The last bit about being an 'ordinary person' is so real. I feel like in every society, the ordinary people feel they're gonna get screwed one way or another, whether that's the job market, housing market, financial markets etc. You see similar sentiments in the UK, with lots of people feeling like no matter how hard they work the things around them are getting worse and they have little influence over their circumstances. All you can do is persevere and 'not check the answers after an exam' as one person put it!
I always wondered why we need phenomena like Labubu. After reading the post, I got the impression that they compensate for life as it once was and replace it with equality (the brand itself), then differentiate it only in small ways (investment and luck in uniqueness). Everything else is let go, and see what's still possible. That was very depressing.
The housing market in China was insane! Purely driven by investor greed, sentiment and FOMO. Watched this build up over 2019-2020 and just couldn't understand people ignoring the basics - excess supply, and declining population means no demand. No demand leads to declining prices. Happy for speculators to go on the ride up, but get out before the rollercoaster ride down! I saw the same happen with the crazy drive to buy gold and not everyone made it out at the top.
The Chinese have the highest savings rate in the world, and this has been ingrained into my brain from a very early age (save, save, save then save some more). I understand from my friends that there are few options to invest in China - real estate and the stock market (which is more akin to a casino). International investing is difficult because the average individual is limited as to how much he/she/they can send out of the country, so that leaves real estate like you mentioned. This still doesn't detract from the question "if you are going to invest your life savings wouldn't you do some due diligence into the investment to understand the risk?" The Chinese Real Estate market was ripe for extreme speculation and has led to unfortunate losses and harsh lessons that some may never recover from.
On a second thought, they’ve also explored other options, like P2P, crypto and becoming a franchisee. Because of censorship and limitations in China’s information channel, it’s quite hard to get a real picture of the project.
The last bit about being an 'ordinary person' is so real. I feel like in every society, the ordinary people feel they're gonna get screwed one way or another, whether that's the job market, housing market, financial markets etc. You see similar sentiments in the UK, with lots of people feeling like no matter how hard they work the things around them are getting worse and they have little influence over their circumstances. All you can do is persevere and 'not check the answers after an exam' as one person put it!
So, is social media buzz and hype the only valuable thing for this generation?
What do you mean in this context?
I always wondered why we need phenomena like Labubu. After reading the post, I got the impression that they compensate for life as it once was and replace it with equality (the brand itself), then differentiate it only in small ways (investment and luck in uniqueness). Everything else is let go, and see what's still possible. That was very depressing.
The housing market in China was insane! Purely driven by investor greed, sentiment and FOMO. Watched this build up over 2019-2020 and just couldn't understand people ignoring the basics - excess supply, and declining population means no demand. No demand leads to declining prices. Happy for speculators to go on the ride up, but get out before the rollercoaster ride down! I saw the same happen with the crazy drive to buy gold and not everyone made it out at the top.
Maybe some people believe that they don’t have other options.
The Chinese have the highest savings rate in the world, and this has been ingrained into my brain from a very early age (save, save, save then save some more). I understand from my friends that there are few options to invest in China - real estate and the stock market (which is more akin to a casino). International investing is difficult because the average individual is limited as to how much he/she/they can send out of the country, so that leaves real estate like you mentioned. This still doesn't detract from the question "if you are going to invest your life savings wouldn't you do some due diligence into the investment to understand the risk?" The Chinese Real Estate market was ripe for extreme speculation and has led to unfortunate losses and harsh lessons that some may never recover from.
On a second thought, they’ve also explored other options, like P2P, crypto and becoming a franchisee. Because of censorship and limitations in China’s information channel, it’s quite hard to get a real picture of the project.
(Housing, not Hosing…in the title.)