Showing posts with label central government. Show all posts
Showing posts with label central government. Show all posts

Thursday, April 21, 2011

50 Factors Launching Gold

The following article is written by Jim Willie and published at Goldseek.com (which I came across on goldsilver.com)

It covers many areas I follow on this blog in a quick snap shot. State and local Government debt problems in the US are getting closer on the horizon. Gold and silver continues to advance against ALL government currencies (including in Australia).

Edification is not the word that comes to mind when observing an interview with Larry Fink of Blackstone this morning on network financial news. It was inspirational if not humorous, and somewhat pathetic. Of course the interviewer treated him like royalty, when just a syndicate captain, a Made Man. As a cog within the US financial hierarchy, he was asked why Gold is approaching record price levels near $1500 per ounce. He gave his best 10-second answer, showing no depth of comprehension but an excellent grip of propaganda laced with simplistic distortion. He said, "GOLD IS RISING FROM ALL THE GLOBAL INSTABILITY, AND NOT FROM INFLATION AT ALL." Sounds good, but it lacks much reflection of the world of reality burdened by complexity and interconnectivity that the enlightened perceive. At least he did not babble about Gold being in an asset bubble. It cannot, since Gold is money. It is curious that all the analysts, bankers, fund managers, corporate chieftains who did not advise on Gold investment over the last ten years are precisely whom the financial network news appeals to for guidance in the current monster Gold bull run. They knew nothing before, and they know nothing now. The major US news networks carry the Obama water while the USCongressional members carry the USBanker robes and show respect with genuflection before the priests. But guys like Fink are their harlot squires. Poor Ben Bernanke, despite his high priest position, does not gather a fraction of respect that Alan Greenspan did even though Alan presided over the collapse. The wild card possibly later this year or 2012 will be a national movement to force mandatory wage gains, and thus avert a national economic collapse. The squeeze is on in a powerful manner to both businesses and households.


ANOTHER STRONG GOLD BREAKOUT

As long as Quantitative Easing programs are in place and actively pursued, Gold & Silver prices will soar. The programs are urged by exploding budget deficits and absent USTBond demand. That translates to a ruined USDollar currency. Gold & Silver respond to the debasement and ruin. Efforts will become ridiculously stretched to save the USDollar, but will fail. QE will go global and secretive, assuring tremendous additional gains in the Gold & Silver price. No effort to liquidate the big USbanks will occur, thus assuring the process will continue until systemic breakdown then failure. The more extraordinary the measures to save the embattled insolvent fraudulent USDollar, the more the Gold & Silver price will soar. It is that simple. Gold & Silver will soar as long as central banks continue to put monetary inflation machinery to work. They are attempting to provide artificial but coordinated USTreasury Bond demand. In the process their efforts will continue to push the cost structure up further. In my view, since the Japan natural disaster hit with financial fallout, the Global QE is very much in effect, but not recognized as a global phenomenon. It pushes up Gold in uniform fashion worldwide.


50 FACTORS POWERING THE GOLD BULL

1) USFed is stuck at 0% for over two years and printing $1.7 trillion in Quantitative Easing, otherwise called monetary hyper inflation. They are not finished destroying both money and capital.

2) USFed tripled its balance sheet, with over half of it bonds of exaggerated value, while it gobbled up toxic mortgage bonds as buyer of last resort. The mortgage bonds have turned worthless. The USFed waits for a housing revival to bail itself out, but it will not arrive.

3) Debt monetization has gone haywire, as over 70% of USTBond sales from the USFed printing press. The QE was urgently needed, since legitimate buyers vanished. Even the primary dealers have been reimbursed in open market operations within a few weeks.

4) PIMCO has shed its entire USTreasury Bond holdings, seeing no value. They joined many foreign creditors in an unannounced buyer boycott in disgusted reaction to QE which is essentially a compulsory unilateral debt writedown.

5) Growing USGovt deficits have run over $1.5 trillion annually, with absent cuts, obscene entitlements, endless war. The prevailing short-term 0% interest rates are out of synch with exploding debt supply and rising price inflation.

6) Unfunded USGovt liabilities total nearly $100 trillion for medicare, social security, pensions, and more. The obligations are never included in the official debt. It represents insult to injury within insolvency.

7) Standard & Poors warned that USGovt could lose AAA rating in lousy credit outlook, one chance in three within the next two years. Ironically, the announcement came on the day when the USGovt exceeded its debt limit. The network news missed it.

