The Power of China

Corporations find it hard to think of China as being populated by actual human beings. China is not viewed as a nation, or a people, or even a system of governance. Through corporate eyes, China is, first and foremost, an enormous market that is therefore populated by needs. Being a supplier of "needs" is problematic to the degree that it focuses on the object of the need and ignores the humanity of the needy. When commerce abandons conscience, market share trumps social impact, profits take precedence over scruples, then rules are bent and statutes are circumvented. The more repressive and unpredictable the regime, the greater the fear of losing access to the market and the higher the urgency to protect it by ingratiating yourself to the authorities....
As I See It: Betrayal
Published: May 15, 2006
by Victor Rozek


Goldman Sachs rules the world
June 4, 2006
With Paulson's appointment as Treasury secretary, the firm is supreme in matters political and economic.
By Kyle Pope, a former writer and editor for the Wall Street Journal, writes about business and the media.

...Goldman Sachs alums now run the White House bureaucracy (in new Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten), , the state of New Jersey (Gov. Jon Corzine) and the New York Stock Exchange (Chief Executive John Thain). Not since John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil — and maybe not even then — has one firm exerted such muscle over national economic and fiscal policy....
The global economy has become a mammoth, interconnected firm, with no single country able to call the shots. Although the Bush team may not accept this view, there are signs — in Bolten's appointment, Condoleezza Rice's elevation and Karl Rove's sidelining — that it finally recognizes the importance of engaging the rest of the world. This is particularly important when it comes to economic policy, where markets are more linked than ever and where one country's trading foe (say, China, in the case of the U.S.) can also be its biggest creditor (ditto).
Finally, Goldman Sachs executives in general, and Paulson in particular, are pragmatists to the point of being mercenary. It's all about the markets, politics be damned...

China scares the crap out of me. The censorship, the human rights violations, the control that the government exerts over it's people. Do we really want to owe them billions?

(Blogger was a real pain in the ass this morning)

Ha! I beat Kos to the punch on this one.