Goodbye Information Super Highway

I have just had my first introduction to the new paid Internet news service. It looks like we are going back to the old days where only the wealthy elite knew what was really happening in the world. There’s a big difference between paying $1.50 for a daily newspaper and $15 to download a 30 minutes interview. I was hoping to find an archive or transcript on the BBC website for a mildly earth shattering September 13^th interview – by Hardtalk’s Stephen Sackur with Chinese economist Cheng Siwei. The interview is there all right (but no written transcripts, sorry). However only UK residents can hear it. People who live outside the UK have to buy it from a file sharing service.

About the Interview

Cheng Siwei is the former vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress and current chairman of the International Finance Forum. He seems to be a darling of the global financial community and has spoken at Davos and other global summits.

The interview, which was wide ranging, started with a discussion of Obama’s belligerent rhetoric regarding China’s refusal to revalue the yuan (upward). This has been fairly well covered in the mainstream media. A really low yuan means Chinese consumers have to shell out more yuan to buy US exports (and obviously buy less of them). It also covered Siwei’s well-known view that the US has been irresponsible in accumulating so much debt. China’s role in financing this debt (by purchasing US Treasury bills) is less well covered in the corporate media. It is on the Internet, though, where market analysts keep looking for a signal in Siwei’s commentary about possible Chinese intentions to dump their US Treasury holdings (which would be guaranteed to cause the US dollar – and economy – to crash).

China Holds $867.7 Billion $843.7 Billion of US Debt

Siwei is extremely careful how he addresses this subject. I sure didn’t hear a signal in this interview. China’s US Treasury holdings have always been a closely guarded secret. Some June figures were released August 16^th showing they were down (for the second month in a row) from $867.7 billion to $843.7 billion (see http://www.chinatranslated.com/?p=993). It is also concerning that China mainly dumped long term notes and bonds (suggesting they believe the US economy will be in even worse shape 2-5 years from now).

The Chinese Real Estate Bubble

Sackur and Siwei proceed to discuss the Chinese real estate bubble, which is covered in the financial, but not the mainstream press. As I understand it, Chinese lenders are involved in a Wall Street style Ponzi scheme (generating yuan out of thin air totally unrelated to genuine production or wealth – sound familiar?) to put as many members as possible of China’s new middle class into their own homes. This had led to growing concern (at least on the Internet) that the Chinese economy will collapse when the bubble bursts, bringing down what remains of the world economy with it.

For me the high point of the interview related to the growing Chinese labor movement and the wave of strikes this year, demanding an end to the 12 hour day, higher wages and improvement in abysmal working conditions (such as being forced to work in 40-50 C heat) – and increasingly the right to create their own worker-run (as opposed to government run) unions.

Siwei’s Views on China’s Labor Unrest

First he believes the low yuan is a direct result of China’s extremely low wages. Which he feels will increase as a direct result of the industrial action. He also believes that as wages increase, the yuan will naturally self correct upwards.

Secondly he agrees with Sackur that political freedom (which Siwei believes is inevitable) is an important missing agreement in China’s conversion to a well-functioning market economy.

Funny, I always thought they locked people up for saying stuff like that in China.

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Chinese strikes in 2010

(see http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/01/china-strikes-honda-workers-rights)

May 2010 – two Honda plants, one involving several thousand, the other several hundred workers.

June 2010 – Toyota Motor Corp -1300 workers, Shangai rubber factory – 2,000 workers

July 2010 – Mitsumi Electric, 3,300 workers

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The Most Revolutionary Act on radio:

Gorilla Radio – Chris Cook, Victoria British Columbia

(click on link)

Chris and I discuss how I was first targeted, following my decision to support the occupation (of an abandoned school)  that led to the formation of Seattle’s first African American Heritage Museum – as an alternative to the crack cocaine epidemic among the city’s African American teenagers. We also talk about my research into HIV AIDS, my hospitalization and the Veterans Administration psychologist I worked with who also helped GIs illegally stationed in Cambodia in the sixties and seventies (and terrorized into keeping quiet about it).

XZone Interview with Rob McConnell

(click on link  – show is syndicated – fast forward the music to hear interview)

Rob and I discuss the phone harassment, break-ins, attempts to run me down – and my psychiatric hospitalization. We also talk about the political activities that seemed to lead the government to target me – including my research into HIV AIDS – and my inability to get help from the Seattle police. Then we cover the whole area of conspiracies in general, which are more accurately called State Crimes Against Democracy (SCADS)

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