8) State & Municipal debt have collapsed, as 41 states have huge shortfalls, and four large states are broken. They might receive a federal bailout. It could be called QE3, maybe QE4.

9) Coordinated USTBond purchases from Japanese sales have relieved the USFed, as other major central banks act as global monetarist agents. The sales by Japan are vast and growing. Witness the last phase in unwind of Yen Carry Trade, where 0% borrowed Japanese money funded the USTreasury Bonds and US Stocks.

10) Quantitative Easing, a catch word for extreme monetary inflation and debt monetization, has become engrained into global central bank policy, soon hidden. It is so controversial and deadly to the global financial structures that it will go hidden, and attempt to avoid the furious anger in feedback by global leaders. This is the most important and powerful of all 50 factors in my view.

11) The FedFunds Rate is stuck near 0%, yet the actual CPI is near 10%, for a real rate of interest of minus 9%. Historically a negative real rate of interest has been the primary fuel for a Gold bull. This time the fuel has been applied for a longer period of time, and a bigger negative real rate than ever.

12) The USGovt claims to have 8000 tons of Gold in reserve, but it is all in Deep Storage, as in unmined ore bodies. The collateral for the USDollar and USTreasury debt is vacant. It is in raw form like in the Rocky Mountain range or Sierra Nevada range.

13) Fast rising food prices, fast rising gasoline prices, and fast rising metals, coffee, sugar, and cotton serve as testament to broad price inflation. So far it has shown up on the cost structure. Either the business sector will vanish from a cost squeeze or pass on higher costs as end product and service price increases.

14) The entire world seeks to protect wealth from the ravages of inflation & the American sponsored QE by buying Gold & Silver. The rest of the world can spot price inflation more effectively than the US population. The United States is subjected to the world's broadest and most pervasive propaganda in the industrialized world.

15) The European sovereign debt breakdown with high bond yields in PIIGS nations points out the broken debt foundation to the monetary system. The solutions like with Greece in May 2010 were a sham, nothing but a bandaid and cup of elixir. Spain is next to experience major shocks that destabilize all of Europe again, this time much bigger than Greece. The Portuguese Govt debt rises toward 10% on the 10-year yield, while the Greek Govt debt has risen to reach 20% on the 2-year yield.

16) Germany is pushing for Southern Europe bank climax in their Euro Central Bank rate hike. Europe will be pushed to crisis this year, orchestrated by the impatient and angry Germans. They have no more appetitive for $300 to $400 billion in annual welfare to the broken nations in Southern Europe.

17) Isolation of the USFed and Bank of England and Bank of Japan has come. The small rate hike by the European Central Bank separated them finally. The Anglos with their Japanese lackeys are the only central banks not raising rates. With isolation comes all the earmarks on the path to the Third World.

18) The shortage of gold is acute, as 51 million gold bars have been sold forward versus the 11 million held by the COMEX in inventory. Be sure that hundreds of millions of nonexistent fractionalized gold ounces are polluting the system. Word is getting out that the COMEX is empty of precious metals.

19) Such extreme Silver shortage has befallen the COMEX that the corrupted metals exchange routinely offers cash settlement in silver with a 25% bonus if a non-disclosure agreement is signed. The practice cannot be kept under wraps, as some hedge funds push for fat returns in under two months holding positions with delivery demanded.

20) China has begun grand initiatives to replace its precious metal stockpiles. They are pursuing the Yuan currency to become a global reserve currency. As they build collateral for the Yuan, they are also elevating Silver as reserves asset.

21) A global shortage of Gold & Silver has been realized in national mint production. From the United States to Canada to Australia to Germany, shortages exist. Many interruptions will continue amidst the shortages, which feed the publicity.

22) The Teddy Roosevelt stockpile of 6 million Silver ounces was depleted in 2003. He saw the strategic importance of Silver for industrial and military applications. The USEconomy and USMilitary will turn into importers on the global market.

23) The betrayal of China by USGovt in Gold & Silver leases is a story coming out slowly. The deal was cut in 1999, associated with Most Favored Nation granted to China. But the Wall Street firms broke the deal, betrayed the Chinese, and angered them into highly motivated action. No longer are the Chinese big steady USTBond buyers, part of the deal also.

