To get “one third of their wealth overseas” and out of harm’s way.
The systematically depreciating yuan and the house price bubbles in Chinese cities have made the elite nervous. Capital flight has become a priority. Dodging government limits on capital flight has turned into an art. And buying properties overseas is the modus operandi to get their wealth out of harm’s way. The numbers are staggering:
60% of high net-worth individuals (HNWI) in China are planning to buy real estate in other countries over the next three years, with the target of moving one-third of their wealth overseas, according to an annual survey, conducted by Hurun Research Institute and Visas Consulting Group.
“More than half of the HNWI are concerned about the depreciation of the yuan, with other prominent concerns including the US dollar exchange rate and overseas asset management,” the report found.
Rupert Hoogewerf, Hurun Report Chairman and Chief Researcher added, “Worries about the depreciation of the yuan and housing bubbles in major Chinese cities are pushing Chinese HNWIs to invest their money overseas.”
The systematic depreciation of the yuan has occurred even as Chinese authorities have consistently announced that there’s “no basis for persistent yuan depreciation.”
“I compiled every single time a top Chinese policy maker said there’s no basis for persistent yuan depreciation since Aug 2015,” tweeted Justina Lee at Bloomberg. She wondered why they have to use the “no-basis wording repeatedly. Did they focus group it & found that it was the most calming? Did some PR guru vet it?” Li Keqiang, Premier of the State Council, “is definitely the no-basis-for-continued-yuan-depreciation-er-in-chief,” she tweeted. Here’s her chart of the yuan’s depreciation with notations of the pronouncements by top officials (click to enlarge):
Lee emphasized that her notations do not even include the numerous similar pronouncements in the state-controlled media.
The fact that with each pronouncement of “no basis for further yuan depreciation,” the yuan depreciated further is a scary thought for the HNWIs: their own government that has encouraged them to get rich is now ganging up on them to undo some of the damage. And these folks are reacting by trying to get their money out.
Number one on their list of financial escape locations, according to the third annual Hurun report: the US, and particularly the West Coast.
In the list below of the top financial escape destinations around the world (with percentage change from prior year), Canada’s hotspot for Chinese investors, Vancouver, is in 6th place; the survey was conducted between August and October, after the property transfer tax of 15% applicable to nonresident investors in British Columbia put a big damper on the Vancouver house price bubble:
- Los Angeles (+0.4%)
- San Francisco (-2.8%)
- Seattle, having overtaken New York City (+3.9%)
- New York City (+1.9%)
- Boston (+1.6%)
- Vancouver (-1.7%)
- Melbourne (+1.1%)
- Sydney (-0.2%)
- New Zealand (+1.2%); OK, it’s a country, but with a population of 4.5 million, it fits right in
- Toronto (-0.3%)
In terms of countries, the top eight:
- US
- UK, “which held onto second place despite Brexit”
- Canada
- Australia
- Singapore
- Ireland, which “broke into the Top 10 for the first time, shooting straight into sixth place”
- Germany
- Spain
The Hurun report defines these Chinese HNWI as a family with the equivalent of at least $1.5 million in net worth, of which China has 1.34 million (the average net worth of the respondents is $4 million). And 60% of them are looking to get some of their wealth out of China. As the report put it: “We are looking at a massive 800,000 individuals who want to buy property overseas over the next three years.”
Value for money is the primary consideration when buying a house overseas, followed by high rates of return and the immigration status it confers. Rupert Hoogewerf said, “Prices in major Chinese cities have risen so fast in the past year that an overseas house seems to offer good bang for your buck.”
Rupert Hoogewerf said, “The trend this year goes beyond emigration to global asset allocation. For rich Chinese today, the target is to have one third of their wealth overseas. Buying houses and foreign exchange deposits lead the way.”
Overseas financial investment accounted for 15% of the wealth of the individuals surveyed. Rupert Hoogewerf said, “The main reasons for investing overseas are to spread their investment risk, children’s education and with emigration in the back of their minds.”
