Chinese village unveils skyscraper taller than the Chrysler Building

[johnd83]

A once-sleepy village in the countryside of eastern China celebrated its 50th anniversary Saturday by unveiling an incongruous addition to its skyline: a skyscraper taller than the Chrysler Building.

The 74-story Longxi International Hotel towers 328 meters (1,076 feet) above the village of Huaxi and cost 3 billion yuan ($472 million) to build, according to the state-owned China Daily newspaper.



*snip*

"Its proudest feature is a one-tonne, solid gold statue of an ox, said to be worth 300m yuan" ($47.2 million).



http://photoblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/10/10/8252200-chinese-village-unveils-skyscraper-taller-than-the-chrysler-building

If there has ever been a clear sign something is amiss in China, this is it. Unfortunately they are distorting the entire global economy with their massive bubble.

[Xithras]

1. Huaxi China isn't an ordinary "village", and really isn't a village at all.

Depending on who you ask, it's either the best economic model ever devised, or it's an absolute perversion of economics. Either way, it's the richest village in China.

Essentially, Huaxi was classical communist village, with all property held in common. Many years ago, when industrialization began, the people of Huaxi decided that they didn't want their land taken by corporations, so they turned the entire village into a corporation and made all of the residents shareholders. They then attracted highly profitable companies to their land, using generous leases, which led to the area becoming a bit of an economic powerhouse. Those land leases generated a huge amount of ongoing profit, which is divided equally and split among the residents. The entire population went from living in dilapidated farmhouses and dirt floored peasant huts to living in beautiful modern townhouses in a matter of decades. They have some of the best schools in China, food and supplies in the stores are completely free for residents, and all healthcare is completely paid for by the town corporation.

It does, of course, have a darker side. In order to keep their shares from diluting, only residents in the original village can be shareholders, and even then only if they remain residents of the village. The few thousand original residents are very wealthy, but the tens of thousands of migrant workers who actually toil in those factories, who aren't allowed to live in the village and must commute in every day, get nothing.

There's no doubt that the formerly dirt-poor peasant residents of Huaxi hit on a brilliant formula for exploiting the capitalists and making money, but in doing so they've become a bit exploitative themselves. Whether the whole situation is good or bad is a matter of opinion.

FWIW, the BBC did a bit on this village a few years ago. If you can find the piece online, it's pretty eye opening. You end up simultaneously thrilled for the villagers and what they managed to pull off, and appalled at the conditions and treatment that the factory workers endure.

[Lizzie Poppet]

2. A golden calf...how utterly appropriate.

Feel free to thank us, China, for your economic miracle. Or, more accurately, thank the handful of powers-that-be for exporting manufacturing to your shores and treating their own country as nothing more than a corporate tax shelter.

And of course, what I really mean is "fuck them...and fuck you."

[alfredo]

4. The greed merchants deserve to be treated with the

same contempt they show us.

[truebrit71]

5. No kidding right? Wow...that just about takes the biscuit....

...I wonder when the citizens of China will figure out that they have traded one failed economic system for another one wherein they are still governed by the same people in the same manner, only under the new system they think they are 'free'....

[dtexdem]

6. Many Chinese "villages" aren't really villages.

Not any more than cities like Arlington, Texas (now one of the 50 largest cities in the U.S., and hosting two major sports teams, the Cowboys and the Rangers) are just sleepy small towns.

[Xithras]

9. It's a trick based on how they define "population"

I just looked it up (I was drawing from my memory of that BBC bit for my first post.)

Huaxi is still considered a village because it only has about 2000 residents. They define "residents" as the people who lived there when the shares were split, or their children.

The village also has about 40,000 "guests", who live in dense housing and work in the factories. They aren't residents, aren't allowed to vote in town elections, their children aren't allowed to attend the towns schools (though the town does fund dedicated schools just for the children of the workers), and don't get any of the other benefits of living in Huaxi. According to the government, they are just guests. They can spend decades there, and they're guests. Their children could theoretically be born in the town, live their entire lives working in thoe factories, die, and be buried in the town, and they'd still only be considered guests.

Officially, and legally, the population of the village is currently about 2,000 people. Everyone else is just visiting.

[AngryAmish]

10. There is a town call Rosemont next to Chicago that does kinda the same thing

Very small population, who are all employed by the city. Mob run town. Lots of hotels, a convention center, office buildings.

[malthaussen]

3. Proving even some Chinese

... have taste as bad as Donald Trump's.

-- Mal

[Dr Fate]

7. We should hire them to build one of those for us. Nt

Nt

[moondust]

8. The Golden Ox of Communism

It's a mad, mad world.

:crazy: