Ridiculous you say!
Absurd! Preposterous! Deep Throat has lost his mind and
has no idea what he's talking about!
Now.....this is the part where I beg you to keep reading......
Here's the question:
Does China need
Apple/Foxconn more than Apple/Foxconn needs China?
Normally, I don't spend
much time discussing or analyzing things that I don't believe could ever
happen. That said, we're in a brave new world now, where the formerly
unthinkable seems to be occurring on a regular basis. So what the heck,
lets run through a scenario or two where a few poorly timed political missteps
by our new, pro-business administration could establish a new world-class level
of irony.
I'm referring of course
to Apple, arguably, the greatest, most profitable and innovative American
business of all time. There's a good possibility that one of the
largest (by Market Cap) publicly traded companies in the world could end
up on the economic scrap heap in short order, along with the "Magnificent Seven" and other
inevitable collateral damage if things don't go all that well with our new
"Make America Great Again" plan. (IMO.....America's always been
great....I'd prefer to leave out the "again"....but it's already on
the T-shirts & baseball hats.)
Here's the problem:
First, let's get
real.....Apple doesn't manufacture anything....
nothing ....zilch ...zip. Really.
Apple is an Engineering, Consumer Products,
Supply Chain, Intellectual Property, Industrial Design and marketing
phenomenon/ behemoth/ juggernaut. But it doesn't "make"
squat. About 15 years ago Steve & Tim closed the last of the US
manufacturing facilities (remember the white painted walls and "cool"
employees who all looked like Crosby/Stills/Nash & Young after they just
finished their Woodstock set? "Teach your Children Well?") and like
the rest of American tech (HP/Dell/Compaq/ etc.) outsourcing was the new
battle-cry and everything went over to Asia to cut costs.... Foxconn, et. al.
was born.
David Barboza at the NY Times just published a tremendous article describing how the iPhone City came about. I absolutely encourage you to read it. In my three sentence summary, the article provides great insight as to how the Chinese government has funneled billions of dollars in tax credits, incentives, land, infrastructure, concessions and an available and a compliant workforce to Foxconn and Terry Gao (Foxconn CEO) in order to get the Chinese outsourced electronics manufacturing ecosystem off the ground. Fast forward, today Foxconn is by far Apple's largest supplier and is intimately involved in the manufacture of virtually every Apple product. In just six(6) years Foxconn built the iPhone City, Zhengzhou manufacturing complex, bonded zone, air transport hub and distribution center which today produces half of the worlds iPhones, 500,000+ phones a day, when running full tilt.
Interestingly, Apple's
biggest problem and in fact, a threat to its very survival, is the incredible
success of its business model. Let me explain. Apple has enjoyed
incredible margins (Apple's profits are roughly 90% of the entire Smart Phone
industry worldwide, although the company accounts for only 12% of industry
sales) which have been subsidized by the Chinese government and cheap/forced
labor. Contra to claims of the new administration, Apple has actually
done an incredible job of taking advantage of the opportunity presented by
Foxconn and the Chinese government, not the other way around. The obvious
downside is that should this relationship somehow sour, Apple's production
needs are so great that it would be nearly impossible to get alternate supply
chains, production lines and/or any sort of disaster recovery plan in place in
time to save the business. In other words, unless Apple has secret
manufacturing facilities somewhere that they've not disclosed to shareholders
and a few hundred thousand fully trained production employees on call at some
gigantic temp agency that we're unaware of, Apple could be in big
trouble.
Here's the boilerplate
language in their last 10-K (and every filing) that nobody ever reads, but in
this particular case it's absolutely relevant. The below "see I told
you that could happen" language is provided to prevent, or at least limit
the impact of shareholder lawsuits. No need to actually read it, I'm
just pointing out it's there:
APPLE 10k Annual Report
- pg.10 Boilerplate
The Company depends on component and product
manufacturing and logistical services provided by outsourcing partners, many of
which are located outside of the U.S.
Over the last decade
Apple has created and built some of the most brilliant consumer products
imaginable. The company has chosen to accept huge indirect foreign
government assistance, generating gigantic profits, hoarding cash, to the
delight of shareholders, in lieu of diversification. Unfortunately, by taking
these cost savings to the bottom line, not diversifying its manufacturing
process and adequately accounting for contingencies and potential supply chain
interruptions, as any undergraduate risk management student might identify, the
business is now at risk. In defense of Apple management, if they would
have chosen to continue to manufacture products in Cuppertino and other US
facilities, Apple would most likely be a low margin also ran in the smart phone
business. The industry and indeed, our world as we know it, would be much
different than it is today.
