中国经济的“救命稻草”只剩『消费』，躺平还是消费，未来10年怎么选？

中国经济的“救命稻草”只剩『消费』，躺平还是消费，未来10年怎么选？

Those who have money should spend, and those who don’t have money should also spend by borrowing . Hahaha. China’s economy has three major drivers, namely investment, exports and consumption. Now exports are blocked by tariffs, and investment is pulled down by debt. Two of the three major drivers are lame, and only consumption is left. This lone seedling is still holding on. It is well known that Chinese residents consume not for living but for survival. So in the next 5-10 years, will consumption be the life-saving straw of the Chinese economy or the last straw that breaks the camel’s back ? Saving the nation from extinction has always been the initial setting of the Chinese. For example, Lu Xun once said that studying medicine cannot save the Chinese. For example, during the long student days, everyone was shouting that they should study for the rise of China. Today, this great and glorious task has finally come to you and me. The method is also very simple , that is, consumption , that is, spending money . Those who have money should spend, and those who don’t have money should also spend by borrowing . In March 2025, Xinhua News Agency reported that the special action plan to boost consumption had an official implementation plan, which included a total of 8 major sections and 30 measures, aiming to build a complete set of consumption-driven systems. Xing Ziqiang of Morgan Stanley also published an article in January this year, predicting that the total scale of China’s consumption stimulus in 25 years will be It reached 700 billion , of which the national subsidy for replacing old cars with new ones was increased to 300 billion. According to official media, consumption will be the main engine of China’s economy, and these stimulus measures are precisely to enhance confidence and encourage consumption. So theoretically, every extra dollar we spend is to solve problems for the Chinese economy. So why has consumption suddenly become so important? This has to start with GDP growth. From a technical point of view, there are two ways to analyze GDP growth. The first is potential growth, including supply-side factors such as labor, capital formation , and total factor productivity. The second is the expenditure structure, which includes consumption, investment, government expenditure, and net exports . The second method is simplified to the so-called troika of investment, exports, and consumption. As for the first potential growth point, it has no reference value for China at present, because no matter how great the potential is , it is afraid of Thanos. As early as August 2019, the BBC reported that two of the troika were lame. To this day, the situation has not only not changed, but has even worsened. Exports are facing tariff wars and the outward relocation of the industrial chain, and investment has encountered the collapse of the real estate market and the debt crisis . Consumption is expected to be a part of the internal circulation. That is to say, consumption is not an active strategy but a forced one. It is also the last straw for the Chinese economy. So, can consumption really save lives? The famous think tank Rongding Consulting released a forecast for China’s consumption growth in July 24 and calmly judged that China’s current residents’ consumption capacity is not only unable to save growth , but will continue to lag behind in the next 10 years. The current situation is also like this. On one hand, the body and mind are hollowed out by car loans and mortgages, and on the other hand, they have to borrow money to consume to relieve the country’s worries. This year will always be the best year for the next 10 years. When stimulating consumption becomes a growth calculation, this growth myth may be unsustainable. According to World Bank data, from 1996 to 2022, China’s per capita consumer expenditure will grow by 8% annually on average. The growth is very strong. Unfortunately, China’s economy is highly dependent on investment and exports , so residents’ consumption accounts for only 39% of GDP, far lower than the average level of 54% of OECD countries. Take different countries during their high-speed development periods. In comparison, China’s household consumption ratio has not only been lower than that of developed countries such as the United States, Japan and South Korea for a long time , but is even much lower than that of Brazil, which is also a BRICS country . Assumption (just assumption), if China can spend 50% of its GDP on consumption like the European Union and Japan, then the total annual household consumption will increase from the current 6.9 trillion to 9.8 trillion US dollars. Once realized, China will not only no longer be a surplus country , but may even have a trade deficit. In that case, it is still unclear who will win the Sino-US trade war, right? Um, hehe, generally speaking, there are three foundations to support consumption, namely confidence, income and institutional guarantees. Let’s talk about confidence first. On June 10, 2025, Starbucks, which has always focused on quality, announced a big price cut for the first time in 25 years since entering China. The reason is that in recent years , local brands such as Luckin Coffee and Mixue Ice City have expanded at low prices , which has put Starbucks under great pressure. As early as November last year, Bloomberg reported that Starbucks was considering selling its equity in its Chinese business. Who will it be sold to and how much will it be sold for? There may be news within this year. Another pair of low-price enemies are Alibaba and PinXX