Wuhan, in the Hubei province of central China, is home to 10 million people - many of whom live in these colourful houses away from the high-rise city centre and factories
Home ownership has been called "the quintessential American dream." Yet today
less than 65% of American homes are owner-occupied, and more than 50% of the equity in those homes is owned by the banks. Compare China, where, despite facing one of the most expensive real estate markets in the world,
a whopping 90% of families can afford to own their homes.
Over the last decade, American wages have stagnated and U.S. productivity has consistently been
outpaced by China's. The U.S. government has responded by engaging in a trade war and imposing stiff tariffs in order to penalize China for what the White House deems
unfair trade practices. China's industries are said to be propped up by the state and to have significantly lower labor costs, allowing them to dump cheap products on the U.S. market, causing prices to fall and forcing U.S. companies out of business. The message to middle America is that Chinese labor costs are low because their workers are being exploited in slave-like conditions at poverty-level wages.
But if that's true, how is it that the great majority of Chinese families own homes? According to a March 2016
article in Forbes:
... 90% of families in the country own their home, giving China one of the highest home ownership rates in the world. What's more is that 80% of these homes are owned outright, without mortgages or any other liens. On top of this, north of 20% of urban households own more than one home.
Due to their communist legacy, what Chinese buyers get for their money is not actually ownership in perpetuity but
a long-term leasehold, and the quality of the construction may be poor. But the question posed here is, how can Chinese families afford the price tag for these homes, in a country where the
average income is only one-seventh that in the United States?
Comment: Obviously, like everywhere, Russia still has its problems with corruption but once this case came to light it was swiftly dealt with, the same can't be said for the US where police officers routinely get away with murder: