> The World Bank's data is a bit spotty, but it looks like China's Gini is roughly similar to the US's at around 40 whereas other economic powers like Japan, Germany, South Korea and France are bunched closer to 30.

This is a common sleight-of-hand - you're giving me income Gini coefficient and describing it as if it is wealth gini coefficient. Check out the wealth gini here [0] to see that Germany and the US are much higher and China is more comparable with France.

> If your theory of is based on China having less wealth inequality than the US, you really should also look at countries with much less wealth inequality than either.

Also to be clear, my "theory" is not based on China having less wealth inequality. My "theory" is that the people making large capital allocation decisions in China are typically smarter.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_eq...

> My "theory" is that the people making large capital allocation decisions in China are typically smarter.

In that case the wealth Gini should be high so that the smart people get to control all the money.

In Chinese government, often the smart people get to control capital allocation without owning all of the money.

Also, that's not necessarily true - I think it is better to have investment controlled by a diversified group of smart people, which would mean not a super-duper high gini coeff.