'After singing the praises of China and its vibrant "free market" for years, the Economist editors have now run smack into reality, giving rise to this squib of a story that indicates the ChiComs are hitting the proverbial brick wall when it comes to their hyperactive and impossibly stimulated economy. We're not supposed to understand this, of course. It's an elite dominant social theme, after all, that the ChiComs' murderous command-and-control economy has much to recommend it that the West's anarchic and "free" economies (sarcasm off) do not. ...there's not going to be a Chinese soft landing. The rotting, empty Chinese cities and shoddy, tipsy skyscrapers, profligate and corrupt Chinese central bank, entrepreneurial flight (see yesterday's article) and rising civil violence across the country (so bad it's not being reported formally anymore) should be red flags (no pun intended) that explain what one needs to know. The Chinese miracle is dead. It never existed anyway, anymore than the West's late-20th century consumer mania was a product of Anglo-American "genius." No, the story of modern directed history is the story of elite-controlled money stimulation and central banking largess. Control tens of trillions and you can control the world. And they have. Not just in the US but in China, too. When the bust comes – and it is coming – all three legs of the stool will have been knocked away. America, Europe AND China will be no longer capable of firing the cylinders of the modern central banking economy. The world will sink into the deepest depression it has ever known. Chaos and worse will sweep across the world. And what then? Are the elites waiting in the wings with their next fancy project? And what will it be called? World government?'

'Dominant Social Theme: China is the most magnificent country in the world. Whatta nation! What an economy! More cities than anywhere else in the world. More skyscrapers, too. Never mind that most of them are empty ... -- Free-Market Analysis: We were on the case when it came to China several years ago. At the time, nary a peep could be heard about the insanity of China's "market economy" – which is about as "free" as the Chinese Internet. But now the evidence is becoming clear. China is busted. Oh, we know that China holds over US$3 trillion in reserves, but here's the reality: It's just paper – fiat money from the US and Europe. Western companies continue to pour funds and personnel into China and our only explanation for this is that this mania is somehow a ploy. How is it we understand China but multi-billion-dollar nationals do not? The information is out there. Perhaps the idea is to ensnare as much capital and resources as possible in the Chinese briar patch. Then when China goes down, the failure is that much more amplified in the West. The chaos is stronger and the solution – one world government – is enhanced.'

'Dominant Social Theme: China is a responsible citizen of the world and is proving it even though it is also an enemy of the West. But it is a helpful enemy. Though it is also a Red Menace. But it is "good people." But it is also the biggest danger to the America. But it is helping Europe ... Though it is a communist state ... But it has capitalist tendencies ... But it is about to implode ... But it has done very well ... Because it is Western ... Though it is still totalitarian. -- China is used by the West in numerous useful capacities. One of its biggest roles is to make the West's socialism/mercantilism look good. We are reminded that China's brand is even worse. China is also used occasionally to justify America's growing wars in the Middle East and Africa. The idea is that these are strategic in nature and aimed at combatting any aggressive intentions harbored by Chinese leaders. China is a useful foil for Anglosphere elites that project anything they want onto its vast backdrop. They apparently support some sort of global governance in line with Anglosphere ambitions. Even if it comes to war, the Chinese elites shall likely cooperate in some fashion, at least to begin with.' -- Great Work, brothers.

'About 3 trillion yuan (US$470 billion) of bank loans have been channeled into underground lending in the eastern coastal provinces, China Banking Regulatory Commission chairman Liu Mingkang told a recent closed-door conference with lenders. Companies are not alone in engaging in such lending businesses; individuals are welcome to join. Liu Chumei, a housewife in Liantan town in Yunfu city, in southern Guangdong province, close to Hong Kong, said credit companies had promised her family a 7.5% interest rate per month on deposits of 10,000 yuan. "Seeing the inflation rate is higher than the [official] deposit rate, we actually loose money putting our cash in the bank ... I would put my money in such credit companies if I had any, so I called some of my relatives in Hong Kong to see if they were interested," she said. "They refused on security reasons."'

'Gone are the days when there was a great philosophical divide between East and West, or between the West's so-called democracies and "communism." Jiabao's speech could have been given by any functionary of the (hopefully tottering) EU. Or even have been delivered by someone from the US State Department. It tends to confirm once more the idea that the powers-that-be are working hard to smooth out differences between major powers. The rhetoric, philosophical overtones and ambitions are statist, but couched in the rhetoric of the marketplace. The idea is that the state sets parameters for capitalism, which then functions within that defined space. It is a kind of soft fascism, though one is never supposed to use the word "fascism." Additionally, in practice, it is not necessarily soft at all. The state is actually in charge of almost every facet of life and corporations, also artificial, statist entities, are merely the receptacles of state power and deliver it to "consumers."'

'Hong Kong television showed seething crowds of migrant workers from the southwestern province of Sichuan running through the streets of Zengcheng, smashing windows, setting fire to government buildings and overturning police vehicles. Thousands of riots, protests and other forms of unrest break out across China each year over problems ranging from rampant inflation to corruption, a big wealth gap, industrial pollution, forced demolitions and abuse of power. The Chinese Communist Party maintains strict political and media controls to quash any form of organized dissent.'

'If there are no more dustbins of history, this is because History itself has become a dustbin.' -- Jean Baudrillard

'Henceforth, it is the map that precedes the territory – precession of simulacra ...' -- Jean Baudrillard

'The Chinese people are still in the phase, thanks to Western monetary stimulation, where they believe that everything that has happened to them is due to their industriousness and native intelligence. ...after the Chinese economy crashes as it must inevitably (unless they manage to pull off the proverbial soft-landing). What will be revealed by the wreckage is the full panoply of central banking deceit. The scales will fall from the eyes. The stock market will be revealed as manipulated; the companies as inept monopolies; the ChiComs themselves as the hands-on managers of their wrecked enterprises. In the near-term, the great cities and skyscrapers will go unfilled; the 10-lane highways shall remain untraveled. A billion people, newly wealthy will find that their condos are not sellable, that food is not available at almost any price and that their jobs were merely the extended froth of the most powerful central-banking bubble that the world has ever known.'