24) Every single US financial market has been undermined and corrupted from grotesque intervention, constant props, and fraudulent activity. The degradation has occurred under the watchful eyes of compromised regulators. Fraud like the Flash Crash and NYSE front running by Goldman Sachs is protected by the FBI henchmen.

25) The USEconomy operates on a global credit card, enabling it to live beyond its means. The USGovt exploits the compulsory foreign extension of credit in USTBonds, by virtue of the USDollar acting as global reserve currency. Foreign nations are compelled to participate but that is changing.

26) The USMilitary conducts endless war adventures for syndicate profits. They use the USTreasury Bond as a credit card. The wars cost of $1 billion per day is considered so sacred, that it is off the table in USGovt budget call negotiations, debates, and agreements.

27) Narcotics funds have proliferated under the USMilitary aegis. The vertically integrated narcotics industry is the primary plank of nation building in Afghanistan. The funds keep the big US banks alive from vast money laundering.

28) No big US bank liquidations have occurred, despite their deep insolvency. Any restructure toward recovery would have the liquidations are the first step. The USEconomy is stuck in a deteriorating swamp since the Too Big To Fail mantra prevents the urgent but missing step.

29) The unprosecuted multi-$trillion bond fraud over the last decade has harmed the US image, prestige, and leadership. The main perpetrators are the Wall Street bankers and their lieutenants appointed at Fannie Mae and elsewhere. They bankers most culpable remain in charge at the USDept Treasury and other key supporting posts like the FDIC, SEC, and CFTC.

30) The ugly daughters Fannie Mae and AIG are forever entombed in the USGovt. They operate as black hole expenses whose fraud must be contained. The costs involved are in the $trillions, all hidden from view like the fraud. Fannie Mae remains the main clearinghouse for several $trillion fraud programs still in operation.

31) The US banking system cannot serve as an effective credit engine dispenser, an important function within any modern economy. It is deeply insolvent, and growing more insolvent as the property market sinks lower in valuation. The banks lack reserves, and hide their condition by means of the FASB permission to use fraudulent accounting.

32) The big US banks are beneficiary of continuous secret slush fund support from the USGovt and USFed. Their sources and replenishments have been gradually revealed. The TARP Fund event will go down in modern history as the greatest theft the world has ever seen, easily eclipsing the biggest mortgage bond fraud in history.

33) The insolvent big US banks continue to sit at the USGovt teat. The vast umbilical cord of banker welfare has not gone away. Goldman Sachs still is in control of the funding machinery.

34) The shadow banking system based upon credit derivatives keeps interest rates near 0%. The usury cost of money is artificially low near nothing. As money costs nothing, capital is actively and rapidly destroyed.

35) A vast crime syndicate has taken control of the USGovt. A vast crime syndicate has taken control of the USMilitary. A vast crime syndicate has taken control of the USCongress. A vast crime syndicate has taken control of the US press networks.

36) A chronic decline of the US housing sector keeps the USEconomy in a grand decline with constant deterioration. With one million bank owned homes in inventory, a huge unsold overhang of supply prevents any recovery of housing prices. Home equity continues to drain, and bank balance sheets continue to erode.

37) Over 11 million US homes stand in negative equity. The sum equals to 23.1% of households. They will not participate much in the USEconomy, except when given handouts. They have become downtrodden.

38) The USEconomy will not benefit from a export surge. The US industrial base has no critical mass after 30 years of dispatch to the Pacific Rim & China. The industry must contend with rising costs in offset to the falling USDollar, which is cited as providing the mythical benefit. Then can export in droves if they do so at a loss.

39) A global revolt against the USDollar is in its third years. The global players work to avoid the US$ usage in trade settlement. Several bilateral swap facilities flourish, mostly with China. If China supplies products, then the Yuan currency will be elevated to global reserve currency.

40) Global anger and resentment over three decades has spilled over. The World Bank and IMF have been routinely used by the US bankers to safeguard the USDollar and Anglo banker hegemony. Neither financial agency commands the respect of yesteryear.

41) A middle phase has begun in a powerful Global Paradigm Shift. The transfer moves power East where the wealth engines of industry lie, far from the fraudulent banking centers. The next decade will feature the Chinese as bankers, since their war chest contains over $3 trillion.

42) The crumbling global monetary system was built on toxic sovereign debt. Legal tender has been nothing more than denominated debt posing as legitimate by legal decree. That is what word FIAT means. The system is gradually breaking in an irreversible manner.