When investing overseas, asset safety is the top priority. 64% chose “risk control” as their foremost consideration. Foreign exchange deposits are the investment of choice, at 31%, followed by funds with 15%, and insurance accounting for more than 10%. Rupert Hoogewerf said, “For Chinese HNWIs today, their investments overseas are conservative nest eggs, not risk capital.”
This is part of the fuel that has been firing up the house price bubbles in US West-Coast cities, in Canada, Australia, and other places. But some of those bubbly markets are now at a turning point. Vancouver and San Francisco come to mind. Chinese investors see that too, and since they’re loath to lose money on their efforts to stay rich, they might be getting second thoughts about those cities and head elsewhere.
This has never happened before in China, ever. Read… China House Price Bubble Soars Most Ever, Government Freaks out, Preannounces Plunge
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The west should welcome these affluent individuals (and their mountains of cash) with open arms, they are the best and brightest – of course, once they’ve moved their money on shore, it will be taxed.
LOL, if they are truly the best and brightest, they wouldn’t move their stuff here, would they? Next they’ll be signing up for PR, thus allowing Uncle Sam to capture their overseas income as well.
The “HNWIs” described here are not the best and the brightest. They’re overwhelming CCP party members who were in the right place following the chaotic liberalisations of the 90s and stole assets that once belonged to the Chinese people as a whole. If you happened to be the local work unit cadre or a CCP member factory boss, you could “buy” a factory for mao on the yuan (ie purchase the quasi-legal recognition of the party, who would not prosecute you and would conveniently overlook the legal impossibility of individuals owning factories). If you were just some particularly bright engineer or scientist, tough shit, go overseas and make your money there- we got the best and the brightest in the 90s.
Best and the brightest, you have to be kidding me. Most of these people can’t speak a word of english. At the very least they are money launderers, at most, they are crooks. If you want to grow your economy, the right way, then bring in people with STEM skills.
Money laundering on steroids- well known. Dishonest predators. Dumb US laws prevent us from going after money laundering in real estate and we give them visas based on their illegal investment over 500m.
Good, I see that Melbourne has increased compared to Sydney.
We are much cheaper than the median in Sydney, less crowded, and even though our roads are crap, we are still better in that area.
But, that being said, several areas in Melbourne have seen their prices actually fall as a result of being priced too high for what you can buy there.
Box Hill and The Waverley areas have been hit. Chinese are now buying in other areas.
Reminds me of the 1980s when the Japanese were pouring money into the US buying properties. Then their stock market bubble popped and the Japanese ended up selling their US properties at pennies on the dollar. A double or triple, maybe even quadruple wammy in store for mainland Chinese investors as their stock market & property bubbles in China will eventually implode along with more Yuan devaluation plus the US housing bubble will pop too. Time to make some pop corn, get comfortable on a nice couch and watch the great China investor meltdown.
100% sure thing, this meltdown. And no exceptions either. It is ordained now.
I’m a Broker Associate in Sonoma County and dang it I have yet to land a rich Chinese buyer.
Largely that’s because they buy the name ( Napa is better known) and I’m no longer with Artisan Sotheby’s, and they also prefer ethnic Chinese agents.
Anyone buying land in Rural Napa or Sonoma would be well advised to use a country agent who knows aquifers, soils,climates and how to deal with such things as the Williamson act, private conservation easements, mutual water districts, permit issues…
“…they also prefer ethnic Chinese agents.”
This aspect of the foreign influx into U.S. locales tends to be overlooked when the economics pf immigration is discussed, as in this article.
The ethnic Chinese population in the Philippines (for example) which I observed when I was there with the U.S. Army in the early 1950s, continues to build worldwide and causes resentment and friction.
We are also seeing it with ethnic Indian families who are buying up the convenience store and motel businesses here.
While there is no justification in my mind for denying these folks access to our country, there is also NO JUSTIFICATION for the so-called “progressive” establishment to find “injustice” in our ethnic Western way of life.
I am proud of my Western heritage and the constitutional governance born of it. It needs resolute defense, IMO.
The Chinese debt bubble growth is stunning. According to ZH, “Debt in China has grown by US$4.5 trillion over the past 12 months, by far the highest amount of debt creation globally as compared to US$2.2 trillion in the US, US$870 billion in Japan and US$550 billion in the euro area. Indeed, China on its own has added more debt than the US, Japan and the euro area combined.”