'Bin Laden's supposed death is tied into the unfortunate reality that the US (and NATO) is losing the Afghan war. The Afghan war is a critical power elite meme. The US needs Pakistan to attack the Pashtun/Taliban. If they do not, the war is likely lost. Enter bin Laden and his "death." Whatever else it may be, it was likely supposed to shove Pakistan into an aggressive posture against the Pashtun/Taliban. With bin Laden's "death" there were few rhetorical alternatives. Either Pakistan's leaders had been terribly incompetent in letting the terror master live in Pakistan for years or the military had been horribly incompetent – or perhaps both. Either way, the Pakistanis had much to apologize for. And the biggest way for Pakistan to atone was to attack, the Taliban. For a while, it must have seemed like a stroke of genius. And yet ... something went horribly WRONG. The result in this increasingly bipolar world was only to push the Pakistanis into the waiting embrace of China.'

'We believe the powers-that-be are trying to bludgeon America into the kind of austerity that Europe is currently undergoing. Explaining to Americans that hegemony is lost, that empire is over and that they must accept straightened circumstances could be construed as part of a promotional effort aimed at laying the groundwork for austerity. Why austerity? It's all part of the same effort by the Anglo-American elites running the show. Make people miserable, control their prosperity, provide them with circumstances that will give rise to the belief that the system as it is has failed – and then offer them something else, perhaps a more globalized financial system complete with a new global currency. -- Central banking and fiat money has created a mess not just in the West but around the world, and the Chinese are struggling in that trap just as much as the West is. Chinese growth has been way too explosive. What's going on today is not a race to the top. It's a race to the bottom.'

'As America and China grow more economically and financially intertwined, the two nations have also stepped up spying on each other. -- Cyber-espionage isn’t being discussed directly, according to one participant, because “the Chinese go rigid” when the subject is raised. One reason: for China, digital espionage is wrapped into larger concerns about how to keep China’s economy, the world’s second largest, growing. “They’ve identified innovation as crucial to future economic growth – but they’re not sure they can do it,” says Lewis. “The easiest way to innovate is to plagiarize” by stealing U.S. intellectual property, he adds. -- Chinese participants have sought to allay U.S. concerns about a Chinese cyber-attack on the U.S. financial system. With China owning more than $1.1-trillion in U.S. government debt, Lewis says China’s representatives acknowledged destabilization of U.S. markets would, in effect, be an attack on China’s economy, itself.' -- Attachment of Earnings

'...the Chinese government has "liberalized" – allowed the average Chinese to earn a living and even to become rich so long as these activities do not threaten government power. Chinese do not own their real estate but lease it from the government. And the government censors at will, using a gigantic force of employees to monitor the Internet for anti-government sentiments. ...the Chinese government controls most if not all of the larger country's larger financial and industrial institutions, often behind the scenes. The real free-market is to be found much farther down on the street for the most part where Chinese entrepreneurs compete against each other within a retail context. The ChiComs therefore retain control of the means of production, including the Chinese central bank. Only within carefully monitored parameters, is the Chinese economy a competitive one. This is actually similar in many ways to the growing EU superstate and to the way America is evolving as well...'

'...now, apparently, we seem to have evidence that China intends to put the UN's mandates into practice in a big way. The ultimate intention is to depopulate the countryside we would imagine, in preference for gigantic cities. Farming will be accomplished corporately and the corporate state will benefit from an expanded, controllable, urban population – one that can be repurposed for whatever social and corporate goals the leadership has in mind. The goal, ultimately, is globalism and a marriage with similar urban constructs created by Western elites. It is control that the power elite is after – East or West. Environmentalism is merely a pretext for the kinds of mass-engineerings of society that is contemplated. -- Reading about the plans to re-engineer the living conditions of one billion people puts us in mind of the worst excesses of the Soviet Union. Who would have invested in that?'

'These amazing satellite images show sprawling cities built in remote parts of China that have been left completely abandoned, sometimes years after their construction. Elaborate public buildings and open spaces are completely unused, with the exception of a few government vehicles near communist authority offices.Some estimates put the number of empty homes at as many as 64 million, with up to 20 new cities being built every year in the country's vast swathes of free land. The photographs have emerged as a Chinese government think tank warns that the country's real estate bubble is getting worse, with property prices in major cities overvalued by as much as 70 per cent.'

'...what is actually going on in China is a desperate attempt to build a consumer society before they run out of countries to export to. Seen from this perspective, the Chinese Communist Party is not acting out of ideological goodness but from a sense of self-preservation. Urbanized populations are easier to control; they are more malleable and consumerist. In order to urbanize, the Chinese leadership has inflated rapidly. The Chinese central bank has obviously been printing money 24-hours a day. And foreign currency continues to flood in as well. The Chicoms have supercharged the economy in order to herd the remaining Chinese into these new, suburban environments before the economy becomes unmanageable and price inflation spreads beyond food and real estate to every other part of the economy. Four-hundred million Chinese – a population the size of the United States – are what have the Chicoms worried.'

'In China before the tenth century A.D. men began to footbind little girls... This vicious anti-daughter emotional atmosphere extreme even for a time that was generally cruel and unfeeling towards daughters was obviously not conducive to mothers producing innovations in childrearing when the little girls grew up. Therefore China which was culturally ahead of the West in many ways at the time of the introduction of footbinding, became culturally and politically "frozen" until the twentieth century, when footbinding was stopped and boy-girl sex ratios in many areas dropped from 200/100 to near equality. The result was that whereas for much of its history China punished all novelty, during the twentieth century rapid cultural, political and economic evolution could resume. Japan, which shared much of Chinese culture but did not adopt footbinding of daughters, avoided the psychogenic arrest of China and could share in the scientific and industrial revolution as it occurred in the West.'

