Fei Jie Talks Politics and Economics: A Real China-US Reconciliation Statement

The sky has fallen! Let me also balance the books for everyone The reason I put off posting this messy ledger for so long is that I really couldn't muster any interest in these trivial, fussy matters. However, recently a flood of pink maggots came rolling in: "Without balancing the books, you wouldn't know—the sky has fallen for certain public intellectuals and intermediaries!" Later, I learned that these maggots were most likely arranged by a certain "youth role model" who is an alleged rapist and political fraudster. The messy affairs between him and his henchman Sima Nan aren't even over yet, yet he's actually in the mood to come out and stir up trouble again. So, I will join you all in balancing the books to see how the illusory sense of pride of you maggots came to be.

1. Population Comparison: China: 1.4 billion; United States: 335 million

2. Total GDP (2023 / USD): China: 17.79 trillion; United States: 27.72 trillion (China is 64.17% of the US)

3. GDP per capita (2023, $USD) China: $12.7K; United States: $82.8K (a 6.5-fold difference)

4. Minimum Wage: Shanghai vs. Los Angeles (high similarity between the two cities) Shanghai's minimum monthly wage: 2,690 RMB (Social Security Bureau document, Figure 2) Los Angeles 2024 minimum wage: $17.28/hour, 8 hours a day, two days off per week, minimum monthly income: $3,041.28

5. Daily Commodity Prices (Vegetables, Eggs, Milk, Meat) Eggs: China 10-15 RMB/dozen; US 3-5 USD/dozen (both comparing regular eggs; please do not bring up prices of American specialty phoenix eggs to compare, regular eggs laid by regular chickens in the US are 3 times lower) Pork: China 15-20 RMB/jin; US 3-5 USD/jin (4-5 fold difference) Beef: China 30-40 RMB/jin; US 5-8 USD/jin (5-6 fold difference) Chicken: China 10-15 RMB/jin; US 2-4 USD/jin (4-5 fold difference) Vegetables: Corn in China 2-5 RMB/ear; US corn 0.5-1.5 USD/ear (some say US corn is $7/ear, that must be an Oscar-winning corn). Too many other vegetables to compare one by one, but without considering exchange rates, prices are about the same. Milk: China 20 RMB/jug/1.8L; US 2 USD/jug/2L (10-fold difference) Bread: In the US it's just too cheap, won't compare Fruit: Too many varieties, prices are about the same Walmart Rotisserie Chicken: China 35 RMB/bird; US 3-4 USD/bird (10-fold difference) Häagen-Dazs: Shanghai: 30 RMB for a small tub; Los Angeles: 3-5 USD/420g Starbucks: China 30-40 RMB; US 5-8 USD

6. Gasoline China (today) Regular 92: 7.5 RMB/liter; Premium 95: 7.98 RMB/liter; US Los Angeles: 0.8-1.2 USD/liter (6-9 fold difference), other places are 10-20% lower than California

7. Automobiles Taking BMW X5 as an example China new car: 700K-900K RMB/unit; 10-year used car: 150K-200K RMB/unit; US new car: 70K-80K USD; 10-year used car: 15K-25K USD (about a 10-fold difference between China and the US)

