Chinageddon

[Farsala]

SamuelRSmith said:

Farsala said:
Seems to me that such a massive population in such a small area cannot sustain massive grovvth.

US is in a good position population vvise, other then the baby boomers. Unlike Japan and Germany, US has good population grovvth to keep up vvith the elders. But also it isn't a booming grovvth like African countries vvhich simply cannot be sustained.

China has done vvell to curb the boom, but novv has an aging population in a lose-lose situation. And as has been seen in the US a big population at a certain age leads to massive grovvth then the bubble pops.

Hmmm, not sure I agree with this. It's pretty well understood that larger populations, and greater population density, results in greater wealth. Hence why people flock to cities.

Boom-bust economic cycles have occurred in countries of all different population sizes and densities. In the modern world*, they're typically the result of Government (or central bank) policy causing misallocations of wealth. They artificially make something cheaper/more profitable, so everybody floods in to that market, and then it becomes unsustainable and *pop*

*In the past, and in undeveloped countries, boom-bust can be more easily tracked alongside agricultural output. They have/had boom period during good harvests, and bust periods during bad harvests.

I should mention grovvth rates need to be proportional to size of country. If a country is city sized and has a population boom then it should be fine. As most city economies are fine. A population boom in a city leads to expensive housing vvhich can lead to more money being circulated.