CW 902 FBF – RAPIDLY RISING COSTS OF BUSINESS IN CHINA WITH SHAUN REIN AUTHOR OF “THE END OF CHEAP CHINA”

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This is your host, Jason Hartman. We've got a very interesting show with an update from China today. Actually our guest will be talking about China and the opportunities and the perils and the pitfalls of what is going on in China and the global economy. So I think you'll find that to be quite interesting. And it's funny as I was just about to record this intro, I had CNBC on the station that is for the vast Wall street conspiracy, I like to say. And I saw our guest on TV on CNBC as they were reporting from China. So kind of interesting that that just happened by synchronicity, I guess. Anyway, we're going to do a different format on this show today, by the way. We're going to start with our guest interview and then I will be on after the guest interview. So don't stop listening after our guest and I will talk about a few announcements and articles and commentary on economics and real estate investment and personal finance. So let's go right to our guest now and I'll be back after our guest to talk to you a little bit more. Here he is.

My pleasure to welcome Sean Rein. He is with China Market Research Group and he has got some fascinating perspectives on China on what it means to the rest of the world economy. And he is the author of the soon to be released book the End of Cheap China. Looking forward to having him on the show today. Sean, how are you?

It's a pleasure to be here, Jason. Thank you for having me.

Well, my pleasure. Now you're in Shanghai, as an American would pronounce it, or Shanghai.

Yes, I'm in Shanghai, the business financial.

Capital of China, where it is very expensive from what you tell us, to have an apartment or a condo. Right.

Actually, business in China is no longer cheap. So an office rent in the central part of Shanghai is actually more expensive than a lot of places in the United States right now. And actually my consulting firm is staying, thinking about opening an office in the United States to save costs.

Now, isn't that contrary to popular belief? So the end of cheap China, Sean, what is going on there and what are the factors that are changing the game?

So I decided to write this book, Jason, because I wanted to cut through a lot of the hysteria and myths that are being perpetuated in the United States about China's rise. The first thing you see, people like Paul Krugman who say that China is actually stealing jobs from the United States by keeping its currency, the rmd, artificially low, just doesn't really hold up to basic scrutiny. So I wrote the book and I looked at a couple things. The first is that China is no longer a cheap place to do business anymore. Labor costs and real estate costs are soaring, which is actually making it more expensive to produce in China than say, in Indonesia or Vietnam. So China is really winning and out competing the United States for manufacturing jobs because of efficient labor pools and really the best world class infrastructure in the world. And the second thing is I just wanted to sort of give tips for American businesses and policymakers on how to stay ahead of the curve, how to adjust and evolve to China's rise so that they can profit from it rather than be left behind and sort of, you know, end up sort of a middling country like the United Kingdom is now.

It's pretty interesting though, Sean, how you talk about labor costs increasing pretty dramatically in China. I think you've mentioned around the 20% mark, which is a huge increase. The floor to start with, the bar was set so low. I mean, is it really that big a deal if wages go from a very low number of few bucks, 10 bucks a day, something like that, to $12 a day? Remember, you're listening to Flashback Friday. Our new episodes are published every Monday and Wednesday.

Well, you know, here's the thing, Jason. It's not only just a, you know, minimum wage has gone up. You know, last year, 21 of China's 31 provinces increased the minimum wage on average by 22%. But the government is trying to increase wages long term. So what they've said is in the next five year plan that they want the minimum wage to go up 15% a year for the next five years. They're also starting to enforce Social Security benefits a lot better. So what you see in the last two years, probably on average the typical factory cost per worker has gone up 70%. And so in a five years period, it's going to be extremely expensive to do business here. On manufacturing, the second thing is Chinese younger workers just don't want to work in factories anymore, frankly because of the one child policy. As workers retire, there are fewer young people who are willing to work in factories because they want to realize their white collar dreams. So even though it's still relatively cheap to produce here than say in the United States or Germany, you have this confluence of trends. An issue is that's going to make it extremely expensive on a worldwide basis in 5, 10 years. So companies are going to have to adjust.

It's interesting that you say the Chinese government wants to see wages go up at a rate of about 15% annually. And what kind of growth rates are they looking at? I mean, are they looking at 6 to 8% growth in each of those years? Of course these are goals, targets and projections, but that's about double the growth rate any way you slice it. Right?

Well, we expect GDP growth to grow about 8.4% in 2012 and we expect it to be in the 8 to 10% range for the next five years. Part of the issue is we're close to hitting the mid income gap in China, which is around US$6,000. And usually when that happens, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. So the government is really trying to ensure that you don't have a great disparity of wealth. So they're really trying to boost up and create the middle class. That's where you're going to get a more sustainable and vibrant economy and you're going to reduce some of the ills of the manufacturing sector, such as massive pollution that was really starting to hit the health care system and just the general well being of everyday Chinese. So they really have to push for this middle class development.

When we were talking just before we started the interview and I told you about my friends there that are starting companies in China and so forth and doing business over there and how they talk about how capitalist it is, I had Jim Rogers on the show, of course he's been quoted as saying China is far more capitalist than America nowadays. And you said it's your Your phrase was it's capitalism on steroids. Tell us about that. But, you know, and I think maybe a lot of the listeners know about that, but maybe how it interplays with the fact that technically speaking, at least, China is a communist country.