The only way to get out of this mess is to devalue the Yuan and liquidate the debt, though who knows how long they can keep pushing this? As they’ve delayed the inevitable for years! On the plus side, once the bubble bursts China is going to be left with a lot of new world class infrastructure, something that cannot be said about the US.
When the bubble bursts China may be left with a revolution.
Depends on timing. If the US/Europe were to burst first, the government can point to the failed policies of the Capitalists, causing China to be negatively impacted.
Under US sanctions, the Russian Roubles crashed but Putin’s popularity soared to high levels.
There may be a revolution, but it might not be one that you expect i.e. there could be second cultural revolution.
“There may be a revolution, but it might not be one that you expect i.e. there could be second cultural revolution.”
Managed properly, that could Occur.
It could be the Xi clans next step, in their war against the Jiang clan.
China can built quickly and cheaply, but quality is another issue.
Hongcouver is now out of favor because of the 15% tax on sales to non-residents and Toronto is ridiculously priced. LA, SF and SEA are the new “Gold Mountains”, with LA the largest recipient by far. I doubt President Trump will do anything to stem the inflow.
We’ve seen a lot of this in Huntington Beach and elsewhere in Coastal Orange Co. The Master HOA (Seagate) we live in has over 900 homes, of which fewer than 15% were owned by Asians or firms with Asian owners prior to the 2008 financial crisis. The total is now over 35%, and very few of the Asian buyers have mortgages. So, the homes are in stronger hands, and our HOA reserve funds are in very good shape, unlike the subprime buyers in the Inland Empire and other less desirable areas. We also see the presence of Asians more prominently at malls such as South Coast, Fashion Island and Bella Terra. So, Orange Co. is also a large recipient of Asian, and particularly Chinese, investment.
Interestingly, they haven’t yet bought into San Diego in a big way, which is strange given that the military has a large presence there, and I assume many of the Chinese buyers have ties to the Chinese government and/or military.
I very much doubt President Trump will do anything re: inflow or anything else.
But if I’m wrong there will be an inflow into Canada, and not just Chinese.
Great. Just what we need: more Chinese flooding our towns and colonizing our communities. I see groups of newly-arrived Chinese wandering around, blinking in the sunlight, looking confused and out of place. They’re rude and weird. No more, please. Send them back.
Wait until they start drying their meat on hooks in the back yard. Lovely.
I actually had to explain to my Chinese neighbors that hanging ribs to dry on a shared fence was culturally unacceptable in America. They were very angry with me. So angry that they accepted a UPS package with custom blinds for my house and kept the blinds. Hung them in the front of the house too. Just lovely people.
At least they weren’t cat or dog ribs were they?
BTW: Courtesy of Dave Barrie in South Korea- I’ve heard that dog ribs are delicious.
But he can have my share.
You voted for Trump, right?
One of the blogs posted listings for London apts and they were all down massively. The bust started almost a year ago.
Big Duke, interesting comment concerning vacant properties. The BC and Hongcouver were able to establish that many condos are being used as bank accounts by Chinese buyers who want to get their yuan out of China ASAP, even if it means converting it to CAD. They determined it by looking at electricity bills and many showed little or no usage.
A move is now underway to tax what appear to be vacant properties…
“A move is now underway to tax what appear to be vacant properties” You mean homeowners don’t pay property taxes in Canada already? (I’m moving there tomorrow)
We had a Chinese guy that moved in a flock of chickens and wanted to keep them in his backyard here in the Chicago suburbs. Simply sent the police after them to get them back into line. They are terribly afraid of the police.
modus operandus, actually, being. singular…
Um, yes, singular, BUT… genitive case or gerund (???). My six years of Latin are a bit rusty. The “mode of working.”
If you don’t know Latin, or if like me, forgot it, you can always look it up in the dictionary. My digital Webster’s says “modus operandi” for singular, and ” modi operandi” for plural.
If there are Latin scholars out there, please chime in and clarify for us if this is genitive or gerund.