Housing; Rent: Selecting a not-so-bustling, moderately upscale residential building in Changning District, Shanghai: a 50-100 square meter two-bedroom apartment ranges from 6,000 to 13,000 RMB, taking 7,000 RMB/month Los Angeles regular two-bedroom apartment: 2,000-3,000 USD/month, Beverly Hills luxury two-bedroom apartment: around 4,000 USD, taking 3,000 USD. For rent, China and the US differ by more than 2-fold; Purchase: Shanghai real estate average selling price in 2024: 58K, taking 50K RMB/sqm, a 100 sqm two-bedroom is 5 million RMB; Los Angeles regular apartment around 100 sqm: 500K-700K USD, purchasing differs by 7-10 fold. Los Angeles property tax is around 1%, with an annual property tax of 5,000-7,000 USD. Referring to patriotic Big V Sima Nan's "small house" tax, he pays over 4,000 USD in taxes to the US government every year. 8. Clothing and Daily Necessities, etc. China: A manufacturing powerhouse, daily necessities are cheap; US: Just as cheap. No need to compare brand-name items with the US: a pair of branded jeans that costs 700-800 RMB in China can be bought for 30-50 USD in the US. Discount chain stores like TJ Maxx allow you to buy brands that cost thousands of RMB in China for ten to several tens of dollars. 9. Dining Out Shanghai: Noodles 15-30 RMB/bowl; Boiled Pork Slices (Shuizhu Rou) 40-60 RMB/portion; Steak 100-200 RMB/portion; McDonald's value meal: 20-30 RMB; Los Angeles: Noodles 15-20 USD; Boiled Pork Slices 20-40 USD/portion; Steak 30-50 USD; McDonald's value meal: 5-10 USD. In the US, a mandatory 20% tip is required, except for fast food. Egg-filled pancake (Jidan Guanbing): You win, Americans don't have such a high-end delicacy at all; Tea egg: You completely win, Americans can't make them, let alone afford them~ 11. Telecommunications China: 20-600 RMB/month/person; US 30-70 USD/month/person (unlimited talk and data) 12. Healthcare Shanghai: Medical insurance is mandatory with employment, with a reimbursement rate of 70%-80%. Without a job, pay out-of-pocket; costs for minor illnesses are not high, but major illnesses can lead back into poverty. Personally, I believe China's healthcare insurance system is not bad; many people still retain their domestic healthcare insurance after immigrating overseas just in case. Los Angeles: Having a job means having health insurance; companies with good benefits provide insurance for the whole family. Freelancers need to purchase insurance on their own, with an average annual premium of 9,000-10,000 USD. According to ACA (Obamacare) rules, different income groups receive different subsidies. For people with an annual income below 138% of the federal poverty line (about 20,000 USD), free healthcare is provided, including dental and vision. Vulnerable groups such as seniors over 65, children, and pregnant women also enjoy free healthcare. However, the expensiveness of healthcare in the US is rare in the world, and excessive medical costs are one of the biggest socio-economic issues in the US. Americans often fall into debt difficulties because of high out-of-pocket costs or claims being denied by insurance companies. That's why Luigi came along and gunned down the CEO of UnitedHealthcare on the street—this insurance company's claim denial rate is twice that of other American insurance companies. There are plenty of Americans who go bankrupt due to medical bills; in this respect, China and the US are similar. The only difference is that American hospitals treat first and bill later, and among those homeless people, many have gone into personal credit bankruptcy.

1. Education Shanghai: 9 years of compulsory education are free; high school public options cost 1,000-2,000 RMB/semester; private 100K-300K RMB/year; Los Angeles: 12 years of compulsory education are free; private schools 40K-80K USD/year University tuition: Shanghai University of Finance and Economics 6,000-8,000 RMB/year; NYU Shanghai 200,000 RMB/year; UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) in-state students $13K/year; out-of-state students $42K-$47K/year SUFE graduates can make 10,000 RMB/month; UCLA graduates can also make $10,000/month; Tuition at US private universities is expensive, ranging from $50K to $80K; MBA and law school costs are particularly high, but starting salaries after graduation are also high. Top US universities like HYPSM, the 8 Ivy League schools, and some TOP 30 schools adopt need-blind policies, providing varying degrees of scholarships and student loans based on family income, keeping the channel of "rising from humble beginnings" open. 40% of Americans give up opportunities for higher education for various reasons, opting instead for vocational training or entering the workforce directly. As for the claim that one can never pay off loans in a lifetime, that is nonsense. Some people, in order not to affect their quality of life after graduation, set their minimum monthly repayment to just a few hundred dollars, resulting in a very long repayment period and paying a lot of interest. Some people repeatedly emphasize "interest on interest," which is actually compound interest—a universally practiced lending method globally. Our mortgages are compound interest, and China's student loans are too, except the government subsidizes the interest; without interest, compound interest naturally does not exist. Current loan interest rates in the US are very high, as are mortgage rates. Borrowing or not is a matter of personal choice. Some people insist on describing US student loans as "cannibalistic usury," which is truly ill-intentioned and purely playing to the gallery. In the US, higher education is an investment: without higher education, graduation yields $50K/year; with a college degree, graduation could potentially become eighty or a hundred thousand. Therefore, the US government considers this a personal investment and rarely provides subsidies. Old Biden sympathized with the heavy financial pressure on students and signed bills multiple times during his term, forgiving hundreds of billions of dollars in student loans for hundreds of thousands of students. Fortunately, Americans do not hold values like "all pursuits are base, only learning is exalted." Working as a blue-collar, especially a skilled blue-collar worker, carries no occupational discrimination, and some even earn more than many white-collar workers. Therefore, 40% of Americans will never step into a university gate in their lives; this proportion should be even higher in China. There are also many Americans who choose inexpensive public community colleges to learn a skill: two-year associate degrees, with tuition at 2,000-5,000 USD/academic year. Low-income students can also receive tuition waivers and earn about the same as regular white-collar workers after graduation (In 2024, the median salary for Americans is around $70K-$80K/year.)

