land for bricks. Thus the need from more concrete. Oddly, we would see buildings where the load bearing columns and beams were concrete but they would fill in the walls with brick. The brick was not laid horizontally but at an angle and then covered up with what I assume was stucco of some kind. I don't think they were using any building detail or materials to keep the water from moving from the exterior to the interior of the wall. :confused3:
The roads were concrete and pretty bumpy. They would not use machines to lay down and smooth the concrete but instead used people with hand trowels. As a result the road is uneven and bumpy. They use people because they need to keep people employed. Lots of jobs could be done with fewer people but keeping people employed seems to be more important than efficiency.
Some of the concrete buildings we saw were really in bad shape and pretty ugly. These seem to have been built in the 60's and 70s. We saw much older buildings, newer houses and buildings that were really nice. The houses had people but the apartment buildings looked empty. We went to a nearby city to go to Walmart and McDonald's :laughing::laughing::laughing: and there are guys selling apartments in new buildings working the street. Really funny when they tried to get US to buy an apartment.
Walmart looks and SMELLS like Walmart in the states. Really odd to be walking around in Walmart, that feels, smells, and looks like a store in the US but the signs are in Chinese and there are a gazilion employees working. The shelves and aisles were VERY orderly unlike our local stores. We actually ran into a young US couple that were English teachers. We were shocked to see ANY other westerners and we kinda stared at each other for a second before we started talking. :laughing::laughing::laughing:
McDonalds has what you would expect but the breakfast foods also had Chinese food.
There is a Walmart competitor in China called Vanguard. If they ever come to the US, Walmart will go out of business. :shocked: Think of a slightly more upscale Super Target but with HUGE bakery, "deli", meat and produce sections. The bakery had a large assortment of Chinese and western items. We were a five minute walk from the gates to Macau, which used to be Portuguese territory, so there is a western influence locally. You could get croissants at the store. :licking::laughing::laughing::laughing: I think you could eat in the cooked food in the "deli" 2-3 times a day and it would take a month or so to repeat a meal.
China is an interesting place, huge, with many different peoples. We want to go back. Pollution is BAD, BAD, BAD. In the area were visited I would guess the air pollution was like some US cities in the 60's or 70's. I think it is worse in NE China were much of the steel production is located.
Later,
Dan
