[AgentR11]

He who can put whoever he wants in jail.. runs the show.

In China. That would be Xi.

Double dog dare any "Western Banker" to go to China and stomp on Xi's turf. Such a banker would be in prison pajamas being beaten by a $2/day moron for the rest of his life, before he could type the letters "I want". No. You go to China, setup in Shanghai, you will play by Xi's rules, or you will leave, or you will spend the rest of your life in prison. Those are your three options.

[Cid_Yama]

Thank you, Agent.

It's sad that there are such simpletons in this country that know absolutely nothing about what they discuss, but spout with total confidence absolute nonsense.

China jails their own businessmen and government workers who are found engaging in corruption. With high profile trials, many of them sentenced to death. For things corporate types around here would consider par for the course.

[onlooker]

Have fun when it rains bombs on your head! and don't say I didn't warn you!

How to respond? First of all if what you said about Western banking transferring tech what tech do you mean? Computers, servers is that it. Why do you think for years China was stealing our technology so they could have the tech acumen themselves. We do not "own" anything over there. They are in ideal position, having the gold, having the technology, having a enthusiastic alliance. They know very well how bankrupt the West is and are prepared to take full advantage of it as they are NOT bankrupt. As for the above quote, my goodness get serious, do you think China can start WWIII? We can debate what the US is or is not at this point, but one thing is certain they maintain a robust nuclear deterrence capability and probably will for quite some time. So unless China is looking to destroy itself , US and all the planet, I will not be ducking for cover any time soon.

[StarvingLion]

He who can put whoever he wants in jail.. runs the show.

In China. That would be Xi.

Double dog dare any "Western Banker" to go to China and stomp on Xi's turf. Such a banker would be in prison pajamas being beaten by a $2/day moron for the rest of his life, before he could type the letters "I want". No. You go to China, setup in Shanghai, you will play by Xi's rules, or you will leave, or you will spend the rest of your life in prison. Those are your three options.

Yeah, I guess Xi somehow transferred US manufacturing to China decades ago too. He hypnotized the US elites from thousands of miles away.

[StarvingLion]

Have fun when it rains bombs on your head! and don't say I didn't warn you!

How to respond? First of all if what you said about Western banking transferring tech what tech do you mean? Computers, servers is that it. Why do you think for years China was stealing our technology so they could have the tech acumen themselves. We do not "own" anything over there. They are in ideal position, having the gold, having the technology, having a enthusiastic alliance. They know very well how bankrupt the West is and are prepared to take full advantage of it as they are NOT bankrupt. As for the above quote, my goodness get serious, do you think China can start WWIII? We can debate what the US is or is not at this point, but one thing is certain they maintain a robust nuclear deterrence capability and probably will for quite some time. So unless China is looking to destroy itself , US and all the planet, I will not be ducking for cover any time soon.

There is only one owner of the means of production. And when you look at the enormous scale of China's industrial build up, its obvious that the "western" banking system has been funding it. The new owners are the same as the old owners and want to be on the winning team. Guess which team YOU"RE on?

As for that laughable nuclear deterrence baloney, there has been lots of large scale war going on since 1945, and so, how come? Do you really believe that USA stockpile is for your benefit?

Gotta love all the dopes who think the world will prosper as a whole as if the owners would ever allow that even if resource depletion wasn't a large factor.

[onlooker]

Yeah, I guess Xi somehow transferred US manufacturing to China decades ago too. He hypnotized the US elites from thousands of miles away.

Which country do you think SL, mostly has benefited from this US manufacturing in China. Yes China. Or do you think US companies just went and set up shop over there without China's permission. I think you are underestimating the astuteness of China.

[onlooker]

SL, I could not agree more, Western banks have no more allegiance to US citizens then to Guatemalan citizens. Having said that the more pertinent question is who is playing who. You seem to infer the Western bankers played China. I see it as the other way around. China used the capital to build itself up and it's military. You ask if the US stock pile is for our benefit. I say not necessarily but it certainly is not for the benefit of the Chinese. The world since WWII has been bifurcated - East vs. West. The US military is first about safeguarding and propagating US corporations economic interests around the world. Second it is about protecting the Homeland. Do you think military people would just allow Chinese to launch nuclear weapons at us and not reply. If you think that then you believe in faeries too.

