Free Republic

"What fallacy? On the one hand, people want to say China is a threat. On the other hand, at the same time, people want to say China's economy is a house of cards. These positions are inconsistent. You can't talk out of both sides of your mouth."

Actually I said "fallacies."

Despite the feeble men...de, you aren't naive enough to think you committed only one, are you?

Best regards. S&W R.I.P.

Hopalong:"The prospect of a huge mainland domestic market for consumer goods is mainly an illusion."

Magister:"If this is true, why do people spend so much time and energy arguing China represents a threat? For a country that ultimately presents no economic (and thus military) threat, people sure have got their panties in a bunch about China...."

Equitum aut peditum?

Your fallacies are showing, merely by the way.

Best regards. S&W R.I.P.

"The 'bottom line' for the CCP... survival..."

Right on the nose, maui_hawaii.

Ultimately, at everyone else's expense.

Best regards. SW R.I.P.

Nowadays it's hard to find a thick, still decently oiled wool turtleneck, except maybe from Ireland.

Best regards. S&W R.I.P.

"007???!!! I was thinking Mr. Bean..."

LOL. You can't blame everything on the Brits, hoho.

Now is that a real poncho, or is that a Sears poncho?

One upon a time you could easily learn the best buys along that line from the fishermen of Gloucester, New Bedford and Fall River, or the Islands, as well as of Maine.

Best regards. S&W R.I.P.

Nah—but's it's not an empty threat to select interests, say, some of the banks and financial institutions and various corporations, Aussie, Pommie and "mother country" Brit.

'Course I'm no expert on Australia. Far from it—I'm still trying to figure out why they gave up most of their firearms in the outback.

But, then again, I am still wondering when the Canadians are going to divorce themselves from the Hudson Bay Company mentality too, hehe.

Shell games and Ponzi schemes aside, I am quite obviously a little behind the times.

Best regards. S&W R.I.P.

I've often wondered whether some of the Italians—Broccoli, Ponti—involved in producing the James Bond movies were having their own little inside joke in the way 007 dressed.

The tuxes were okay, but some of the suits.

Best regards. S&W R.I.P.

On the surface, some of the ChiCom threats seem almost comic, as with a paranoid schizophrenic with a pistol to his head shouting, "Do what I say or we'll shoot!"

The problem lies with all the seemingly influential folks who depend upon the maniac as their one and only overseas snakeheads.

Best regards. S&W R.I.P.

"I disagree with that Hop. That piece on the Diesel Sub maker in Australia made it sound like China was threatening Australia. As if her interests were going to be harmed if it went to the US. If it was purely economic they would increase their bid and wouldn't threaten. In my opinion (humble) the big reason is the Bush administration wants to sell submarines to Taiwan, this sale will help the US to do that and China doesn't want it to happen."

We don't disagree—of course that's the real reason. The nature of the threat, and the means used to make it convincing, is what I was talking about.

The Brits and Aussies too are up to their ears in mainland investment.

Then there's Prince Murdoch Jr., who declared that "China" needs an authoritarian regime, hehe. Yep, might as well be the Commies, eh?

Best regards. S&W R.I.P.

Oops—"ultimatum."

Regards to all. S&W R.I.P.

Merely by the way, #20, as it seems to me, is what's ultimately behind the recent ultmatum about Australian submarines.

"Commonwealth," my ears.

Best regards. S&W R.I.P.

"They have a get rich quick scheme, with little stablity or surety, and we are all gonna pay for it. The pro-CCP drum bangers (including our corporations) are trying to enforce that our national interest rest IN and ONLY IN Beijing, and preserving the party therein...."

That's the core of the matter right there.

Until Galbraith came along, most corporations, especially of the American variety, were in business to make profits on the production and sale of goods and services of some kind. Galbraith informed them that that was old-fashioned.

Many of the corporations are doing business on the mainland for one reason, and one reason alone—it is the only and easiest way they can think of to make larger profit margins, almost exclusively by taking advantage of the cheap labor in production for export.

The prospect of a huge mainland domestic market for consumer goods is mainly an illusion. Some of the corporations doing business there know it. Others perhaps do not—yet. In and of itself, there is nothing wrong with profit. Contra Galbraith, that is the whole point of being in business.