43) The global central bank franchise system has been discredited. It is a failure, which is not recognized by the bank leaders still in charge. The stepwise process of ruin continues with a new sector falling every few months. Next might be municipal bonds.

44) Witness the final phase of a systemic cycle, as the monetary system has run its course. It is saturated with debt from faulty design. The deception cited in the mainstream media focuses upon the credit cycle which will renew. It will not. It will break of its own weight and lost confidence.

45) The recognition has grown substantially that suppression of the Gold price has been the anchor holding fiat system together. The Chinese realize that Gold, when removed, leads to the collapse of the US financial system. They realize it more than the US public. But the syndicate in control of the USGovt understands the concept very well, as they designed the system.

46) The institution of a high level global barter system might soon take root. Gold will sit at its central core, providing stability. No deadbeat nations will participate. That includes the United States and several European nations. The barter system will be as effective as elegant.

47) The movements spread like wildfire in several US states to reinstitute gold as money. In a few states, led by Utah and Virginia, progress has been made for Gold to satisfy debts, public & private. Consider the movement to be in parallel to the Tenth Amendment movements.

48) Anglo bankers have lost control in global banking politics. The phased out G-7 Meeting is evidence. China has wrested control of G-20 Meeting, and has dictated much of its agenda in the last few meetings. The US has been reduced to a diminutive Bernanke and Geithner being ignored in the corner.

49) New loud stirrings by Saudi Arabia seek a new security protector. If security is no longer provided by the USMilitary, then the entire defacto Petro-Dollar standard is put at risk. Remove the crude oil sales in USDollars exclusively, and the US sinks into the Third World with a USDollar currency that cannot stand on its own wretched wrecked fundamentals.

50) The IMF solution to use SDR basket as global reserve is a final desperate ploy. By fashioning a basket of major currencies in a basket, they attempt to enforce a price fixing regime. It is a hidden FOREX currency exchange rate price fixing gambit that will invite a Gold price advance in uniform manner across the currencies bound together. This ploy is being planned in order to prevent the USDollar from dying a horrible death at the expense of the other major currencies. By that is meant at the expense of the other major economies which would otherwise have to operate at very high exchange rates.


THE BIGGEST UPCOMING NEW FACTORS

Introduction of a New Nordic Euro currency is near its introduction. The implementation with a Gold component will send Southern European banks into the abyss, marred by default. The new currency has the support from Russia and China, even the Persian Gulf. In my view, it is a USDollar killer. The first nations to institute a new monetary system for banks and commerce will be the survivors. The rest will slide into the darkness of the Third World.

Gold & Silver seem to be the only assets rising in price, an extension of a terrific 2010 decade. The exceptions are farmland and the US Stock market. However, stock valuations are propped by constant and admitted USGovt support. Their efforts are mere attempts to keep pace with the USDollar decline, as stocks merely maintain a constant purchase power.

A hidden overarching hand seeks the global Gold Standard as the bonafide solution. Darwin is at work, but Adam Smith turns a new chapter. The crumbling monetary solution demands a solution. Further investment in the current system assures a devastating decline into the abyss of insolvency and ruin.

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Who will save China?

In few months its become apparent that more and more reporters are jumping on the “China is vulnerable after all” bandwagon. I have had this view for some time now, and this post will examine a few reasons why China is as-vulnerable as many other countries in the world. Australia is very vulnerable because we are so reliant on China and commodity prices.

The Chinese Miracle?

The growth of China's economy in the last 15 years is nothing short of a "miracle". Compared to the other miracle economies, the 4 Asian tiger economies up to the 1990s and more recently the Celtic Tiger (Ireland - the roaring tiger of Europe - look where it is today!), China is in a completely new ball park. No country in history has built so much stuff in such a short space of time. World production of materials is mind-boggling. China can do it all, and in turn is de-industrialising higher-cost manufacturing in the western world. Demand for iron ore, coal, copper right down to steel and concrete has exploded. But can China perpetually build more and more steel mills and skyscrapers?

Well, no...