Enter the New Dawn of
MAGA Foreign Policy
The
recent confirmation hearings, Inaugural Address and POTUS
Tweets have been enlightening. Here are a few select snippets
from the Tillerson confirmation hearings. I invite you to watch the entire testimony provided in the C-Span
links (Part 1, Part 2 & Part 3) below and come to your own conclusions.
Tillerson:
"We cannot continue
to accept empty promises like the ones China made to pressure North Korea to
reform, only to shy away from enforcement. Looking the other way when
trust is broken only encourages more bad behavior. It must end. We
cannot be accountable though if we are not truthful and honest in our
dealings."
"We should also
acknowledge the realities about China. China’s island building in the
South China Sea is an illegal taking of disputed areas without regard for
International norms. China’s economic and trade practices haven’t always
followed commitments to global agreements. It steals our digital property
and is aggressive and expansionist in the digital realm. It has not been
a reliable partner in using its full influence to curb North Korea. China
has proven a willingness to act with abandon in the pursuit of its own goals
which at times put it in conflict with American interests. We have to
deal with what we see, not what we hope. But we need to see the positive
dimensions in our relationship with China as well. The economic
well-being of the two nations is deeply intertwined. China has been a
valuable ally in curtailing the elements of radical Islam. We should not
let disagreements over other issues exclude areas for productive
partnership."
So apparently, when
China is "acting with abandon" in conflict with American Interests,
they must be dealt with immediately, yet we somehow need to recognize the
"positive dimensions of our relationship" as well. Makes sense...I guess. Of course, the above are not the only instances of this tone,
there's similar "bad girlfriend" banter throughout the hearing.
These are just the immediate quotes that jumped out at me.
Oddly, when questioned
repeatedly by Senators Rubio and Menendez, describing horrific, gruesome
accounts of Russian military executions and actions against civilians in
Chechnya and Aleppo, Mr. Tillerson began a familiar theme that would recur
throughout the hearing:
“I do not have sufficient information”
Senator Rubio would continue to press:
“None of this is classified, Mr. Tillerson. These people are dead.”.....
“That’s why I asked you about whether Vladimir Putin was a war criminal, something you declined to label him as,”......
“I asked about China, whether they were one of the worst human rights violators in the world… I asked about the killings in the Philippines. I asked about Saudi Arabia being a human rights violator, which you also declined to label them. The reason was not because I was trying to get you involved in the international game of name calling. But in order to have moral clarity, we need clarity. We can’t achieve moral clarity with rhetorical ambiguity.”
Further, Senator Menendez continued the theme:
“I do not have sufficient information”
Senator Rubio would continue to press:
“None of this is classified, Mr. Tillerson. These people are dead.”.....
“That’s why I asked you about whether Vladimir Putin was a war criminal, something you declined to label him as,”......
“I asked about China, whether they were one of the worst human rights violators in the world… I asked about the killings in the Philippines. I asked about Saudi Arabia being a human rights violator, which you also declined to label them. The reason was not because I was trying to get you involved in the international game of name calling. But in order to have moral clarity, we need clarity. We can’t achieve moral clarity with rhetorical ambiguity.”
Further, Senator Menendez continued the theme:
Mr. Menendez: "For all of the answers you have given me, does the President-elect
agree with you?"
Mr. Tillerson: "We
have not discussed this specific area."
Mr. Menendez: "??? On page three of your statement you say.....'In his campaign President-Elect Trump proposed a bold commitment to advance American Interests in foreign policy. I hope to explain what this approach means and how I would implement this policy if confirmed as Secretary of State'. I assume that to some degree you have had discussion about what it is that the world view would be in order to understand whether you can execute that on behalf of the person you work for."
Mr. Tillerson: "In terms of principles that will guide it, yes, sir."
Mr. Menendez: "I would have thought that Russia would be at the top of that list considering the actions that have taken place."
Mr. Tillerson: "That has not occurred yet, Senator."
Mr. Menendez: "That's pretty amazing."
Mr. Tillerson's answers
to the pointed, direct questions put forth by Senators Rubio and Menendez
illustrated a strange lack of information and/or unwillingness to at least acknowledge
Vladimir Putin as a bad actor in Chechnya, Crimea, Ukraine and Aleppo while
simultaneously showing little hesitation regarding a possible US response to
China's alleged illegal activities in the South China Sea. I might ask why?
Will our new foreign policy require that we talk tough with expansionist
trading partners, drawing a line in the sand, only when they commit atrocities
and slaughter hundreds of thousands of civilians? Then and only then will we
rise up as a people, driven by a sense of compassion and our moral compass.
We will band together as one and require, dare I say demand!
...."more information"?? Along with Senators Rubio and
Menendez, I'm a bit confused.