'Angered by the decision to award this year's prize to jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. Beijing has mounted a campaign to discredit the award and has asked its allies to boycott the ceremony. It has also created its own rival 'Confucius Peace Prize.' The award will be handed out on Dec. 9, one day before the Nobel prize ceremony, to Taiwan's former vice-president Lien Chan.' -- Peace with Chinese characteristics

'A slowing economy in a country that has just recently experienced prosperity after many years of great hardship is going to cause unrest in our view. The country already seems to be experiencing a continual low-level civil insurrection; and a serious economic slowdown will make it much worse. How does all this play out internationally? Some have suggested that domestic disturbances would make China more aggressively militarily. We wonder if it would not quickly push China in a more authoritarian direction, once again. But we wonder as well if China's eventual problems won't engender further global centralization. ...Foundation X indicates that it has the funds to recreate Bretton Woods, but on an international scale, including one common currency. People faced with "the end of the world" as they know it from the Americas, to Europe, to Asia are immediately enthusiastic. Would it then take one man, a leader—the face of Foundation X, shall we say—to inspire trust and "close the deal?"'

'...we went ahead and wrote that the Chinese miracle was over; that sooner or later, inevitably, price inflation was going to cook the communist party and the old men who run it. Find an article in the mainstream press even today that predicts this. They are few and far between, though moreso in the alternative press (which still casts the Chinese as an efficient ogre, the yin to the Western, dissolute yang). The mainstream media is almost relentless in its inability to spot patterns of any kind. Everything that happens in the mainstream media is a sudden, jarring surprise. North Korea goes to war (almost) with South Korea. Surprise! Sovereign debt crisis in Europe. Surprise! Economic crisis? Surprise! Chronic joblessness? Surprise! Gold up? Surprise! Silver up? Surprise! Gold and silver up even higher? Surprise! Say, when China begins to have food riots, will that be a surprise too? We are way past assuming this is merely ignorance. Or if it is ignorance, it is purposeful ignorance.'

'There is no doubt that the Chinese "miracle" is going to end badly. An economic crack-up in China would likely put paid to any "recovery" the West might hope for... With the West and Asia suffering twin economic breakdowns it is most doubtful that the outlook for the global economy would be anything other than dire. If the event is coupled with rising food prices and a kind of artificially imposed trade war that further freezes goods and services worldwide, then the results could be truly catastrophic for millions, even billions. This is when we will begin to see whether the powers-that-be are truly Machiavellian in terms of their strategies and goals. This is when we will begin to find out if there is a workable plan to introduce a one-world financial system, and even one-world government. China may be the trigger. The wild card, however, is the Internet. We do not believe the power elite had any idea of the amount of antipathy that would be generated by this new communication tool.'

'Black Friday is the most important shopping day of the year in the United States. Big bargains are to be had and the one-day extravaganza brings out the competitive spirit in American consumers. So much so, that Black Fridays past have been marred by violence. Fueling the hype are media that give relentless coverage to Black Friday in their efforts to discern the mood of the American consumer and, thus, economy. Of course, Black Friday is enormously important to Asia and its export-dependent economies.'

'The consumers of last resort.'

'...the move to dump another trillion or two into international markets is a kind of dagger aimed at the throat of the Chinese CCP. Eventually, price inflation in China is going to become intolerable and lead to serious civil unrest in our view. ...there is no love lost between the average Chinese citizen and the current government, which has now ruled in various incarnations for some 70 years. We've pointed out that the pact between the Chinese and the party is simple: The CCP provides increased prosperity and the Chinese themselves, all 1.3 billion of them, go along with this program. The CCP is in a race against time to provide China's remaining 400 million with a decent standard of living before the economy loses its ability to absorb more workers. If the Chinese economy collapses, or if the global economy continues to fracture as rapidly and inexorably as it seems to be doing, it is possible that global leaders could be drawn together in an effort to salvage what they have.'

'Dominant Social Theme: This is great! Everybody said they'd agree to agree about agreeing. We agree too. The crisis is ovah. -- The simplest explanation of all this activity is that the US is worried about a trade war for which it will be blamed. In order to make sure that doesn't happen, it has to strong-arm the rest of the world into accepting its devaluations. The second explanation is that the US is raising the issue in order to blame China for the continued unraveling of the world's financial situation. The third explanation is that the Anglo-American axis does indeed intend to ruin the dollar and is laying the groundwork for an IMF currency of some sort. ...China's resolve to maintain its own yuan policy despite US hectoring is proof positive that the Anglo-American axis does not have the clout to shove the Chinese around behind the scenes. (And China is in fact shoving back with its suspension of militarily important "rare earth" supplies.) Times have changed.'

'Unlike many others..., we do not believe that the elite actively seeks to create conditions to impose martial law (though that may be the end result of its deranged policy making). Imposing martial law is always an act of desperation by any leadership. It flies in the face, too, of the elite's overwhelming emphasis on fear-based dominant social themes that have been intended to concentrate wealth while accumulating power for extra-curricular, globalist entities such as the IMF, UN, WHO, etc. The idea was to boil the frog slowly. But what is going on today is more like a bonfire. On every level it makes little sense. It seems undeniable that countries like Brazil, China and India are now pursuing their own monetary policies extant of the Anglo-American axis. In the 20th century, countries that did this sort of thing were attacked by the CIA and their leaders were overthrown and the nations were brought back into line, often with brutal results. But the 21st century is not the 20th.'

'The ruination of the Chinese economy will likely end the horrible communist experiment that the Anglo-American axis helped inflict on the long-suffering Chinese. The vicious ChiComs and their oppressive system are only tolerated today because they have managed to create a good deal of "wealth' of late. But when it evaporates, the poor Chinese who have been buying empty flats in unpopulated cities as "investments" won't know what hit them. It is obvious the Anglo-American axis has been patiently tutoring the Chinese. The ChiComs and the Anglo-American elite think alike. They are brethren. Intertwined. It is perhaps a kind of love-hate relationship. If the West unravels any more rapidly or ruinously, it can take China down with it. Likewise, when China falls, (and it will) the crash will resound worldwide. The Chinese crash, when it occurs, will be truly resonant, like Ulysses impaling of Polyphemous' single Cyclopean eye.'