Wolf is right. “Operandi” is the actually the genitive use of the gerund, the stem is taken from the verb “operor” – to work.
In high school, I remember thinking “I am never going to use Latin” – but here I am using it today! Learning Latin also made other languages easy by comparison, and I’ve never had to study for the verbal part of standardized tests. Once we have kids, I’m going to try to encourage at least 4 years of Latin, but it seems like an even harder sell today.
Awesome!! Ha… “the genitive use of the gerund.” How could I forget! Thanks.
On top of the decades that have passed since I last cracked a Latin book (Cicero?), I hated it and flunked it one year. So this makes me smile!
Drive around Palo Alto at night and see all the unoccupied homes.
Today, for the first time, I’ve been reading nasty and racist comments on the website.. I live in the Seattle area with lots of Chinese, both native born Americans and newly arrived immigrants. I find them to be unfailingly decent, polite and just genuinely nice.. Maybe it’s because I treat them the same way? We have Chinese immigrant neighbors who work for a living, are not rich, and expect their children to do well in school and outshine their parents. Sounds pretty American to me..
I live in Seattle too and my wife is Chinese. Everything I’ve read so far bu posters isn’t racist. It’s factual, valid and accurate. Travel sometime to China. Very corrupt. The Chinese buying property in Vancouver, Seattle, Toronto, LA, San Fran etc. are using it for money laundering. Now go have a latte……..
Been to China. My wife is Korean.. Don’t drink coffee.. “Chinese flooding our towns, colonizing our communities”.. and you’re OK with that..
I lived in New York City, with a Chinatown full of Chinese gangs, drugs, gambling dens, counterfeiters, prostitution, and the occasional shooting. I know, I’m a racist for noticing, so sorry.
My Ex is from Brooklyn so I too know the city.. I am amazed to read the Chinatown is full of Chinese; those “Just lovely people”..According to city-data, Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Fodor’s Chinatown in Manhattan (Little Italy) is safe.. Noisy, busy, crowded but safe.. Chinatown in Vancouver, BC is a nice destination and a safe place to shop and eat.. The International District (The ID), Little Saigon, Chinatown in Seattle is less nice because of all the homeless living under the interstate few of whom are Asian.. My white neighbor kept a UPS package that was mine but he can read English.. Did you ask for your blinds back?
My dentist is ethnic Chinese, great gal and dentist. Two other doctors I have are ethnic Chinese, one of whom was born in China. Great people and doctors. I know a few other people of Chinese descent around here, great people. I live on the edge of China Town (in San Francisco, China Town is far bigger than the actual place called China Town), and our Safeway caters to the Chinese, and some of the employees are Chinese. Sure, when I go to the deli counter to buy a sandwich, it would be helpful to speak Cantonese. I walk through China Town all the time, day or night. Never had a single problem. Sure, the major commercial street (Stockton) is busy and congested during the day, and there are different smells from different foods, but that’s all part of the fun.
Are there criminal activities in China Town? Sure. Are they worse than in other parts of the city? Nope. And they never had anything to do with us. San Francisco has four homicide pockets where nearly all homicides take place. China Town is not one of them.
So speaking from my experience, your vision is tainted.
Next you’ll say that you lived in New York City, where all Italians are Sopranos involved in “gangs, drugs, gambling dens, counterfeiters, prostitution, and the occasional shooting”.
Heck all those organized crimes that the FBI had to break must have been a figment of our imagination right? Next you’ll be calling us racists for noticing that “Genovese, Gambino, Lucchese and Bonanno” are all Italian names.
I actually lived in Staten Island for some years, ground zero for the mob in NYC. There was almost no street crime.
I know Petunia, because most street crimes are committed by whites and blacks. So what’s your point?
And most corporate crime in the US are committed by whites.
Continue proving your racism.
