[DoughtyOne]

Those cities have been out there for three or four years. They may have been there before that. That’s when I became aware of them.

I wondered if they were prepared for being inhabited after a retaliation strike after a first strike.

It is an interesting dynamic, all those empty buildings, nice roads.

What’s your take on it?

[poconopundit]

These are easy mistakes to make when nobody has “skin in the game”.

The beauty of free enterprise is that investors bear the risks of losing it all and that’s what protects the investments.

Nassim Taleb talks about the IYI’s — Intellectuals Yet Idiots — and China has a lot more of those than we do because they still can’t shake the Communist planning and no-skin-in-the-game way of running a country.

This whole fiasco should be turned into a mandatory class at liberal arts colleges: Why does China have Ghost Cities?

Ask that question and see if students start thinking for themselves...

[Svartalfiar]

It is an interesting dynamic, all those empty buildings, nice roads.

What’s your take on it?

My understanding is that several of those cities were built with the idea that as their economy grew extremely fast, they'd have the buildings ready for the millions of people moving to the cities from rural China. Except, that didn't happen. And now, they're starting to fall apart (already) because they use Chinese steel, Chinese concrete, Chinese drywall, Chinese etc. All of which are inferior crappy materials that aren't pure, don't last, and aren't as strong as they should be.