In 2023, the e-commerce platform PinXX, which is known for its low prices, had an annual revenue of 247.6 billion, a year-on -year increase of 90%. In the same year, the average price of Alibaba’s online products plummeted by 12%, and the annual revenue increased by only 2% year-on-year. It is not difficult to find that whether online or offline, if you want to maintain your advantage in the Chinese consumer market, you must endure a price war that is as high as a stone. So what did Luckin Coffee, Mixue, and PinXX win? The answer is consumption downgrade . When the epidemic hit in 2020, China’s consumption declined briefly, but the real collapse of confidence occurred after the lockdown in 2022. When the health code locked the throat and the travel code locked the legs and feet, travel consumption became a hassle, so the consumer confidence index fell off a cliff. Until today, the index is still far below the baseline. This is what people often say. The overall environment is not good. What should we do if the overall environment is not good? Spend less and save more. In January this year, Caixin reported that in 2024, China’s residents’ new deposits reached 14.26 trillion, and the total deposit balance exceeded 151 trillion for the first time, setting a new historical high. According to a simple estimate based on the total population, in 2024, The average deposit exceeded 100,000 yuan again. Before 2018, the deposit data increased by about 5 trillion yuan each year. There was an upward trend in 2019 , but in 2022, the new savings directly exceeded 10 trillion yuan and maintained excess savings of 10 trillion yuan for three consecutive years . What is more noteworthy is that time deposits are more than current deposits , which shows that people are not not spending money , but planning not to spend money for a long time. As for what to save money for, we will talk about it later. Of course, there is also a view that excess savings are consumption potential. As long as the stimulus method is appropriate, consumption data can recover in minutes. But the problem is that excess savings are not the premise of recovery, but the result of insufficient confidence. Therefore, focusing on savings to stimulate consumption is like looking for darts all over the world with a target. No matter how good the posture is , it is lonely if no one plays with you. There is no retaliatory consumption, only retaliatory savings. This shows that China’s consumer market has started a structural decline. Structural decline means that only price cuts can retain users and only self-harm can seize the market. In the past few years, XX surrounded the city with the countryside and used extremely low prices. A hole has been torn in the red ocean of e-commerce. Now the whole market is following suit and making low prices the standard for consumption. There is a popular question on Zhihu asking whether it is Jack Ma’s arrogance that has made PinXX successful. The highly praised answer says that the general perception of modern commercial society is to increase the proportion of the middle class and reduce the number of civilians and wealthy people. Jack Ma and Liu Qiangdong bet on the increase of the number of the middle class , while PinXX bet on the expansion of the bottom class. What makes everyone confused is that PinXX actually won the bet . Whether the PinXX myth can continue is unknown, but the low-price era it has opened will probably last for a long time. Judging from the trend, the barriers built by low prices will one day become high walls that imprison themselves. The same is true for consumers. They buy cheap goods with a smile today, but they have to work cheaply with a sad face tomorrow, because the production of cheap goods is destined to use cheap labor. What’s more terrifying is that consumption downgrade does not come suddenly, but is a gradual process, just like charcoal fire gradually turns into ashes, and the real winter comes after the residual heat is exhausted. Chinese people are famous for their love of saving all over the world. According to data from CEIC and the World Bank, China’s total savings rate was 44% in 2003, far higher than the global average of 2. 6% Why do people love saving? Because Chinese people have three mountains: medical care, education and housing . As far as I can remember, I knew that my parents had three mountains. I didn’t expect that after years of struggle, we have also shouldered the three mountains , and these mountains have become higher. McKinsey conducted a questionnaire survey on China’s consumption outlook at the end of 2004 and found that the two unavoidable expenses of children’s education and supporting the elderly are the main reasons for suppressing consumption expectations. Let’s look at education first. The average expenditure of Chinese families on children’s education accounts for 7.9% of their annual total expenditure, which is much higher than the 1%-2% of Japan, Mexico and the United States. Let’s look at medical care and elderly care. According to data from the World Health Organization, in 2004, China’s residents’ out-of-pocket medical expenditures accounted for 35% of total medical expenditures, which is much higher than the average level of 20% in OECD countries. In addition, the proportion of out-of-pocket expenses for major diseases is more than 40% , which is difficult for even wealthy families to resist. In other words, the vast majority of Chinese families only need one major disease to return to poverty. Once they are sick, they will naturally dare not spend money recklessly. This defensive savings will inevitably affect consumption willingness. The