Problem is, people like that tend to be the driving force in aggressive rhetoric against their former homeland
The article doesn’t mention it, but it’s also difficult to bring their money with them due to strict transfer limits. China is shedding its parasite class, and the leeches are migrating to their natural environment.
China saw the world’s biggest outflow of high-net-worth individuals last year and is expected to see a record exodus of 15,200 in 2024, dealing a further blow to its economy, a new report says.
It’s interesting how through the neoliberal lens this looks like “a blow” to their economy. But from a Keynesian or MMT lens, China doesn’t need high net worth individuals to drive the economy. Public investment can and has done this in China as well as many other parts of the world.
From another angle, letting high net worth individuals flee, could reduce apparent wealth inequality in China.
I mean, if they are fleeing, they are fleeing with their money. Capital is essential for an economy and if capital leaves the country, it means that you have less growth, less investment and less prosperity in general. You can’t even tax that capital once it has left the country.
Plus, many of those low-millionaires are probably some of the most competent and knowledgeable people (not the hundreds-million industry captain with ties to the government, but the plant manager or lead researcher, lead developer etc. i.e. those who’ve made a small fortune through their ability). Getting rid of lead people is not exactly beneficial for an economy.
And sure, making everyone poor will reduce apparent wealth inequality, you’re right.
It’s actually difficult to bring their money with them due to strict transfer limits. China has strict capital controls.
Even if they exfiltrate the money, China as every other fiat economy can replace it using a keyboard.
If these folks are indeed knowledgeable and experienced workers, then having them leave isn’t ideal. But whether they’re such people or not is an open question. They might also be people who are good at exploiting others’ labor for profit, just like their western many-multi-mil counterparts.
In fiat economies financial capital isn’t a limiting factor since it can be and is created out of thin air as needed. The need for private citizens’ money to grow the economy is often repeated idea but it doesn’t hold water when you consider how their money was created in the first place. Specifically, currency issuing governments spend money into existence before being able to tax it. Therefore they don’t need to tax in order to spend. If there are the real resources needed for certain economic activity to occur but the limiting factor is the lack of money, a competent government will spend the required money into that sector and the activity will materialize. There’s no need to wait for private individuals to accumulate it over time in order to spend it to enable this economic activity. Crucially, even if you wait, the money is still going to come from a government’s “printing press.”
Other types of capital such as human, intellectual, can limit growth since they’re not as easily replaceable. That’s why I think your second point about who those people are is important. It is possible that they’re knowledgeable workers in different domains. It is also possible that they’re people skilled in exploiting others. If we assume the former, losing them isn’t ideal. If we assume the latter, then it’s a social value judgement of whether you want to have more or fewer of these types in your society, but they’re not essential for economic growth.
Fiat currency doesn’t work like that. It is a way to hold value so that a potato farmer isn’t exchanging a bushel of potatoes for a dentist appointment. It still needs to be backed by productivity in the economy, otherwise you just get hyperinflation. There is no magic.
Just what we need, more fucking rich people.
Please keep them, we don’t need more millionaires.
The system that allows them to exist and that they control to always keep like that (and maybe you guys wanted to say billionaire, with current exchange even being multimillionaire is not something that distant)
So I shouldnt be allowed to have commerce with whom I please? I shouldnt be able to save/invest money? Most millionaires are people with a modest income.
It really depends, millionaire in NYC? Dime a dozen, millionaire in Mexico, NY? They would be able to mess with local politics, screw up the housing market, etc. And I really mean multi- millionaire but that’s what I assume would be coming this way from China, not someone with 1-1.5 million, but a couple times that at minimum.
