Global Blood Suckers

September 8, 2010

It looks like Goldman Sachs & Co is under attack from the two most powerful countries on the earth.

Recently, the SEC in the United States penalized the Wall Street firm $550 million to settle civil fraud charges.

Meanwhile, in China, a book called the Goldman Sachs Conspiracy has been published and is selling well.

“The nearly 300-page, highly dramatized account covers much of the same ground as a widely cited piece by Matt Taibbi last year in the Rolling Stone magazine that portrayed the Wall Street institution as a ‘a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.’ ” Source: The Huffington Post

The Young Turks reported that Golden Sachs conspired with John Paulson, who made $3.7 billion dollars in profits when the global economy collapsed and bought into Bank of America with some of that money becoming the bank’s fourth largest investor.

According to the Young Turks, Goldman Sachs set up clients, who lost billions while Sachs made billions from the clients’ losses. 

The Young Turks read one email from a Goldman Sachs’s employee, who calls himself the Fabulous Fab. “The whole building is about to collapse anytime now. Only potential survivor, the Fabulous Fab, standing in the middle of all these complex, highly leveraged, exotic trades he created without understanding all the implications of those monstrosities.”

The Young Turks say that there will be more court cases to follow the SEC case. Maybe China will also take a few Sachs employees to court using some of Sun Tzu’s strategies and put that well-known death penalty to use.

_______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

Sign up for an RSS Feed for iLook China

Leave a Comment » | America, business, capitalism, China, crime, economy, legal system, politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Executing the Sour Stink of Corruption

July 28, 2010

The BBC reports that Bo Xilai, the man in charge of Chongqing, China, is prosecuting corrupt government officials in his province. Recently, a top justice official in the city was executed for corruption and many in his family went to jail.

In 2012 – Changing the Guard, I wrote about Bo Xilai and his crusade against crime and corruption, which has made him popular with the people.

To understand why Bo Xilai is popular, focus on the real reason workers started the Tiananmen Square protests. The workers who started the protest were concerned about crime and corruption.

The students, who have been given credit for a democracy movement, did not start the protest—they hijacked it.

The BBC said, “This (crime and corruption) worries China’s leaders, who are seriously concerned that public anger at levels of corruption is undermining support for the Communist Party.” 

Considering the size of China, its population and the complexity of its multi-ethnic culture, this is a large challenge for China’s leaders.

Corruption also brought down the Qing Dynasty (1644 – 1911).  In fact, the major cause of the collapse of most of China’s Dynasties is linked to corruption and moral decay.

Also, when the Ming Dynasty (1368-1643) collapsed, the last emperor hung himself because he had not done his job properly.

Why can’t we send the Bernie Madoffs of America to China?

__________________________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

Sign up for an RSS Feed for iLook China

Leave a Comment » | China, crime, cultural differences, government, legal system | Tagged: | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

When in China, Buyer Beware (a first-hand experience)

July 18, 2010

If you are buying electronics or paying for a service in China, you should not expect things to work the same as in your home country.

However, a foreigner’s experience may not be the same, since many Chinese treat foreigners differently than another Chinese, whom they may treat “very” rudely, and if you have a Chinese face, don’t expect to be treated as if you are not Chinese.

A Chinese, American friend visiting China recently had a problem with his Sony laptop. Since he never used the laptop on the Internet in the US, he went without security protection. Then, in the hotel, he decided to use the Sony to check his Yahoo e-mail and to send e-mails, but decided to buy Norton Internet Security first.

My friend sent me this e-mail telling me his story.

“Chinese technicians don’t know how to handle a US laptop. To prevent a virus, I purchased Norton Security Software in Shanghai and had a store person install it.

“First, without asking me, he converted the entire system from English to Chinese, and that’s when things started to get really messed up. The next morning, my son discovered that the supposedly installed Norton Internet Security program wasn’t there! When we went to log onto to the Internet, a warning appeared that said we had ‘no virus protection’ on the Sony, so we had to go back to the store to find out why.

