Something to think about:
China’s stock dive, triggered by news that communist leaders plan to recalibrate output, should serve as a reminder to U.S. investors that China still runs a command-and-control economy. And it’s anything but transparent. The West has no way to confirm the numbers the Beijing apparatchiks feed us, even as we hitch our fortunes closer to theirs.
Even more to think about:
U.S. state pensions are taking huge stakes in communist-run companies – including People’s Liberation Army fronts – even though they can’t trust their books. Financial transparency is a joke with Chinese stock listings. Investing in them is a huge risk, but one that state unions willingly take because they don’t want to miss out on the Great China Rush.
But it won’t be just the prospectors who get hurt in a crisis over there. Teachers and firefighters will be left holding the bag. Average Americans don’t realize it, but the People’s Republic of China holds a big part of their retirement security.
As we saw from this week’s sell-off, all of America may be overinvested in a monumental fraud.
The whole thing brings to mind a conversation the Chief had with a Vietnamese colleague, concerning something relating to the ChiComs. His comment about making a deal with them was essentially “How can you make a deal with them. They’re Communists. They lie.”