WikiLeaks Cable: NASDAQ Folded To Chinese Pressure 269
jjp9999 writes "A WikiLeaks cable reveals that the NASDAQ folded to pressure from the Chinese regime and kicked out a U.S.-based Chinese TV network, NTD TV. The Chinese Communist Party has been trying to block this station for years now, since it's one of the few major Chinese media that refuses to censor its content. Although they're blocked in Mainland China, they broadcast in with satellites. The timing of the incident aligns well with other actions launched by the CCP against the TV station. They used to broadcast into China through French satellite company Eutelsat, but their connection was cut. Reporters Without Borders investigated and found the Chinese regime was behind it. They now use a Taiwanese satellite."
What about the bank docs? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Stop selling debt to China (Score:5, Interesting)
if you get the stalled situation, like you said, maybe that's not too bad!
all our 'progress' in the last 10 or 15 years has been backward.
if we stand still, that's actually going forward! (head asplodes).
seriously, though; I'd be ok with having a guy in office that congress can't work with; as long as its both parties that can't work with him. enemy of my enemy and all that.
at this point, even a lunatic would get my vote if he's a true outsider. insiders are all messed up and voting for the same-old is not working. get some crazy guy in there as long as he's not R or D crazy. we've all had enough of that fake R/D choice, haven't we?
Re:Stop selling debt to China (Score:5, Interesting)
Ron Paul isn't selling easy solutions: that's precisely why he won't get elected.
People don't want to hear that saving the country requires major changes and serious pain... which is why they'll vote for more of the same and then act surprised in ten years when the Chinese bailiffs turn up to load everything of value into ships as debt repayment after America goes bankrupt.
Re:"Hey China... (Score:2, Interesting)
there is very little that comes out of the US that isn't via Asia
you mean china? I consider that a very different 'asia' than, say, japan. wouldn't you?
japan has quality in design and manufacture, but they are not great inventors of new original ideas. they are copiers.
china has major issues with its view of 'quality' and customer satisfaction/long term viability ('sell and run' mentality). they do no new invention there and are pure copier and thieves.
sorry to generalize but you also paint with a huge brush via your 'asia' comment.
the US (and the west, overall) has a culture of innovation and modernization/progress. the internet, computers, electronics, you name it - it came from mostly US minds and labs. we still innovate, but we've given 98% of our manufacturing to outsourced we-dont-care companies who have this 'sell and run' attitude. once the sale is done, they don't care if their parts or build falls apart. not their problem (the way they see it). more suckers^Hcustomers just around the corner.
when I design and build hardware, I have a choice of cheap chinese-designed crap or better US-designed parts (both are manufactured in china, but one is by a chinese company, on their own; and the other is western controlled and managed; and it makes ALL the difference in so many ways). in almost every buying decision, when I get samples, I'm appallled at the lack of quality and the materials and machining decisions they make. I keep saying it, 'sell and run' is how I describe it. make it good enough to last a few days or weeks and after that, if the customer's goods fail, its HIS PROBLEM. and sending your stuff back to china is an exercise in frustration, not to mention cost.
the US still designs and ensures quality in things (my field, electronics parts and hw designs that use them). if we manage the whole chain, it can be made to work in a china setting; but if we don't manage every step of the way, its a disaster waiting to happen. they *will* cut corners and it can be fatal (china capacitor syndrome, for the most infamous example).
Is a merger underway... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Stop selling debt to China (Score:4, Interesting)
>>>The idea of a perfectly-balanced budget makes little sense for a government.
Clinton and the Democrats bargged about it in 1998 and 99. They said it would enable them to pay down some of the debt, and they were correct.
Our current national + state government debt is 18 trillion, or about $180,000 per American home. Add another $110,000 in personal mortgage/credit card debt per household.
Almost $300,000 of debt per American household is NOT a sustainable policy. Even if your "some liquid cash needs to be available" theory was correct, almost 300K/home worth of debt is a Greece or Italy-like situation. It is NOT good.
We need a balanced budget as soon as possible, so we can pay down some of that debt load.
Re:Stop selling debt to China (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, his point is quite valid. There are situations where congress should have stepped in but didn't (banks), and also situations where congress needs to stay the hell out of it but is eagerly trying to regulate (the internet). Literally, not regulating the internet is a far smarter move than actually doing so.
Same people do both, and it's bipartisan.
Basically, the issue is that money is still funding politics.
Re:Stop selling debt to China (Score:4, Interesting)
It's like giving your home keys to robbers. And then you wonder "how it came out!"
People think we call the Chinese and say "can you lend us $100 billion this week?
That's not how it works. It's an open auction, and the Chinese are as free to bid and buy as anyone, or they can buy it on the secondary market. As it is, they own about 8% of US-issued debt.
The ownership entitles them to one thing: repayment of the debt with interest. That's it.
"Oh, but if China ever dumped all their debt..." So what? Simple economics...supply rises, price falls (in this case, the interest rate would go up a half-point and other people would buy).
"Oh, but if China ever stopped buying our debt..." Same thing. Demand would fall, price falls. Government pays a little more interest and other people buy.
Re:Stop selling debt to China (Score:5, Interesting)
In all seriousness, what the hell is the American middle class? Here in the UK it pretty much means you've got two employed adults or one adult in a high-paying, professional job and your big problems are all First World Problems. In the US media it seems to mean anything from a highly-paid expert consultant for space rockets to a family scraping together mortgage payments on an pile of 1970s drywall by taking on four part time jobs at the minimum wage.
Re:Stop selling debt to China (Score:5, Interesting)
He's selling crazy, and we're all stocked up on the stuff. For every good idea he has, he has two that are the ramblings of a freeway off-ramp prophet.
His competition includes a known adulterer and hypocrite who claims he can build a functional moon base in 8 years, an imbicile who thinks Jesus rode dinosaurs (not to mention bearing a terrifying verbal resemblance to Gee-Dub), and a third guy who made his fortune by raping the American economy and honestly believes Joseph Smith was anything but a con man... that's not even taking into account the Liar in Chief.
Compared to those guys, Ron Paul is positively fucking enlightened.
Domscheit-Berg and OpenLeaks (Score:4, Interesting)
They were destroyed by a former WikiLeaks employee who left with them, then destroyed the key. Yes, somehow there wasn't a backup of the documents or key (or at least one of the two).
I'm not sure how much we can trust Domscheit-Berg and OpenLeaks. Check their News [openleaks.org] page (latest 26 Jan 2011, SSL cert expired months ago), Identi.ca [identi.ca] (5 months ago), Blog [openleaks.org] (29 Jan 2011, quote: "Right now we are working on extending our infrastructure and setting it up for testing with our alpha users group. The 1.430 Euro we received as donations in December and January will help us to do so. We will spend this money to help cover infrastructure costs e.g. SSL certificates").
Also Thompson-Reuters isn't a terrific source when it comes to 'piracy'/'hacking' stories so here's an alternative to the rawstory.com link:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/tag/daniel-domscheit-berg/ [wired.com]