Tag Archives: china

ASIAN FLU AND THE CHINA SYNDROME

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THE CHINA SYNDROME

The China Syndrome, the worry that an American nuclear plant meltdown could penetrate the earth’s crust finally ending up in China. A worry to this day. Economically we have seen the reverse, a China economic meltdown, now winding its way through oceans leaving economic woe and devastation in its path. The financial markets have confirmed the economic twister’s wake since China’s stock market swooned 30%. Now it is leaving a financial trail of devastation in our financial markets.China syndrome.jpg The bottom line here is simple. Over the past twenty years China has accumulated a couple of trillion dollars of our money; shipping slave produced goods to the United States in return they purchased foreign companies worldwide.

Their bounty was spent gobbling up companies across the global board. These included natural resources, manufacturing, biotech, electronic and software. They are today’s elephant in the economic room. China catches a cold, the world catches the flu.

While other countries economic woes are common place, the United States economy is humming along. This is an anomaly.  Questions arise on how our economy has shielded the blow of economic stagnation. It does not seem possible. True that interest rates are at all time lows, oil has imploded, but these circumstances exist in Europe too and their economy is in the tank. Something does not jive hear. Is our government covering something up? That is the question.

CHINA SYNDROME BY MICHAEL OBERNDORF

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China?

 

I have been spending time in Hong Kong this past year, and recently took a short trip into China proper. Several things struck me as being not at all what I expected, in both places. Not surprising, though, given the Ministry of Propaganda, aka, the “mainstream” media, filtering of what we are allowed to hear about. The skewed, leftist-agenda driven misinformation and downright lies that they spew out daily rarely paint a picture of what the world is actually like. Thus, I thought I would share some of my personal observations that if skewed, are skewed in the direction of proudly-American patriotic conservatism.

 

Hong Kong was taken as a colony by the British in 1841, as part of a treaty ending a brief war over opium. Over time, it became a great Asian commercial center and lots of people got very rich there, including many Chinese. In 1992, Hong Kong was returned to China by the British who were definitely watching the sun set on their former empire, and on their standing as a first tier nation.

 

However, rather than imposing the idiotic central planning that communists are infamous for, the ChiComs allowed business to continue pretty much as usual: largely unregulated and untaxed. As a result, Hong Kong continued to prosper, bringing huge amounts of capital and trade to, and through, it. I saw more Ferraris in 10 days last winter than I had seen in the previous 10 years in the US. Unemployment appears to be minimal. The parks have only retired people, not the jobless, in them, and the homeless are very hard to find. Poverty seems darn near non-existent, and, unlike America’s Democrat-run cities, it’s safe and clean. It reminds me of what America was like back when I was growing up, in the 1950s and early ’60s. And though they have experienced some recent unrest among the Chinese residents regarding the local political process, international business – the source of Hong Kong’s fabulous wealth – has been mostly unaffected. This, of course, may change, but for the more or less immediate future, Hong Kong will likely maintain its #1 ranking as the most free place for doing business in the world. The USA, by the way, under Obozo and his Merry RINOs, has sunk to #17.

 

China proper, too, had some surprises. When I crossed the border into Shenzhen – Hong Kong and the New Territories are not part of the Mainland and you have to have a visa to cross from them into China – I expected there to be a big change from booming Hong Kong. Instead, it looked very much the same – well dressed (often expensively) people, lots of luxury cars, but with China license plates, lots of big construction projects, and so on. Unlike our border with Mexico, where the poverty, crime, filth, and pollution are a stark contrast, Shenzhen clearly has benefited from its proximity to the epitome of free enterprise. But while Shenzhen was similar to Hong Kong, there were recognizable differences.

 

One of the first things I noticed on the cab ride from the crossing to my hotel – a marvelous Crowne Plaza – was that there were, what were clearly homeless wino-types, sleeping in the parks. These people are not supposed to exist in Mao’s worker’s paradise, but they do indeed, though not in great numbers. I wonder how they have managed to stay out of sight of the all-seeing eye of the People’s Police.  And this relates somewhat to another Chinese anomaly – ghost cities and unfinished housing.