last mountain is housing. In the past 10 years, driven by the housing price bubble, China’s residents’ debt has soared to 12 From 2012 to 2022, the proportion of household debt to GDP has increased by 32 percentage points and is currently stable at around 61%. If the household income ratio is used as a benchmark, the debt-to-income ratio is about 145% , far exceeding the international average of 101%. We have shared this issue in the previous issue on the debt crisis . If you are interested, please look back. Since the second half of 2021, the real estate market has fallen sharply . A large number of households have chosen to repay their loans in advance and prioritize reducing leverage rather than increasing consumption , further exacerbating the rise in savings and consumption contraction. At the same time, the central bank has been forced to continue to ease. Over the past four years, the mortgage interest rate has been reduced by 115 basis points in total. It should be noted that with a drop in interest rates , the cost of borrowing new or repaying old loans will be reduced. However, even so, the scale of social financing in 2025 is still terrible. In May 2025, the new credit of the household sector was 54 billion, accounting for an epic 2.4% of the total social financing increase. This shows that not only do people not buy houses , they are too lazy to even use credit cards and Huabei. In May 2018, the new loans of the household sector accounted for 54.7% of the total social financing increase, which is more than the credit of enterprises and governments combined. What does it mean that the world has changed so much in just seven years ? It does not mean that people do not consume, but Overconsumption has long been prevalent. Imagine that three generations have welded their wallets shut, mortgaged their youth to the bank for 30 years, and the whole country has been drained dry . How can there be money for consumption? In May 2015, Soochow Securities Research Institute released a report specifically analyzing population and consumption , pointing out that the average income of Chinese residents in the 25-29 age group reaches its peak . After the age of 45, the overall income will decline rapidly , while residents’ spending is at its peak in the 30-40 age group. After the age of 45, consumption is even lower than that of young people aged 15-19. In other words, the life value of Chinese people has been drained by the three mountains before the age of 45 , and the age when the most money can be made and the age when the most money is needed are staggered. In contrast, there is no obvious gap between the income and consumption age groups of Americans. The peak of income and consumption is around 50 years old. How cruel are the three mountains? Fu Peng recently told a very damaging joke , saying that if he were to do business , he would never do business with people born between 1980 and 1995. Why? Because these people are not only trapped in real estate , but also have to provide for their parents’ retirement in the future. We said earlier that China’s economy has long been driven by investment and exports. In order to keep companies alive and sell their products, It is necessary to lower interest rates and wages and pass the costs on to the people. This is the so-called demographic dividend. As a result, under the cross-caliber of the National Bureau of Statistics and the OECD, the proportion of residents’ disposable income to GDP was only 44.7% in 2019, which is much lower than the global average of 60% . In 2020, it was 83.4% in the United States, 76.9% in India, and 60.7% in Germany. Even if the guaranteed income such as pension, medical insurance and minimum living allowance are included in the residents’ income, it only accounts for 60% of GDP, which is much lower than other major economies. These guaranteed incomes seem to have little to do with consumption, but in fact they are the core driving force of consumption. We will analyze this in detail later. In addition to low income and large gap between the rich and the poor, consumption will also be affected because a large amount of wealth is concentrated at the top of the pyramid, which will lead to the rich having no demand and the poor having no money to spend . In 2012, Gan Li’s team at Southwestern University of Finance and Economics conducted a survey on Chinese household finance. The survey found that the richest 10% of households in the country controlled 69% of the total savings and 57% of the total income , and this pattern has not changed to this day. The data from the National Bureau of Statistics also showed that the proportion of residents’ income divided into five groups has basically not changed in the past 10 years, which shows that China’s class stratification is very serious and it is almost impossible to cross classes. In addition, Gan Li’s survey in 2019 also showed that one-third of Chinese households have negative savings and need to rely on loans and savings to make a living. From 2019 to 2025, they experienced the epidemic and economic slowdown. The number of these families is probably not much less. The data of China Merchants Bank is also a common sample of the gap between the rich and the poor. The annual report of China Merchants Bank in 2024 showed that the number of Golden Sunflower customers with total assets of more than 500,000 The proportion is 2.5% , but the wealth they control is as high as 87%. If we leave out the more than 5 million Golden Sunflower customers, the average assets of the remaining ordinary depositors are only 13,300 yuan . Low income and large gap between the rich and the poor