pcnonpc

The current number of extremely poor people in China is less than 30 million, less than 2% of population.

From Google:

"According to the World Bank, more than 500 million people were lifted out of extreme poverty as China's poverty rate fell from 88 percent in 1981 to 6.5 percent in 2012, as measured by the percentage of people living on the equivalent of US$1.90 or less per day in 2011 purchasing price parity terms."

In 2017 there are around 600 million people in rural area. Their average monthly income is 3300 yuan or around 500 USD, more than $15 a day. Cost of living there is cheap and this is middle income, not poor.

US pension funds together are worth $22 trillion. This is 61% of global pension funds and much much larger than the Saudi funds. They should invest a small part into Vision Funds and other VCs!

If the drug is out of patent and it is very profitable, why doesn't anyone set up a company to manufacture and sell it cheaper in the US?

Same question with epipen.

Is it not possible to order a generic from India or another country? The drug should be out of patent a long while already?

If no competitor is available, why doesn't anyone set it up? It looks like a great startup opportunity.

The current statistics in 2017 is around 600 million in rural area. Their monthly income is 3300 yuan or around 500 USD, more than $15 a day. According to World Bank, a country with $6000 USD a year is upper-middle income.

If you count their rural areas as a nation, its GDP is $3.6 trillion around the same size as Germany, 4th largest in the world.

Economic growth is usually measured in percentage terms. There are good reasons for that. If they can keep the growth rate, the Chinese economy will be larger than the US in about 10 or 15 years.

China's is still a developing economy and they have a lot of ways to increase productivity compared to the US. They are also at a leading edge in many technologies of the future so they do not need to spend as much as other developing countries to purchase them from abroad.

China's growth rate may slow down but it will continue to be faster than the US rate for many years.

US Dollar is the world's reserve currency. If US dollar becomes less strong in the future, the size of US economy may not be as large in relative term anymore. The petrodollar system may not be as powerful when renewables are more important. Perhaps China also considers this when they push so hard for renewables.

Some populations practice having as many children as they can because their belief system calls for it. They believe they will get more brownie points from a supreme being for that.

So these groups will get more share of the basic income in the next generation and more in the next and so on and so on...

What does Italy have that China cannot produce itself? Brand name products, basic machines and chemicals which Italy exports are not important to their development.

Russia has oil, minerals and iron which China needs to grow.

China's shifting to domestic consumption and strong Yuan is better than weak Yuan. Strong currency will also reduce capital flight from the country and increase its financial powers to buy world resources such as mining rights and companies abroad.

They understand how the dollar status as reserve currency helps strengthen American power. Many Chinese leaders understand the power of finance. They have used it to develop export-oriented economy and they are now using it to expand their power abroad.

China is now confident it is strong enough and has resources and relationships to counter US pressure.

I don't think the religions preach what people want to hear. They built procreation into their belief system to make sure they will have bigger and bigger adherents. It works and many of those religions are much larger today than others without procreation preaching.

Several major religions in poor developing countries preach having more kids. They don't care about environmental impact or sustainability. They believe their God will provide.

How would we deal with that?