[silk] The $1.4 Trillion Question
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/print/200801/fallows-chinese-dollars
The $1.4 Trillion Question
Stephen Schwarzman may think he has image problems in America. He is
the co-founder and CEO of the Blackstone Group, and he threw himself a
$3 million party for his 60th birthday last spring, shortly before
making many hundreds of millions of dollars in his company's IPO and
finding clever ways to avoid paying taxes. That's nothing compared
with the way he looks in China. Here, he and his company are
surprisingly well known, thanks to blogs, newspapers, and talk-show
references. In America, Schwarzman's perceived offense is greed—a sin
we readily forgive and forget. In China, the suspicion is that he has
somehow hoodwinked ordinary Chinese people out of their hard-earned
cash.
Last June, China's Blackstone investment was hailed in the American
press as a sign of canny sophistication. It seemed just the kind of
thing the U.S. government had in mind when it hammered China to use
its new wealth as a "responsible stakeholder" among nations. By
putting $3 billion of China's national savings into the initial public
offering of America's best-known private-equity firm, the Chinese
government allied itself with a big-time Western firm without raising
political fears by trying to buy operating control (it bought only 8
percent of Blackstone's shares, and nonvoting shares at that). The
contrast with the Japanese and Saudis, who in their nouveau-riche
phase roused irritation and envy with their showy purchases of Western
brand names and landmark properties, was plain.
Six months later, it didn't look so canny, at least not financially.
China's Blackstone holdings lost, on paper, about $1 billion, during a
time when the composite index of the Shanghai Stock Exchange was
soaring. At two different universities where I've spoken recently,
students have pointed out that Schwarzman was a major Republican
donor. A student at Fudan University knew a detail I didn't: that in
2007 President Bush attended a Republican National Committee
fund-raiser at Schwarzman's apartment in Manhattan (think what he
would have made of the fact that Schwarzman, who was one year behind
Bush at Yale, had been a fellow member of Skull and Bones). Wasn't the
whole scheme a way to take money from the Chinese people and give it
to the president's crony?
The Blackstone case is titillating in its personal detail, but it is
also an unusually clear and personalized symptom of a deeper, less
publicized, and potentially much more destructive tension in
U.S.–China relations. It's not just Stephen Schwarzman's company that
the laobaixing, the ordinary Chinese masses, have been subsidizing.
It's everyone in the United States.
Through the quarter-century in which China has been opening to world
trade, Chinese leaders have deliberately held down living standards
for their own people and propped them up in the United States. This is
the real meaning of the vast trade surplus—$1.4 trillion and counting,
going up by about $1 billion per day—that the Chinese government has
mostly parked in U.S. Treasury notes. In effect, every person in the
(rich) United States has over the past 10 years or so borrowed about
$4,000 from someone in the (poor) People's Republic of China. Like so
many imbalances in economics, this one can't go on indefinitely, and
therefore won't. But the way it ends—suddenly versus gradually, for
predictable reasons versus during a panic—will make an enormous
difference to the U.S. and Chinese economies over the next few years,
to say nothing of bystanders in Europe and elsewhere.
Any economist will say that Americans have been living better than
they should—which is by definition the case when a nation's total
consumption is greater than its total production, as America's now is.
Economists will also point out that, despite the glitter of China's
big cities and the rise of its billionaire class, China's people have
been living far worse than they could. That's what it means when a
nation consumes only half of what it produces, as China does.
Neither government likes to draw attention to this arrangement,
because it has been so convenient on both sides. For China, it has
helped the regime guide development in the way it would like—and keep
the domestic economy's growth rate from crossing the thin line that
separates "unbelievably fast" from "uncontrollably inflationary." For
America, it has meant cheaper iPods, lower interest rates, reduced
mortgage payments, a lighter tax burden. But because of political
tensions in both countries, and because of the huge and growing size
of the imbalance, the arrangement now shows signs of cracking apart.
In an article two and a half years ago ("Countdown to a Meltdown,"
July/August 2005), I described an imagined future in which a
real-estate crash and shakiness in the U.S. credit markets led to
panic by Chinese and other foreign investors, with unpleasant effects
for years to come. The real world has recent
Re: [silk] OpenBravo anyone?
Take a look at Opentaps (www.opentaps.org), based on Apache's OFBiz. Opentaps is a much better ERP system and I recommend it to all my clients. Venkat Bharath Chari wrote: Hi, Has anyone on the list implemented Openbravo ERP in a production environment? Was looking at it as an alternative to Compiere. Bharath
[silk] QotD
Someone who tells be that they believe P=NP, despite lacking a proof of this, gets no respect from me. That doesn't change, if it later turns out they were right. Given any binary proposition, one of the coins in my pocket will predict it correctly. -Russell Turpin
[silk] OpenBravo anyone?
