Real reason for China's ghost cities? | |
Anonymous Coward (OP) User ID: 15456734 Australia 09/12/2012 03:34 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | |
taniatarn User ID: 21658555 New Zealand 09/12/2012 03:48 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | You can be assured China does nothing without planing. They have a hundred year plan, were America plans four years at a time, from one election to the next. The Chinese always plan a hundred years in advance, so these cities have a place in that plan. Anyone that has studied eastern civilization knows this to be true. Quoting: Desert Fox +1 agree with this. Interested observer of all things interesting! Please note : Where appropriate for posted images/ graphs I acknowledge the New Zealand GeoNet project and its sponsors EQC, GNS Science and LINZ, for providing data/images used in my study and analyses of Volcanic and Earthquake information in New Zealand. |
Anonymous Coward (OP) User ID: 15456734 Australia 09/12/2012 04:10 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email [email protected] to buy additional rights. [link to blogs.ft.com] A scheme to create Honduran “model cities” – a term redolent of George Orwell – was created a year ago, but only this week an agreement was reached with a US-based investment group MGK to build the first of three. The model cities are to be states within a state, with their own legal and law enforcement agencies, tax and monetary systems – “Hello US dollar”, “Adiós Honduran lempira”, presumably – and every conceivable facility to attract investment. The concept sounds like a steroid-enhanced vision of a free-market enthusiast. Which it is. The US economist Paul Romer has dreamed up the idea of creating cities, along the lines of Hong Kong and Singapore, which have created poles of dynamic investment that have spilled over into their once impoverished hinterlands. So far, so good. But Singapore and Hong Kong were cities in their own right before they become poles of development for neighboring regions. In Honduras, the aim is to build each city on a huge vacant lot. Everything is to begin from scratch. So far, MGK has promised to invest $15 million in the first model city, and the government of South Korea has chipped in with $4 million. That would be plenty of money to invest in a chain of British fish-and-chip shops, but hardly enough to put in even the plumbing for the first model city in tropical Honduras. [link to blogs.ft.com] So the initial investor is MGK. And a South Korean influence too? |
Anonymous Coward (OP) User ID: 15456734 Australia 09/12/2012 04:13 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Honduras is set to play SimCity for real, albeit without the economist who devised the rules of the game. Last Tuesday, the government signed an agreement with private investors led by Michael Strong--a libertarian entrepreneur and close associate of Whole Foods co-founder and CEO John Mackey--to construct a city-from-scratch in one of at least three special development regions (“las Regiones Especiales de Desarrollo” or “REDs”) scattered around the country. REDs possess the legal right to establish--or outsource to foreign governments and companies as necessary--their own hospitals, schools, judges, and even police, all independent of Honduran law. The first is for profit, and if its founders have their way, it will look and feel a little like the Mosquito Coast’s answer to Austin. [link to www.fastcoexist.com] "Prior to starting MKG, Strong co-founded a movement named FLOW (“Freedom Lights Our World”) and wrote an entrepreneurial manifesto with Whole Foods’ John Mackey. More recently, he joined the board of the Seasteading Institute (whose founder, Patri Friedman, has started his own for-profit company with the stated aim of building cities in Honduras) and co-founded the Free Cities Institute, a think tank based at the Universidad Francisco Marroquín in Guatemala. (UFM, which I visited last spring, has a library named after Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises and a bas-relief of Atlas shrugging at the entrance to its business school.)" |
Anonymous Coward (OP) User ID: 15456734 Australia 09/12/2012 04:16 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | "One fascinating thing about these private cities is that the hypothesis is that the most important “infrastructure” behind a building a free and prosperous society is the rule of law. So that the emphasis of the founders is on building a court system and a set of voluntary laws that investors and workers can opt-in to by contract. I suspect that the ventures will prove highly successful and may become a prototype for similar investments in the future in other impoverished areas where the rule of law is weak." [link to www.volokh.com] |
odinson222 User ID: 19727744 United States 09/12/2012 04:16 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | odinson222 A Man Has Got to Know His Limitations I am just a sinner trying to make it to heaven! Romans 8:35-39 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. |
Anonymous Coward (OP) User ID: 15456734 Australia 09/12/2012 04:19 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | "I have no idea if this is feasible. The sum of my knowledge of such ventures derives from RoboCop. And, Bioshock. Apparently the artistic community isn't a fan of the concept. Quoting: ACE - from Ace of Spades HQBut it will be a fascinating experiment. I'm curious about the legal charters here -- do judges have the power to compel the managing corporation to do this and that -- like, "spend $45 billion more right now! I mean it, guys!" -- or is it built into the charter that they don't? I assume the latter, otherwise who the heck would risk the whim of a judge who decides to start running your company for you? Very neat idea. Seems Marx had it backwards. Socialism isn't the answer to the internal contradictions in capitalism; capitalism is the solution for the contradictions -- and massive humanity-crushing failures -- of socialism. As they say of democracy: People try it once all other possibilities have been proven to have failed. But What I Don't Get... Is how sovereign authority can be passed to private hands in a democracy. And if it's not passed, then the private corporation really doesn't run the city. I don't know how they worked out this problematic contradiction at the center of the scheme. [link to minx.cc] |
Dirt Diver User ID: 23574648 Belgium 09/12/2012 04:21 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | |
Anonymous Coward (OP) User ID: 15456734 Australia 09/12/2012 04:30 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 593499 Canada 09/12/2012 04:36 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 19193858 United States 09/12/2012 04:38 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | |
Anonymous Coward (OP) User ID: 15456734 Australia 09/12/2012 04:41 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | US isnt imune to the phenominon either - "ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) -- New Mexico, home to several of the nation's premier scientific, nuclear and military institutions, is planning to embark on a science project of unprecedented scale - a petri dish the size of a large U.S. city. A Washington-based technology company announced plans Tuesday to build a 20-square-mile model metropolis that would be used to test everything from renewable energy innovations to intelligent traffic systems and next-generation wireless networks. The replica city would be capable of supporting a population of 350,000, but would be the state's newest ghost town. Pegasus Global CEO Bob Brumely says the $200 million project will be a first of its kind in the U.S. and could create a Silicon Valley of sorts in New Mexico." - for market research..... |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 4281714 United States 09/12/2012 04:43 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | I always assumed they were part of a larger social experiment that tested the effects of: 1.) Close quarters living 2.) Close off social systems 3.) Social/Authoritative pressure 4.) Chemical and Psychological warfare 5.) False abandonment survivalism But what do I know. *cough* |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 593499 Canada 09/12/2012 04:45 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 17689295 United States 09/12/2012 04:49 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | I think they just keep building to keep their construction business alive. Happened in Az with many cities that are sitting vacant because there are no buyers. They built one huge housing complex that they later tore down because the cost of upkeep was too high. |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 4281714 United States 09/12/2012 04:55 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 21662845 Australia 09/12/2012 05:04 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | China had internet servers in remote jungles 15 years ago where no one even lived. Now people live there and use it, they plan well ahead. But these cities were because they were preparing for massive growth, but it wasn't quite that massive. You see being a retched communist Marxist dictatorship, they have to provide jobs for their slaves. Or they have to kill more of them. And building these cities provided jobs for their slaves. |
Thor's Hamster User ID: 1248699 United States 09/12/2012 05:06 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | |
Anonymous Coward (OP) User ID: 15456734 Australia 09/12/2012 05:08 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | I always assumed they were part of a larger social experiment that tested the effects of: Quoting: Anonymous Coward 4281714 1.) Close quarters living 2.) Close off social systems 3.) Social/Authoritative pressure 4.) Chemical and Psychological warfare 5.) False abandonment survivalism But what do I know. *cough* Oooh! an insider? What have you got to do with the project? I'll have a gander at your links too. Tx. EDIT - Eeek! is the link supposed to be about bio-warfare? Elaborate if you can. |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 23638421 United Kingdom 09/12/2012 05:08 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | |
Anonymous Coward (OP) User ID: 15456734 Australia 09/12/2012 05:10 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 23638826 United Kingdom 09/12/2012 05:10 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | |
Anonymous Coward (OP) User ID: 15456734 Australia 09/12/2012 05:12 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | |
Muzzle User ID: 8107898 United States 09/12/2012 05:18 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Without a standing army, the local drug lords or politicians will own anything nice. In his book, "Between Two Ages," Brzezinski wrote: "The technetronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values." MuzzleBreak |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 9128390 Australia 09/12/2012 05:25 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 23594863 United States 09/12/2012 05:28 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | :9teen: They can plot and plan until the cows some home, but it ain't going to get them nowhere. Quoting: Judethz Psa 9:17 The wicked shall be turned into hell, [and] all the nations that forget God. I agree, they are in their own little sick world pretending to be Gods chosen few, when they are and hopefully will all be the first to go someplace where they will fry never to return. |
Sperminator X User ID: 4912635 Netherlands 09/12/2012 05:36 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | The Chinese knocked one of these cities up in Africa, too... [liveleak] [link to www.dailymail.co.uk] |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 23638027 United States 09/12/2012 05:39 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 527834 United Kingdom 09/12/2012 05:45 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | It's just what happens when a country has no modern culture, with a command and control economy run by the corrupt. The western world corporations sold the country's sole to the devil to make a quick buck. The dumb sheeple were too busy shopping to notice they had bee sold out by corrupt politicians. The world has got to have a "re-set". With 7 billion people it isn't going to be pretty. Prepare, and enjoy the ride! |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 23638826 United Kingdom 09/12/2012 05:52 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | It's just what happens when a country has no modern culture, with a command and control economy run by the corrupt. Quoting: Anonymous Coward 527834 The western world corporations sold the country's sole to the devil to make a quick buck. The dumb sheeple were too busy shopping to notice they had bee sold out by corrupt politicians. The world has got to have a "re-set". With 7 billion people it isn't going to be pretty. Prepare, and enjoy the ride! your describing the uk there |