Forbes: World's Top 10 Billionaire Cities; Beijing Overtakes New York
 

WOW, it's apparently raining money in China:cheers:

Anyhow, here is Forbes' Ranking of the World's Top 10 Billionaire Cities for 2021, this is based on CITY PROPER, so for New York, just the 5 boroughs(does not include CT, NNJ or Long Island, which would undoubtedly vault NY well past Beijing), and for SF, just the 47 sq miles--so SF now has 1 billionaire per square mile:haha:

Rank/City, Billionaires(change from last year)
1 Beijing, 100(+33)
2 New York, 99(+7)
3 Hong Kong, 80(+9)
4 Moscow, 79(+9)
5 Shenzhen, 68(+24)
6 Shanghai, 64(+18)
7 London, 63(+7)
8 Mumbai, 48(+10)
8 San Francisco, 48(+11)
10 Hangzhou, 47(+21)

https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnhya...h=496b69ec43e3

That's sure a lot of new billionaires for a year that's been an economic depression for most everyone else.

Also a lot of billionaires for a supposedly communist country.

Stocks have been up as central banks around the world are dumping massive amounts of liquidity. Billionaires do not derive their wealth from income and have minuscule amounts of their wealth in cash.

Monkey, Bilboa...GREAT points!

Because China is not communist, at least not yet. That's not like some secret. They're supposedly working toward that goal.

Seems to me they've been going in the opposite direction ever since Deng Xiaoping was in power.

I mean, they've pulled hundreds of millions out of poverty and their goal is to give everyone some level of wealth, primarily through heavier taxation on the wealthy and lower taxation on the poor - something that we should probably be doing more of in the west. It was Deng that said that poverty is not socialism.

I find it difficult to believe that even if China pushes more towards socialism and communism that their stock of billionaires will dry up.

This is absolutely nothing to be proud of. Beijing is an much poorer city than NY and all this does is exemplify the grotesque socio-economic disparities in contemporary China.

China has been going the opposite direction of Communism since the 1980s. That is why Beijing went from a city full of bicycles to one with private cars and a massive subway system.

From my experience in China, the best way to describe whats going on is that China is a subcontinent, not too unlike Europe, being run as a giant for-profit conglomerate corporation posing as a unitary state, called the CCP. The CCP owns all the land and collects property taxes legally as "rent". They have a C-suite of executives, the CEO being Xi, although unlike a CEO, Xi essentially answers to no one. They operate without rule of law, distributing and coordinating resources and people as they see fit, just like a company. In this day and age, a nation state cant forcibly relocate people or resources on a whim.. but a company sure can.

The corporate nature of the CCP is why China doesnt play fair in any of the world's international systems, especially intellectual property law: They are not trying to be an ethnno-state like the various nations of Europe... being a "country" is not the goal. The CCP couldnt turn China into an ethno-state even if they wanted to, because they already rule over hundreds, if not thousands, of different ethnicities just within China. Whether we choose to realise it or not, the CCP is not China, they are an absolutely massive conglomerate corporation currently in control of all the property in China, and they are operating on the world stage just like any other corporation: they are playing to win

I'm surprised that SF city has more billionaires than LA city, given the latter's extensive boundaries.

China isn’t really communism so much anymore. It is totalitarian state run capitalism.

Capitalism with Chinese characteristics.

Absolutely. For example, most people have never heard of SASAC (State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission) but it is arguably the largest conglomerate in the world, and is directed by the highest levels of the CCP.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stat...ion_Commission

‘As of 2017, its companies had a combined assets of CN¥161 trillion (US$26 trillion), revenue of more than CN¥23.4 trillion (US$3.6 trillion), and an estimated stock value of CN¥50 trillion (US$7.6 trillion), making it the largest economic entity in the world.’

They certainly would disagree, don't they call themselves "Communist with Chinese characteristics" or something like that?

I agree with you btw.

I don't disagree, I am a socialist. lol

We could debate all day about what China is, it's complicated. But as of right now, their system isn't communism, the existence of billionaires at all kinda proves that.

Well, Beverly Hills, Malibu, Santa Monica, San Marino, Pasadena, Manhattan Beach, etc.. These are all separate cities so that might effect it

Yeah the problem with LA is that its so decentralized. Its better to judge LA on a county level

In LA County there were 58 billionaires in 2017 https://laist.com/2017/05/15/la_billionaires_2017.php

And in Orange County there were 12 in 2017 https://www.ocbj.com/news/2017/mar/2...include-12-oc/

So thats at least 70 in greater LA and that doesnt include Ventura, SB, or Riverside Counties

Their domestic economy has been widely converted to some sort of free market since the early 1990s and the collapse of the Soviet Union, which means some kind of capitalism and competition, but their everything still somehow remains under the strict control of their so-called communist party. It is still dictatorship out there. And they're not really open to international competition, to say the least. So they're not an actual free market at all, according to Western Liberals.

However, hundreds of millions of them overcame poverty, mostly in their urban areas, which should be good news to us, because it means new consumers and business opportunities for us in the end.
The problem is their regime is still nasty. And they think their workforce is not ready to face global competition yet.

The real interesting point is that there is an actual and massive Chinese middle class now. People pretty much like us, who want to live decently, enjoy life, travel the world, have some fun and all.

Now billionaires are obviously only something extremely marginal, like a bug in Liberal capitalism. How many billionaires in your acquaintances or circle of friends? Most likely none.

China probably created a lot of new billionaires by selling the world masks and gloves! Lol