 

The Ministry of Propaganda has mentioned ghost cities, but mostly as curiosities, with little or no serious analysis. These cities are complete, with wonderful housing and shopping malls, but no more than 10% occupancy in any of them. And out in the smaller cities and towns and the countryside, I saw hundreds of relatively new three and four story western-style buildings, constructed to the point of just needing finishing – wall and ceiling finish, window glass, etc. – and then apparently left to sit, some obviously for more than just a few months. So, with all this vacant, potentially occupiable housing, why are there still homeless on the streets? And who is supposed to fill it all, since other than the handful of homeless, everyone seemed to have places to live?

 

What this suggests to me is that all these are make-work projects, to keep people busy, who would otherwise be idle, and thus, potential trouble-makers, but producing nothing of real value to the country. Indeed, I saw lots of idle workers, sitting around day after day, playing cards (gambling! shocking!) apparently victims of government dictating which businesses operate when. While it is always possible that there is some brilliant central master plan behind all this, it sure isn’t obvious, and instead hints at endemic systemic problems for which they are unsuccessfully groping for a solution.

 

Add to this the obvious popularity of Western Culture, and China becomes less of a stable, monolithic, communist state than we are led to believe it is. Virtually no one wears traditional Chinese clothes, except a few ethnic minorities in very rural areas of southwest China, and it is not unusual to see spiked, blue/green/red hairdos. Western music is everywhere, and television and advertising are clearly modeled after ours and Europe’s. This embracing of Western, non-Chinese culture hints at the adoption of Western values, sooner or later, and may be a major factor in the increasing crackdown on internal dissent. Interesting times, indeed!

 

 

 

MICHAEL OBERNDORF – FIRST HAND LOOK AT HONG KONG AND THE MAIN LAND

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Stranger Than Fiction

It’s been a while since I’ve commented on the Kafkaesque dreamscape that life has degenerated into of late. This happens occasionally, when it seems things can’t get any weirder, but they do. I drop back and watch, waiting to see if anybody does anything to make things better. Invariably, they never do.

This time it’s been no different. In fact, things seem to be getting exponentially worse, with the supposed Good Guys aiding and abetting the Bad Guys like they were all on the same payroll. Oh…wait…they are. Never mind.

The one bright spot is Donald Trump. Now, I don’t really give a flying hooha that he’s not a purist’s idea of a conservative, or that he’s a populist. What is important is that he’s a patriot who loves America and will do whatever he can to restore us to the greatness that, pre-Obama and the America-hating neo-fascists who run him and the Democrats, used to be ours. Trump is not a politician, he’s a very successful businessman, and that is exactly what we need. He’s lost and regained fortunes and more, has bought and sold politicians, so he knows how they play their game, and he’s got enough money so that he is neither afraid of nor beholden to anyone. Again, exactly what we need. Now, if we can at the same time get rid of the 100 or so worthless, lying RINOs in the House and the 34 or so even more worthless, lying RINOs in the Senate, we could see America become once more the great, constitutional republic that our founders intended us to be.

As a result of many, if not most, Americans not having access to the truth about what is happening in the world around us – our “mainstream news media” has degenerated into nothing more that a leftist propaganda and indoctrination machine – we are woefully unaware of the dangers that are growing like unchecked cancers around us.

I am currently in Hong Kong, and have just returned from a short trip into China proper, and a couple of things have become very clear. First, Hong Kong, with it’s largely free and unregulated trade, is booming like I have never seen a place boom. Massive construction, high demand for luxury goods, marketplaces filled with goods and crowds of people there to buy them. The docks are crowded with containers stacked seven and eight high, coming in and going out. The harbor, too, is filled with ships, bringing thousands of more containers filled with goods from the mainland, and taking others out to ports all over the world. For this, we can thank the neo-fascists who have run our government and “global” corporations, outsourcing our work and wealth, for at least the last 25 years.

The second thing that has become clear is that something is very wrong in China. Their conversion into a quasi-capitalist, quasi-communist country has created consumer economy and a hugely higher standard of living for nearly everyone. It’s also created an obvious privileged class who can afford luxury apartments, BMWs, Mercedes’, Buicks, and other high-priced vehicles, Armani clothes, Cartier watches, etc. But it has also created the ghost cities – whole cities, brand new, with massive high rise apartment complexes and shopping malls…all standing empty. What I discovered on my little jaunt was that a similar situation exists in the countryside, where it’s not so obvious, but apparently is ubiquitous.