But as you say, they have a very manipulative, political, and subversive silent partner, the CCP, which is desperately interested in much more than current bottom lines—indeed, in some important ways and over the long term their main interest is not bottom lines at all.

This is, however, only part a small part of the problem in my opinion The real threats are the irresistibly appetizing, but mostly false, financial and banking carrots, which are at the heart of the pyramid scheme and which translate into direct and indirect foreign political and military leverage for the CCP.

If it looks too good to be true, it probably isn't—true, that is.

In any case, one surefire way to make a small fortune applies also to overexuberant investment in the CCP-controlled mainland enterprises.

Start out with a big one.

Best regards. S&W R.I.P.

Oops—let's see, "brides", "birdes", "birdies", "birds"—oh yeah, "almost."

Best regards. S&W R.I.P.

Those who indulge occasionally in cards or other games of chance (excepting state-run lotteries, which are not games of much chance at all), or perhaps used to once upon a time, will recognize a similar phenomenon. One also sees it with some novices on the trading floor.

Novices because, it alomst goes without saying, they don't tend to last long.

Yep, gotta know when to hold them and when to fold them. And it also pays big at times to know how to sandbag, and at other times how to lay in the weeds.

Best regards. S&W R.I.P.

The ChiComs are, as you know, already using that particular song and dance internally, and seem to be having some little success in getting opponents, at home and abroad, as well as some international corporate clients, singing along.

In the old Soviet Union, too, when at last the regime was falling, the leftists in the press and other media almost immediately began to identify the diehard Commies as the "conservatives."

The decisive sign, however, is, in my opinion, again as with the old Soviets, when the Communists start hawking "spiritual values".

How does it go now, "I am a creme-filled jelly doughnut"? No, that's not it. Oh yeah—"Ask not what Communism can do for you, but what you can do for the Communists."

Best regards. S&W R.I.P.

"Thats about like saying, 'people paid $125 per share of dogwalker.com, and hence, they have good revenues..."

There seems to be a quite common phenomenon, though rarely commented upon, which seems in some ways the reverse of "Buyer's Remorse", to wit—"I paid a lot of money for it, therefore it must be the best money can buy."

The British were once artists in this direction, palming off some of the ugliest and most uncomfortable suits in all creation largely by exclusiveness and high price tags. So too with some of their automobiles.

Many in the Pentagon have learned the same lesson.

It's also a tried and true formula, I have observed, for some golf courses and shotguns, much modern art, and suburban development.

I suppose deep down it's related to Veblen's observations on conspicuous consumption, and explains, in part, Galbraith's success in convincing many corporate do-nothings that their existence was self-justified, and absolutely at the cutting edge of his new corporate "economics", hehe.

Best regards. Hop.

"This is 2002 and still only CCP can ELECT. It is not elected, it is appointed. Just like Hu will be appointed to be the head of China.

If we really look closely at it, it works exactly like an American corporation, Board of Directors APPOINT (Hire) a CEO or even the Chairman of the Board. CCP is the only share holder of China...."

Exactly, though in a corporation the shareholders have a say, and they can if they wish sell their stock.

The CCP owns the mainland and the mainlanders, as long as the mainlanders put up with it, and they are a captive audience.

Half a century of absolute power, and what do they have to show for it—corruption, religious suppression, rural beggardom, perhaps a hundred million vagrant and displaced "workers", outright slave labor, environmental disaster, systematic murder and torture, famine, defeat in foreign war—including losses to the United States and Vietnam—and that just skims the surface.

Ah, but the "economy" is booming, will be the reply, and things are better than they were before. Yeah right—to the extent to which that is true in selected areas and in spite of the Chinese Communist Party, not because of it—it is due almost wholly to foreign investment, including large amounts from the ROC on Taiwan.

Compare the accomplishments of Chiang and the Nationalists and their succeessors in the ROC on Taiwan.

Compare Japan or South Korea.

No contest.

Best regards. S&W R.I.P.

Off too.

S&W R.I.P.

Wretched Boph!—"if you have two..."

Best regards. S&W R.I.P.

(#55):"A friend of his, perhaps."

(#37):"Seems like a lot of trouble I know, but depending on where you are, you can now get up quickly and run somewhere else if you have too, and still have your trousers if you need them."

Best regards. S&W R.I.P.