Earlier quoted context omitted.
> China is a hostile nation I really have no idea where this narrative comes from. Chinese government is evil, hostile, and cruel even to (some of) their own citizens. However, China as a nation are people - just like you and me. Why should we treat them as "hostile"? It makes no sense at all. This kind of crooked reasoning and blurred thinking is one of the main causes of all wars in the history of mankind.
Is anyone really of the view that most Chinese are evil? I don't think that's what calling them a hostile nation is meant to mean. The problem is that the Chinese government, who ARE hostile, take advantage of the fact that we treat most Chinese as non-hostile. Nobody knows how many Chinese students and workers in the West are essentially spies for the Chinese government, but we do know it is enough to be worried abo…
Chinese hacking spree hit an ‘astronomical’ number of victims
141–150 of 241 posts
Re: Chinese hacking spree hit an ‘astronomical’ number of victims
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
So .. casualty projections? How far up the escalation do you want to go?
> How far up the escalation do you want to go? Nobody wins a fight without fighting it to the end. Escalate until you win.
The old Cold War was very clear that final victory involved civilian deaths in the millions. Be very clear: are you advocating for that?
Re: Chinese hacking spree hit an ‘astronomical’ number of victims
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, this. Chinese culture is much older and more widespread than the CCP. The Chinatown here in San Francisco is older than the state of California. We had our first Chinese New Year Parade in 1851. The Communists are the problem, and even then not unqualified: the CCP has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of relative poverty to economic prosperity, even as they do terrible things to Tibetans, Uighurs, and…
This is the hardest part about discussing this issue, for sure. The rapid technological and economic expansion achieved by CCP is the most impressive in all of human history in terms of numbers. It’s brutal, for sure, but that achievement means a lot of Chinese people are willing to look past the bad things, and look forward towards goals of further technological development. The important difference between the “Wes…
Re: Chinese hacking spree hit an ‘astronomical’ number of victims
#144Somewhat recently a head of Microsoft was asked about forgoing access to the Chinese market if it meant protecting American interests in the face of new threats. He unequivocally said, yes. He was willing to forgo their market. I'm not sure Apple and others who either sell product there or have large manufacturing there are as willing to forgo the 'promise market', but it looks more and more we will have to. More or…
> We'll see how Biden handles this. I'm sure it's a tough call. I don't see how he can. I don't see how the next 2-3 US administrations can. If the current level of China's "scare power" is enough to paralyze the US, you will have less, and less options on the table with each year as you go. Time works against the US, and the West at large.
They have a very anti immigration culture, and the one child policy means they’ll have more retirees than working age in a decade or two.
And it’ll only get worse as given their less than replacement birth rate and substantially more males than females.
Re: Chinese hacking spree hit an ‘astronomical’ number of victims
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
The us let’s Chinese firms generally speaking full access to the us market. The CCP doesn’t allow the us companies the same. Why our government let that happen. Letting so much business leave to the CCP will be one of the greatest failings of the us government.
A few speculative ideas/thoughts: - The US needs access to China's goods to be viable. For half a century US companies improved their efficiency/competitiveness by moving their process to China. They now have too many dependencies in the form of Chinese manufacturing and development capabilities and do not have the skills/knowledge/talents/infrastructure in the US. Because of this China can dictate their rules with z…
I think you have this backwards. China bought US treasuries to weaken their currency and increase demand for their goods. If they now sell, they will face significant appreciation of the yuan and become uncompetitive. At the same time the US would become more competitive. There would be short term disruption but China would suffer more.
Re: Chinese hacking spree hit an ‘astronomical’ number of victims
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
How are we to trust you're not a paid Putin or CCP propagandist? Arguably Microsoft has far more credibility than you - my point being there are ways people orient for trusting individuals and organizations. If you think the current White House administration and Microsoft aren't on the more trustworthy side of the trust spectrum, then who in your opinion is more trustworthy?
I think Microsoft and the current White House are on the extreme side of untrustworthy. What has MS ever done that was trustworthy? Their entire existence has been based on abusing a monopoly. The US government is also extremely untrustworthy (c.f. the 20th century). The combination of these two entities pushing the same story is a huge red flag. Who would I trust? I’ll start with someone providing some sort of proof…
Here's a community that contains minority beliefs but in English. I've pasted in another post. Judge by yourself they are rational people or not.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/03/is-china-hacking-rando...
Re: Chinese hacking spree hit an ‘astronomical’ number of victims
#147We need two things, I don’t think either will happen: 1) sanctions against China 2) a Greater Firewall outside China, right on all fiber cables, blocking/filtering all traffic from China. China is a hostile nation and we need to treat it as such.
Sanctions lead to widespread suffering & even death among the civilian population. Why do you want the Chinese people to suffer or die? Sanctions are scarcely less psychotic than bombing a school or hospital. The violence is just hidden in life expectancy reduction & many other metrics instead of "N civilians' bodies ripped apart by bombs". Oh, and targeted sanctions - aren't. Entities will view any sanctions as a le…
The sanctions on Iran aren't targeted. They're blanket sanctions with specific exceptions. The problem there is asking international companies to do a bunch of stuff otherwise forbidden by the sanctions (financial, logistical, etc) which I assume is either a pain to get approved ahead of time or frightening to justify after the fact.