Sure. Well, I think, you know, I do like to say that China's kind of like capitalism on steroids because everybody here wants to make money. There's this electric optimism in the business community, and it's because people are just so dirt poor, even 15 years ago. Everybody here knows somebody who 15 years ago was working on a pig farm or picking rice, who made it big, who's now driving a Mercedes or BMW and has multiple villas. So this created this community and this real can do attitude throughout the entire country. And everyone's just rushing to try to make money. The problem with that is there's some downsides. I think culturally there's too much of a focus on money right now. And there are a lot of entrepreneurs who might be willing to cut corners in pursuit of the dollar. And that's why you see problems in the food supply. The food supply system here is a mess. And I actually have a whole chapter on some of the dangers on that in my book. And that's causing problems both internally but also globally, because so much of the food supply chain in the world originates or has a part of it in mainland China. And that's why Americans should be concerned about QC and food here.

Chapter one in your book says that there are more Chinese billionaires than American billionaires. And what I have read is that wealthy Chinese are looking to move their assets out of China, at least to some extent. I doubt there's a hard number on this because it's probably pretty hard to quantify, but a lot of them are of course coming to the US and buying real estate, buying businesses, opening bank accounts here and so forth. Do you see that there's a flight of capital from China, at least on a. Maybe a personal level, if not a corporate?

I don't actually see a flight of capital, Jason. This is one of another myth that's been taking place and sort of seized Western media in the last year. It is true that many mainland Chinese on the wealthier side are trying to immigrate to the United States or Canada, Australia and picking up foreign passports. But we actually interviewed three dozen uber wealthy Chinese with investable assets of more than US$10 million. And the majority of them said that they did want to look abroad and secure a foreign passport. But the reasons are a little different than what you see in the Wall Street Journal or by Gordon Chang of the coming collapse of China fame, what we find is the first two main reasons why they want to get a foreign passport is they want to secure better access to education and healthcare for their children. The second thing that's important key is that while many people are getting say a Canadian or American passport, they're actually keeping their businesses in China. They're still trying to make a lot of money here. But the third most final reason why they really want to get a foreign passport is just convenience. A mainland Chinese passport really is inconvenient. It's very difficult to travel around the world. To go to the United States, you have to wait months to get a visa. Well, if you have, say, an American passport, you can go anywhere in the world and you can still open and do business in China. So it's more a matter of flexibility and at the end of the day, just sort of an insurance policy. You know, people are confident here, but if something goes wrong, it's always better to get out. Because if something goes wrong politically, generally communist countries don't have easy transitions.

Well, speaking of things going wrong, talk to us if you would a little bit about a civil unrest. And I mean, you don't hear a lot about it, but then sort of on the, on the sly you hear about riots and things like that. I guess they're quashed pretty quickly there. It's not like Occupy Wall street or they sit around for months. What's going on with that?

You know, I actually have a chapter on this too. And basically I think, you know, there may be 200,000 cases of civil unrest in China every year. Those numbers are not really increasing. And I think, you know, many of these cases are very similar to just an everyday protest in Wisconsin. You know, these are not protests where people are trying to destabilize the entire government system. They tend to be targeted at one local corrupt official or it's their way of expressing dissatisfaction with something in their lives. So it's more isolated, much more like a protest that I used to engage in when I was in high school in the United States. It's not really, you know, we're trying to overthrow the entire system. China's actually fairly stable. I totally disagree with John McCain who thinks that, you know, China's prime for an Arab style spring. A couple issues on that is that if you look at the political system here, there's a lot more diffusion of power than a lot of Americans think. There's mandatory retirement ages, you don't have one single family that are controlling the whole system. So even if people were mad, it's not like you have the Gaddafis in Libya or the Mubaraks in Egypt that you could really target and try to overthrow. You know, there's a lot of people involved. And the second thing, there are over 60 million party members in China, which means everybody here has a friend or a relative in the party system. So I think there's a lot more stability than people think. You know, obviously we need to improve the quality of life for everyday Chinese and cut down on corruption here, because those are serious, serious issues. But I don't see it causing an Arab Spring systemic threat.

It's sort of surprising, really, Sean, that corruption is such a problem there. I mean, the government there is so swift and harsh in dealing with corruption. I mean, I remember, what was it? The guy that was overseeing the. What was it, the melamine and the pet food or something? Didn't they shoot that guy? I mean, I kind of love that he went away.

I gotta say, in some ways, I think the US could learn a few things, frankly. As long as they're sure they've got the right guy. That's my only caveat. But it's pretty risky to be corrupt there, isn't it?

It is risky. I mean, if they catch you. They do. The punishments are much more serious here than in the United States. You're often put to death or put in jail forever for what would be considered relatively minor white collar crimes. In the US I think the issue is the corruption is so systemic, it's at every level that a lot of people feel that they can get away with it. And I think there is some truth to some critics that maybe you don't get caught unless you fall on the wrong side of a political struggle.

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Modern Chinese women. They're different, aren't they? And, well, first, maybe before we go into that subject, is there a shortage of Chinese women?