'Doug Casey: Well interest rates are suppressed all over the world by these governments who think that they need low interest rates to stimulate their economies. People want to save, but they're afraid to save in the form of paper currency. So they get into stocks and real estate. The stock market fluctuates erratically in an environment like that, and stocks are really just paper, at least fro one point of view. So many people are more comfortable with real estate, in that it has use value. As a result there's been massive construction in China, financed heavily with bank loans, and that's going to be a disaster. The consequences for these banks and the Chinese national currency can't be good. The two trillion dollars in foreign exchange reserves that they have could dry up and blow away if the government tries to bailout the real estate market. Assuming they're not inflated out of existence by the US first...'

'I think it's likely that the U.S. government will default on its debt, starting with obligations to foreigners, and the government will end up having to make some humiliating concessions. For example, the Chinese might demand that the U.S. withdraw from Asia. China might insist that's going to take over Taiwan, Korea and Japan. Right now, the Chinese are rapidly building up their military capability. I don't know why they're doing it, but there has been speculation that they want East Asia to be their sphere influence, just as the Americas are our sphere of influence. Are we going to go to war if/when China makes Taiwan a protectorate, maybe paying tribute to the mainland government? Are we going to go war if/when China makes Japan their protectorate? I doubt it. Maybe, years from now, the United States ends up paying tribute to China, but I wouldn't expect that Chinese officials will establish offices in the U.S. to tell us what to do.'

'... the Chinese [free-market] economy is mostly operative at the level of the bazaar. The larger industrial and financial institutions are still in grasp of a centralized command-and-control environment with the Chinese communist party and, to a lesser extent, the Chinese military at the top. The economic distortions of the real-estate market must run all the way up the foodchain. Chinese leaders want the Chinese population itself to fill the purchasing vacuum left by Western collapse. We frankly wonder if this feasible. We don't see the communists as able to turn China into an American-style consumer society overnight. If they cannot, then the unwinding may happen sooner rather than later. Once the country enters into an industrial downturn, all the rest of the distortions – especially in banking and other Western-style emergent enterprises such as various Chinese stock markets – shall be revealed.'

'And then there is the Chinese property bubble, with the Telegraph article saying the following: Meanwhile, China Daily reports that 70pc of all flats in Hainan, 66pc in Beijing, and 51pc in Shanghai are empty, based on a survey of electricity use. They are presumably owned by investors and speculators. It was something I observed first hand whilst living in China and reported in this blog a couple of years ago. The reason why the apartments are left empty is that Chinese people will pay a premium for an apartment that has had no occupants. This is the reason why they lie empty, rather than being rented out. Of course, had they been rented, then the investment bubble would have popped, as declining rents through excess supply would have (at least eventually) offered a market signal. Thus a peculiarity of the Chinese market has translated into a massive bubble.' -- !!!

'The municipalities sell the land to developers and pocket the fee—which often goes directly into the pockets of the officials themselves. This kind of aggressive mercantilism is most damaging to the credibility of the state. We are not surprised. We've written many times in the past that China's "market-oriented" economy is nothing of the sort at the top where decisions are made. Western news media has generally reported on the Chinese industrial miracle with a certain amount of breathlessness and a good deal less scrutiny. Now suddenly we are sensing a shift—a sub-dominant social theme in the making, if you will to accompany the one elucidated at the beginning of this article: "The China miracle is over—and we report this sorrowfully but objectively." Yes, the over-riding objective may be to buttress Western media credibility at a time when it is likely at or near an all-time low. Presumably, the elite does not want to have to explain a similar lack of awareness as regards China.'

(Commented. Is fiat money inflation a meme the Bell and many others have fallen prey to by way of lazy Austrian Economics/Goldbug dogma?)

'...the current Western approach to China seems to us to have presented a dominant or sub-dominant social theme of sorts – that the "Chinese have found a way to marry state efficiencies to the power of the free-market to create formidable, world class results." How does such a theme benefit the power elite, which is has been intent for the last century on advancing global governance? By making the argument that China has beat the West at its own "free-market" game with a more authoritarian brand of market-commerce, the elite can justify further public/private approaches to industrial competition. Justifications for the elite's favored form of business activity – mercantilism – is advanced and even celebrated within this context. It casts an unfortunately favorable light on the manipulation of public power for private gain. -- Austrian economics shows us quite clearly that wealth is created by individuals via human action, not state action.'

'A shop has opened in China that’s filled with furniture, cutlery and electronics -- not for sale, but to be smashed, beaten and destroyed by frustration-venting women. With a “No Men” sign at the door, the shop is designed to look like a typical Chinese home... Most of the customers so far have been white collar workers and university students, disgruntled to the point of reckless television destruction by the economy and luckless job hunting.'

'A shop has opened in China that’s filled with furniture, cutlery and electronics -- not for sale, but to be smashed, beaten and destroyed by frustration-venting women. With a “No Men” sign at the door, the shop is designed to look like a typical Chinese home... Most of the customers so far have been white collar workers and university students, disgruntled to the point of reckless television destruction by the economy and luckless job hunting.'

'...the Western elite is truly supra-national and derives its wealth from an increasingly global network of multi-national corporations... GM, for instance, is said to be selling more cars in China than America. ...from the point of view of an international elite, it doesn't much matter whether China or America are in the ascendant. It matters only to the WORKERS of those countries. The elite does not necessarily have a vested interest in the success of one region or country, nor does it pledge allegiance to any flag. But the powers-that-be certainly do have an investment in the larger global SYSTEM. And we believe for many reasons that the elite is quite fearful of any kind of catastrophic collapse. Everything possible will be done to avoid one. Yes, people in the West will be made to suffer through austerity, but the idea is to spread out the pain [to avoid] some sort of sociopolitical revolution. But the elite has its work cut out for it. This is a most challenging time.'

