Dan Wang: belief

Transcript context

…Now, there’s a chart, I think from Andrew Batson, and you know this guy, measuring China’s capital productivity. It shows that capital productivity to be in steady decline. I know these things are hard to measure, but do you agree with that? If so, why is that happening, if China is so successful with all these manufacturing ventures? Yes, I think it is a very well-established fact that TFP growth in China has been falling. We don’t have to get into how valid TFP measures are, but I agree with it, and I think that one can see it in society. Now, my view of China is that 50% of China’s economy is pretty dysfunctional, but 5% is going splendidly well. When I became a technology analyst working for Andrew Batson, as well as Arthur Kroeber at Gavekal Dragonomics, my remit was to take a look at the top 5% of China’s economy, and that is the area that I’ve always spent most of my time thinking about that goes from strength to strength. Now, I would say that 50% of America’s economy is also pretty dysfunctional. 50% of every economy is pretty dysfunctional. In America, I would just call that health care, as well as the subways. I’m sorry to tease you, Tyler, but I know you can take it. The subways are not going to add up to 50% of the economy, right? They’re not 1% of the economy.…

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