Hi, Has anyone on the list implemented Openbravo ERP in a production environment? Was looking at it as an alternative to Compiere. Bharath
Re: [silk] Where to buy an unlocked iPhone?
On Jan 12, 2008 11:28 PM, Thaths <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Jan 12, 2008 9:30 AM, Aditya Chadha <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > The unlock is _fairly_ easy, especially with [2] and [3]. > > > > [1] http://www.tuaw.com/2007/11/09/iphone-elite-1-1-2-jailbroken/ > > [2] http://jailbreakme.com/ > > [3] > > http://www.iphoneatlas.com/2007/10/16/anysim-graphical-unlock-for-111-iphones-released-instructions-for-installing/ > > Ah! Thanks for those links. I was under the incorrect assumption that > I needed to sign up with AT&T even before I left the Apple store. I > now understand that I buy a phone, walk home and am supposed to sign > up with AT&T from the privacy of my home. I intend to use my home for > other purposes. Just make sure you can actually unlock the 1.1.2 phone before you buy it. Last time I checked, there were no confirmed hacks available. Even the links above have some caveats mentioned. The unlock.no[1] site is a good place to start. It still maintains that phones shipping with 1.1.2 pre-installed (as opposed to those which have been upgraded to 1.1.2) cannot be unlocked right now. I know a couple of people at work who have the new 1.1.2 phones which they have not been able to unlock for phone calls. Everything else (WIFI, etc.) work fine. Venky, the Second. [1] http://iphone.unlock.no/
Re: [silk] Where to buy an unlocked iPhone?
On Jan 12, 2008 9:30 AM, Aditya Chadha <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: The unlock is _fairly_ easy, especially with [2] and [3]. [1] http://www.tuaw.com/2007/11/09/iphone-elite-1-1-2-jailbroken/ [2] http://jailbreakme.com/ [3] http://www.iphoneatlas.com/2007/10/16/anysim-graphical-unlock-for-111-iphones-released-instructions-for-installing/ Ah! Thanks for those links. I was under the incorrect assumption that I needed to sign up with AT&T even before I left the Apple store. I now understand that I buy a phone, walk home and am supposed to sign up with AT&T from the privacy of my home. I intend to use my home for other purposes. Yep - I hope the apple thought police doesn't come after me or you, now! Cheers, Aditya
Re: [silk] Where to buy an unlocked iPhone?
On Jan 12, 2008 9:30 AM, Aditya Chadha <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > The unlock is _fairly_ easy, especially with [2] and [3]. > > [1] http://www.tuaw.com/2007/11/09/iphone-elite-1-1-2-jailbroken/ > [2] http://jailbreakme.com/ > [3] > http://www.iphoneatlas.com/2007/10/16/anysim-graphical-unlock-for-111-iphones-released-instructions-for-installing/ Ah! Thanks for those links. I was under the incorrect assumption that I needed to sign up with AT&T even before I left the Apple store. I now understand that I buy a phone, walk home and am supposed to sign up with AT&T from the privacy of my home. I intend to use my home for other purposes. Thaths -- Bart: We were just planning the father-son river rafting trip. Homer: Hehe. You don't have a son. Sudhakar ChandraSlacker Without Borders
Re: [silk] Where to buy an unlocked iPhone?
> Ain't that going to hold only a very short time, given that you're > locked out from the official firmware upgrade path? You could theoretically just keep running the old firmware with the 3rd party apps ecosystem that is flourishing, no? > And of what use a smartphone without applications? The 3rd party apps are pretty good, even though they don't use the official SDK, but maybe this ecosystem will die after the official SDK comes out in Feb... > P.S. Neo FreeRunner sightings at the CES have been reported. Will be > shipping to developers this spring. _WAY_ too many problems with OpenMoko and FIC for me to now have any trust in their ability to deliver a good product, on-time. Yes, it was supposed to be a truly open hacker's phone but they've repeatedly let the community down with issues like the GSM firmware bugs that they can't distribute the fix for, FreeRunner delays and basic functionality like placing calls and a sane interface to the underlying gsm layer taking forever to come together. I have the GTA02 and guess what? I'm running qtopia on it, not OpenMoko. Although, I hope FreeRunner does well, because a clusterfuc^Wconsortium of hardware vendors making phones that run android is an even bigger pipe dream. (I don't even know if Android is truly open source anymore with their proprietary-but-marketed-as-almost-open-source SDK [1]) [1] http://robilad.livejournal.com/22312.html > -- > Eugen* Leitl http://leitl.org";>leitl http://leitl.org > __ > ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org > 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE > > -- Aditya (http://aditya.sublucid.com/)
Re: [silk] Where to buy an unlocked iPhone?