Well, I think this is another one of the great myths about China society which I try to cut down in the book. I have a chapter on them. And basically my image before coming to China was that Chinese women were sort of like concubines, treated like cattle, and that they had a horrible life. And these were sort of the images that were shaped to me by the Last Emperor. Brutal movie. But actually Chinese women are moving up extremely fast, both in terms of power in the household and society in the 1950s, they only accounted for about 20% of household income. That went up to 35% in the 1990s. And now women account for about 50% of overall household income. And that's actually going to continue to grow. There are more women getting university degrees than men right now. And one of the keys is that as China shifts away from being manufacturing oriented to service and consumption, women are the big winners. They're actually getting better jobs than men. So I actually track in the book, a lot of couples say migrant workers who come to a city like Shanghai. The man can get a job making 120, 150 US dollars a month in construction, but women are able to get jobs making 3, 4, 500 US dollars a month as a maid or working in legitimate massage parlors or doing assembly of higher end goods. And so what we find is men are making less than women in many migrant households. And so you're changing family dynamics because women are the major breadwinners. And so there are issues though about gender imbalance. And I think that's a serious problem in some rural areas. But it's actually getting better because now women, like I said, are making, making more money than men. And so the demand for strong hands to work the fields is not as big as it used to be 20 or 30 years ago.

So they're more modern, but there's not a shortage.

There really isn't a shortage. I mean, you see in the urban areas, I think in some rural areas there are. And that's actually why some local government officials turn a blind eye to the prostitution that's taking place, because they want the men to be able to have an outlet.

No comment on that, but that's interesting. So you know, some of the, one of the chapter titles that I find to be really amusing in your book here is why Chinese Consider Kentucky Fried Chicken Healthful. Is that because of the problems in the supply chain and the food safe food issue?

Let me ask you a question. Are you scared of the made in China label?

No.

Well, you should be.

Really? Well, I mean, I'm not looking at it as far as food, but certainly most of the other products in my house are made in China.

Well, this is how I view it. I love China. I've been here 12 of the last 14 years, but I'm scared of the food supply here. And you know, actually we, my firm, which is a market research Firm, we interviewed 5,000 consumers in 15 cities last year. And their biggest concern in life ahead of being able to pay for medical care costs for their Families or education for their kids was food and product safety. People here are really, really scared about eating something and dying. So actually when we interview consumers, because I actually work with KFC as one of our clients, when I go out and we find, why do you go to kfc? You know, one of the major reasons to go is they view it as healthy. Now, I think Chinese know that KFC is not healthy, that if you're going to eat cooking oil, it's going to hurt your heart in the long term. But they're worried about, they trust that KFC is going to use good quality cooking oil and ingredients and it's not going to be toxic because people are petroleum about eating food on the streets, where a lot of the restaurant owners use cooking swill oil or they inject formaldehyde or other dyes to make things appear healthier and taste better. So, yeah, there is a real concern of food supply here and I think Americans should be concerned about products that are made in China for food. It's definitely getting better. We're light years ahead now than we were 10 years ago, but it's still a serious problem.

But when you say product safety, you're really talking mostly about food safety. Right.

Food. And I mean, I think even, you know, there's always been concerns about lead and some of the coating of toys. You know, those were problems from five, ten years ago, but frankly, those problems are being reduced. Chinese consumers are demanding better quality products and now they have the money for it. So what's happening is factories are really getting better and then the, the poor quality ones are just shutting or they're moving to Vietnam. So the stuff that's being produced in China in hardcore physical products that are being exported to the United States actually is much better now than it was five years ago. Food still remains a serious issue. I mean, you saw the Chinese government even shut down 50% of the nation's dairies in 2011 because there's too much poor quality milk and people adding additives like melamine to the system.

Yeah, yeah, boy, that's, that's, that is scary. So I guess what we'd say is KFC isn't healthy. It's safe. Right? That would be the distinction.

It's safe and hygienic.

Yeah, right. Yeah, okay, good point. Well, what about real estate? I mean, people are always talking about real estate in China. And the first thing I've heard that I'd like to ask you about, besides the main more mainstream real estate topics, are that I've heard that there are just really giant cities that are basically vacant. Is that true?

Yeah, there are ghost towns here. But the issue is the reason why I'm not concerned about them is that they're not being held by the developer. Not for sale. These empty buildings basically have sold out to end consumers who put down 50, 70% to buy the homes. They're not highly leveraged in the United States States. So even though they're empty, it's not causing a problem because there's no debt in the marketplace and so there won't be panic selling. Basically wealthy consumers here don't know where to put their money. You don't have the same financial instruments for investing like you have in the US. Many people here don't trust the equity markets because of rampant fraud. So they basically put their money into housing and they're willing to hold it for 10, 15, 20 years. So it might. These, the real estate sector in these ghost towns might indicate economic inefficiency, but they don't really cause concern for me about a systemic threat.

Well, I think it's really interesting and actually very positive that Chinese favor tangible assets like real estate, something that they can see and touch versus paper assets that are rife with fraud. Like the stock exchanges in the equity markets.

