Monday, June 22, 2009

Chinatown

In the movie of the same name, Chinatown was the place where the normal rules didn't apply: everyplace is Chinatown now, not surprisingly, starting with China.




A June 19th article in Caijing.com.ca, "Fear the Dark Side of China's Lending Surge," adds to the growing suspicions that China will not be the world economic savior many hope it may be. What's more, one wonders if perhaps the Insidious Dr. FuManchu has gone into retirement and the Yellow Peril is no longer threatening to put a noodle shop on every corner.



Andy Xie, the article's author, believes that the current commodity boom has been fueled largely by speculation and not by production needs. Zero Hedge has a guest piece by Terence Doherty entitled "China-Economic Catastrophe Unfolding," which treats of the looming disaster in Chinese real estate. Read them and weep.

Meanwhile, Goldman "Sacks" will be handing out gigantic bonuses, never mind that these parasitic sacks of offal are to a great extent responsible for the current distress in the West and now, perhaps, globally. It beggars the imagination that the public will stand idly by and let this take place instead of confiscating the ill-gotten gains of these non-productive financial manipulators who would have been denied entry into medieval communities in which usury was outlawed.

Is Mussolini's the fate that may someday await the financiers who are destroying the West? One certainly hopes not. Mob justice is wrong, even savage, but things have a way of getting out of hand where money or the disappearance thereof is involved.

Vigilantism is very Chinatown.

But so are so many things nowadays, and that too is a sign of impending Paradigm Change.

It is time to cash out if you have not already done so. This is not investment advice; this is a common sense suggestion. As far as "investments" go, what with the black box boys moving shares around for tuppeny profits that add up to millions for them, well, this commentator would have to say that all bets are off. Take whatever money you have left and run might be what Tom Joad would suggest, and I'm with him.



The "there's something rotten in China" meme seems to be going viral, not a great surprise, really, given that there's something rotten nearly everywhere you sniff. Down here in the Southern Cone, however, Chinatown is everywhere and nowhere, because there is no "normal" here; things are as they are, no expectations offered, none surmised.

This is pioneer country. Think nineteenth century America, heading west: O Pioneers, Giants in the Earth... books we oldsters read in school back when Sputnik was beeping its way around planet Earth. Think Little House on the Prairie, but not quite as wholesome.



There is an actual "Chinatown" in the Belgrano neighborhood of Buenos Aires for those who buy Chinese food and herbs, as I do, but up here "Back-O'-The-Mountain," we have but one Chinese restaurant nearby, and no Chinatown at all, save for the Chinatown of the mind.

Elsewhere, it appears there's not only Big Trouble in Little China, but big trouble in big China as well. Trouble, it appears, is spreading. Best to get out of its way before it finds you.







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