I'm not sure they have what you and I might understand by the term 'middle class'. Big cities have mega rich people and rural areas have their dirt poor. I think you have to have been going for quite a lot longer than modern China to have a true middle class. I guess its a bit like the gold rush days in your own country. Don't forget that the Chinese 'economic miracle' didnt get started until the early nineteen nineties. 1988 was when Deng Xiao Peng started to take the brakes off.
In HK an acceptable 'median' income for the 'employed' might be US$50-100k per annum. With investments and wheeling and dealing (almost everyone has at least one private company either trading or waiting for the opportunity to trade). Everyone I know, everyone, is playing the stock market and, obviously is extremely content with the way things are going at present.
Of course no one will tell you what they earn ... for tax (avoidance) reasons!!!
I still think the stimulus was too small.
I hope you are right about the european economy. If we attack the need for finacial regulation they will surely be much happier to do business with us and bolster our economy.
China, by the way, as a controlled economy, is not too heavy on exports or anything else. It has an objective. It will supply or not supply, raise the value of its currency or not according to its own requirements. It has no electorate to answer to, no elections to prepare for, no opposition political parties to derail its policies.
Obama wanted a larger stimulus and didnt get it.
Americans will start doing all kinds of micro businesses to survive. This will create a groundswell. I know we will recover because of the American people but the sooner the better.
cool beans, I've heard for a long time HK was blasting with business income and it's obvious from the high real estate that people are prob making more than they report.
How many millions in the Chineese cities would you guestimate are in the 100,000 category?
Mind pretzel biting fly