In stark contrast, at
the WEF conference in Davos, a few days ago Xi Jinping gave a carefully
scripted, and if sincere, inspiring
keynote address remarkably different in tenor, content and direction
than what we're seeing in Washington today. I'd invite you to watch
the speech in its entirety, but here are a few tidbits
describing the tone:
“Some people blame
globalization for the chaos in our world,”.....“That’s not the case"…
"Pursuing protectionism is like locking oneself in a dark room. While wind
and rain may be kept outside, so are light and air"… "No one will
emerge as a winner in a trade war.”
This speech was as remarkable as it was expected. Xi and his government have no choice but to continue to scour the globe for naive capital in order to keep their fragile, flagging, facade economy disguised as as something other than a debt fueled Ponzi scheme. The Chinese economy, like the rest of the world, has become precariously dependent on continued, ever-expanding, debt fueled, bubble-iscous, globalization and easy money. Like it or not, we're all in this together. When a butterfly flaps its wings in China... ..iPhones don't get delivered in Des Moines. Interestingly, Xi apparently realizes this but refuses, despite his Davos rhetoric, to take the necessary steps, opening markets and capital flows, to reap the full benefits. In an odd role reversal, America has taken nearly all of the steps to facilitate real globalization, but is retreating from same as a result of a growing nationalist, "America first" wave of political and institutional distrust.
That said, is it likely
that Xi will fully open China's economy? Establish open borders, adhere
to the rule of law, freedoms of the press, privacy and speech? Will the
Politburo provide for the enforcement of basic civil and human right
protections for the Chinese people? Nearly 100 years of communist rule,
with all of the authoritarian infrastructure and trappings that go with it,
would suggest not.
On the other hand, here
in America, is it likely that the new administration is simply saber
rattling?....rallying support for the isolationist "Make America Great
Again" vision? ...is all of the "my way or the highway" bluster
about 35% tariffs, "I love war, especially with nukes", bringing jobs
back at any price and reasserting a global military order as the "new
Sheriff in town" just a series of reality TV rants initially intended to
get elected and garner attention? Is it probable that every scenario and
eventuality re: our new isolationist path has been fully and painstakingly
analyzed? Will the implementable policies that are truly beneficial to
the American people be pursued and those that are not will be cautiously cast
aside? Is it possible that none of this knee-jerk, half-cocked
isolationist policy is actually going to be executed and we're just in for a
few years of great theater? Unfortunately, the POTUS Twitter feed, confirmation
hearings, inaugural address and nearly every piece of
evidence available suggests otherwise. Just once I'd like to get the
feeling that everything our government is about to undertake has been fully
thought through and the potential ramifications have been measured. The
NSA, CIA and Pentagon all play "war games" and manage models intended
to determine "how many men?", "what's the collateral damage,
human and financial cost?", "What's the outcome, possible repercussions
and probability of success?". I hope I'm wrong, but I'm not aware of
any such exercise when it comes to implementing trade policy. I'd like to
see a FED, GAO or White House Study entitled "What happens when we blow up
our trade relationship with China?" To my chagrin, I've not seen
anything remotely like that to date.
Rather, the number one
priority seems to be reaffirming America's place as the dominant economic and
military super-power on the planet, scorching whatever earth lie behind us,
taking no prisoners along the way without any regard to, or consideration of,
the economic cost to every man, woman and child on the planet. For the
sake of our economy, as Hillary Clinton, to her political regret, accidentally
described on Wikileaks, we can only hope in this particular case that our
government's Public Position is much different
from our Private Position.
You're Fired!
As part of the new
Administration's clean slate initiative, parting with tradition, but following
the "blow it up and figure out how to fix it later" play book, there
are no extensions being granted to the current diplomatic corps. US
Ambassadors were fired and required to leave their posts as of inauguration day
on a "no exceptions" basis, potentially leaving diplomatic posts with
important countries open, possibly for months. Fortunately, in a preemptive
move to ostensibly hit the ground running, the new Administration has already
selected Iowa Governor Terry Branstad as the new Chinese Ambassador, apparently
acknowledging the importance of the US/China relationship. Presumably, Terry
will be the voice of reason on all that is China. His
relationship with Xi goes way back to the 1980's when Xi led an agricultural
research delegation to Iowa, is on a first name basis with most of the larger
Chinese soybean and pork-belly importers and is considered an "old
friend" of the party. Terry will be a guiding light, providing valuable
insight when examining complex diplomatic questions like:
"Where exactly is
Taiwan and why did the Chinese get so pissed off when we took that phone
call?"