'Paradoxically, tens if not hundreds of millions of workers and investors including investment professionals are walking around these days with their fingers crossed hoping that the old men who run the Chinese government will engineer what Keynesians call a soft landing. Consider the irony of the situation! The same leadership was involved in the repression at Tiananmen Square and more recently endless attempts at building an effective Chinese Internet firewall. But it is now seen as the last, best hope of the Western world (by mainstream media anyway) for salvaging the West's collective economy from the ravages of the dreaded "double dip." If and when China blows, it may blow up hard. For now, the country looks solid and the civil and judicial repressions that China practices look like business-as-usual. What will 1.3 billion Chinese do if confronted with the realization that their economy is not nearly so solid as it seems, but is in fact a Western-style financial bubble?'

'Distant Voices suggests that telecommunications exist because Normans had stirrups for horse riding which in turn led them to further advancements in warfare.'

'"Right now China, the government, can disconnect parts of its Internet in case of war and we need to have that here too," Lieberman said during a CNN interview. China – the new touchstone. China – the new point of reference. China the lodestar – around which all other western democracies revolve. The Chinese model, if we can call it that, is merely a more corporatized-cum-statist version of the West's regulatory democracy. If one projects the trends of the current Western status quo, one might be tempted to conclude that China is the destination. Likewise, if China continues to "evolve," then its destination is irredeemably that of Western Europe or the United States. There is not that much separating these three "super states" – shades of George Orwell, of course. The Leviathan is alive and well in the West and certainly in China. Those who believe in the idea of a libertarian, resurgent China are falling for a kind of "myth-making" in our opinion. Heck, call it a promotion.'

'The menacingly-named Human Flesh Search Engine has made headlines around the world, but it remains largely misunderstood and its deeper implications unexplored. Daedalum Films examines the origins of this Chinese Internet phenomenon, dissects its most dramatic cases, and asks the question: "what can the Human Flesh Search Engine tell us about modern China?"' -- 'The Context: Confucian righteousness ("A lot of the time, people dont't believe in government, so they want to do it themselves.") and liitle need of, or respect for, privacy.

'The menacingly-named Human Flesh Search Engine has made headlines around the world, but it remains largely misunderstood and its deeper implications unexplored. Daedalum Films examines the origins of this Chinese Internet phenomenon, dissects its most dramatic cases, and asks the question: "what can the Human Flesh Search Engine tell us about modern China?"' -- InternetToughGuy: "Strip him down to his flesh!" -- Srs Bidniz: People rewarded with virtual currency for crowdsourced entertainment trivia/treasure hunts/searches. "And then netizens began posting more 'personal' search topics. The Human Flesh Search Engine would soon move on not to just explosing the offense, but the offenders themselves." -- What's next? Scary Version: Casino Gulag Stasi self-surveillance snitching CRIMESTOP. Positive Version: Local community immune systems: error handling/intelligence gathering/dispute resolution. Amorphous/Amoral Version: Hair-trigger Stand Alone Complex copycat vigilantism for teh lulz.

'Human Flesh Search (Chinese: 人肉搜索; pinyin: Rénròu Sōusuǒ) is a primarily Chinese internet phenomenon of massive researching using Internet media such as blogs and forums for the purpose of identifying and exposing individuals to public humiliation, usually out of Chinese nationalistic sentiment, or to break the Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China. It is based on massive human collaboration. The name refers both to the use of knowledge contributed by human beings through social networking, as well as the fact that the searches are usually dedicated to finding the identity of a human being who has committed some sort of offense or social breach online. People conducting such research are commonly referred to collectively as "Human Flesh Search Engines"' -- Rage-directed cognitive surplus?

'Our feeling in all this is that the Chinese people, even more than the Europeans, are at the end of their collective rope. Once it is clear that the party has failed yet again, once the economy begins to sputter and the fragile prosperity is put at risk, we cannot imagine how the apparatchiks of the Communist party will survive. They have been in power too long. They have been arrogant, contemptuous, murderous and finally shown themselves (in their desperation to cling to power) to be entirely without principles, even Communist ones. "Whatever works," they have told the Chinese people, "so long as we stay here and you remain there." But if by chance it doesn't work, the contract is fractured and the conversation is kaput. It's been 60 years. No more chances. We don't know when the "third shoe" will drop. Having the current fate of Western economies resting on the shoulders of Communist leaders is certainly ironic. It could end in tears.'

"The US had been borrowing against the growth of the illegal/criminal/terror economy [as the terrorists increasingly demanded more laundered dollars] so it was actually borrowing against the growth of its own 'enemies'. The Patriot Act was in reality a money laundering legislation. The Patriot Act completely changed how money flowed from one country to another country and simply shifted the epicenter of this [money laundering] activity from the US to Europe. How did the US fund its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan [since the money laundering was no longer going on inside the US economy and so the government wasn't benefiting from seigniorage]? It sold government bonds in the international markets [and cut interest rates from 6% to 1.2%]. This is the time we find the bubble of subprime inflating. That is the link we find between terrorism and the economic crisis. The country that paid $4tr to bankroll the wars was China."

'Completion Date: 2014. Strategic Impact: ESPO has the impact of tying China into its strategic partnership with Russia as it draws more from its neighbor's energy reserves. If Japan remains out of the equation, it may serve to bolster the China-Russia partnership, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization they both lead, and continue to ostracize US allied Japan.'

'The most successful F2P games (monetization-wise) in China all give their paying customers HUGE advantages. Rich people lead poor people to fight with other rich people via clans. It is much better than rich people killing poor people all the time. Creates a highly dynamic social system with better balancing. Maybe this is popular in China. Apparently people there will pay money for it. Perhaps when they want to escape from their day-to-day lives in an oppressive centralized regime, that's what they fantasize about: being peasants forced to fight for a brutal overlord, in an oppressive decentralized regime. As if all this weren't depressing enough, Mr. Ye explains how game designers can make money out of hate and humiliation in social environments: Conflicts are good. Conflicts make the game world more energetic and live. More importantly, conflicts trigger emotions. When people are emotionally unstable, they are more likely to make purchases. Is this what game design has come to?'