are not a big deal. The most fatal thing is the lack of income. According to Gelonghui data, from 2010 to 2018, the population aged 20-39 was the first driving force for consumption growth, exceeding all other age groups. However, from 2018 to 2022, the population aged 20-39 has become the main reason for the decline in consumption growth. On the contrary , the elderly over 60 years old have made the greatest contribution to consumption growth. The reason behind this is actually not complicated. Young people have difficulty finding jobs, low incomes, and cannot see the future , so naturally they have no intention of consumption. It is worth noting that young people aged 20-29 have made a direct contribution to consumption growth after 2018. It has dropped to 0.8% , and these people are the graduates and unemployed people born in the 1990s and 2000s. The decline in consumption corresponds to the increase in youth unemployment rate. These two data are highly consistent after the epidemic. Among them, the unemployment rate of young people aged 16-24 has always remained at a high level of over 15% , and reached a record high of 21.3% in June 2024. The latest report in June this year said that the youth unemployment rate has dropped for three consecutive months . Now is the graduation season. If there is no artificial leveling, the youth unemployment rate may hit a new high. Why? Because the number of college graduates in 2025 is 12.22 million, which is the highest in history. Next year, it will rise to another level and reach an unprecedented 15 million . Next year, the year after next, and the year after next, until 2040, the number of graduates each year will exceed 1.5 million. 00,000. There are only two things in history that can defeat unemployment. Good is prosperity, bad is war. If only, if China’s economy continues to slow down in the next few years, and consumption and credit continue to shrink, then the tuition fees for college students will have to increase . Recently, some netizens have summarized that the tuition fees of dozens of universities across the country have increased again, ranging from 500 to 20,000 yuan each year. In our eyes, going to school is to find a job. Only by finding a job can you have an income , and only with an income can you consume. But is it possible? In the eyes of the Statistics Bureau, whether you go to school or not, you are a consumer. So whether you study or not, you have to consume. Oh, waste, waste , waste. Going overseas, oh, waste, waste , waste. In theory, the fiscal policy should adjust the gap between the rich and the poor to support residents’ consumption. On paper, China does have this strength , but in reality, China’s welfare policy It’s more like reverse welfare. Frederick Salter , a professor of political science at the University of Iowa in the United States, founded and maintained a database in his spare time from academic research to quantify income inequality in countries around the world . According to this database, China’s absolute redistribution value in 2020 was only 7.9, far lower than France and Germany’s 21 and the United States’ 16. Here is a brief explanation of what absolute redistribution is. It is the difference between the market Gini coefficient and the net Gini coefficient. It is used to measure the country’s fiscal ability to regulate the rich and the poor. As shown in the figure , the longer the line segment and the larger the value , the better the effect of redistribution, and vice versa. Well, if we take a closer look at this list, even Brazil and Russia have reduced their wealth gap by 14.8 and 11 points respectively, while China has only reduced it by less than 8. In other words , China’s fiscal expenditure has not adjusted the gap between the rich and the poor , but has stabilized the rich-poor structure . If the problem of Brazil is more loyal than China, where has the welfare of the Chinese been transferred? Generally speaking, there are two means of fiscal redistribution , namely taxation and transfer payments . Taxation is to raise money, and transfer payments are to spend money. Let’s talk about taxation first. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) released a report in early 2015, pointing out that China’s highest marginal tax rate for personal income tax is as high as 45% , while those who make a living from rent, equity and other capital have a uniform tax rate of 20%. The capital tax rate of 20% is very low among all major economies, which means that the richer the people who make money from capital, the less tax they pay, while the working class who live on wages have a heavier tax burden . Finance Minister Lou Jiwei once said that only 14% of the total population in China earn more than 5,000 yuan a month, and the remaining 86% do not have to pay personal income tax. This seems very kind , but the extremely high value-added tax has shifted most of the tax burden to the consumer end. For example, in 2023, personal income tax accounted for 8% of China’s total tax revenue , while the OECD countries accounted for 24%. On the other hand, the total tax revenue of value-added tax accounted for as high as 38%, far higher than the 21% of OECD countries. In comparison, the US tax system encourages consumption more. On the one hand, the state-level sales tax replaces the national unified value-added tax rate , which is only 5%-10%. On the other hand , low-income groups can not only pay less tax but also get cash back through EITC , that is, income tax credit . This mechanism not only reduces the tax burden but also enhances consumption capacity. In contrast, China does not have With the low-income