In every hamlet, village, and town, and to some extent in the smaller cities, too, there are dozens of new two, three, and four storey, multiple-occupancy houses, constructed to the pre-finish stage, and then left standing unfinished and empty. No workers at all, and as near as I could tell, and no people in need of housing to fill them if they ever did finish them. They appear to be a massive socialist make-work scheme that didn’t work out as planned, but suggesting internal economic problems that they haven’t come up with a solution for.

The worrisome aspect of all this is the aggressive actions China has been taking towards its neighbors – Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan. The tried-and-true method of repairing a broken economy has always been to start a war, preferably one you can win. Among those who understand the Chinese military, it has long been predicted that they will move on these smaller neighbors, and if no one stops them, will go on to take the rest of Asia. Unfortunately, Marxist Obama and his Marxist Democrat Party have weakened our military so badly that China is virtually assured of only cheap talk and token resistance from us. Interesting times, indeed!

Sadly, China is only one of America’s coming disasters. Obama and his little helpers in the Republican Establishment have also guaranteed that the Middle East will explode, and most likely, Europe will collapse, too. And lest we forget, they are facilitating the inundation of America with violent foreign criminals and terrorists.

I, for one, believe that Donald Trump, with the backing of a genuinely patriotic Congress, could turn things around. However, this can only happen if We, the People, make it happen. Can we?

MICHAEL OBERNDORF WEIGHS IN ON THE STATE OF AFFAIRS

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The Revolution is Over

 

News flash from the gummint and the Republican Party Establishment (aka, the Misleadership): “Ladies and gentlemen, the Revolution is over, and so as not to inconvenience anyone, nothing has been changed.” And so it would seem. Despite an historic landslide victory for supposed conservative Republicans in both houses of Congress, Obamacare has not been repealed or defunded; Obama’s illegal Executive Amnesty has not been defunded nor has anyone been indicted for defying court orders to end it; the butchers at Planned Parenthood will continue to be funded with taxpayer money; tens of thousands of Muslim “refugees” are being forced on the country, despite the opposition of the  vast majority of Americans; the unconstitutional EPA is still operating as a Democrat political sledgehammer, killing jobs and extending federal control over all land use; the dismantling of our military continues apace and unimpeded; the Middle East, and thus the world, has been brought to the brink of WWIII, thanks to the ineptness or intentional machinations, supported by the Republican Establishment, of Obama and the globalist Council on Foreign Relations-dominated State Department; and though the traitor Boehner has been pressured into quitting, it appears likely he’ll be replaced by a business-as-usual political clone; etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, ad nauseam.

 

The mess Obama and the State of Confusion Department have made in their dealings with Putin, too, should be of extreme concern to thinking conservatives. Putin’s airstrikes against ISIS seem to be doing in a few days what the Obama-controlled ones of ours failed to do in months. Putin is looking like what a real world leader should look like, and Obama, and thus America, are looking like totally incompetent fools. And trust me, the world is watching very closely, much like wolves watching a crippled sheep.

 

China, in particular, is not just watching, but gathering its strength, getting ready to pounce. Comments by Chinese leader Xi Jinping indicate that the recent talks with Obama left him totally unimpressed and not the least inclined to alter their present aggressive policies with their Asian neighbors and in the South China Sea. Obama’s weakening of our military and the massive strengthening of China’s, particularly its navy, and Putin’s show of strength in Syria with the tail-between-his-legs-rollover submission there by Obama (and this ignores the glaring fact that we should never have gotten involved in Syria in the first place), make it very likely that China will also escalate its aggressive moves on its smaller, weaker neighbors.