'WMR has learned from Asian intelligence sources that there is a strong belief in some Asian countries, particularly China and Thailand, that the website Wikileaks, which purports to publish classified and sensitive documents while guaranteeing anonymity to the providers, is linked to U.S. cyber-warfare and computer espionage operations, as well as to Mossad's own cyber-warfare activities. Our Asian intelligence sources report the following: "Wikileaks is running a disinformation campaign, crying persecution by U.S. intelligence when it is U.S. intelligence itself. [Wikileaks'] activities in Iceland are totally suspect." Wikileaks claims it is the victim of a new COINTELPRO [Counter Intelligence Program] operation directed by the Pentagon and various U.S. intelligence agencies. WMR's sources believe that it is Wikileaks that is part and parcel of a cyber-COINTELPRO campaign, such as that proposed by President Obama's "information czar," Dr. Cass Sunstein.'

Squanderville and Thriftville: 'Over time Thriftville accumulates an enormous amount of Squanderbonds, which at their core represent claim checks on the future output of Squanderville. A few pundits in Squanderville smell trouble coming. But the residents of Squanderville are in no mood to listen to such doomsaying. Meanwhile, the citizens of Thriftville begin to get nervous. So the Thrifts change strategy: Though they continue to hold some bonds, they sell most of them to Squanderville residents for Squanderbucks and use the proceeds to buy Squanderville land. And eventually the Thrifts own all of Squanderville. At that point, the Squanders are forced to deal with an ugly equation: They must now not only return to working eight hours a day in order to eat—they have nothing left to trade—but must also work additional hours to service their debt and pay Thriftville rent on the land so imprudently sold. In effect, Squanderville has been colonized by purchase rather than conquest.'

"The entire U.S. strategic position is beginning to crumble, worldwide."

'Ah, the new terms—illegal land use and land hording! This is analogous in our opinion to the term "predatory lending" aimed especially at mortgage brokers in America who used high-pressure sales tactics to supposedly force individuals to buy expensive houses. The fault of course is with the monetary system itself, not the poor salespeople caught up in its inexorable tidal pull. But since the fiat-money/central banking mechanism that causes the problems in the first place cannot be mentioned, or identified as the culprit (for political reasons) the blame will [be passed on]. -- When one gets to a point where the only way to control price inflation is by banning purchases then it is probably already too late. One can, perhaps, puncture the boom psychology, but the result is then inevitably a bust. The power elite in the West, for a variety of reasons, has wanted to pretend that China is a "free-market" success story. But this dominant social theme is beginning to unravel.'

'...we believe there is some validity to this argument. In fact, we've tried to make the point that the easy destruction of the Internet by the powers that be, like the all-powerful nature of the power elite itself, is a dominant social theme, a promotion of sorts. If you can (through promotional means) convince people that the forces attempting to run the world are so mighty that no change is possible, well, that's half the battle right there—if you're part of the elite anyway. Discourage people from trying to change their lot by issuing frightening books such as 1984 (George Orwell was a member of the British Secret Service) or set up websites that constantly harp on the implacability of an upcoming "one world empire" and you've gone some distance to intimidate people and discourage dissension. The Internet is in collision with almost every dominant social theme the power elite has developed recently.' -- Speculation on Orwell's fabianism inside. He was a society-ist not a socialist.

'We have a world which seems familiar consisting of the remnants of the old failed system, and a new economic structure that will form in the distance. The US at this time does not have a strategy, public policy, physical resources, or infrastructure to be well positioned for the new world we are moving into. Instead we have corporate grabs for money from manipulated government programs spanning from our prison system, healthcare, transportation, and finance. What happens when purchasing power between currencies adjust to levels that realistically reflect future prospects and positioning.'

'Searches have been directed against all kinds of people, including cheating spouses, corrupt government officials, amateur pornography makers, Chinese citizens who are perceived as unpatriotic, journalists who urge a moderate stance on Tibet and rich people who try to game the Chinese system. Human-flesh searches highlight what people are willing to fight for: the political issues, polarizing events and contested moral standards that are the fault lines of contemporary China.' -- InternetToughGuy: “Kill him." -- 'The human-flesh search engine can also serve as a safety valve in a society with ever mounting pressures on the government. “You can’t stop the anger, can’t make everyone shut up, can’t stop the Internet, so you try and channel it as best you can. You try and manage it, kind of like a waterworks hydroelectric project,” MacKinnon explained. “It’s a great way to divert the qi, the anger, to places where it’s the least damaging to the central government’s legitimacy.”'

'Dominant Social Theme: Technocratic management of the economy is necessary. Conclusion: Two memes, both in difficulties. The Western power elite has spent a good deal of time and energy promoting the idea that nations need to be run by a handful of efficient technocrats who can act quickly and properly utilize the awesome money-printing power of the central bank. But the trouble with central banking and fiat money is that it eventually reaches a place where more stimulation is extremely difficult to come by. The money that greases the promotional wheels begins to dry up. And the promotional mechanisms themselves begin to buckle and seize – especially in the Internet era. The dominant social promotions that were the Chinese Miracle and the European Union are both foundering. They may be salvageable. What if they are not?'

'In 2010, we’re beginning to see what could become a larger and quite interesting trend: Chinese developers moving into western markets via Facebook, and even some western Facebook game developers beginning to move into China. The trade routes for virtual goods exports are picking up. Despite their absence to date, we’ve been hearing more rumors lately of China’s gaming giants preparing to put “large amounts” of capital into establishing a presence on the Facebook Platform – in some cases, over $50 million. “Who else is going to challenge Zynga?,” one industry veteran says. -- Restaurants in Taiwan are giving out coupons for virtual currency in Facebook games to attract customers.' -- Neo colonisation via social networking games. Crazy but true.