[Withnail]

Guess what happens next. The PRC bombers show up over the USA. Thats why the USA coal industry was run into the ground, the nuclear industry run into the ground, all for the complete bullshit of renewables that you suckers bought hook line and sinker. No more industrial base to defend itself.

Have fun when it rains bombs on your head! and don't say I didn't warn you!

What drugs are you on and can you get me some?

[Cid_Yama]

China's anti-corruption forces have been aggressively hunting down officials hiding in the West, and it turns out they're also trying to root out supposed corruption at foreign companies doing business in China.

Multinational corporations with Chinese outposts have become increasingly aware that the Chinese government will investigate them for corruption — sometimes during unnanounced early-morning raids.

Dawn raids of foreign firms' offices are common during corruption investigations, corporate attorney Nathaniel Edmonds told Business Insider. Officials from China's Administration of Industry and Commerce (AIC) show up unannounced and search desk drawers, computers, files, lockers, safes, and even vehicles for documentation that could support a corruption investigation — and incriminate the firm, as Reuters has written.

In the last few months of 2014 alone, China's government reportedly investigated Microsoft, Qualcomm, and Daimler. In September, UK pharmaceutical company GSK paid a record $489 million fine to China for allegedly bribing doctors to prescribe its drugs, Reuters reported.

Whereas senior executives of foreign firms were once given VIP treatment in China, they are now being subjected to prolonged questioning by Chinese investigators.

In recent weeks, the Chinese authorities have been singling out foreign firms in various industries around the country, harassing them for allegedly breaking the country’s antitrust laws, conducting spot inspections of their hard drives and reportedly busting them without due process.

Mr Li said that a group of ten Japanese car-parts firms has been slapped with fines totalling 1.24 billion yuan ($200m), the largest antitrust penalty ever imposed in China.

A couple of days before, it was revealed that the NDRC had found Daimler, a German carmaker, guilty of using its market power to inflate the price of spare parts illegally. This comes on the heels of raids on the offices of foreign luxury carmakers.

Foreign technology firms also complain about their treatment. The State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC), another agency looking after competition law, recently raided the offices of Microsoft. It is hard to see how the American software giant could abuse its market power given that it has so little: most copies of its products in use in China are pirated. The NDRC is also conducting a monopoly-pricing probe of Qualcomm, an American telecoms-equipment firm.

These investigations come after crackdowns in 2013, which saw Chinese regulators impose record fines of $242m for market abuse. At the start of last year, the NDRC fined foreign manufacturers of liquid-crystal display panels. A few months later, the agency noisily found half a dozen manufacturers of baby formula guilty of “resale-price maintenance”.

And the future may be more troubling than the past. David Yang of IHS, a consulting firm, warns foreign multinationals that more investigations are coming in the construction, telecoms, waste-management and banking sectors.

The annual statistics disclosed by the antitrust agencies since 2008 (when China’s anti-monopoly law came into force) are opaque and incomplete. But they show that the Chinese regulators have also targeted domestic firms, ranging from drinks manufacturers and gold retailers to salt producers. China’s antitrust regulators are growing more confident and seem likely to issue more rulings that will upset foreign firms.

China’s tax officials plan to step up efforts to collect taxes from multinational corporations in the latest of a series of moves in the last year, mostly against Western companies. The activities have included police raids on the headquarters of companies’ China operations and heavy fines under antimonopoly law.

The State Administration of Taxation said that it would be looking in detail at how companies move money and allocate costs among their Chinese operations and their overseas businesses. Although such a review could also be applied to the many Chinese businesses that have set up holding companies in the Cayman Islands and elsewhere to avoid taxation, accountants said the main target of the latest initiative appeared to be foreign-owned firms.

“The focus right now is multinationals’ paying their fair share of taxes,” said Howard Yu, a corporate tax partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Beijing. He added that the Beijing office of the national tax agency had set up an international division with an emphasis on auditing multinationals.