tax refund and subsidy system, value-added tax and narrow consumption tax have become the most extensive and unavoidable taxes, becoming a veritable tax on the poor, because the poorer the population, the higher the proportion of consumption in their income , and the heavier the tax burden, while the rich do not have this worry. After raising money, let’s look at spending money . Transfer payments often refer specifically to subsidies from the central government to local governments , but in the analysis of consumption, we use social transfer payments in a broad sense , that is, transfers from the government to residents. Social transfers are the basic means for modern countries to protect people’s livelihood and promote fairness. Transfer items are divided into two categories. One is cash, such as pensions, subsistence allowances, and unemployment insurance. The other is in-kind, including public services such as medical insurance, education, and pensions. According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, in 2021, fiscal transfers in the form of cash such as pensions and subsistence allowances were 7.9 trillion, accounting for 6.9% of GDP. 7.3 trillion , accounting for 6.4% of GDP, was transferred through medical insurance, education and other in-kind services. It sounds good, but according to the data analysis of the OECD, China’s social transfer level is far lower than that of developed countries , and the country transfers as much as residents pay. The payment and enjoyment are almost the same , that is, the residents pay social security, go around in the system and return to the hands of the residents. It belongs to the residents to protect themselves, but the wonderful thing is that after going around in such a circle, the money can penetrate the years and return to the hands of the elderly. This is the magical social security pay-as-you-go system. So young people say that my social security is dancing and my life is in a mess . In fact, it is very rigorous. Dancing is in a mess. It is very rigorous. Why do the elderly consume well and dance every day? Because welfare is the premise of consumption. Social security is the confidence to spend money. The Chinese Internet often laughs that Americans all spend ahead of time. It is difficult to pay 100 yuan in their pockets every two weeks . In fact, Americans dare to spend because they have a safety net, unemployment relief, medical insurance for illness, retirement, and 401 accounts. Even if they don’t spend money, they will suffer losses because some consumption can be deducted from taxes. The previous program said that fear and rejection of welfareism is a political culture rooted in the ideological level. What are they afraid of? They are afraid of raising lazy people. This is a bit like Chinese parents who think that good children must be like Wei Dongyi, who eats steamed buns and water every day. If they are asked to buy something that they don’t know how to order, they are dandy. In fact, fear of welfareism is the core obstacle to consumption. From the perspective of US government spending, no matter which party comes to power, the federal budget will always be dominated by social security and medical insurance. In the 24-year budget, social security is 1.5 trillion and federal medical projects are 1.6 trillion. The two together are 3.1 trillion , which is three times the 900 billion military expenditure. These two expenditures automatically increase with the CPI, and there is no need for voting and debate. No one questions whether he is raising lazy people. Why? Because this is the basic logic of Keynesianism and the foundation of the US economy. Keynesianism says that when the economy is cold, the government has to spend money first , thereby driving everyone to spend money together. Therefore, Keynes advocated that it is not consumption that comes from having money , but consumption that makes everyone rich. In essence , without consumption, there is no circulation , and without circulation, there is no production. Therefore, consumption is the underlying logic of the modern economy. In the West, social security credit plus middle-class expectations form a stable consumption system. In China, it is housing debt plus fear that barely maintains consumption . The comparison between China and the United States is clear at a glance. One is security-oriented consumption and the other is survival-oriented consumption. No wonder Nomura Lu Ting said last year that Keynesianism is no longer effective in China. The reason is that China is engaged in a debt-driven pseudo-Keynesian approach that only wants to increase leverage but does not consider a bottom line . On March 21, Caixin reported that the State Financial Regulatory Administration issued a notice encouraging commercial banks to increase the upper limit of personal consumption loans from 300,000 to 500,000 and extend the term to 7 years . In June, the central bank and six other major departments jointly issued 19 measures to support the expansion of consumption through finance, including an additional 500 billion yuan in consumption and pension re-loans to stimulate the recovery of key areas. We can see that no matter whether it is consumer loans or pension loans, they are still stimulating debt rather than stimulating consumption, and no bottom line is given. It’s fine if it’s a bottom line, but they also want people to borrow money to consume. How can this be Keynesian economics ? This is clearly Kaizi economics. There is also a reverse incentive, which is monopoly. I borrow the official name and technique to call it involuntary consumption. Involuntary consumption has