'People in 19th century Europe would look to America and say "what kind of place is this?" So, China is going to have situations like that. -- Once you give politicians the monopoly money right, then they can do what they please. Look at what Roosevelt did in 1933, and what Nixon did when he abandoned gold. If I had my way people could use whatever they wanted as money. If you and I make a deal and I offer you seashells for whatever and you accept them then fine, that's what we use for money. Eventually the great mass will figure out what they want to use for money and they will do so. You know only until 80 or 90 years ago in the UK, you could use all kinds of money, many different kinds of money. Bank issued money, guineas, but then when the depression came, British politicians passed a law making it an act of treason to use anything except paper pounds sterling, paper money as legal tender. Britain has been a basket case since.'

Meet the Buddha; Kill the Buddha -- 'The current Dalai Lama attempted to lead an insurrection against Chinese rule in 1959, which was supported by the oppressive feudal nobility of Tibet, but failed because it had little appeal to the former serfs and slaves who made up about 80% of Tibetan society. Tibet under the Dalai Lama was a country where 200 wealthy families held 93% of the wealth, while the masses were so poor and downtrodden that the population was declining. During the 1960s, the CIA gave several million dollars a year to the Dalai Lama’s court, with the Dalai Lama personally getting more than $180,000 per year from the US taxpayer. Today, the Dalai Lama’s court in northern India is the home of a gaggle of reactionary Tibetan aristocrats supported by $2 million per year from that same US taxpayer. It is time to defund the Dalai Lama, stop interfering in China’s internal affairs and foreign commerce, and engage Beijing in realistic diplomacy.'

'Our President can, with the wave of a pen, reduce our outstanding Federal Debt by a trillion dollars. He can issue an executive order that declares that every bond the Chinese Government holds is worthless. What are you going to do about it? You don't seem to have any of these: ' -- <haha>Jingoism</haha> -- 'Face the facts you blubbering bags of pus: '

'China has privatized in numerous ways, but most of the privatization has taken place in the arena of fruit markets and taxicab stands. ...when one examines who controls Western money stuff, and the mercantilist interactions generally between Western banking interests and their nominal governments, it becomes fairly obvious that a small group of men are fairly well in charge just as in China. Yes, we would argue that the Western system at this point in time is not much "freer" than the Chinese system in terms of the end result. Control the production of money and you have created a top-down, controlled economy, whether one wishes to admit it or not. -- China is an integral part of the world scene right now, yet its economy is in a sense as rigid and backwards as the USSR's once was. Paper money printing is merely covering up this unpleasant fact. ...sooner or later, those in charge of the printing presses will discover they've pushed too far.'

'Google is now in an open cooperation with the NSA, in order to counter China cyber attacks. Many other Silicon Valley companies have turned to the NSA in order to protect themselves from hackers from China and other nations. Webster Tarpley says that although Google has not been open to the government in the past, the reason it exists is due in part to the government.' -- In-Q-Tel

'Although whichever country [America or China] collapses first will immediately find itself at an obvious disadvantage vis à vis the other, that advantage is likely to be short-lived. Unlike the collapse of the USSR, the collapse of either USA or China will devastate the other, with major repercussions for the other major economies. There will be no country left standing that will be capable of effecting an economic rescue. The collapse of either USA or China will trigger the collapse of the other, marking a permanent, global transition to a new state. -- Since collapse is unavoidable, the obvious fall-back strategy would be to invest in local resiliency and self-sufficiency. Since neither government appears the least bit interested in such matters, it is time for us to recognize them for what they are to us: utterly irrelevant. Paying attention to national politics can only distract us from doing whatever we can as individuals and local communities.'

'When the British Empire was replaced by the American Empire as the new, dominant economy, the entire world was on a gold-standard – preventing the sort of insane accumulations of debt, and reckless money-printing which characterizes the global economy today. There has never been a scenario where the global economy has attempted a transition from fiat currencies back to a gold standard. Given that such transitions never go smoothly when even a single economy has made such a move, significant economic disruptions are a certainty. -- ...once such a transition was announced, the consequences would be obvious. Given a choice between holding “fiat” U.S. dollars - “backed” by nothing but a bankrupt U.S. economy – and gold-backed renminbi, we would witness an economic stampede of Biblical proportions.'

'China is willing to take whatever “hit” that it must on the dollars which it is holding (through currency swaps), because it is effectively “sterilizing” global trade from the cancerous effect of the biggest flood of greenbacks in history (and the horrific inflation they would cause). -- The second aspect of China's monetary campaign is to improve the “backing” of the renminbi through a “hard asset”: gold—instead of the worthless paper of Western bankers. Indeed, this is clearly the favorite means of China's government to rid itself of dollars—by swapping them for gold. Now, every time the anti-gold cabal drives down the price of gold a few percent, the Chinese government steps in, buys the cheap gold, and rids itself of unwanted dollars. -- With the renminbi taking over as “reserve currency” and with it rising in value against other currencies, suddenly the renminbi becomes the vehicle for all economies to rid themselves of U.S.-imported inflation (through the use of the dollar).'

'Newspapers report that coal bosses, driven out of business by a nationalisation campaign, are caught in bidding wars for gold mines instead. "People are running around with bags of cash to buy the right to exploit gold as soon as possible," Liu Jun, a former coal boss from Zhejiang, told the Xinmin Evening Post.

'This means no more Chinese access to our networks. It means no more purchases of Chinese goods. It means no more Chinese anything. And it means DEMANDING that the United States Treasury VOID all Chinese-held Treasury Debt as liquidated damages for the theft of our military secrets and civilian intellectual property. From this American to China: SCREW YOU.'

'Parents have always worried about the pernicious impact of youth culture, whether from comic books, rock and roll, or videogames. But in China’s rigid, hypercompetitive society, the Internet explosion represents more than a disciplinary annoyance. It is seen as an existential threat. And that helps explain why treating kids with supposed Internet addiction has become a national obsession. -- ...the rhetoric around Internet addiction grew even more hysterical: The Net was not just a public-health hazard but a national-security risk. In 2006, the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League openly fretted about a “severe social problem that could threaten the nation’s future” and called Internet cafés “hotbeds of juvenile crime and depravity.” Official figures claimed that the Internet was responsible for up to 80 percent of high school and college dropouts and most juvenile crimes. A show on state-run television described the fight against Internet addiction as the Third Opium War.'