The tax agency announced its plans in a statement posted on its website Tuesday night; the statement was reported by state news media outlets in identical or nearly identical articles on Wednesday. China Daily, a state-run newspaper, included a warning, ascribed to an unidentified “expert in the field,” that “multinationals, especially small foreign companies, should pay extremely high attention to their regulation compliance, as failure to do so would lead to huge losses.”

China became a net exporter of investment last year, by some measures. Christopher Xing, a China tax partner in the Hong Kong office of KPMG, said the tax agency was likely to scrutinize some of the Chinese companies setting up operations overseas.

“China is also concerned about Chinese multinationals engaged in unfair practices,” he said.

On Sunday, China became the latest country to impose a so-called anti-avoidance rule, giving broad authority to the tax authorities to block corporate transactions they deem to be aimed more at avoiding taxes than conducting business.

Andrew Choy, a partner at Ernst & Young, said the rule made foreign companies nervous because unlike in countries like Australia, Canada and the United States, it was nearly impossible in China to challenge the tax authorities’ decisions in court.

MNCs must become more closely attuned to the role they are expected to play at this stage of the development of China’s economy. They are under increasing scrutiny by the Chinese government, so it is all the more important for them to understand their “face,” or status, in China — how they are perceived and thus how they should act.

In China, few things are worse than losing face. The concept has two bases: social prestige and moral integrity. The two factors are interdependent in that social status implies certain expectations about one’s behavior and that the face one is accorded by others will depend on how well one lives up to those expectations. This applies as much to organizations as to individuals. Although MNCs still are very well placed, their lofty status brings with it high expectations about their integrity. The higher they are in the hierarchy of corporations, the higher the expectations. China expects to benefit from the MNCs’ positive influence on the nation’s business environment and practices. (See “The Factors Determining an MNC’s ‘Face.’”) A loss of face casts a long shadow over the MNCs’ competitiveness and hence their future in China. To gain respect and face, global behavioral standards must be pursued.

link

Not understanding this, MNC's doing business in China, practicing all the deceptive, cost cutting, worker abusing, consumer abusing, and otherwise immoral and criminal behaviors they are used to getting away with in the West has put them in hot water in China as they Lost Face. They did not live up to the high moral integrity expected by the Chinese people. In a sense, by embarrassing themselves, they embarrassed their host. (The fact that Western corporations and CEOs don't feel embarrassed in the least, just makes it worse.)

This may seem naïve to Westerners, but is of the highest importance in China. Business is not business in China. Business is a part of the total fabric of life in China, part of it's guanxi.

China No Longer Viable For Foreign Companies Due To Prosecution For Corrupt Practices

An increasing number of American businesses say they feel unwelcome in China after the country's government began a crackdown on monopoly pricing and corrupt business practices, according to a new survey.

The American Chamber of Commerce, or AmCham, surveyed its members and released the results on Tuesday, showing that about 60 percent of its members feel less welcome in China compared to 41 percent last year, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

It also said that U.S.-based companies operating in China are finding it difficult to adapt to the Asian country's shift from a state-led model that relied heavily on exports and investment to a model based on services and domestic demand.

AmCham’s annual survey is the latest to suggest that foreign investors are increasingly wary of the aggressive tactics adopted by Chinese industry regulators.

The AmCham survey shows that while many U.S. companies in China remain profitable, fewer businesses are reporting a substantial growth in profits and many are scaling back expansion plans as revenues from their Chinese operations slow down, the report added.

A survey conducted by the European Chamber of Commerce earlier this year reportedly showed that about 61 percent of European companies, which have done business in China for more than 10 years, feel that the country is getting more difficult to operate in.

The European Chamber of Commerce said in August that it heard “alarming” accounts from European companies of intimidation tactics used by Chinese officials to force foreign-owned companies to accept the penalties handed out by Chinese authorities without being allowed full hearings in court, according to the Journal. Chinese authorities have also advised foreign companies not to challenge the investigations, and warned them against seeking legal or government assistance, the report said.

