Comments on China Economy & AG
China has a problem that makes its current debt problem a comparative simple issue. Here is the explanation as Roger sees it.
For thousands of years, the Chinese retirement plan was for parents to have 8 to 12 children and hope half of them survive to adulthood so they can take care of mom and dad in their old age.
China’s one-child policy became the law of the land 1980 as a measure to put a brake on China's population growth and to facilitate economic growth under a planned economy that faced severe shortages of capital, natural resources, and consumer goods.
When the one child policy became law, millions of pregnant wives had their unborn child sexed and, if the baby was a girl, she was aborted and repeated the process until a son was conceived. The thinking was a man could provide a better retirement for elderly parents than a woman.
Since the 1980's, I predicted to anyone who would listen that China was headed for disaster if they did not change the one-child policy within ten years or so because: