China's economy is slowing.

Not stopping or reversing yet.

In general China's big issue is transitioning over to a consumer based economy vs the export based economy they have now.

They could succeed, or they could fail... yet to be seen.

One big isse to consider is that while they are a HUGE Economy....

they're like.... 90 when it comes to per captia.  AKA economic output per person.  Which is troublesome in a consumer based GDP.

This is really true when considering there Gini coefficent is about equal to the US, but because of the above they don't have that many super rich, which mean there poor are essentially third world poor.

They need to raise their poor up before they can transition well... and when they do, suddenly not worrying about needs, people WILL worry about freedoms.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMMN3UIQmEk

There's a pretty good video that explains the downside of minimum wage. It actually hurts the poor and unskilled workers, it doesn't help them.

But in combination with my other beliefs (like a Negative Income Tax) then lowering minimum wage isn't as bad as it seems. 

A) You don't know what a negative income tax is do you?

To summarize, people making to little money would pay "negative taxes".  AKA the government would give them money.  Which would be a LOT more efficent then the system we have now where only some people get benefits and it mostly feels arbitrary.

B) Middle class people don't have the actual need to act poor... and no amount of made up trying is going to change that.

We are making the transition, much of the east coastal area is already considered 'developed' by international standard, we have the biggest auto market in the world, 0.5 billion internet users, also most mobile phone users in the world. by GDP (PPP) we ain't far from beating USA, (actually we will be the biggest economy in the world by 2016), as our currency is under valued, GDP (normal) is not a good representation of  the Chinese economy. So Chinese ppl are alot richer than you thought.

As for the gini coefficient, China has the second most billionaires in the world, yes the poor are very poor compare to America, but their standard of living is rising rapidly too. The Chinese government knows what they are doing, as an oversea Chinese, I trust them! :)

20 years ago, China wasn't even top 10 in the world by GDP, 10 years ago China was No.7. Now we are No.2. Our development is beating all the predictions made in the 90s by those economists :)

Go CHina!

Brazilian minimum wages are some 60% higher than China's best provinces (and it goes higher on the state level). Just a random note BTW, Microsoft moved here because they want to be nice enough to sell us X360s for US$450.

You seem to be missing the point I was making though.  Which is while China's GDP is impressive.   It's Per capita GDP is not. (Aka, GDP divided by population.)

Which is VITAL for a consumer based economy.

It's fairly easy to win a numbers game, when you have more numbers however to take those numbers without looking at the averages doesn't really say much.

As far as i can tell actually, employee's share of income has been slow compaired to price growth.

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90780/7605927.html

Shanghai's GDP - Per capita CNY 73,287
US$ 11,134

- Growth 9.9%

CHinese currency is about 50% under valued

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai

Brazil

Yeah... but it's intentionally undervalued.  China would actually be hurt pretty hard if it stopped devaluing it's currency as it's exports would drop off rapidly.

It's forced devaluation is only second to it's cyberhacking programs as far as tension between China and the west goes.

Yes export is still important for China's economy growth, but actually since 2009, the driving force of Chinese GDP growth has been domestic demand

Cheap labour can't last forever, China is changing fast. if you look at clean tecnology area you will find a lot of the leading companies are from China.

If you look at the fortune global top500 companies list

in 2005 USA=175   China=16 in the top500

in 2011 USA=133    China=61 in the top500 with the revenues of Chinese companies in US dollars (chinese currency is under valued)

not many of the Chinese companies listed there are export oriented.

I'm getting the feeling that you don't know much about the nuts and bolts of how economies actually work and keep posting mostly meaningless (in the frame of the discussion) numbers.

Do you have any idea what would happen to the chinese economy if they let go of their forced manipulation of the currency anytime soon?

Heck, the only reason they aren't keeping a tigheter leash on it is because of the troubles in europe.

Do you know how a devalued currency increases "Domestic" investment.