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China CCP to Nationalize Jack Ma's Alibaba and Ant Group – Report

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Re: China CCP to Nationalize Jack Ma's Alibaba and Ant Group – Report

#71
post #60
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How's it working in the U.S. where billionaires are dissolving the U.S. government?

Guys, this is just flame bait. Don't bother engaging in this throw away comment.

My comment isn’t throwaway. It was intended as a counterpoint. If you seek some clarification, then ask.

My point is to paint the picture that leveraging extremes doesn’t work. It is often the case that the west, in particular the U.S., assumes their way is the best and that this way should be applied, forcefully if necessary, elsewhere. In reality, the world’s two most powerful nations, that is the U.S. and China, are at the extreme opposite ends of political and economical ideology. One has corporations controlling everything and the other has the government controlling everything. In both cases, it is an extreme but minority so-called elite group that controls the fate of the people.

My lament is this scenario, because it is clear, at least to me, that the ideal is somewhere in between.

Re: China CCP to Nationalize Jack Ma's Alibaba and Ant Group – Report

#72
post #3

Is it me or there's some cognitive dissonance going on with the whole article discussing the ramifications of a nationalization without describing at all what sourced this "news" in the first place? A cursory search seems to show this is a regurgitation on a sourceless Radio Free Asia article ( https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/alibaba-probe-1225202... ) from December?

The RFA references Song Qing, "Internet finance industry insider": "These nationalizations are definitely happening, and [the antitrust investigation] will likely speed up that process," Song said. "It's also, I think, about making an example of [Ant and Alibaba]." So I would trust the article as much as I would trust Song Qing.

So I would trust the article as much as I would trust Song Qing.

What does that mean in this context? What do you know about Song Qing that the rest of us don't that makes him untrustworthy? A quick search didn't come up with anything. Do you have an informative link?

Re: China CCP to Nationalize Jack Ma's Alibaba and Ant Group – Report

#73
post #3

Is it me or there's some cognitive dissonance going on with the whole article discussing the ramifications of a nationalization without describing at all what sourced this "news" in the first place? A cursory search seems to show this is a regurgitation on a sourceless Radio Free Asia article ( https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/alibaba-probe-1225202... ) from December?

Radio free Asia has deep ties to US agencies. It isn’t really a credible source.

It's an extremely credible source, in reality.

Re: China CCP to Nationalize Jack Ma's Alibaba and Ant Group – Report

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's every reason to believe that the people installed to run Alibaba / Ant after Jack gets sent off to "re-education camp" will be unable to propel it to further heights. We in America are much too obsessed with "one great man" theories of history. I also think we are inclined to underestimate the competency of Chinese governmental figures, which is structured very differently from the West. > that could be par…

> We in America are much too obsessed with "one great man" theories of history. I also think we are inclined to underestimate the competency of Chinese governmental figures, which is structured very differently from the West. Eh... Do I think Bezos is a visionary responsible for all of Amazon's success? No. But culture comes from the top. There's a lot of ways to run a company poorly, especially if it's doing somethi…

People thought the same thing about apple when Jobs died but it's up 900% in the 9 years since his death

Re: China CCP to Nationalize Jack Ma's Alibaba and Ant Group – Report

#75

The West thought once China is full of billionaires, the billionaires having all that wealth would then have the power to oppose and dissolve the CCP. Didn't go as planned.

Why is it better for Chinese billionaires to run the country than the CCP? Seems like just trading one master for another.

Re: China CCP to Nationalize Jack Ma's Alibaba and Ant Group – Report

#76
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Misunderstanding about the inner workings of China isn't the CCP's fault, at least not at this level. The discourse about China, misunderstandings about how the Chinese systems functions, and lack of even a basic interest in getting a realistic view of China are rampant. The average view of China in the US is so cartoonish it's quite ridiculous. If you talk to an educated, middle-class Chinese audience about the US p…

> The discourse about China, misunderstandings about how the Chinese systems functions It functions like a dictatorship functions. The dictatorship of the party. > And it's actually a huge problem for the West that both government and citizens do not engage China seriously. The West will mostly separate production within about a decade or two. It‘s not a problem at all.

Do you have any sources to support the claim that the West will separate production within a decade or two?

Re: China CCP to Nationalize Jack Ma's Alibaba and Ant Group – Report

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Radio free Asia has deep ties to US agencies. It isn’t really a credible source.

Radio free Asia has deep ties to US agencies. "Deep ties to US agencies" is sensationalizing the facts. It's part of the United States government, and nobody has ever tried to keep that secret. Not RFA, not the U.S. Government. Nobody. "Deep ties" makes it seem like it's trying to be covert. It's not. It isn’t really a credible source. It's one of the more credible sources of news in Asia. Especially for more authori…

NYTimes seems to disagree:

https://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/26/archives/worldwide-propag...

Re: China CCP to Nationalize Jack Ma's Alibaba and Ant Group – Report

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Radio free Asia has deep ties to US agencies. It isn’t really a credible source.

Radio free Asia has deep ties to US agencies. "Deep ties to US agencies" is sensationalizing the facts. It's part of the United States government, and nobody has ever tried to keep that secret. Not RFA, not the U.S. Government. Nobody. "Deep ties" makes it seem like it's trying to be covert. It's not. It isn’t really a credible source. It's one of the more credible sources of news in Asia. Especially for more authori…

It's not covert, but it's quite literally a propaganda machine.

The reason Radio Free Europe/Asia were founded was to broadcast the benefits of 'freedom' into communist-governed areas. You might think that we're qualitatively the good guys, and I'm all for freedom, but that's definitionally 'propaganda'.

Re: China CCP to Nationalize Jack Ma's Alibaba and Ant Group – Report

#79

If Jack Ma is still alive, he must be enjoying the blessing of 996 somewhere.

For the uninitiated

https://github.com/996icu/996.ICU

996 doesn’t sound bad at all if it’s my own Company and I’m not constantly worried about Cash flow or run rate. Maybe that’s why in the quotes they say stuff like “996 is a blessing” :P

Re: China CCP to Nationalize Jack Ma's Alibaba and Ant Group – Report

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have serious issues with China. But I also think that there are lessons to learn from many different models. The ability of the government to take on actors with vast amounts of private capital is, in my view, one of those things worth learning from.

Our government has the ability to do the same in the US. What's lacking is not ability. It's lawfulness and a consensus of what the goal should be. In China there is little need for lawfulness and certainly much less need than in the U.S. for consensus.

I think you have a more constrained view of what is contained within the word "ability" than I do.

The problem with the US is that the class interests of those whose consensus is important in lawmaking is aligned with the interests of the ultra-wealthy.

Nor do I buy into the mythos that "lawfulness" is something universally applied in the United States. Laws, procedure, delay always play a large part when the interests of people with large capital are threatened, but lawlessness is the norm in many relations that impact ordinary people, like that weird clocking in rule that your boss at your retail job has instituted that is actually illegal under labor law or when the Federal gov't decides they will no longer enforce redlining law by going undercover to investigate racial discrimination.

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