three characteristics: you can’t afford it and have no choice. It’s not worth it if you buy it . For example, we can only choose the top three hospitals, and we can only compare prices for oil and communications. If we buy more, we will run out. So the so-called stimulus consumption is actually overdrawing trust . When everyone realizes that people are not the purpose but the fuel, only the opposite operation can protect themselves. This is the Tacitus Trap. You say go east, I prefer to go west . You say consume, I prefer to save . In the final analysis, China’s consumption system is a mix of market cake making and plan cake cutting. When making cakes, we apply market logic , supply-side reform and fiscal stimulus . When dividing cakes, we return to plan logic, no social security, no welfare, and finally let the responsibility hang in the air. This is like China’s marriage market , which will use both old and new values. When talking about rights , we want both sky-high bride prices and free love . When talking about obligations, we don’t want the three obediences and four virtues , nor economic independence. To put it bluntly, we want the benefits of both ends, but we don’t want to bear the responsibilities of both ends. The long-term factors affecting consumption are bubble bursting and population structure. Zhang Xiaojing, director of the Institute of Finance of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences In an interview, he said that real estate affects the entire body, so the rescue measures must be drastic , otherwise the consequences will be disastrous. The reason is this: first, real estate is the underlying asset of wealth management products and financial instruments, and secondly, it is credit collateral, which has rolled out a huge amount of money. This is not easy to understand, so I will translate it. In the past 20 years, a large amount of private funds have been attracted by high returns and flowed into real estate speculation and local debt. In fact, they were harvested by land finance and ineffective infrastructure. Residents who bought houses stood outside the black box and were confused by pseudo-Keynesianism, thinking that buying a house could provide a guarantee for medical care, pension and education. But in fact, not only were their cash harvested by the down payment , but their future productivity was also harvested by credit. Therefore, it is impossible for the consumer market to recover before the balance sheet is repaired. As for when housing prices will bottom out, the latest forecast from authoritative institutions is this: Goldman Sachs believes that China’s housing prices will bottom out in 27 years, HSBC is more optimistic and expects it to bottom out and rebound in 26 years. There is also @Macro Margin, which has been updating trend charts that intuitively show the housing price trends of various countries after the bubble bursts. As shown in the figure, the United States bottomed out in 5 years, Spain bottomed out in 6 years , South Korea took 10 years, and Japan took the longest, 18 years. So far, China has been in 4 years and housing prices are still far from bottoming out. According to Groonghui data, as of June 25, In January, the housing prices in most major cities in China have retreated to the level of 2016/2017. In some cities, such as Shenyang and Shijiazhuang, they have retreated to the level of 2011/2012. In 2013, there was a slogan for retirement, which said that housing can bring you a happy old age. Now it seems that this plan has failed. In 2018, the International Monetary Fund published a report specifically studying China’s savings problem. The analysis showed that the one-child policy has led to a sharp increase in the savings of retired elderly people because raising children to provide for old age is no longer reliable. The reason for this is that in 2022, the average life expectancy of Chinese people was 79 years old, far from the 80 years in Beijing and the rest of the country. 3 years old is only one step away. However, the current retirement age in China is generally early (legal), with an average of around 55 years old, which is much lower than the 65 years old in developed countries. This means that after retirement, you will have to rely on savings for 25 years . I have done a population collapse before , mentioning that the total fertility rate is only 1.2 , far below the level of generational replacement. The conclusion is that the aging population plus the low birth rate will accelerate the depletion of the pension fund pool. Therefore, from a population perspective, consumption will not pick up in the short term. Therefore, I think the 80s and 90s generation should save for retirement from now on to prevent the labor force from shrinking precipitously. Why? Because of the prosperity on the bubble. It’s like falling asleep in a castle in the air will always lead to a day of awakening. In 1990, the Japanese bubble burst and consumption turned from prosperity to decline. From 1985 to 1990 , Japan’s consumption growth rate was 4.6% , but after the bubble burst , it dropped sharply to 0.92% from 1991 to 2010. From 1995 to 2013, Japan’s economy experienced 19 consecutive years of negative growth , known as the lost twenty years. In order to stimulate recovery , Japan has implemented a zero interest rate policy since 1999 , trying to prop up consumption through government borrowing. However, at this time, the whole society has fallen into a state of low desire. No matter how low the interest rate is, people still do not marry, have children, do not take loans, and do not consume. Monetary policy is completely ineffective. As early as before the millennium, Japan’s core economic indicators had bottomed out. In theory, they should have started to recover, but the reinforcing effect of low desire dragged the economy down for another ten years. The low interest rate era will not end until 2024, and it will last for 25 years. In 1970s, the Japanese were officially recognized as the lost generation. They became unemployed after graduation and drifted in the gray area of odd jobs and subsistence allowances for their entire lives. Finally, they became middle-aged people abandoned by the times. They missed the prosperity and were unable to participate in the recovery. The post-90s generation who followed closely did not marry or have children, and survived with the minimum consumption. Finally, they evolved into Heisei otakus . It’s not that they don’t want to fight , but they know that it ’s useless to fight. It’s not difficult to find that a low-desire society is more terrible than an economic depression because it is a recession that goes through cycles. Can Chinese consumption recover? In response to this question, Rongding’s analysts tracked the compound growth rate of various types of consumption from 2013 to 2013 based on the data of the National Bureau of Statistics , and finally made four judgments. First, the golden decade of rapid growth: the average consumption growth rate of urban and rural residents The urban area is 6%, and the rural area is 9.3%. In contrast, in the past 24 years, the urban area is only 4.5%, and the rural area is 5.8%. The growth rate has slowed down significantly. Second, the savings rate of urban residents has increased, while that of rural residents has slightly decreased, indicating that the gap between the rich and the poor is still widening. Third, the fastest growing areas are medical care and medicine, and the personal burden is still increasing. Fourth, even if the savings of 477 million farmers are halved , it can only increase GDP by 0.6%. The contribution of consumption is far from enough to carry the banner of the economy. Therefore, China’s consumption growth in the next 5-10 years is likely to not slow down but be extinguished. Is there no hope at all? There is still hope. As long as the three mountains are removed, consumption will still turn around. But this is not a technical problem , but a political challenge . We said earlier that the three mountains suppress consumption, so let me ask another question. The answer to how the three mountains came about is not mysterious. Education comes from the household registration system. Medical care comes from the social security system. Housing comes from land policy. The household registration system divides people into urban and rural people and binds resources such as education to restrict farmers from enjoying public services. Many people think that the sluggish consumption is due to low wages. In fact, the deeper reason is that farmers are not even eligible to go to school in the city. Therefore, consumption is not a matter of money but a matter of identity. The identity has been blocked by the household registration system since the moment of birth . In 2012, the National Development and Reform Commission issued a document to completely cancel the restrictions on settling in cities with a population of less than 3 million. This was a breakthrough, but first- and second-tier cities are still heavily guarded. These places are precisely the main working places for hundreds of millions of migrant workers. The discriminatory household registration system will inevitably produce injustice. The social security system in China is a dual-track system. One is the enterprise employee pension insurance, and the other is the basic pension insurance for urban and rural residents. How big is the gap? The national average data for 24 years: employees can receive 3,500 yuan, while residents only receive a little over 200 yuan. What’s worse, underdeveloped areas only receive 150 yuan per month, and more than 20 yuan can be on the hot search. Finally, the land system. China’s urban land belongs to the state, and rural land belongs to the collective. However , collective land can only be cultivated and cannot be mortgaged or sold. This results in rural land being just book wealth and cannot be brought into the market to participate in circulation. Land has always been regarded as the foundation of the country. In fact, what makes money is the foundation of the country. In today’s China, almost all grassroots units, whether in cities or rural areas , rely on land for maintenance. The fiscal system is controlled , so the monetization of land has never been a problem. The problem is who owns the monetization right. Guan Zhong once said that a country is invincible if all its benefits come from one source. He was referring to the monopoly of the right to distribute wealth. It can be seen that China’s land system comes from the wisdom of the ancient empire. It is not difficult to find that the real three mountains are not education, medical care and housing, but household registration, social security and land system. The layers of restrictions on these three together form institutional invisible poverty. Therefore, only institutional loosening can bring about consumption recovery. Any other stimulus measures are just performing climaxes and cannot solve the substantive problems. The 24th Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to three institutional economists : Daron Acimago, Simon Johnson and James Robinson. Their core view is that the root cause of state failure It is not the scarcity of resources nor the backwardness of