Yeah, exactly. And they're willing to hold on to these assets for 10, 20 years. One of the differences between Chinese real estate and American is most homes in America come furnished or finished. And so when you buy it, you have to spend a lot of money in regular, ongoing maintenance and you have to pay annual taxes. In China there are no annual taxes on most homes and most homes are sold as an empty concrete hull. It's shell. Basically when you're a home buyer, you actually have to put in the pipes yourself, put in the tiles. So it's really quite cheap for somebody just to buy a home and hold it for 10, 20 years.

Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, that's an interesting point. It's almost like buying a piece of vacant land. And you didn't mean furnished, you meant finished. And so in other words, in these Chinese homes that investors are buying for these long term holds, there are no cabinets, air conditioners, pipes. There's nothing to really steal or vandalize. So it's simpler that way too, right?

Yeah, there's nothing, it's literally just an empty concrete hull. It's like a subway, you know, a New York subway and that type of concrete. And so what happens is, you know, nobody, even if they've paid for the home, nobody wants to be the first person to move in. Because if, say there's 300 units in a building, if you move in, you then have to deal with 299 other people renovating. It's noisy. You've got the workers who are doing the renovation living there. And so the concern is, will people ever end up moving into these ghost towns or are they always going to remain empty? They might remain empty for 10, 20 years, but my bet is that some developer will come in, buy the units, knock down the buildings and put up even nicer ones and do.

And finish them all at once. And have people finish it all at once. Yeah. The way they do in the States. Right. That's really interesting. Let me take a brief pause. We'll be back in just a minute.

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Well, so what is going on with prices? And I'm not talking about vacant cities, I'm just talking about normal markets where you have occupancy and so forth. What's happening in Chinese real estate?

Well, real estate market is not collapsing, it is softening. And I think we're getting to a far healthier range because before everybody was just betting that real estate would always go up and so they were grabbing money and putting in. But what you've seen is no panic selling. So even though prices have softened, those prices are more from the real estate developers selling to the consumer, but the second hand market consumers selling their own homes to other consumers, those prices have remained very steady because again, you don't see underwater mortgages. So we're in a much healthier state in real estate than we were a year or two ago. So I certainly see a soft landing in that sector. Again, the key is not how much average income is in the country or how high prices are, it's really the people who are buying the homes. Can they afford them, which they can. And are they over leveraged, which they're not. You also don't see hedge funds in China buying up tons of units and then splitting up the mortgages into CDOs and selling it out to other hedge funds who are borrowing $30 for every dollar in hand like you have had in the United States, which caused the financial crisis there. Here it's still banks pretty much are holding the mortgages. The financial system here is really very plain vanilla and very outdated. But that's actually helped the country from being able to avert a financial crisis.

Well, yeah, I don't know if that's a bad thing, Sean. I mean, I love how these pundits in America call all the stuff Wall street has done as financial innovation. I think it's really just ridiculous. Some of these products they've invented these quote innovations unquote. I mean those things are the problem. They cause all sorts of mal investment and bad behavior. And you know, everybody's now focuses on ways to game the system rather than to actually create legitimate value in an economy. So when you say an outdated system of banks that actually have to hold loans and, and probably underwrite loans on more legitimate bases the way it used to be in old fashioned America, is that all bad? I'm not sure.

I totally agree with you. I mean it's sometimes frustrating here. You know, actually as a consumer, you can only take out about US$7,000 or so in cash without applying in advance and getting permission. So sometimes it can get annoying to try to get financial transactions done. But because it is outdated like that, it's beneficial because you don't have runs on banks. And you know, it is a lot more stable. The whole system is set up to.

Be simple, it slows it down. But that really makes you understand why wealthier Chinese want to expatriate their money. Because they want control of it. That's way too controlling. I wouldn't like it if my bank said I could only get $7,000 out at a time. That would really bug the heck out of me. Yeah. Well, let's talk about China for a moment on the international stage. What is it? And you know, not in terms of superpower stuff, I'd like to get into that next maybe, but you know, in terms of its business dealings around the world with Africa, and you have a chapter talking about the end of American hegemony. Tell us about how China acts there. I mean, we hear the American spin on it over here, but it's always been interesting to me when I travel and I've done a lot of travel, I've been to 64 countries. When I read newspapers from different parts of the world, how different the angle is. And, and maybe it's a lot more accurate reading it outside of the corporatized American media.

But you know, Chinese investment abroad is a double edged sword, you know, so I do talk with people from Africa and Canada and Australia and Pakistan about Chinese investment and many people do welcome it. You know, so I was talking with some people in the mining industry from Perth in Australia, and they love the Chinese investment because they're making tons of money. But for the people in Perth who are not involved in mining, they're getting killed. Housing prices and food prices are going up so high that they're really just not able to live well. And so that's causing a backlash. I think many politicians are saying, do we want this Chinese money or if we want it, how do we handle it? How do we ensure that people who are staying in retail or health care and have nothing to do with mining are going to be okay? So I think China generally has to do a much better job at how it focuses on soft power and how it relates to peoples of other nations because they're too big now. They can't just invest in other countries and say that we're going to go below the radar because in many of these nations they're seriously impacting prices. And so China in general just needs to get a more well thought out, well planned foreign policy and help some of their companies figure out maybe you can open up charities, maybe you can do stuff for local people rather than just focusing purely on making money.