A better example of targeted sanctions is what's happening in response to the poisoning of Navalny. Specific Russians were sanctioned. That doesn't hurt uninvolved citizens nearly as much.
Re: Chinese hacking spree hit an ‘astronomical’ number of victims
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
A few speculative ideas/thoughts: - The US needs access to China's goods to be viable. For half a century US companies improved their efficiency/competitiveness by moving their process to China. They now have too many dependencies in the form of Chinese manufacturing and development capabilities and do not have the skills/knowledge/talents/infrastructure in the US. Because of this China can dictate their rules with z…
> China owns more than 1 trillion of US debt. ... they may start massively selling US debt, which would impact USD and the US economy. We just printed four trillion dollars out of thin air and the sky didn't fall. What makes you think that printing one quarter of that amount in order to sterilize a dump of treasuries will cause the sky to fall?
All of these treasuries are sold to primary dealers and the secondary market transactions are of little interest to any macro variable. Some treasuries are held by China in its Federal Reserve account. Should China sell the treasuries to another buyer, they will be transferred to a different account in the same bank. The nationality of the account holder makes no difference to the price of the asset.
The real issue is can China force the price of treasuries to be lower than it is? The answer to that is, maybe a little on the margin. Treasuries are priced as the expectation of average short term rates which are policy decisions by the Federal Reserve. So the real question is can China force the Federal Reserve to raise short term rates over a prolonged period? The Fed does this as part of an inflation fighting policy so this is a question about inflation and has nothing to do with China "dumping" anything.
Trying to guess the inflationary effects of something is hard, so I will throw out some theories and you can decide which one you like:
1. To the degree that US (and global) corporations have been outsourcing manufacturing to China to avoid paying higher wages to first world workers, then this results in driving down wage increases which could create an inflationary spiral, depending on your theory of inflation. Old school people thought inflation was the result of wages being too high. So if they are right, then yes, a very tight labor market could increase inflation more than expected and perhaps the Fed would need to keep rates a bit higher, but again to fight inflation, not because nation X no longer wants access to the US capital markets. I think most Americans would welcome this greatly, although stock prices would take a hit.
2. At the same time this would create an economic shock and the Fed may lower rates to stimulate the economy during the shock. So the short run effects are really mixed.
3. But there is another aspect here, which is that the trade deficit with China creates a loss of income for the US, which is made up for by increased government spending, whether disability payments to laid off workers, or welfare payments or other costs. Thus a reduction in the trade deficit will drive a reduction in the government deficit and thus a reduced demand to sell treasuries that moves in lockstep with the reduced demand to buy treasuries. So if you are of the newer school that says euler consumption trade offs are going to control investment demand, and sticky prices cause nominal interest rates to generate inflation, then once you adjust for the reduced government deficits created by trade deficits, you end up with a model that predicts higher short run rates and then stable long run rates.
4. There is the issue of international capital flows. Let's say we block China from purchasing dollar assets, so investment demand for the dollar decreases, therefore the dollar itself depreciates against the global basket, which causes US exports to be more competitive and we export more, which increases domestic income, which threatens an increase in inflation, which causes a small increase in rates as the economy is booming, up until the higher rates offset the depreciated dollar and things are back into equilibrium. This is why nations such as China intentionally devalue their dollar when they want to stimulate the economy.
Note that financial market beauty contests has zero impact on the US risk-free rates and thus on the price of treasuries. US treasuries are priced by arbitrage against the time path of future short rates, not by how popular the US is or whether some nation wants to hold treasuries.
You can pick among all of these or make your own scenario, but the bottom line is that rates go up only because the Fed raises rates in response to inflation. They do not go up because China decides to give away a bunch of its dollar assets.
China, of course, can sell the treasuries at a discount. Hell, they can give them away. That wont change the equilibrium price, it will just give windfalls to someone else at China's expense.
Capital markets are pretty elastic -- they will not run out of money to lend someone who is buyig treasuries from China on the cheap. Absolutely every bank will be willing to lend you money if you have treasuries as collateral, and the haircuts are small indeed. Hell, you can even borrow from the Fed itself to buy treasuries. Life-Pro Tip: If someone is offering to sell you treasuries at a discount, then buy them!
There will be no shortage of buyers ready and eager to relieve China of the burden of having treasuries.
Re: Chinese hacking spree hit an ‘astronomical’ number of victims
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
In other words, yes. I avoided stating it this bluntly for it being almost a cartoon trope. But... but one can't believe into any other explanation as any much credible. Do hundreds of US political insiders lobby for China in one voice just for nothing? You don't have closet communists, just a lot of very greedy, amoral, and easy to exploit power holders. American legal system prohibits jailing people for anything bu…
> You don't have closet communists, just a lot of very greedy, amoral, and easy to exploit power holders. Lol you’ve just described capitalists.
Re: Chinese hacking spree hit an ‘astronomical’ number of victims
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US also believed that giving China an example of "the good way" via access to the US markets would cause them to open up and allow access in kind. Turned out that was a pretty naive belief.
The US never believed this, the politicians told this story so they could get richer off trade deals and cheap labor. Anyone who was critically thinking saw this coming a long way out.