The leadership in China has managed to create a propaganda bubble of epic proportions: Chinese leaders are supposed to have a long-term view that puts the West to shame.All this, mind you, from communists whose predecessors killed millions telling us everything they did was for the people, the people.Alas, the secret view of China's leadership is considerably shorter-term: U.S. dollars in Swiss bank accounts, real estate in Vancouver, San Francisco, New York City, London, Geneva, etc. and whatever other assets can be scooped up with looted billions.
Corruption isn't just abstract: Much of China's building boom will not last a generation, much less a long-term timeline.
This toppled tower is an apt metaphor for China's financialized crony-capitalist credit bubble and its shoddy corruption-riddled construction: [photo of tall apartment building that has fallen on its side].
Until recent years, wasn't our own country relatively free of this kind of corruption? Wasn't there something in our basic moral structure that at least kept this sort of skimming down to a dull roar? I dunno. LBJ entered Congress a man of modest means, did he not? Yet he became rich in Washington. Not on his salary, you can be sure. Harry Reid apparently acquired property in Nevada, transferred it to a silent partner, and then got legislation passed that increased the value of that property, at least according to the Rush Limbaugh gag commercial. Hillary made something like $99,000 out of an initial $1,000 trading commodities and magically managed to time some of her trades at within in millimeters of the top or the bottom of the day's trading.
Corruption will always be with us wherever there are government favors to be given out, and the more laws and regulations that restrict business the higher the price that business will pay for special legislative treatment. Still, things seemed more regular here in the U.S. In legal practice, I found the courts to be fair and the judges attentive to the requirements of the law. They were class acts, though one did cause some amusement one day when his toupee threatened to become airborne when the A/C blew across it. Still a good guy, natch. I can't imagine any of them being on the take.
I still think there's something there. Something in the remnant of the culture. The numbers of people living off the taxpayers' dime portends something bad, however. That's a different type of corruption we've seen since the New Deal struck a match to that tinder.
"Two Powder Kegs Ready to Blow: China & India." By Charles Hugh Smith, Of Two Minds, 1/23/14.
3 comments:
I wonder if maybe the corruption levels have always been this high -- but the likelihood of getting away with it has increased, and with it the sheer brazenness of the corrupt.
You're on to something. I read last night that the largest liberal (ha!) PAC is gearing up to support Hillary. Her orchestration of the magical appearance in the White House from somewhere (??) of the missing law firm billing records, her obtaining of the 700 FBI files on Republicans, her commodity trading with its absurd profits for an absolute neophyte trader, and her disgraceful "what difference does it make" pronouncement all go to show that Hillary is corrupt, devious, vindictive, and slippery. But these defect roll off her like water off a duck's back and, shazam, she's presidential timber with serious money at her disposal.
Caligula appointed a horse as a senator in his time. And, bottom line, we are different how? Exactly?
PS - her orchestration of the persecution of Billy Dale from the WH Travel Office. That one was choice for its vindictive and petty skewering of a decent man.
Not to mention her abuse of Arkansas State Troopers and Secret Service agents, so I won't mention that.
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