         “Then my five-year-old Chinese cell phone stopped working, so I bought a ‘new’ Nokia mobile phone, which is supposed to be a good-name brand. That Nokia cost me 1,600 yuan (about 235 American dollars). Guess what, after 24 hours, the thing quit working.

“When I returned to the story to find out why, I was told I would have to pay another company for a service plan so I could use the phone. The salesperson then turned the original receipt over and pointed at some Chinese that was so small you needed a magnifying glass to read it.  It said, ‘The customer has to take the phone to a Nokia check center at People’s Square to have it tested.’ Only with a test result that says, ‘No man-made damage by the purchaser,’ would the store consider an exchange or perhaps a refund.”

This 2008 video is almost 48 minutes long but may be worth your time.

In fact, before you visit China, I recommend you become “very” familiar with the China Law Blog. Contrary to popular Western opinions, China does have laws and courts.

See China’s Growing Legal System

_________________________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

Sign up for an RSS Feed for iLook China

Leave a Comment » | business, China, Chinese Culture, cultural differences, expatriates, legal system, tourism | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Growing China’s Legal System

July 18, 2010

In October 2008, Stephen Yao, talked about the evolution of the Chinese legal System. During the Cultural Revolution, for ten years, China had no law or legal system.  Then in 1979, Deng Xiaoping initiated the “Open Market Policy”.

Law schools, the ministry of justice and legal services were started in the early 1980s.  Another milestone was in 2001, after China joined the WTO (World Trade Organization).  The economic changes were taking place faster than the legal system was developing.

In 2008, the Chinese legal system had the minimum standards as recognized by the WTO.

In the video, Stephen Yao displays a chart for China’s Legal System and explains briefly what it means.  The second slide shows China’s legal market overview and the multilayered legal structure.

Yao says that the death penalty must be referred to China’s higher court and the lower courts do not have the power to apply the death penalty.

See China Law and Justice System

______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

Subscribe to “iLook China”
Sign up for an E-mail Subscription at the top of this page.

About iLook China

1 Comment | China, legal system | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Far from the Facts

June 29, 2010

Due to a China Law Blog post, I spent the better part of an hour hunting for a quote from Sir Robert Hart where he compares China and England’s legal systems in the 19th century. In the quote, which I couldn’t find, Hart points out that the British and Chinese legal systems differ because of culture—one is based on the individual and China’s is not.

Robert Hart's statue in Shanghai (1913 - 1942)

In I Wish All China Could be California Girls, Dan Harris (China Law Blog) mentions a post I wrote, Belching for China, and then he takes the topic further. Harris writes, “I agree with iLooks overall premise, but I am not so sure Hindrey’s article is the right one on which to go off, because it is neither simplistic nor jingoistic…”

To make his point, Harris provides better evidence written by a personal Injury lawyer, William Marler, who feels that China needs a few good lawyers and a legal product liabilty system similar to the US.

That is the last thing China needs. In my “opinion” many of America’s problems stem from a lottery ticket mentality and bumper stickers saying, “Go Ahead and Hit Me and Make My Day.”

Marler writes that executing a top food-safety official in China for taking bribes is not the way to solve problems in food safety. What Marler doesn’t understand is that removing a rotten egg from the carton is sending a message to the Chinese and they get it. The Chinese have punished convicted criminals like this for more than two thousand years—far longer than any Western culture. In fact, today’s China is far less brutal since 1976.

To strengthen his point, Harris uses evidence from Stan Abrams at China Hearsay, another lawyer who chastises Marler for getting his facts wrong.  

What I learned from Harris and Abrams was that people like Marler and Hindrey and their stereotypical “opinions” about China are examples of what many in America believe, which is usually far from the truth.

_________________________

Lloyd Lofthouse,
Award winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

Sign up for an RSS Feed for iLook China

1 Comment | American culture, China, crime, cultural differences, history, legal system | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »