How Chinese Millionaires Are Buying Their Way Out of China

[LittleBlue]

7. You're right about fiat money. Productivity, however, is wealth

Fiat money does have a value only enforced by legislation, which props up its relative value compared to other currencies. Wealth can be made by keeping the populace efficiently productive.

China is in the middle of the greatest poverty relief project in the history of mankind. We might think that the environment isn't worth it, but the Chinese who are impoverished might think differently.

Rightly or wrongly, the Chinese believe that once they reach an adequate level of wealth, they can dial it back and create an industry devoted to cleaning it up. In fact, they just recently embarked on a cap-and-trade plan to curb emissions, which (in the Chinese style) they had tested in various provinces. They are also in the process of outsourcing their most polluting, low-value industries to Africa.

In the end, they will look back and see that it was justified. The same way we look back at our own industrial revolution, which was less devastating to the environment only because the population was so much smaller.