Well, that would require sort of altruistic view of it. I mean, or is that just. Are you saying that's just good business sense? Good long term?

It's just a business sense, frankly.

Yeah.

Right.

Okay, well, that's legitimate. I agree with you. So what's going on with China in Africa?

China, this is why I'm very bullish overall in the commodities sector is China is just investing billions of dollars. It's doing over 100 billion US a year in trade with African nations. They're going there to countries like Angola to buy up copper and oil and other minerals that are needed to sustain China's growth. I think at the end of the day, the government here knows that the major threat to China's continuing growth is access to natural resources. So they're going to be continuing to expand out there. And so investors, investors should be really looking at getting exposure to the commodity sector.

Yeah, well, I agree with you there. I mean, resources are key. That's what is the fundamental underpinning of human life, is resources. So no question about that. Commodities. Very good. Talk to us a little bit about whether people should consider China to be a threat and not from the angle of cheap China. Maybe we'll close with that in just a moment. But militarily speaking, I mean, I see stories from time to time about China building aircraft carriers and, and I don't know really what's going on with this but military stuff, do people in the States have to be concerned about war with China or any sort of violence or maybe this conflict with Iran and Israel and nuclear war in North Korea, that sort of proxy issues there?

I'm worried about America creating a threat where there really isn't one and creating, you know, when you start to think fear monger, you know, many of your prophecies sort of become self fulfilling. I think right now it's very clear that China is not a threat. You know, the Chinese government spends more money on internal public security spending than on the military. A lot of their military spending is more just going for upgrading for, you know, a lot of the housing for soldiers is bad, you know, and I think, you know, on the one hand the US wants China to take greater responsibility in global affairs, but on the other hand is scared about China then spending money on aircraft carriers so that they can pay for better security on shipping lanes. So I don't think that China is a threat now by any means. The official bone is looking more internally and I think the officials are trying to make money for themselves and their families and they don't really want to go into war. But I do worry that there could be more increased tension if the United States continues to scapegoat China for all of America's economic ills. And I do think that threats could emerge if you continue to attack China politically. But I don't think that there is any concern for Americans as a looming Chinese military threat. I mean, I think at the end of the day, most Chinese actually like the United States. And that's true of the political system. The presumed ex president of China, Xi Jinping, his daughter is a student at my alma mater, Harvard. And many of China's political elite have sent their kids and grandkids to Harvard and Duke and Yale over the years. So I hope that you're going to see more rational minds on both sides of the Pacific sort of prevail. My concern though, Jason, is that you're seeing too much scapegoating, especially in a political election year in the United States of China. And I worry that that's going to provoke trade wars or even worse if mainland Chinese military people say, you know what, we need to shed the United States role as the world's policeman and as a hegemonic power. So we need to stand up to them. But I think the odds of that happening are really more around 1%. I mean, for the United States, I'm far more concerned about Iran. As a threat than China. China is sort of a benevolent rising power, but could emerge as something else.

You mentioned about people going to all those American universities. Does China. Is China coming up in the part of. I never hear about Chinese universities. I just never hear about. And maybe I'm just totally ignorant of it. I never hear about Chinese higher education. I always hear about people coming to the US for higher education. Is China really. I mean, they're working so hard and doing such a good job in school. So many areas of developing this country in terms of infrastructure, manufacturing, of course. What about education, higher education specifically?

In general, I'm fairly supportive of the Chinese government, but there's two areas that I'm scathingly critical. One is health care. And second most important is the education system. It's a total, complete mess. I actually have a whole chapter on that because it's so bad that it could prevent China's rise into true sustainable economic, economic and political superpower status. The education system here is terrible. I mean, you read in the New York Times how a lot of Shanghai students are outperforming the Americans on test scores. Who cares? I mean, there's a big difference between being able to take tests and to be able to innovate and create and think analytically, which is why the best Chinese are now all going to the United States to study. You know, you have over about a million Chinese have gone abroad to study in recent years. You know, my boarding school, there are only two Chinese, I believe it was, who applied three years ago. This year, there are over 200. When I was at Harvard in graduate school, there were more people from mainland China than from any other nation except for America. And the reason is that the higher education system in China is simply horrible. I mean, you have, you know, thousand person class sizes. People aren't being taught to think critically. And that's why what you see, Jason, is this big problem in the workforce. When my Firm interviewed Fortune 500 firms here, they say that their biggest problem is being able to recruit and retain talent they're constantly trying to hire. And that's their biggest problem and obstacle for growth in the next three years in China. But at the same time, 15% of university graduates here were unable to find a job three months after graduation. So there's a disconnect. The market is looking to hire more people, but the universities are graduating people who are under qualified. And so you need a major overhaul of the education system here. And it's not something that the government can wait. It's got to go Now, I mean, every nation, historically that's a superpower, has the best, finest institutions of learning and attracts people from around the world. You know, the United Kingdom had Oxford and Cambridge. The United States had Harvard and Princeton, but China, it has nothing.

Well, yeah, and just distinguish that though, if you would, maybe segregate it between grade school and higher education. University system though. How about on grade school?