If you identify the source of anti-Chinese sentiment as racism simpliciter you have no hope of understanding the historical process at work here. The same process has been repeated over and over all along the Pacific rim- a commercial opportunity is identified outside of China proper, large numbers of emigrants leave to exploit it, and an ethnic Chinese socio-political monopoly over some sector (eg seed stock and tractors in Malaysia through to the 90s- the Malays did all the shitty farm work, the Chinese broadly had control over the tools they need to do their job), racialised hatred is generated. Or for a more extreme example- basically the entire political class in Thailand is ethnically Chinese (~80% of parliamentarians are ethnically Chinese despite being ~15% of the population), and the King is Chaozhou for God’s sake! The Thais literally don’t run anything in the land they’ve occupied for millenia.
The nature of immigration from China has qualitatively changed. From the point at which Western gov’ts deigned to allow brown folks in under normal immigration laws through the 90s, the West systematically stripped much of the developing world of their professional classes. It was broadly acceptable (see “best and the brightest” comment above) to the general public, and by and large the immigrants had a colonized mentality and no particular desire to bring the issues and the parochial networks of power and patronage of the old country along with them.
This is no longer the case- it’s quite clear that the majority of the wealthy Chinese immigrants (the topic of the article) have far more in common with Sterling Seagraves “Lords of the Rim” than they do with the immigrants who were arriving during the 20th century. This will inevitably generate social conflict, it will inevitably produce the kind of ugly racialised thinking you’re decrying, and none of the liberal goodthink about race will matter an iota to either the Lords or to the little people in the Americas who will grow to hate them.
It’s interesting you brought up Thailand because the Chinese in Thailand are super integrated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_Chinese. Are there Chinese people in Thailand who will marry other Chinese people exclusively. You bet there are, but the conflict between Thaksin and the existing power structure is not one between the Chinese and Thais, in fact it’s Chinese vs Chinese or really Thai vs Thai since the Chinese element is not even in consideration.
Integration is slower in the rest of South East Asia, partly due to historical reasons. For example: isn’t it curious that integration is weakest in countries with colonialism? Oh wait, is that another gift from the White Man? What most countries in SEA need is more enlightened/courageous leadership, like Singapore who doesn’t hesitate to bring in talents from minority groups (like Tharman who’s DPM) and “strongly encourages” people from different racial groups to live together in Govt Housing through predefined living arrangements.
And finally to all those people saying the Chinese are corrupt, should everyone make the same conclusion about Americans based on the American political class? The amount of corruption that Hillary Rodham Clinton has done alone is probably equal to the total corruption of 100 million Chinese people in the lower class.
I’m 30% Chinese, my grandfather immigrated to Canada in the 50’s. Multiculturalism is a reality. Hopefully these racist outbursts will subside once Clinton is elected. Well, one can hope anyway.
If you think flooding a country with refugees that have no intention to integrate with prevailing cultural norms, and depend on the gov’t for their existence is the answer to racism, you are sadly misguided. Ask any ethnic German in Germany today.
The Chinese would be well server buying in Florida
Hi Wolf,
Sorry, but Sidney is actually spelt Sydney. Surprised Melbourne is above Sydney considering all the damage the Apex gangs are doing to its reputation, not to mention their Government.
Thanks for the typo note. Fixed.
The problem here in Victoria in regards to the so called ‘APEX’ gang is that the cops catch ’em and the courts let them out. They offend again and the same thing happens: the courts let them out.
When I came to Australia on vacation many years ago before moving here, there was crime, but not like today.
I could say the same thing about my home state of North Dakota (Go Bison, and Fighting Sioux (What he h are the ‘Fighting Hawks’???)
And sorry to all the PC people out there, IMO it is a ‘quality of people’ problem made worse by a bunch of judges that live in never, never land.
And Wolf, by the way, here is an article on interest rates paid to depositors that we talked about in another article about Australian real estate prices:
http://www.theage.com.au/business/banking-and-finance/banks-cut-rates-for-savers-after-august-pr-exercise-20161031-gsf1gb.html
The bank did exactly as I said they would do.
I’ve been hiking in the Oakland hills and in the walnut creek area and come across large groups of people speaking chinese exclusively. I’ve lived in these places most of my life and never saw anything like it. The stories are true, they’ve really come into these areas in large numbers and they look to be quite wealthy.
Lights and plumbing and nearby schools!
Same as it ever was!
China wants more policy and less forward guidance
From the Fed.
We get Hb-1 visa workers at the expense of the dollar peg?
