The SEC alleges that GS committed fraud by not informing investors that the "3rd party objective manager" who cherry-picked the assets that were packaged in the CDO was at the same time betting against the very assets he picked.
That, and recorded conf calls show that GS analysts as trying to convince rating agencies to inflate the ratings of the underlying assets in the CDO.
I'm a big fan of MLK. He once said "the arch of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice"
You could argue that this applies to China. Change is long and slow, but there is progress being made. The situation today, even with its restrictions, is 100x better than it was 10, 20, 30 years ago. There is little reason to believe that it won't continue to improve.
The middle class is growing, people are increasingly more educated, these two things are major ingredients for democracy.
Why I think you're use of his Letter From Birmingham Jail is a "bullshit passionate appeal" is because the context that his letter was written in and the current Chinese climate are two different beasts.
Are my points that off? I'm surprised by how much opposition I've incurred on HN. The points I've raised and the arguments I've made are not radical. They are in fact widely accepted / endorsed by the majority of China scholars in the west.
In India... Caste systems are still the norm, the government is as corrupt if not more so than Chinese. Millions and millions still languish in poverty. Crime is higher!
China is worse in regards to suppressing free speech and political dissidents. Everything else; poverty, crime, development India either lags or is just as bad.
Dude. Has China opened up in the last 30 years? Is life better for the average Chinese? Has society not been more liberalized?
Tell me how China can democratize today without massive social upheaval? Tell me how this can be accomplished without throwing millions of Chinese back into poverty?
Thats the problem. China has 1.3 billion fucking people! The institutions in place are as fragile as the CCP (very). All sorts of social problems are on the verge ALL THE TIME of bubbling over.
Tell me how China can transition in the short-term before giving me these bullshit passionate appeals of "freedom" and "democracy".
Soundbytes sound GREAT. I personally LOVE them, but they add LITTLE to this debate.
I'm not sure your boat analogy applies in the world of economics.
Many nations have the ingredients for a robust economy; skilled labor, an abundance of resources, etc. but that doesn't guarantee anything.
A more apt analogy would be cooking. Simply having the right ingredients and throwing them in a pot won't magically transform them into a delicious dish. It takes a skilled chef to elevate individual ingredients to a combined dish.
There is a reason the Chinese economy has grown unchecked for the past 20+ years, surviving this recession and the 1997 asian financial crisis, while comparable economies took dives.
I could write paragraphs on why China's economic growth can be contributed to CCP policy but frankly there is enough documentation readily available on the web - much of it written by western academics.
To start, you can read about CCP policies on SEZs, exchange rate, NPL reform (once 20% of its total loan portfolio!!!), and its huge investments in green tech. The last of which is so much smarter than what our representatives in government are doing here in the states.
The majority of their policies I think would support this. If anything, the CCP is willing to give short-term concessions if it will guarantee long-term success.
This is not so-much the case now as China has more to bring to the bargaining table. But if you look at China's trade policies in the 80s and 90s they were very accommodating to western demands, even if it put China in a weaker position.
what i find surprising is that only those users with high karma points can downvote.
excluding those who've racked up points through submissions, the theory goes that high karma points = thoughtful poster.
thoughtful posters should thus realize that China is a country of 1.3 billion people, which highly highly complicates EVERYTHING.
Frankly, compared to the other 1 bln + country, I think China has done a remarkable job. Even if you just focus on the HR record, China is comparable to India, if not exceeding it.
This is certainly not the popular conventional view.
For the most part, the CCP and their decisions have been largely credited for China's stellar growth.
If you've ever been to China you'll quickly see why. If the government wants something done, its done. Case in point: 2008 Olympics, special economic zones, foreign exchange rate policies, etc.
Before kaifang (opening), China was ass-backwards. The CCP's sole claim to legitimacy is a bizzare positive-negative re-enforcement of two points:
1. Negative: China has been bullied by the world until the CCP came in
2. Positive: China is now an economic power because of CCP policies
The CPP uses these two points to bolster each other in linking CCP directly with nationalism so that pro-China = pro-ccp.
There are civic groups in China, many in fact. The government has even been tolerant, to a degree, to advocacy groups.
I think for a smooth transition, China needs to uplift its rural population. The urbanites are largely ready for democracy, but outside of a handful of cities the rest of the country simply do not have the institutions, social experience, etc to support a working transparent free-market democracy.
But how should the transition even begin? By repealing all internet censorship laws?
Most people don't realize that every day the situation in China improves for the better. Even the stiffling hukou system that you allude to has been slowly weakened over the years.
In regards to your last sentence I'm not quite sure what you mean. I took it to mean that the social ideas of justice and law are different in China, of which I would tend to agree.
West = rule of law. China = rule by law.
Frankly I think Chinese society is just not ready for democracy. There is simply no civic society.
Why is it that you believe the CCP's decisions are terrible?
At the meta level, China has outpaced everyone in the past twenty years in regards to growth and development.
Among the senior CCP leaders, I imagine most if not all, acknowledge that an open, capitalistic democracy is inevitable. Their job is to grow the country to the point where the transition to said democracy is peaceful and smooth.
No China analyst worth his salt will argue that China is ready for this transition today....
I work for one of these consulting companies. If you wan't to write code, steer far away.
Most likely, they'll staff you in some project management role where you're working with the client to manage a team of developers and/or a workstream consisting of individual projects.
If you have experience with scaling applications and IT architecture, you'll be staffed on IT Assessment and Architecture design projects - very likely with a large insurance company looking to consolidate all their various legacy systems.
Also Empire29 is right, to a degree, that these firms aren't thought-leaders. Clients are very risk-adverse and are wary of too new technologies. Plus most of the time their choices are limited to the technologies they've already invested into and/or skillsets among their staff.
Working for one of those firms will however, give you experience and exposure to the business side of things. Some HNers trivialize these areas, but I've found just seeing how a big organization is run - good and the bad - has been pretty useful. Regardless of how talented you are as a hacker, very likely somewhere in your career - be it with Google or at startup - you'll have to engage and interact with the suits and experience with a consulting firm would give you a good background to do so with ease.
It is. Reducing China's dependency on Coal is a huge priority for both China and the international community. It was a big point of discussion during last year's talks at Copenhagen.
That, and recorded conf calls show that GS analysts as trying to convince rating agencies to inflate the ratings of the underlying assets in the CDO.