China is vulnerable to economic depression. The common denominator in every country is that all the banks operate under insolvent conditions, its just that the citizens rarely force a bank run to prove this Achilles’ heel. The main point here is, the common base line in every country today is the type of “money” used. The US Dollar, Australian Dollar, Chinese Renminbi and the Zimbabwe Dollar are all fiat currencies. Whilst there are significant differences in value of these currencies (or rather the rate of devaluation/loss of purchasing power), all currencies around today are still “fiat”, that is, money which is declared by Government to be legal tender and without intrinsic value (no gold backing). Through fractional reserve banking ("Money creation") and printing new money into existence the rate of economic growth in any country can be very rapid for a number of years. However, all good parties end in one big hangover. China's hangover is coming (particularly if they do not prepare for post US-Dollar monetary system).

Now that we have apparently coming through the worst of the so called Global Financial Crisis (GFC), every second economist on the street has hailed China as the world’s savour, and indeed in Australia, the Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia RBA), Ric Battellino, believes the commodities boom could last for another 15 years – all of course, thanks to emerging economies of China and India.

Whilst I agree that China has helped the world during the GFC, and that we will continue to be in a long-term commodity boom, my reasons are completely different. And here is why:

• Chinese Banks inflated the world out of the 2007-2009 Global Financial Crisis
• The Commodity Boom over the next 10 years will be extremely volatile

Chinese Banks on steroids…

Answers to the future often lie in history. China invented paper money way back in the 10th Century AD. Every single paper-fiat currency created since (except for those existing today) have collapsed to a net worth of zero. Fiat currencies will always come and go because Government's cannot resist the temptation to use inflation to pay for election promises (or to help keep opposition parties out of government..). China, and every other country will not be able to defy economic reality with fiat currency this time around either. Keynesian economics will hopefully follow soon after.

As the following two graphs demonstrate, it’s the major global bank’s that fuelled the sub-prime bubble (in the US) which led to the GFC, and then subsequently it was Chinese stimulus spending and bank lending which helped the world get through the worst of the GFC. China just filled the void to get the world through the first phase of economic depression. This banking bubble is completely unprecedented. There is still many decades of debt still in the system - which is yet to be paid (accounted) for.

Chart 1: Global banking bubble
source: ABC News

Chart 2: Chinese banking bubble... but who will save the Chinese banks!?

The RMB¥ 4 trillion (US$ 586 billion) Chinese economic stimulus plan announced by the Chinese central government was all aimed at getting Chinese companies to build more Chinese goods and buildings. As I will explain a little bit on, China was already building at a very fast and unsustainable rate. This stimulus inevitably brought forward work and is now creating double digit inflation to their economy. Increasing credit always delays and make bubbles worse.

As consumer confidence was low in the US, and China, Japan and Asia were unable to keep exporting products to the US consumer, China took up the slack and increased bank lending dramatically, converting their economy from being strongly export-oriented (to the US) to fuelling domestic demand through stimulus. The Chinese Economic Stimulus Plan was used to offset the sub-prime housing crisis in the US to counter-act it with a Chinese property bubble. In essence, creating a new bubble market to replace a busting bubble market. The end result, I strongly believe, will have dire consequences to China, and Australia and the rest of the world. Like holding out a red flag to a charging bull, China will soon get caught out.

For now the commodity boom will continue, but… the next 10 years will be characterised by extreme volatile periods of double digit annual growth to significant periods of price deflation. Ultimately, gold, silver and soft commodities (food) will be sought after on-mass. People will change their spending habits to have economic security.


Construction, construction, construction!

Construction now makes up 60% of China's GDP. This compares to single digit GDP for China's total exports. China is building and manufacturing absolutely everything for the world, ten times over (or more?)

James Chanos:
No country has ever had done more than 9 years above 33% of GDP (in fixed assets – construction). China is now on its 12th or 13th year.


You gotta be in property! (especially if you are a central government)

In August this year the Financial Review ran an interesting article (lost on page 60) on China's central government trying to cool its property bubble. The article reported that all sorts of random companies were delving into property, from salt companies to railway companies. It goes on...
All around the nation, giant state-owned oil, chemical, military, telecom and high groups are bidding up prices on sprawling plots of land for big real estate projects unrelated to their core business. ...

By driving up property prices, the state-owned companies are working at cross-purposes to the central government's efforts to keep China's real estate boom from becoming a debt-driven speculative bubble.

Records show 82 per cent of land auctions in Beijing this year were won by big state-owned companies outbidding private developers - from 59 per cent in 2008.