The big people have already move their big chunks of money.
SO much of it ends up on the US west coast as its easy.
The fact the more and more of those moving money out of the grasp of the CCP are in the sub 5,000,000 category tells us that china has worse problem than people think.
The speech point’s on the chart are almost all classic ccp say one thing whilst intending to do the other.
Well I’ll add my two cents about the Chinese. When they come to visit Canada in their packs, they should be advised to respect Canadians personal space. If one happens to be in the same area as them they will crowd you. Has happened to me many times and I’ve had to scold them publicly.
We could do this all day. You know who’s really pushy? Israelis. Even pushier? Armenians. Who refuses to politely line up? Parisians. Who’s violent and crude? Russians. And so on.
No one likes dealing with strangers and their strange customs and strange languages. No one wants to move out of their comfort zone. At heart we are all terrified of change.
Does “terrified of change”, imply being unwilling to see our Western culture denigrated and destroyed by “progress”, defined as adoption of some PC “multicultural” norm?
If so, why is that indefensible?
My biggest problem with immigrants is that they want to transfer their cultural environment here when they move. If I moved to Paris I would want to live as much of a French life as I could, and speak French too. What’s the point of moving to CA or FL to be Chinese. Stay where you are and fix the political and economic mess you created at home. If they are so great, how come China is a mess. You can extend the example to any other ethnic group.
You are fighting a battle for ethnic and cultural purity that was lost two or three hundred years ago.
The US is the most multicultural society in the world. We are all from somewhere else, and that somewhere includes Asia and Africa, not just Northern Europe.
Our diversity is our greatest strength. It’s why, generation after generation, we lead the world in the production of new knowledge. Although you would not know if from today’s fearful conservative politics, we are as a society less afraid of change and more willing to adapt than most places on the planet.
‘Does “terrified of change”, imply being unwilling to see our Western culture denigrated and destroyed by “progress”, defined as adoption of some PC “multicultural” norm?
‘If so, why is that indefensible?’
RD BLAKESLEE…
DAAAAMN, THAT WAS GOOD. BEST ARGUMENT I’VE HEARD TO THIS. that’s the problem with WORDS today. they obfuscate reality. thank you for this answer: “why is that indefensible?”
“If I moved to Paris I would want to live as much of a French life as I could, and speak French too. What’s the point of moving to CA or FL to be Chinese. Stay where you are and fix the political and economic mess you created at home. If they are so great, how come China is a mess. You can extend the example to any other ethnic group.”
NIIICE… i realized i started to wanna punch the americans who’re so cavalier about going somewhere ELSE if they don’t like what’s going on HERE.
i hate the lack of sticking it out and fighting with the rest of us shlubs who can’t AFFORD to just go elsewhere, and it’s also more colonialism to go exploit others elsewhere to live cheaply blah blah blah…
we’re saying the same thing.
i’m glad that Wolf doesn’t get PC-twitchy and shut down comments many people feel offended by, because it shows the rage of people being sold out by their countries to the highest bidders from anywhere and everywhere.
i’m half Puerto Rican and half white (French/German), and grew up more around the white side of the family who hated blacks, jews, gays. but things are complicated because they just are.
a lot of the unease is cultural (like about personal space), but a lot of the RAGE is at being shut out, sold out, and being unable to afford even RENT in your own country or get a decent JOB…so forget a house.
and the system incentivizes people to buy up properties. health care is also a commodity and we’re up against the wall. i see so much rage and homelessness among people you’d never imagine to be homeless, i don’t understand how things have kept on THIS long. it’s astounding. especially because people will easily and casually riot over a sports team, but anything else? it’s all crickets right now. crickets and meaningless tweets that do nada.
i’m interested in what’s happening at the Standing Rock Sioux tribe standoff because if they succeed, i wonder if it will ripple. it’s different because people are coming together and learning how to be a community again. i heard of some youngsters with drug issues not NEEDING crack/meth now that they’re with elders and teachers and a larger purpose.
it seems unrelated but i don’t think it is. they broke down the Indians and they’re coming back and together like never before. it’s historical. it INSPIRES me because what they did to the Indians had me despairing of all hope.