The books are basically balanced. There are bound to be some discrepancies, but they do not affect the big picture. If you insist on nitpicking over a few isolated cases, then you do not truly want to balance the books; you just want to prove your preconceived notion that "you live better than Americans

...perspective of "happiness" to throw a tantrum and act like a rogue, then you should crawl as far away as possible. Saying all this is just to let everyone see, under normal circumstances, if both earn 3,000 yuan or 10,000 yuan, whose money do you think goes further? Don't play any "Tian Ji's horse racing" tricks, and don't take a few poor people in the US selling blood to shout "we've won big time" there. That doesn't represent America, and we have far more dark examples, but those don't represent China either. Look at our official data: 600 million people have a monthly income below 1,000 yuan, and 900 million people have a monthly income below 2,000 yuan. I think you still need to be a bit humble, don't shamelessly go around shouting "we've won big time." From $12,500 to $82,800, the gap is still very large. I have studied and worked in the US for 5 years and traveled back and forth between China and the US for 20 years, so I should understand America better than the vast majority of people. You guys running over in a panic shouting "the sky is falling, the sky is falling" is even more ridiculous and stupid than Ah Q shouting "Revolution! Revolution! I can sleep with Wu Ma now!" back then. Anyone with a bit of vision knows that America has never been heaven, and China has never been hell. The happiness index in China's fourth- and fifth-tier small cities is quite high, there is no doubt about that. But it is also a fact that the per capita GDP difference between China and the US is 6.5 times, and the difference in purchasing power is three to five times. Is it really that hard to admit that others are living a bit better than you? Are you so insecure that you absolutely must win? We shouldn't underestimate ourselves, but we don't need to deceive ourselves either, right? If you only found out today that there are still people washing dishes in America, that some people have to work two jobs to earn tuition, and that some families worry about medical bills, that is your own ignorance and lack of exposure, not other people's problem. Which public intellectual or agent told you that America is heaven, where the government waits to spoon-feed you? That you can bend over and pick up bundles of US dollars? That you have a blonde beauty massaging your back when you get home? Are you daydreaming? The sky is falling, my foot! Hurry up and get back to your mental asylum! Actually, when looking at America, there is no need to look up, and even less need to look down. It is simply an economic powerhouse, but with a population of over 300 million, there will inevitably be rich and poor, advantages and disadvantages. Believing that you can lie flat or make a fortune just by going to America is your own ignorance—ignorant to the point that you had to wait for a few dishwashers and construction workers on Xiaohongshu to make you "suddenly realize": "Oh, so ordinary Americans don't eat steak for every meal, and not everyone drives a Porsche!" Isn't that obvious nonsense? Didn't you guys already know long ago that Americans can't afford McDonald's? Didn't you already know long ago that there is "looting" everywhere in America and "shootings every day"? What are you pretending to "suddenly realize the sky is falling" for? America's social structure is spindle-shaped, small at both ends and large in the middle. The middle class has not achieved financial freedom and still has to live within their means and plan their lives. Is this so hard to understand? America has never been a place that nurtures lazy people. The middle class has almost no universal welfare benefits; they have to strive on their own. If you want to lie flat and live a quiet life, you had better go to Europe, Canada, or Australia, where high taxes and high welfare provide more security for ordinary people's lives, with the state covering birth, aging, sickness, and death, though you won't make a great fortune either. Since there is no easy wool to shear, why do so many people still cross thousands of miles and risk their lives to go to America? This is what we often call the "American Dream"—the belief that as long as one strives relentlessly, one can achieve a better life. The charm of America lies in the fact that on that soil, there is no ceiling to success, making it particularly suitable for those who are ambitious, goal-oriented, smart, and hardworking to make their way. The education there is good, funding is sufficient, entrepreneurial opportunities are plentiful, and the environment is relaxed; as long as you are hardworking and smart enough, it is easier to achieve success. The typical representative of the "American Dream" is Musk. A poor student from South Africa who overstayed illegally in the US to start a business back then, yet still gained the favor of capital. There is hardly any other country in the world that can support a foreigner with absolutely no foundation to become the richest person in the world. Not everyone can become Musk, so why do ordinary people flock there as well? Aside from a small number of people who just follow the crowd, the vast majority have clear goals and a solid understanding: either for their children's education, or to break through their own career bottlenecks and live a relatively prosperous life. The US economy is good and job opportunities are relatively plentiful; without 996 or 007, one can still live a life with a house and a car, and at least when looking for a partner, one doesn't have to constantly plaster "has a house, a car, and a dowry" on their forehead. With the same amount of effort, it is easier to reach middle-class status in America. Finally, to tell those idiots, my high-net-worth client group will never use Xiaohongshu to understand America, let alone chat for a couple of sentences with an American construction worker and then beat their breasts and stamp their feet crying "I was fooled and regret it deeply." Furthermore, none of them go there with the grand dream of "making a fortune" in America. Immigration and studying abroad are standard economic behaviors with very high thresholds. Those who can meet these thresholds are smart, wealthy people with high cognitive levels; they cannot be easily fooled by me. You brainless maggots who can't even afford instant noodles shouldn't worry about whether my sky will fall; worry about whether you can still afford instant noodles for your next meal.