Chinese officials have reportedly defended their actions saying that the crackdown targets both domestic and foreign companies. According to them, the country is investigating companies under an anti-monopoly law, which came into effect six years ago, for reasons similar to those used by governments in the U.S. and Europe in previous decades.

Last month, Chinese industry regulators levied fines of about $202 million (1.24 billion yuan) against 12 Japanese auto-part makers on charges of alleged price manipulation.

German automotive giants Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (ETR:BMW), Volkswagen AG's (ETR:VOW3) Audi AG (ETR:NSU) and Mercedes-Benz parent Daimler AG (ETR:DAI) are also awaiting penalties following similar probes, and have responded to the investigations by cutting prices of their products in China.

Technology giants Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) and QUALCOMM, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM) too are being investigated for indulging in alleged monopolistic activities though both companies have said they abide by Chinese law and are cooperating with investigators.

Western multinational companies also say they are facing attacks on their business practices and reputation from Chinese state media, which could destroy their businesses.

U.S.-based food processor OSI Group LLC’s China business collapsed after a Shanghai television station reported abuses at the company’s local plant. Six OSI employees were later arrested and the company apologized. And though the allegations have not yet been proven, several of OSI's major customers in China, including Burger King Worldwide Inc (NYSE:BKW) and Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE: YUM), which runs the KFC and Pizza Hut chains, have refused to buy their products. McDonald's Corporation (NYSE:MCD) suspended OSI supplies to its 2,000-plus outlets in China.

About seven years ago, China was the No. 1 investment destination for a majority of U.S.-based companies. However, this year’s survey showed only 20 percent of respondents were interested in investing in China with an increasing majority looking at other foreign destinations for direct foreign investment, the Journal reported, citing the AmCham survey.

link

China has become outraged at the moral depravity of the West. They find it hard to understand how any people could have so little integrity, and not kill themselves out of absolute embarrassment.

That is the reason for the aggressiveness of the prosecutions. They feel that MNC's have despoiled their culture, even corrupting the moral integrity of some of it's own people.

They have caused everyone to lose face, the government who let them do business there, the people who have bought their products, the employees who worked for them, the other businesses who have sold to them or provided services for them, etc. everyone is connected and affected. That is how China sees it.

[dolanbaker]

China jails their own businessmen and government workers who are found engaging in corruption. With high profile trials, many of them sentenced to death. For things corporate types around here would consider par for the course.

The poison baby milk scandal a couple of years ago springs to mind!

[onlooker]

At least China has some morality whereas the West seems to have none. Though I will say it is a distorted moral code, as this same country (China) has so rapidly despoiled their country environmentally not giving second thought about how environment affects their population or for that matter the future of this planet. Also, they continue entrenched in power without allowing dissent and have had a recent history of corruption that belies the belief that somehow Chinese have a moral compass far superior to the West.

[Cid_Yama]

Over the last three years, the Chinese government has punished 33 multinational corporations for violating the nation’s environmental laws and regulations, according to Ma Jun, director of the nongovernmental Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs. Ma’s announcement in September came as a surprise to many, as the Chinese public has tended to assume that multinational companies abide more strictly by the law than some in fact do.

The exposed companies include subsidiaries of world-renowned corporations such as American Standard, Panasonic, Pepsi, Nestle, and 3M. They were punished mainly for discharges of substandard waste water and for unauthorized construction activities that occurred in the absence of proper environmental impact assessments.

When researchers at Ma’s institute began building a database to map China’s water pollution earlier this year, they used data from the websites of various Chinese environmental protection authorities. During the process, they came across a list of multinational corporations that had been cited for environmentally harmful activities for the years 2004–06.

Ma, who once worked as an environmental consultant for multinationals in China, was shocked by the discovery. “Those enterprises have been talking about corporate responsibility, yet they could not even abide by the law,” he says.

Mr. Zhao, an authority with the Jilin Provincial Environmental Protection Bureau agrees that, “Multinational corporations have relaxed their environmental standards in China.” And according to Lo Sze Ping, campaign director of Greenpeace China, the “words” of multinationals are often better than their deeds. To address their wrongdoings, companies are more willing to invest in public relations than in actually cleaning up the manufacturing process, he says.