i live in san francisco and admit that i GET Trump. more than most here. i GET it. but i’m also from new york (born there) and loooove assholes, as i am one myself. new yorkers say fuck you to say i love you.
yeah, Trump’s an asshole, but at least he’s OPEN about it. i could barely watch Hillary for all the bullshit. and what she and her husband did to colored folk, students, and america with NAFTA… really????
i ramble, but not really…
i grew up around a lot of jews in jersey–saw the black eyes and nose bandages in middle school. know the rites of passage and didn’t get the other side of the Palestinian story til i got to san francisco. so i grew up with “we will never forget!” only to ask, “but what about the Palestinians???”
and so i wonder if this thing with the wealthy chinese could go the way of the jews before WW2 because i GET the seething rage myself and it makes me feel squirmy and uncomfortable.
i used to squirm at stories of chinese going to golden gate park to steal the ducks out of the ponds for dinner. someone told me they were fables. i don’t care now.
i see the rage donald trump personifies in america, and certain people seem dumbfounded but that means you have no clue the rage that exists out here. this is what i FEEL constantly and wonder when’s it gonna snap?
there will be many levels and layers of “snapping.”
but i’m a colored girl who often hates just about all white folks, and i GET IT. i get the rage. i wonder if i’m xenophobic and all that, too.
but it’s our country and the people in charge who’ve sold us out at every turn and still do.
that doesn’t mean it’s not gonna get ugly. how long can you have empty houses and apartments with working homeless folks sleeping right outside in the rains?
i’ve no answer. i only worry that when things snap, it’ll be too blunt to discern who’s who and no one’s sitting anything out and having that fucking popcorn. there’s no smug position to be had anymore, if there ever was.
the other similarity i see with the jews of yore is that the chinese are also family oriented and trust their own. that insulation pissed the germans off so much they made lampshades out of the jews and saved their hair.
thankfully there is no equivalent to pure race hitler youth here. but if you’ve got money you’re okay. fuck the rest of us… but for how long?
i snapped when i had nothing left to lose and i’m not even young.
i have NO idea how it’s all gonna go. but don’t just dismiss trump as if he’s a reality show blip. i get it and i never could stand the motherfucka. James doesn’t even get how i end up laughing whenever he talks and often agree with him.
if you don’t get the true appeal and desperation of a trump candidacy, then you’re gonna not gonna get everything that goes on from here.
i think we’re fatigued with all this globalism. it’s kicking our collective asses. and it’s suicide to merely attribute all this despair and rage to racism, hate, xenophobia, etc.
it’s bad out here. san francisco is so comfortable with the suffering of others, i now see why neighbors have slaughtered their other next door neighbors with machetes elsewhere. it’s surreal because it’s the most beautiful city in the world, but now i see it as the cruelest city in the world because it doesn’t take very much to be an undesirable, untouchable. money rules here. even if you’re a developer with a belt of the rotting skulls of saintly nuns, you’re welcomed like a hero.
..and PETUNIA…
so funny what you said about the mob on staten island. when i was dancing outside the park one night and got attacked by a tweaker homeless couple and their pit bull, the last and poorest neighbors “took care of it.”
the mother came out the next morning and stomped into the park and told the couple to leave and then traded fast talk with this guy on a bike called, “Tattoo Raul,” and set up to have the guy beat up over attacking me.
i learned that when the little gay guys next door got attacked a couple years earlier, my neighbor also had the attackers taken care of. this is some kind of untouchable zone and i had no idea who really and truly made this fucking neighborhood SAFE.
and the new bougie folks actually had had a wine and fucking cheese party to coordinate getting this family evicted because they all wanted their property values to go UP.
but i never realized that while this used to be one of the “scariest” parts of the mission, we were always really fucking SAFE. i had to laugh because the family they were trying to evict were way more effective than the police, who never come for anything serious. only when i’m dancing.
the new people come here and yell at the homeless and don’t realize if you befriend them, your car won’t get so broken into, and your UPS stuff won’t get stolen.
anyhow, i wrote and signed a letter that i gave to all the wine and cheese people, saying that if they were gonna harass them, they were also harassing ME.
others backed off and i hugged one woman. only the new irish family still insists on bullying them. but i got in their face enough, they put cameras up and worry a little more at least.
it’s so funny they don’t realize who’s kept us safe all these decades!