 

The really despicable part of all this is the acquiescence of Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, and the Republican Establishment. They have sat passively, or voted to allow Obama to create unmitigated chaos, at home and abroad. They could, and should, have impeached Obama years ago, but instead have aided and abetted him at every turn, all the while publicly pretending to be opposed to all his unconstitutional and illegal actions. If there were a law that any elected official who violated his oath of office would be summarily removed from that office, tried, and if found guilty of doing so intentionally, imprisoned for, say, one-to-five years, there wouldn’t be anyone left in Congress or the White House, and ¾ of the judiciary would be gone, too. Perhaps if we elect Trump or Carson or Cruz, we can get such a law.

 

Washington and our once (relatively) honest political system have been fatally corrupted in the past 25 years. Money has indisputably become King there, the driving force in all our politics, and all of the current gaggle of politicians, Republicans and Democrats, have, to some extent at least, been bought and paid for by special interests. It’s been a long time since they have acted in the interests of America or We, the People. We are inches away from being a totalitarian state, ruled by a self-serving, wealthy, globalist elite who see us as cash cows to be milked until we are dry.

 

It seems crystal clear that We, the People, are fed up and finally ready to fight back. The popularity of Donald Trump, Ben Carson, and Ted Cruz is no some passing fad, no flash in the pan. It’s a genuine reflection of the feelings of the majority of Americans who are done standing quietly in the background while radical leftists and neo-fascists dismantle and loot the country.

 

And woe be unto the fools who doubt this.

WHAT HAPPENED YESTERDAY?

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The double whammy happened yesterday, the door hit Wall Street on the way out. Gee whiz by golly, America has to understand that when a $530 dive takes place, or should we say implosion, people have to take notice and start to listen.

Well, well, well, what happened is a reflection of what transacted in China two weeks ago. An implosion of their stock market has now carried over to our market. But one need not look at what happened but understand what precipitated this debacle. One word described it, printing. The governments around the world have printed money to no avail; six years past the 2007-8 recession the world is still grasping for breath.

Under Obama Trillions of $$$$ have been literally poured on to the fire, interest rates are below zero in many instances and you still have worldwide weakness. And why? Governments that deviate from free market principles will always reap the devastating consequences of their actions. Pure financial manipulation in which the rich get richer and the poor, including the middle class, become poorer. We are now beggars with our hands out hoping the government will give us some cake. 

 

GOVERNMENTS AFRAID OF GOLD? YOU BETCHA!

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Since 1971 when Nixon closed the gold window, governments have been free to print fiat money and spend at will. Why not, no one will stop them. Secondly this keeps the politicians in power. Without handouts to one constituency or another no one would vote for an incumbent.  What is confusing to us is why do governments bring up the gold subject so often? This does not make sense. This action is similar to digging up an old body looking at for a moment or two then covering it over until next time.

The main reason governments bring up the dead is because they fear them and so it is with gold. Suppose gold never existed, what would prevent governments for printing as much wallpaper as their pretty heart desires? Nada! Like a governor on a car, the shadow of gold keeps the thief within certain parameters.  Gold is the invisible hand restraining governments from going off the deep end as did Weimar in the 1920’s.   Picture of a 5 trillion dollar note.

When government loses their credibility, a REVOLUTION is ready to fill the gap.

The old saying went like this, “when the United States sneezes, the world catches a cold.” The world is now topsy turvy, today the world looks at China not the United States for the sign of a sneeze. What appears to be the onset of more than a whiff of a sneeze in China has caught the attention of the developed and undeveloped world. First sign of problems were the ghost cities, then the unrestrained growth forecasts then went thud, then came the everyday speculators who went whole hog buying stocks in a frenzy. Then came the recent missed economic forecasts which sent up a red flag. Then out of nowhere the China crash, stocks imploded in a flash. Instead of letting the free market take care of the problem, the government decided to be the purchaser of last resort. But they were not through, China saw signs of influenza in the distance and they reacted by debasing their currency 2%. This was their Nixon moment. This has caused turmoil in the Asia currency markets. Others soon followed not wanting to miss the sampan. 

Back to gold for a moment. With the world economy in the tank, oil sliding to new lows, commodities rusting in warehouses, inflation negative in many countries; in fact some banks charge their customers for making a deposit – give them $100 and they will give you $99 a year later. Wow, that is a new twist.  With all of that being said isn’t it logical to see gold at $20 or $35 like it was in 1933? But there must be something buried out yonder, it is the call of the wild that implores the initiated to take hold, something is up while the world economies are going down.