So is it the Chinese who have been soiling their own nest. Or have their guests been leaving a hot steaming pile in the middle of the living room carpet.

Not that there isn't enough blame to go around. Why has it taken so long for Chinese authorities to act?

I believe it is because they trusted the corporations to have integrity, so they didn't watch them close enough.

The highlighted statement above tells it all. They really couldn't believe that prestigious corporations could have so little integrity, and do what they did.

We would call it naivete, but It's a cultural thing. To them prestige and integrity go hand-in-hand. They couldn't believe that status could be accorded without them having integrity. They saw the status and assumed integrity.

[onlooker]

Oh okay good to have the record clear about how it really is mostly the multi-nationals who are responsible for the tremendous environmental damage in China.

[Tanada]

My understanding of China, and I could be wrong here, is that the authoritarian regime expects the rules to be followed. Follow the rules and color inside the lines and Voile' you are welcomed with open arms and can become very very well off. Break the rules or try too hard to stretch the rules into a different shape and you will be Persona non Grata.

In America/Europe business (and individuals) treat authority like a contest. What rules can I break, what boundaries can I push? For large corporations they have huge Law firms or divisions whose sole reason for existence is to minimize costs in the event that a broken rule or twisted boundary acted upon by authorities results in the least possible cost to the corporation. The Board of Directors and CEO are very well insulated from personal loss, even if a company goes totally bankrupt the CEO/BOD have their 'golden parachutes' already funded and in protected form so they are 'safe'. On the extremely rare occasion when a company leader is convicted of something personally they don't go to Supermax Prison with the rapists and murders, they go to a minimum intensity secure facility. Its not a country club for them, but it sure isn't the treatment a common criminal would get for the size of the crime either.

Put people used to playing by our rules in China where the rules are very different and if they are not smart enough to understand chaos results.

[dissident]

http://www.keeptalkinggreece.com/2015/0 ... nks-video/

This was never said officially before! “They gave money to save German and French banks, not Greece,” Paolo Batista, one of the Executive Directors of International Monetary Fund told Greek private Alpha TV on Tuesday. Batista strongly criticized not only the euro zone and the European Central Bank but also the IMF and the Fund’s managing Director Christine Lagarde for defending Europe much too much..

So all the whinging about Greece "freeloaders" is naturally retarded spew. Greece propped up German and French banks and got saddled with the bill. It should send the bill to Germany and France.

[onlooker]

Right on the money dissident.

So all the whinging about Greece "freeloaders" is naturally retarded spew. Greece propped up German and French banks and got saddled with the bill. It should send the bill to Germany and France.

here is link to an article which described this also.
http://www.france24.com/en/20150701-eu- ... as-germany

[Cid_Yama]

Thousands turn out for Greek protest in Dublin

Thousands of protesters waved Greek flags as they marched from the Central Bank to the Dáil on Saturday afternoon in solidarity with Greece.

“Athens Athens we’re with you, we’re against the Troika too,” the crowd chanted as it made its way through Dublin city centre, ahead of Greek’s referendum on austerity measures on Sunday.

Co-ordinator of the Greek Solidarity Committee Ronan Burtenshaw said the issue isn’t Greece against Europe, but a battle between “ordinary people across Europe against our elites”.

“We say absolutely and clearly from Dublin today that we stand on the side of democracy, and democracy means No. Democracy means OXI”.

The theme of the march was “We say No too,” which organisers said expressed the “common battle against austerity in both countries.”

Irish rugby player Trevor Hogan spoke to the crowd at the Central Bank about the “right wing austerity vultures” in the Irish government and the EU, and thanked the people of Greece “for exposing the lies and ripping that mask off the EU’s face”.

“The quote that drives me in my life and always keeps me going is Desmond Tutu when he said that to be neutral in times of injustice, is ultimately to be on the side of the oppressor”.

Mr Burtenshaw of the Greek Solidarity Committee said that the demonstration in Athens on Friday was the “biggest act of defiance yet seen to the rule of the Troika in Europe”.