I think the grade schools are pretty bad too, because they're still also focused on just test taking and they're not training the whole person. You know, I interview in the book many families who benefited from economic boom here. You know, they were the sons and daughters of elite Chinese communist officials. And I even interviewed one family that's a billionaire. And what they say is we need to send our kids to the United States because we want to train the whole person. In China, it's all about test scores. We want them to learn about art and drama. We want them to learn about morality and sports. And that's something that really isn't taught in grade school and high school in China. And it's something that forms the bedrock of the education system in the United States. So while obviously America needs to improve, it's still far better than anything else in the rest of the world.

It's really interesting because I look so down on the American education system so many times. That's interesting. That sort of more liberal arts perspective really that you mentioned. I guess we just sort of take that creativity for granted here. It's just sort of part of the culture. It's kind of like the air. Hopefully you never notice it because it's clean enough that you don't notice it. Lastly, and just wrap up with this, if you would. Your final chapter is basically the book title, the End of Cheap China and what It Means to the Rest of the World.

I talk about in the final chapter. What, what is China's new role going to be? You know, is it going to be a savior for businesses? You know, in many ways China has become the largest or second largest market for many of the world's companies like Apple, Intel, Starbucks, or is it going to be a major threat? And so I just sort of go through those issues and come up. If you're going to really capitalize on China's growth, what are you going to do? Because if you don't, China's rise will ultimately be a threat to your corporate well being.

Very good points. Well, Sean, thank you so much for joining us today. Give out your website if you would. And of course the book will be available on Amazon.com when is it actually going to be released?

The book Hard copy comes out March 27, but you can actually download the Kindle version now. Kind of surprising. The publisher doesn't control when Amazon releases the E version. So downloads of the E version are taking place and selling like crazy. But the Hard copy comes out March 27th.

Fantastic. And you can pre order that. But if you don't have one, folks, get a Kindle. I love my Kindle. That's great. And what is your website, Sean?

My Firm's website is www.cmrconsulting.com cn Shawn.

Rain, thank you so much for joining us today. Appreciate it.

Thank you very much for having me.