Further:
land prices in Beijing had lept 750 per cent since 2003, and that half of tha gain had come in the past two years. Housing prices have also sky-rocketed, doubling in many cities over the past few years.

And as the prices of new apartments soar - in Shanghai, for instance, they often exceed $US 200,000, while the average disposable income isa bout $US 4,000 a year.

The article also made reference to the status of the state-owned banks. They they:
- had made $US 1.4 trillion in loans, nearly twice as much as the year before
- were making off-balance sheet manoeuvres
- were likely sitting on enormous unreported debt

Lastly, the article argues that different levels of government were behind the push in real estate because it was so "incredibly lucrative". Many municipalities have formed local investment vehicles that borrow from state-owned banks to pay to relocate citizens to build on their land, so the government can then auction off the new properties for profit.

Does this all sound like Sub Prime Mortgages on steroids times by a factor of 10?

Housing Affordability in China
One clear clue (regarding the rising real estate prices in China) is that the average price-to-income ratio in Beijing has reached 27:1, five times the world average, according to data from the Bureau of Statistics of the Beijing Municipality. In addition, the average price-to-rent ratio neared 500:1 in the city, far above the international alarm threshold of 300:1, which sends out a clear signal that the foundation of the real estate boom is losing stability.


Steel production up 6 fold in 10 years

To further put this into perspective, all this construction material had to come from somewhere. Of course, in Australia we know about the China boom and our record iron ore and coking coal sales have led to our highest terms of trade since the early 1950s.

Australia has helped fuel the great Chinese construction bubble. In 1999, the Chinese steel industry produced some 124 million tonnes of crude steel. This was a similar size to Japan and the United States. For comparison, in the same year Australia produced about 8 million tonnes. The following two charts illustrate the magnitude of China's construction mania.

Chart 3: China produced 16% of total world steel in 1999
source: World Steel Assoc. (public data)

Chart 4: 10 years later China now produces more than 46% of total world steel output
source: World Steel Assoc. (public data)

China’s steel production has gone up almost 6 fold in the last decade. To put this in perspective Australia’s steel production is now about 1% of China’s (or 0.5% of world) total annual steel production. ie. China produces Australia’s total annual steel production in just 5 days! China is now making more steel than what the entire world produced in around 1990.

To analyse this from another perspective, there are more stories in the media in recent years of ghost cities and empty mega malls springing up in parts of China.

Video: Fuelling the next housing crisis – this time in China

China also has the world’s largest shopping mall, the New South China Mall (based on leasable area) remains 99% vacant since opening in 2005. (video now unavailable)


Centrally planned economies do not work

Centrally planned economies have never worked over the longer term. I am not debating the nitty gritty of what the difference between communism vs. capitalism is, at the end of the day, the more intervention by Government’s and, particularly, central banks, the more mis-allocation of labour and capital there will be. The end result is massive overcapacity and ultimately price suppression (monopolistic behaviour on other countries). China is an extreme case at point, where the central government right down to municipal governments have had competing interests to increase employment at all costs. The municipal/provincial governments have also been competing for trophy industries, they all want to be the biggest and best at manufacturing, particularly steel and automobile industries. Exponential growth in credit, employment, and government intervention in markets eventually comes to an abrupt halt.

Far from what many economic commentators in Australia preach day in day out, that China is Australia’s economic savour amongst the global uncertainty in Europe and the US. To the contrary, I believe our over-reliance on China will ultimately bring harsh repercussions for Australia. On one side, China and the US will kill off the commodity boom. The biggest mining boom in history, inevitably will end in the biggest mining bust. The expansion plans of BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Fortescue Metals (among others) will result in major overcapacity, and empty ports. A huge call, perhaps crazy in today's climate, but this endless expansion will not keep going. Many of the major projects will be mothballed. Marginal projects will once again be marginal and left on ice for easy money to come around again.

James Chanos sums up the current situation rather nicely. James is best known for seeing the problems of Enron and shorting its stock up until its collapse. He recently warned that China's hyper-stimulated economy is headed for a crash, led by its housing bubble.
Its become very apparent... that China has embraced capitalism to keep the socialist elites entrenched, while more lately in the West we have embraced socialism to keep the capitalist elites entrenched. It’s a little bit of the opposite side of the same coin.

** Note ** I am soon to launch a new website at www.scottreeve.com, which will incorporate this blog and other areas of interest ~ Cheers, Scott