One of the most shocking charts I’ve seen in a while. Business startups in China have collapsed.

I was curious if the same thing happened in the US, I looked up the data and here’s what I found:

Since 2012 US business starts have jumped dramatically and it has remained pretty consistent, it’s below its COVID highs but still substantially above the 2012 figures.

Quarterly number of business starts in the United States from the fourth quarter of 2012 to the fourth quarter of 2023.

In the fourth quarter of 2023, 322,000 new businesses were formed in the United States. This is a slight increase from the previous quarter, when 311,000 new businesses were formed. In the second quarter of 2020, new business starts experienced a dip to 227,000, but have picked up quickly in subsequent quarters.

China is suffering the same fate as the USSR & Japan. They all peaked around 70-80% of US GDP, then entered a prolonged period of relative decline.