Well, I hope you enjoyed that interview today and few articles and comments I have for you on things. I know we're turning this around backwards and I'm coming on after our guest for most of the talk today, which is unusual, but we thought we'd just do something a little different. Maybe it's in honor of Easter. So happy Easter to you. That's why we're doing it. How's that sound? Turning things upside down. So there's an interesting article in New Wire Investor. You're seeing more and more of this nowadays and I don't really give a lot of credence to this being any big fundamentals. Super exciting shift, what I'm about to talk about here that actually have two articles I want to talk to you about that address this issue. I'll say two and a half actually, because one sort of does. But I tell you frequently that all real estate is local. You hear me say that constantly. All real estate is local. And that's certainly true. But I would love to see more statistics and more of these forecasts and more of these reports where we look at pricing data and depreciation and appreciation data and just the general health of markets overall across the country, but not only in a geographical form, but in a price segment form. Because if you think about it, all real estate is local, but all real estate also is relative based on its price segment. For example, as you know, I live in the greater Phoenix area now for about eight months, having moved from the Socialist Republic of California and happily so happily having left California. And in this market, I mean, you've got like any market, you've got a broad range of housing. But it's, it's almost more extreme here because there is so much sort of middle class housing that is, you know, reasonably nice that you can buy that our investors buy all the time for 90 to 100, $130,000, say. But then you can go into areas of Paradise Valley and North Scottsdale and other areas and you can spend millions and millions of dollars on a property. So when someone talks about the Phoenix market, what the heck are they talking about? It's like talking about the national real estate market when all real estate is local, right? All real estate is local, but all real estate is also price segmented, most certainly. Okay. So in relation to that, I find these articles interesting and I'm seeing so many articles like this, which does, does connote some degree of a change in the marketplace, for sure, and it's worth noting, but it's probably not worth getting like incredibly excited about. It's worth getting a little excited about. And here it is. Housing market bottom found, says bank of America. I guess that's why BofA is so willing to do short sales nowadays, because they want to get these properties back. So maybe that's part of the reason. Or maybe that's part of the reason they've finally cleared out their foreclosure machine and they're making that process happen a lot more quickly. So just a little bit from this, it says bank of America BoA, Merrill lynch analyst and bank of America purchased Merrill Lynch a couple of years ago. As you know, B of A and Merrill lynch analysts have announced the bottom of the U.S. real estate market and that bottom has been found and that gains should be expected as soon as 2014. This is a revision from a previous forecast that saw price falls continuing into 2013. But a larger than anticipated decline in the inventory of distressed properties is prompting experts to move the marker. BOA bulls the bulls, bullish economists, right? Also count new regulatory schemes and recent mortgage fraud settlement as feathers in the economy's cap, although they are quick to point out a quicker bottom does not equal a faster recovery. So you know what they're saying there is that the market has bottomed. We've found a bottom. Now, of course, I completely disagree with that. In expensive price segments and expensive land value areas like California, northeastern states, Chicagoland, some areas of Florida, of course, and expensive segments anywhere there are found, I think those prices are still declining. I don't think that's a bottom at all. And as an opposite to that and what I talked about a couple of shows ago in our segment, the segment in which we're dealing, where our investors are buying, I mean, prices are going up. They have been for a while now, no question about it. So you got to take all of this stuff with A total grain of salt. Okay. The article goes on to say just one more thing. Housing prices are bottoming now, though the recovery will not begin in earnest until 2014, according to bank of America Merrill lynch report released Thursday. So that's kind of interesting. And I'll have a little more on that as a moment. Remember the call in line. You can call me for later broadcast on one of our shows with your questions, your concerns, your thoughts on the market, on what you should do with your ira, how you should invest. Just like a radio call in. Show the number for the call in line again where we will record the call, play it back on a later show. 949-200-8009. Again, that's 949-200-8009. And so take advantage of that just like you would call any radio talk show. You know I've talked to you before about self management and how I am a total believer in self management. I have not had one thing bad happen to me in my self management experience of the last several years that would discourage me from self management. So anytime I find a property manager in my portfolio across the country that I don't like, they do something wrong, whatever, I just get rid of them one way or the other and I self manage the property if I like my property manager, if they're good, if they're doing a good job, heck, I keep them because I think a good manager is a huge asset and a bad manager is not good at all. Of course. But on the self management note, it's interesting, one of my properties that I have never seen that has a tenant that I have never met. The tenant emailed me the other day and this property is in Texas. And you know, I won't tell you exactly where and I won't read the complete details of the email. I'll just kind of paraphrase. But he sent me a note saying that the air conditioner wasn't working that well. You know, it was cooling but it wasn't cooling enough so probably needed a Freon boost or something like that. Anyway, so I got a referral from my former property manager. Actually of all things, I said who's a good air conditioning person? So she sends me a referral and he checks back with me. Hi Jason, just wanted to check to see where you were if there were any updates on the AC unit. The repairman didn't say much when he left yesterday and I haven't heard anything from him since. Let me know if I can help with anything. Thanks and you know, this little salvo that I'm going to talk to you about in the emails, it really goes to show you that all of these horror stories you hear about tenant problems and so forth, in my opinion, they are totally overrated. Look, I have been a landlord since I was 20 years old, okay, well, really a little earlier if you count dealing with my mom's properties. But I've been a landlord totally 100% on my own since age 20, and. And that was years ago. And I'll tell you something, I hardly ever have a bad tenant. I hardly ever have a problem tenant. And most people, and most tenants are just good people that just want a fair deal and they take good care of your property. You know, it's just not that big a deal. These sort of horror stories you hear about tenants, okay? But you know, like anything in life, negative stuff sells. And if it bleeds, it leads. Just like the old newspaper saying. And you know, they say if you have an unhappy client, they're going to tell 12 people on average. If you have a happy one, you'll be lucky if they tell one person. Right? That's just the way the world works. And so that's why those negative stories with tenants, I think, get totally blown out of proportion on the whole tenants, good people just want a fair shake. They want to be taken care of, reasonable expectation. I write them back and I say, I need to get two more quotes. The guy that came out emailed me a totally informal quote with no detail, and then he went out of town. Since you know your schedule and I don't, do you want to just Google 2ac repair people, have them come out at your convenience and email me the quotes? As soon as I have that, I can authorize and pay for the work. Sorry, this isn't working as well as it should, Jason. And then he emails back and says, sure, Jason, that's not a problem. I'll get a few guys out and email you the quotes. I mean, don't you love this? The best person to watch my property most of the time is actually my tenant. So go on. Here, I'll just read up the string in the emails here. I write back, thanks much. Let's get this fixed for you asap. Then he writes back, hey, Jason, I'm getting the same from everyone around here. About $60 to $65 to come out and give a quote on the repairs. I found a few companies that come out and give a free bid with another company's written estimate. I tried to schedule an appointment with and the company name for a free quote because this is one of the companies he's saying that gives free quotes for tomorrow morning. But the homeowner must make the appointment. And you know that's true. Sometimes I find that is that you have to actually call and say hey, it's okay to come out and see my tenant. Can you call them, set up the appointment for tomorrow morning? I can get a free estimate from them in the morning and get some more quotes from other companies in the afternoon. Once the appointment is set I can be the contact for it and I can send you all of the info and the company policy to deal with the homeowner directly for the appointment. Sorry for the inconvenience. He has the name and the phone number of the air conditioning company. I write back, I say thanks, you can just tell them you're the owner. Obviously I'm cutting corners a little bit, I'll be the first to admit if you like, so you can get the quote or just three way call me at and then my phone number and I'll tell them that it's okay. So I mean folks, look it, the best person to watch your property most the time is your tenant. And he writes back after that and says okay, I'll take care of it. So that's how easy this self management stuff is. It really is. And look, I'm not new at this, I'm doing it with several properties now and I've been doing it for years. And think about how that changes the performance of one of your properties. If your management fees, and I think management fees by the way are quite reasonable with most managers. Most managers, like most tenants are good people and they do a good job. But again, when I don't feel good about a manager, I just self manage the property and use that as my way to decide. But if you can save 12 or 15 hundred dollars a year on management fees, heck that can increase your ROI pretty dramatically. And, and people are all afraid of the old story of oh gosh, I'm going to get the call at midnight with the garbage disposal is broken or some silly thing like that. First of all, I've never had any calls like that. Most of the tenants, they just email you and when they do, you know, you just email them back. I mean how many of you are on your email all the time? You have it on your iPhone, you have it on your droid phone, whatever. Anywhere you are around the planet, you're responding to emails constantly. So it's, it's asynchronous it's not intrusive and you can respond at your convenience. You know you do have to take care of business and and be a responsible landlord. But heck, I'll tell you something, sometimes dealing with a tenant is easier than dealing with a manager. I think the self management thing is is great. And by the way I did a whole lesson on that. It's about an hour long and it's in the members only section if you are a member@jason hartman.com and you can take advantage of it there another article this is from HW Housing Wire and it says that buying is cheaper than renting in nearly 100 major US markets, according to the real estate website Trulia. And I would say buying is cheaper if you can buy and this is what really makes it such an incredible opportunity for those of us who can. Those of us landlords who can. The article here it says buying is more affordable than renting in 98 of the nation's 100 largest metropolitan areas, even in New York, Los Angeles and Boston, according to real estate company Trulia's Rent versus Buy Index. The index is based on asking prices for rental units and homes for sale on the company's website between December 1 and February 29. As rents rise and prices stagnate, homeownership is becoming even more affordable. But rising rents create a dilemma for people who can't afford to buy yet, says Jed Kalco, Trulia's chief economist. Rising rents make it harder for people to save for a down payment, which is the biggest barrier to buying a home that aspiring homeowners face. Homeowners are choosing or being forced to rent rather than buy, even though the latter is cheaper in markets truly reviewed. But as they turn to renting, the influx of demand squeezes the nation's rental supply, pushing monthly rents higher. Folks, don't you love being a real estate investor right now? Wow. I mean everything is just coalesced to be. This is the, this is the proverbial perfect storm. We are in low interest rates, the opportunity to get 30 year long fixed rate debt by below the cost of construction, a huge student loan debt bubble where Gen Y can't afford to buy because they're pressed by this huge student loan debt that is not dischargeable in bankruptcy. There's no second chance with student loan debt. You gotta pay it. Wow. What a time to be a real estate investor. What a time to serve these people who are faced with all of these challenges in today's life. And it is just a phenomenal time. There is a huge Generational shift in the making in the housing market and it is based on so many of the factors that we've talked about. Folks, this is an unbelievable time to be a real estate investor. Well, rather than go too long with this because I know we've already had our guest, I'm gonna save my now. Oh, how big is it? I'm saying I think, I think I've got the stack of stuff I want to share with you down to 1 and 3 quarter inches now and I'm going to save that for future shows. We've got a lot of great stuff coming up. I interviewed Harry Dent again today, having him back on the show and what he had to say was very interesting and quick. 22 minute interview. We'll have that up for you soon and just have a lot of great stuff. Remember, we have a lot of unique financing as well. We have $5,000 down opportunities in St. Louis. We have foreign national IRA financing and financing for people with too many Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac loans who can't get that type of financing. So if you are a foreign national, if you want to buy us real estate, if you want to invest with your IRA or if you have too many loans or if you only have $5,000 down, we can help you contact our investment counselors through the Jason hartman.com website. And we have lots of, lots of really innovative opportunities. By the way, I did want to mention, and we don't have this on the website yet. Well, we may, by the time you actually hear this show should be up in the next day or two. But we are planning a tour. Actually not a tour but a Creating Wealth Boot Camp. That's sort of our seminal event. We've had thousands of people come through that over the years that I've presented that to and just with great reviews. We're going to have that on Saturday. It'll be a Saturday in mid May and then we will have a tour, a property tour the following day on Sunday. And this will be in St. Louis, Missouri. So that should be a great opportunity for those of you who are on the east coast or the middle of the country that haven't been able to make it out west for one of our events. We will bring the Creating Wealth Boot camp there to St. Louis and then have a tour the next day. And guess what? We even have another bonus if you're interested and there's no additional charge for this. It will be the following Monday where you can also do a tour of that market. I love so much that below the radar market I've talked about so many times. And that is of course St. Robert, Missouri. So we will have a tour of St. Robert on Monday again Saturday, St. Louis creating wealth Boot Camp. That's a full day. And then Sunday St. Louis tour and then Monday optional if you want to go St. Robert tour. So just a great way to see two markets that you might not normally visit. If you're closer in that part of the country. It's a great opportunity for you folks to come and see the Creating Wealth Boot Camp that you may not have yet experienced. More information on that on the jasonhartman.com website under Events. Check that out and we will look forward to talking with you on show number 253 very shortly. Thanks for listening today.

What's great about the shows you'll find on Jason hartman.com is that if you want to learn how to finance your next big real estate deal, there's a show for that. If you want to learn more about food storage and the best way to keep those onions from smelling up everything else, there's a show for that. If you honestly want to know more about business ethics, there's a show for that. And if you just want to get away from it all and need to know something about world travel, there's even a show for that. Yep, there's a show for just about anything. Only from jasonhartman.com or type in Jason Hartman in the iTunes store.

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