Asia-Europe Meeting

A while back I was sitting in my friend Zhuang Jian's villa outside of Chengdu, drinking some rare pu'er, smoking herb and chatting with a collection of people there. Zhuang always had artists, musicians and vagabonds over because his house was our dream: plum, peach and cherry blossoms, tea and incense, old bamboo and potted plants, artwork and a magical view.

Anyway, I was there with two Chinese homies from the Hemp House, a French girl up from Chiang Mai to cook for a while and another Frenchman who wanders the earth collecting songs from minority groups like the Miao and Yi in China and selling the CDs for their and his profit.

I guess I didn't look like much, in my sweatpants, broken sandals and Sixers jersey. So he was disdainful of anything I said and basically kept to French for a lot of the night. Suddenly, my man Boogie who was chillin in the corner said my full name for some reason and this caught the Frenchman's attention. He turned to me and was like: Yo, are you the Sascha Matuszak, writing for Antiwar.com and such? I was like hell yeah. And then his demeanor took a 180 degree turn and he started being all pally-pally with me.

He told me I should write about how China will take over the world someday. He said he had it all written down for me and that he had been meaning to send it to me all this time, but wasn't sure of himself cuz he thought Sascha was actually some professor or something. hahaha. I have actually heard that one before. People who read my stuff then meet me are like ummmmm What? hence this blog.

I continuously digress.

The Frenchman's Blueprint for Chinese takeover went a little something like this (in late 2007):

US economic collapse followed by bailout of ridiculous proportions by cash-heavy China
Bailout puts Western banks and financial institutions in Chinese hands
Chinese VC (Venture Capitalists), backed by their State, go on a shopping spree through the US and Europe
Domestic protests in US quelled by police and military to appease MNCs who see Chinese capital as just more cash (Nationhood starts dying in the West ...)
Bailout continues for several years as WTO, IMF and World bank find themselves without legitimacy or cash and look to China to prop them up, which they do happily
UN is next in line, looking for handouts from the rich Chinese

and so on.

A Velvet Revolution if there ever was one.

Now China will naturally be affected by the Economic Crisis, but no one has as much cash as they do (USD1.9 trillion in reserves) so no one will be able to ride it out like the Chinese. Plus, the failures are coming from abroad, which in the short term means that Chinese manufacturers and exporters etc will suffer from a credit crunch, cash crunch and order crunch from the Western companies that held up China's export oriented economy.

So for the next 2 years or so, China's economy might slow down a bit, but what this really does is clear the path for all of the Chinese VCs to step in and fill the void. It clears the path for Chinese businesses of all kinds to expand as their Western rivals contract ...

And so I come to the crux of the matter: Europe and much of Asia are headed to China with hat in hand hoping for love from China. Now, I can't even begin to describe how wonderful this is for the Chinese. The world is as it should be: foreign dignitaries coming to the center of the earth to seek advice, compassion and sympathy from the stable, benevolent patriarch Zhong Guo.

I added a few links to my list of digable sits today:

I highly recommend All Roads to China, China Law Blog and Silicon Hutong for those who want to learn more about China.

We have seen this before, and its always sinister

In today's NYT, the "demise" of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae is treated with the soft gloves of supposed objectivity.

The article begins by saying that the tumultuous tumble in stock value of the two mortgage giants is inexplicable and at the same time potentially devastating for the US economy and, above all, taxpayers.

"There is a real panic about these companies on Wall Street right now, and sometimes a blaze like that grows almost without reason,” said Tom Lawler, an economist who worked at Fannie Mae for over two decades before leaving in 2006 to become a consultant. “There wasn’t really any new news to set off this crisis. The stocks just started falling, and didn’t stop.”

Typically, "the Market" is blamed for being skittish, crazy and prone to stampeding through the economy, destroying as it goes. Few have the idea that this may be deliberate or that the destruction of FM&FM might have consequences that are beneficial to some, while hurting the many. And if they do think that, they are dismissed as conspiracy theorists with an anti-American agenda.

Well, this isn't the first time we have seen the antsy investor crowd pinpoint a sector of the economy, "lose confidence" in it, then ultimately take it over when it lies bleeding in the dust.

The Great Depression in the US was an orchestrated event. The Depression was initiated by JP Morgan and Friends and when the dust cleared, they stood alone in the financial sector, with the American banking system in its bloody grip. This is the truth and i urge you to check it out.

The Asian Crisis of 1997 was orchestrated and led to the firesale of assets in Indonesia and Thailand, riots in South Korea and slumps in Japan, Singapore and the Philippines. The investors poured their money into the countries to develop them, "lost confidence" in their investments and the currencies they were to be re-paid in, then launched an attack that left many of these countries in economic tatters. Here is the Oracle on the crisis. the blame is often laid on the corrupt nepotism of Asia, hence the IMF's ill thought out bailouts. Anyway, check it out(pdf). The NYT figured it out at some point and produced a series after the fact -- 3 part -- that pointed toward the Western aka US banks as the culprits, not the Asian economies who had been following the the US economic wake since WWII. T

Can't find that link though, if anyone can please post.

here is some more good info in the current crisis.

Que bono?

this is all we need to ask each other. Who suffers is the silliest question you can imagine. Those who suffer the most are the poorest, the regular Joe who has to pay more gas, whose house is worth less, who can't lend a damn thing no more, who can't afford nights out with the wife no more and just sits there staring into the distance while he listens to this guy:

“I don’t think anything has happened in the last week to warrant the kind of anxiety we’re seeing,” said Senator Mel Martinez, Republican of Florida and a former secretary of housing and urban development. “But the market does what it wants,” he added. “All we can do sometimes is grab on and hope we don’t get thrown off the ride.”