“Today in Dublin, along with marches in Spain, Portugal, Italy, France and Germany, we will show that ordinary people across the continent stand with them, for a meaningful democracy and against endless austerity”.

Tens of thousands of people have taken part in anti-austerity demonstrations in London’s Trafalgar Square, Leeds, Liverpool, Bristol and Edinburgh.

The biggest march was in London, where thousands of people attended a rally outside the Bank of England before marching to the Houses of Parliament.

Union leaders and celebrities including Russell Brand and Charlotte Church have addressed crowds, while protests also took place in Liverpool and Glasgow.

The London rally was also addressed by Northern Ireland's Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, former Coronation Street actress Julie Hesmondhalgh and Labour leadership hopeful Jeremy Corbyn.

The final speaker to address the crowds in London's Parliament Square was comedian and activist Mr Brand, who said he wanted a society that was better for "all of us".

"I thought fame and fortune would make me valuable. I found out that it is empty," he said. "I am going to spend the rest of my life belonging to community, embracing community and helping in whatever way I can."

Len McCluskey, general secretary of the Unite union, said: "If they think they won the war of austerity on 7 May they'd better think again."

Sinn Fein's Mr McGuinness said he would fight "right-wing Thatcherite policies", telling crowds his party would say an "unambiguous, unqualified, uncompromising 'no' to this new Tory government".

Earlier, Labour leadership contender Jeremy Corbyn said austerity was a "cover" for deepening inequality.

The MP told BBC Radio 4's Today programme his party had been wrong to accept the Conservatives' "cuts agenda" during the general election campaign.

"Britain has become a more unequal society, is becoming a more unequal society, and austerity is a cover for actually deepening that level of inequality," he said.

The protest was organised by protest group the People's Assembly, which said 250,000 people attended.

Thousands of people also attended the rally in Glasgow, organised by Scotland United Against Austerity.

They are now imposing austerity in Britain as well. Trying to eliminate the National Health Service. Neo-Nazis tried to instigate a Pro-Austerity counter rally but got nowhere.

[SeaGypsy]

Does a TV show 'Life on the Dole' play in the US? Talk about needing austerity FFS, an episode recently showed a 'single dad' obese with about 15 kids to 4 different troglodytes, whining his ass off about social security being capped at something like £1200 a week. He went & claimed disability which is uncapped, got the £200 a week restored which he lost under the cap. Absolute morons pumping out babies as money factories is an absurd but common consequence of the current system.

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[dissident]

Does a TV show 'Life on the Dole' play in the US? Talk about needing austerity FFS, an episode recently showed a 'single dad' obese with about 15 kids to 4 different troglodytes, whining his ass off about social security being capped at something like £1200 a week. He went & claimed disability which is uncapped, got the £200 a week restored which he lost under the cap. Absolute morons pumping out babies as money factories is an absurd but common consequence of the current system.

This is non sequitur to the discussion. If you are insinuating that Greeks are a bunch of welfare bums, then you are barking up the wrong tree. The pension system is there for actual workers and not for those on welfare. For most people in the 1st world pensions are government run. The real welfare bums are the banks and the corporations. Your example applies to the banks: they make "babies" aka loans at every opportunity to make money (deposits are liabilities, loans are assets for banks) and overextend themselves. Then they run for bailouts from the government when their bets go south.

BTW, stock market gamblers are afforded the same sort of guarantees by the current generation of governments. These gamblers sue for "damages" when the companies they gambled on fail. This is the zenith of inanity. It has been argued that bailouts distort the market by not letting badly run business fail, as is essential in a capitalist system. This is totally correct. The taxpayer is not responsible for covering private corporate risk taking.

[SeaGypsy]

I didn't start the UK segway, merely responded to it. I agree with your point, to consider renationalisation of commercial banking should be at least under urgent consideration IMO but we don't see virtually any such mention in MSM.

Seems the rot in the current system is both top & bottom. It can't be great for a society to create & nurture either rapacious greedy bankster internationalists or unemployed families of 10 or 20 expecting endless fat living at someone else's expense.

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