Something certainly is up. Currencies being debased in a frenzy. China, last week spent $500 billion. With reserves now at $3.5 billion, if this continues in another seven weeks they will be out of cash. And our old friend the Chavismo state of Venezuela, we heard that they are on the verge of economic collapse, riots breaking out in city after city. The calls for Brazilian President Rousseff to quit are becoming louder by the day. And all sorts of stuff, like bombs exploding in country after country; makes one wonder what is will happen next. Wack a mole world keeps us on edge, particularly with many governments in the hands of liars, ours included.  Stay tuned for more elephants dropping by. No wonder gold is still in the $1100 range.

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CHINA’S NEW EXPORT ” REVOLUTION”

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China is similar to Texas in many ways, the most similar is size. China is big and you can always count on them doing things in a big way. For instance in the past two weeks they flooded the stock market with buy orders preventing the inevitable implosion. The stereotype Chinese is a gambler to no end; borrowing up to a trillion dollars to gamble on the pure speculative bet that a sucker is born every day. And their currency dropped like a lead balloon causing consternation in the currency markets, not to mention those who were long the renminbi. This has started an Asian currency war sending shockwaves across the Pacific.

In case you were cooped up last week, that boom you heard was not an SST, it was a China warehouse/chemical factory celebrating the Chinese New Year in August; trouble was 100 people met an untimely death and another 800 or so were injured – that is according to official forecasts. The prescription to solve their lack of safety regulations is a good dose of cyanide. Maybe they have an EPA or for that matter OSHA, in name only – their  incapacity to prevent catastrophes of this type is due to bureaucratic bumbling. But do not be misled by the get tough statements from the higher-ups, they only want to cover their asses. What else do politicians do? They react no act; a typical Democrat solution, putting out the fire they set – Republicans too.

And while we are at it how about throwing in the Chinese version of a Ghost town. You might wonder who owns all of those apartments – SPECULATORS. The bottom line here is simple as breathing the ubiquitous smog that permeates Beijing, Economies in most parts of the world are on their last IV drip of fiat money, soon the needle will be pulled and that is when the violence will erupt. Expect this to culminate in a disaster to our economy with losses in the trillions. Exporters to China beware of a economic tsunami. A Confucius quote, “WHAT GOES UP MUST COME DOWN”

For those on the needle of free drugs cold turkey is not an option, but raiding clinics for more is their first reaction. A violent population is something to despair – a government with guns is something to fear – REVOLUTION is in the AIR.

P.S. The GREAT WALL of China is an apt description of Hillary Clinton’s subtravuge, stonewalling the investigators who by now are becoming restless.  Once a liar always a liar. Treason best describes Clinton; her failure to guard Top Secret information is at the least worthy of time in the Gulag.

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The Great China Ponzi—-An Economic And Financial Trainwreck Which Will Rattle The World

OBAMA HAS GONE YELLOW PANTS

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President Obama has contributed to the disarray that now covers most of the known world. In three words you can say that he has “gone yellow pants.” The Crimea slipped into the hands of Czar Putin during a midnight auto theft adventure. Ukraine is still a tinder box. Shake rattle and roll is Putin’s modus operandi.

The Middle East has imploded with ISIS hegemony beginning to emerge in far off places. No country is safe from their sword. China is flexing its muscles in the South China Sea; building an airstrip in the Spratly Islands. This threatens not only the U.S. but the Philipines, Viet Nam, Taiwan, Maylaysia and Brunei. File:Spratly Is since NalGeoMaps.png

Obama is still doing the bidding for IRAN, another misstep in the United States foreign policy. Don’t forget he also went yellow pants in Syria and Libya.  And now POTUS has second thoughts about his decision to pull out of IRAQ – the void invited ISIS in in a flurry. This week he announced that another 450 advisers will be sent to Baghdad soon.

The defensive establishment has had it, they no longer trust the anointed one who finds it imperative to feed social welfare programs rather than defending the homeland.

History will not be kind when it comes to writing the Obama legacy.