When the elites suppressed the Occupy movement they felt smug over their success, but I knew they should be afraid, very afraid. When they repressed all that anger they got a more organized channeled opposition. Wikileaks is the spearhead right now, but injustice breeds revenge, and justice is nowhere to be seen, so get ready for more push back.
The mighty Soviet Union wasn’t felled by the mighty USA, it was felled by a bunch of soldiers in East Berlin who couldn’t stand repressing their own people anymore. That lesson was lost here in the USA. They would do well to be reminded of the great Roman Empire, felled when the people didn’t fight the barbarians because they could no longer differentiate between the enemy and the state.
Trump is an asshole, but he can see the writing on the wall, which is more than Hillary can see. Being an Imperialist at heart, Hillary thinks this is sustainable and it isn’t.
whoa, that’s fascinating… i was thinking along a similar vein. in fact, i only see liberal elite WHITE folks who’re the most terrified at a trump presidency. and then i realized the Republicans bailed as well… and then it made sense that they ALL despised him because they run things their way and collude in the bullshit that’s killing us.
but business people think differently because even if you’re screwing the government on taxes, he’s RIGHT–they made it fucking LEGAL in the FIRST PLACE.
and then the thing i noticed i actually LIKED about trump, a LOT, is how he said it was time to renegotiate NAFTA. it wasn’t NAFTA as much as he said “RE-NEGOTIATE.” i never EVER hear a politician say such a thing because their existence is based on 2- or 4- year visions (within a whole extra-skeletal vision that IS america, i know- this goes without saying here), and no one ever RE-NEGOTIATES. not really. i don’t remember ever HEARING such a word in politics before something’s law.
but RE-NEGOTIATE is a whole OTHER way of thinking when something’s just not working out. this is not a small distinction; we’re talking about how the world is seen in politics where you never have to deliver anymore, just rape. it’s why hillary has no discernable personality of her own; they’re malleable. it was chilling. i couldn’t read her eyes. she’s a fucking machine.
anyhow, then i thought about all the fucking FEAR MONGERING about trump, mostly from the liberal elite and progressives…
they are afraid and they mention black folks and all colored folks and poor people and EVERYONE should be AFRAID… and i thought, “what? like they’ll imprison generations of our men, make student loans undischargeable for life, sign NAFTA into being, end welfare for poor folks, and then have cops legally shoot our people worse than dogs in the STREET?”
and trump denied some colored folks a place to live and talked about grabbing women’s crotches…
how does these levels of assholery vs. pure evil even compare in all the fear tactics?
i’m just saying i forgot you’re never supposed to trust management. the racist thing is a red herring to me because shit is pretty fucking crazy mad RACIST right NOW out in the open, i, and others i talk to, are screaming about it in private moments because it’s out of hand now.
and we’ve currently got a swaggering obama in office who’s like skipper barbie. (he lost me when he sold out his preacher. that is NOT Black to me. you have no soul left when you can do that for a fucking job.)
yeah. i agree… the “racism” isn’t trump. we at the bottom all have a lot in common, actually.
now i see that if things snap it’s because they NEED to. now that i really think about what they’ve already DONE to us, i actually shudder at what another 4 plus years of hillary would COMPLETE.
now i totally get it when you said you KNOW what one has already done.
Trump dosent have political speak 101.
He does have A+ in Populist, Racist, Dog Whistle 101.
Renegotiate = AMEND.
You know, like all those AMENDMENT’S, to the US Constitution.
Just to begin with.
Every trade agreement gets Amended, Some more regularly, than others.
Petunia I ++++++ what you said
I am Very interested as well in what’s happening at the Standing Rock Sioux tribe standoff because if they succeed, i wonder if it will ripple. it’s different because people are coming together and learning how to be a community again. i heard of some youngsters with drug issues not NEEDING crack/meth now that they’re with elders and teachers and a larger purpose.