culture, but the difference in systems. They divide systems into two types: inclusive systems and predatory systems. Inclusive systems will protect property rights, open markets, encourage innovation , and allow people to dare to invest in the future. Predatory systems are just the opposite. They suppress innovation, manipulate markets, concentrate wealth , and leave only a few people to share the dividends. Peking University professor and economist Zhang Weiying once said that the troika theory is a bit awkward . What is awkward about it? He said that China’s consumption is to maintain production, investment is to stabilize growth , and exports are to earn foreign exchange. As a result, when domestic demand is expanded, people become poor, when revitalization is carried out, production capacity is in excess, and when exports are maintained, wages fall. According to Professor Zhang’s point of view, the troika is only a method , not an end. Similarly, consumption is only the end of production , not the means of production. Consuming in order to maintain production is putting the cart before the horse. Yesterday’s choice determines today’s failure. Today’s choice will also determine whether tomorrow will be prosperous. This is path dependence . So why did consumption stall? Because the system refused to share the results and extinguished everyone’s hope. After all, no one wants to waste money in a time and space that does not belong to them. In fact, whether consumption has recovered depends on three points for ordinary people: first, whether imports have increased, second, whether prices have risen , and third, whether income has increased. These are the test standards for a serious consumption-driven economy. However, judging from the current situation, people are poor, overcapacity, and wages are reduced. These three things are all present and are accelerating. So the question at the beginning has an answer. Not only is consumption not a life-saving straw, but consumption is not a life-saving straw. It may also be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Anthropologist Xiang Biao has a concept called suspension , which means that we live in a rootless age, constantly rushing around, working intensively, and delaying life just for an uncertain future. This is very similar to the current state of life. Every day at work, people curse and curse , hoping to make enough money and leave this damn place as soon as possible. But in the end, people not only did not leave, but also left behind broken legs on the way to deliver food and protruding lumbar discs in Didi cars. We miss the past and look forward to the future , but the present is suffering. The family, friends and community around us are also gradually hollowed out under the postponed mentality. When the near and the near disappear, we become hummingbirds , flapping their wings desperately but always staying in mid-air , unable to land or fly. This is suspension, a way of life that always feels that good days are still to come. However, based on our analysis of the entire issue, it is not difficult to judge that good days are indeed still to come . The premise of consumption is that the future is promising, but China’s current security is weak, the risks are high, and the welfare is disconnected. Everyone is afraid of illness, aging, and losing their jobs. They live in great uncertainty every day. Therefore, real consumption does not occur in the data of the central bank and the statistics bureau, but in the dilemma of spending money or saving money every time. After the epidemic is over, lying down will become a trend, neither resisting nor catering to the main force, retaining dignity in the cracks. But lying down also requires capital. If you force yourself to stay in the air, lying down will sooner or later fall to the ground. Xiang Biao said that the opposite of suspension is being on the ground. So since you have already fallen to the ground, you might as well take root in the soil and let your wings grow like weeds. You know, some Birds cannot be caged because their wings are too bright and are covered with the glory of freedom. Acemoglu said that good governance will not come automatically and winners will not change themselves . This is harsh but true because a system that relies on monopoly for food, sells land to survive, and is extremely afraid of welfare will certainly not care about the livelihood and future of ordinary people. In essence, we are not citizens, taxpayers, and consumers, but leeks, cattle, horses, and human mines carefully cultivated by the system. So the question is, when the country expands consumption, why don’t leeks give birth to cattle and horses? Why don’t they run around? Why don’t human mines shine ? Well – well – because cattle and horses also have brains and know that spending money can save the economy, but saving money can save yourself. Because consumption must also be in accordance with the Basic Law, we are not not consuming, but consuming slowly, slowly and preferentially, allowing those who are capable to consume first and lead the later consumption. We must also consume according to our own actual situation and long-term goals. Don’t consume blindly, but consume after careful consideration , in a planned and step-by-step manner, so as to move towards common consumption.

中国经济的“救命稻草”只剩『消费』，躺平还是消费，未来10年怎么选？

中国经济有三驾马车，出口被关税围堵、投资被债务拉胯，三驾马车瘸了俩，只剩消费这根独苗，还在硬撑。

那么未来5到10年，消费到底是中国经济的救命稻草，还是压死骆驼的最后一根稻草？

「推荐列表」：https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLN3Vbtjb-JIp66D55u2EfS-GJiXq5Jo0c

0:00 三驾马车
3:13 消费降级
6:22 三座大山
9:30 贫富差距
12:55 逆向福利
16:23 凯子经济学
19:29 低欲望社会
22:53 复苏/熄灭
26:46 悬浮时代