> I _am_ in the US. I just don't know where to look. I searched ebay > and found unlocked phones going for somewhere between $550-700. Why not just get a new one, downgrade to 1.1.1 and unlock it? [1] [2] [3] Honestly, I've noticed some instability on my unlocked phone running 1.0.2 but I have no way of knowing if this is due to the unlock (which does use a buffer overflow exploit to mess with the baseband firmware) or just due to running 1.0.2. The unlock is _fairly_ easy, especially with [2] and [3]. [1] http://www.tuaw.com/2007/11/09/iphone-elite-1-1-2-jailbroken/ [2] http://jailbreakme.com/ [3] http://www.iphoneatlas.com/2007/10/16/anysim-graphical-unlock-for-111-iphones-released-instructions-for-installing/ -- Aditya (http://aditya.sublucid.com/)
Re: [silk] Where to buy an unlocked iPhone?
[Apologies for the second email. Sent the first one before I had completed writing my reply.] On Jan 12, 2008 5:58 AM, Eugen Leitl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Ain't that going to hold only a very short time, given that you're > locked out from the official firmware upgrade path? True. But I am reasonably confident that someone somewhere will figure out how to revive an iPhone bricked by a firmware upgrade. > And of what use a smartphone without applications? Another valid point. I am hopeful that people will soon figure out how to get third party applications running fully on the iphone. If that does not pan out, there is always the Android that is supposed to come out this year. Thaths -- Bart: We were just planning the father-son river rafting trip. Homer: Hehe. You don't have a son. Sudhakar ChandraSlacker Without Borders
Re: [silk] Where to buy an unlocked iPhone?
On Jan 12, 2008 5:58 AM, Eugen Leitl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Fri, Jan 11, 2008 at 03:39:13PM -0800, Thaths wrote: > > I will be traveling to Singapore, Madras (India) and Bangkok RSN. What > > would be the best place to buy an unlocked iPhone? A pirated version > > of the iPhone is acceptable if it really runs the same OS as a "real" > > iPhone. > Ain't that going to hold only a very short time, given that you're > locked out from the official firmware upgrade path? True. But I > > And of what use a smartphone without applications? > > P.S. Neo FreeRunner sightings at the CES have been reported. Will be > shipping to developers this spring. > > -- > Eugen* Leitl http://leitl.org";>leitl http://leitl.org > __ > ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org > 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE > > -- Bart: We were just planning the father-son river rafting trip. Homer: Hehe. You don't have a son. Sudhakar ChandraSlacker Without Borders
Re: [silk] Where to buy an unlocked iPhone?
On Jan 11, 2008 10:33 PM, Charles Haynes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Thaths aren't you in the US now? I thought that was the cheapest place > in the world to get unlocked iPhones... I _am_ in the US. I just don't know where to look. I searched ebay and found unlocked phones going for somewhere between $550-700. Thaths -- Bart: We were just planning the father-son river rafting trip. Homer: Hehe. You don't have a son. Sudhakar ChandraSlacker Without Borders
Re: [silk] Wii
On Sat, Jan 12, 2008 at 03:00:42PM +0530, shiv sastry wrote: > What's a Wii? v : eliminate urine; "Again, the cat had made on the expensive rug" [syn: make, urinate, piddle, puddle, micturate, piss, pee, pee-pee, make water, relieve oneself, take a leak, spend a penny, wee-wee, pass water]
Re: [silk] Where to buy an unlocked iPhone?
On Fri, Jan 11, 2008 at 03:39:13PM -0800, Thaths wrote: > I will be traveling to Singapore, Madras (India) and Bangkok RSN. What > would be the best place to buy an unlocked iPhone? A pirated version > of the iPhone is acceptable if it really runs the same OS as a "real" > iPhone. Ain't that going to hold only a very short time, given that you're locked out from the official firmware upgrade path? And of what use a smartphone without applications? P.S. Neo FreeRunner sightings at the CES have been reported. Will be shipping to developers this spring. -- Eugen* Leitl http://leitl.org";>leitl http://leitl.org __ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
Re: [silk] Wii
What's a Wii? shiv On Saturday 12 Jan 2008 12:06 pm, Charles Haynes wrote: > I don't want to turn silk into a grey-market for-sale list, but due to > mis-communication between my wife and me, we ended up with two Wii's. > I'm selling the extra, it's here in Bangalore and I'm selling it at my > cost. US$300+$100 I paid for shipping, handling and import duty. I'll > take INR at the current rate. > > -- Charles