'Google, by implying that Beijing had sponsored the attack, has placed itself in the center of an international controversy, exposing what appears to be a state-sponsored corporate espionage campaign that compromised more than 30 technology, financial and media companies, most of them global Fortune 500 enterprises. The U.S. government is taking the attack seriously. Late Tuesday, the U.S. Secretary of State, released a statement asking the Chinese government to explain itself, saying that Google's allegations "raise very serious concerns and questions." -- [China] has been taking steps to spur innovation within its borders, pressuring multinational companies to build research labs in China and developing the talent to eventually replace these businesses with indigenous competitors. "If you're having trouble [innovating] or if you want to prime the pump, the best way is to go out and steal cutting-edge IP."'

'Michael Ruppert gives a lecture of Zbigniew Brzezingski's 1997 book: The Grand Chessboard. -- "The most immediate task is to make certain that no state of combination of states gains the capacity to expel the United States from Eurasia or even to diminish significantly its global arbitration role." (p.198) -- "In the long run, global politics are bound to become increasingly uncongenial to the concentration of hegemonic power in the hands of a single state. Hence, America is not only the first, as well as the only, truly global superpower, but it is also likely to be the last." (p.209)'

'Michael Ruppert gives a lecture of Zbigniew Brzezingski's 1997 book: The Grand Chessboard. "Abuot 75% of the world's people live in Eurasia, and most the the world's physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil." (p.32) -- "...the three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependance among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep barbarians from coming together." (p.40)'

“Bubbles are best identified by credit excesses, not valuation excesses. And there’s no bigger credit excess than in China.” -- Most economists and governments expect Chinese growth momentum to continue this year, buoyed by what remains of a $586 billion government stimulus program that began last year, meant to lift exports and consumption among Chinese consumers. -- ...betting against China will not be easy. Because foreigners are restricted from investing in stocks listed inside China, Mr. Chanos has said he is searching for other ways to make his [short sale] bets, including focusing on construction- and infrastructure-related companies that sell cement, coal, steel and iron ore. -- ...many analysts now say that money, along with huge foreign inflows of “speculative capital,” has been funneled into the stock and real estate markets.' -- Government spending = malinvestment = asset bubble(s) = inevitable correction = obvious short sale. This isn't rocket science.

'#Russia's slick oil pipeline will change world economy: Over the next few days, on Russia's Far Eastern coast, something will happen that will profoundly impact global politics, diplomacy and the future shape of the world economy. -- ...a major new pipeline, connecting Russia's Eastern Siberian oil fields with fast-growing Asian markets, not least China. -- Russia is now the leading crude producer on the planet. Factor in gas exports and the Bear is the world's biggest energy supplier by far... Russia's existing energy export pipelines point West – and are focused on supplying Europe. But that's about to change. ESPO is what political strategists might call a "game-changer". It means Russia will be able to send its oil either east or west – so can drive a harder bargain when selling crude to Europe. -- I'm still amazed that what's happening in Russia's Far East – not least ESPO and the Russia-China energy link-up – isn't headline news in the West.'

'In one of the most important events in all of Asian history, either the Ming dynasty or the Yuan dynasty seized control of mainland China during the eighth, 12th, or maybe even the third century. "The rise of one of these two dynasties, at the turn of whatever time it was, ushered in a bold new age of either unity, feudal infighting, or perhaps both," said historian Robert Grossman, who has devoted his career to parsing out China's incredibly rich and convoluted history.'

Proxy war: exporting the Afghan ethnic civil war to Pakistan to prevent a non-dollar resource corridor between Iran and India/China.

Weak currency, lack of basic welfare, etc '...there’s another obstacle to Chinese consumers becoming engines of economic growth: many workers just don’t make enough money. While the country’s boom has been extraordinary, ordinary workers have not reaped the gains one might expect. In the past decade, in fact, the share of G.D.P. that goes to wages has actually fallen, while the share that goes to profits has risen. Although the prevailing image of China is one of labor-intensive factories, with lots of workers toiling away on antiquated machinery, much investment has gone instead into factories and projects that are capital-intensive, which create fewer jobs. So while the pie has been growing rapidly, the share that goes to individual households has shrunk.'

$800bn in CHANGE!!!

'...Mr. Medvedev called for China, Russia and India to “build an increasingly multipolar world order.” What this means in plain English is: We have reached our limit in subsidizing the United States’ military encirclement of Eurasia while also allowing the US to appropriate our exports, companies, stocks and real estate in exchange for paper money of questionable worth. As matters stand, they see the United States as a lawless nation, financially as well as militarily. How else to characterize a nation that holds out a set of laws for others – on war, debt repayment and treatment of prisoners – but ignores them itself? America has become a deadbeat – and indeed, a militarily aggressive one as it seeks to hold onto the unique power it once earned by economic means. The problem is how to constrain its behavior. -- US officials wanted to attend the Yekaterinburg meeting as observers. They were told No. It is a word that Americans will hear much more in the future.'

India and China aren't falling for the global government's carbon tax scam: 'In a significant move, the two countries have agreed to coordinate their views on different aspects of climate change before every major international meeting on the subject. These conclusions reached between Ramesh and Xie are expected to be spelt out in the form of an agreement in the coming days. Both countries want to negotiate with the West for higher levels of financial assistance and technology transfer in return for promises to do their best to tackle environmental problems. China remains committed to the principal of "common but differentiated responsibilities" of developed and developing nations, Ramesh said. But they would not agree to any legal binding on reducing emission norms because it would come in the way of their development goals.' -- Yeah, give us your technology for free if you want to (but stuff your tax scams where the sunspots don't shine—suckers!)

Pretty shocking, yet ...