As you may have heard,
this little phone call caused quite an uproar with Chinese officials, putting
diplomats in a tizzy, citing the disruption of the "One China" policy. Calls for "revenge" rang out. Not that saber-rattling,
diplomatic fits are all that uncommon, after all, indignant opposition is part
of any good politicians tool kit. The reason I brought this up is to illustrate
how any miss-step, calculated or accidental, on the world stage has
consequences. A capable diplomatic corps manages the intended consequences of
their government's actions, while eliminating, or at least limiting the
occurrence (by defining what they hope will be a predetermined outcome) of any
unintended consequences. In an ideal world there should never be any
unintended consequences.
Apple's Bloody Nose ...
Let's look at
globalization another way....the American people believe that outsourcing
Apple's manufacturing to Foxconn cost American workers roughly 1.3 million high
paying factory jobs (Foxconn's headcount) give or take...or at US$75k/yr. in
wages and fringes, about $100 Billion a year in payroll.....and they are
pissed-off....so much so that they've elected a new administration as a
reaction to this this type of outsourcing. Framed a bit differently,
what's actually happened is that the Chinese government has provided (or could
provide) nearly every American with an amazing smart phone at a huge discount.
Foxconn workers put in long hours at a pittance wage when compared to
what US Workers demand (that's why Foxconn landed these tech/production jobs in
the first place). The Chinese government printed money (in order to land the
jobs) provided financing, land, infrastructure and all sorts of other goodies
to make sure the hard working Chinese people were employed and iPhones were
being built. If iPhones and iPads were made in America, without the
Mao-nopoly Money subsidies it would have pushed the cost of these devices far
beyond what most people might be able to afford. Because of the wage
differential, pesky US environmental and worker safety/protection laws
(generally we don't have to build nets around our high rise dormitories to keep
employees from jumping to their death in order to get out of work the
next day) as well as the higher cost of un-subsidized capital, if
these great little devices were "Made in
America" they would cost thousands of dollars, few people would own them
and most of us would still be using flip phones or "less cool" Smart
phones. If it weren't for Apple, Samsung would have a dominant share of
the US Smartphone market and the phones would still be made at at Foxconn-like
facilities or any of the other usual outsourcing suspects.
So what did the Chinese
get out of this? Many Chinese folks got a job, and nearly everyone in
China got a "cheap" smart phone! China has become the most
"connected" country on the planet. Once the cheap, subsidized
phones were distributed to the Chinese citizens, the CPC also had a great tool
to track the every move of its population. (Authors Note: Here in the US
we allow Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin and the phone companies to track our
every move, ostensibly for "marketing" purposes, and we're apparently
OK with it. I guess, as always, it's a matter of perspective.)
Today, at the end of the Foxconn production line, the inventory count
goes something like "One for Apple....one for us....One for Apple....two
for us....etc.) these phones are sent to unauthorized Chinese distributors and
sold/resold on TaoBao/T-Mall/Alibaba for a fraction of the Apple price.
Unfortunately, Apple turns a blind eye to this IP Theft because they have no
choice. Nearly all of their products are made in China and legitimate Apple
revenue in China amounts to roughly 25% of their total revenue. They have
no legal recourse or leverage, and thus have to look the other way.
Again, hypothetically speaking of course, let's say that there is a colossal diplomatic misjudgment or miscommunication and we end up sending a carrier group (or two) into the South China Sea or perhaps our tanks roll into Pyongyang after Kim Jong Un sets off some unappreciated intercontinental ballistic fireworks. The first thing that most governments might consider when these squabbles erupt is sanctions, cutting off trade and diplomatic relations with the opposing/offending side.
Beijing could kill three birds with one well placed stone with a Chavez like nationalizing of the Foxconn manufacturing campuses in mainland China. Apple and the Taiwanese economy would be crippled and the Chinese would get "free" iPhones. They'd simply rename the products "XiPhones" and "XiPads" and sell them on Taobao, T-mall and probably Amazon and eBay (getting around any retaliatory tariffs) at a fraction of their current cost. Again, Mainland sales already represent 25% of Apple's revenue so the Apple volume, some iPhone City jobs and all of the illegally seized intellectual property (The Chinese government has never been a big fan of US IP rights anyway) would immediately transfer over to the new Chinese SOE, and the largest, by volume, smart phone business in the world would be "transferred" from the US to China, courtesy of US foreign policy.
Let's take a look at some numbers below: Apple's 2016 10k; and two pro-forma presentations: 1.) What Apple's P&L might look like the first year of a "Nationalization"; and 2.) What the company might look like on a "Stabilized - Go Forward" basis after the shock of having it's China Assets, Inventory, Intellectual Property and Market confiscated.
Of course, the above are
just "back of the envelope" estimates intended to illustrate the
financial implications to Apple of a Trade War gone awry, but they should be at
least directionally correct. Of course, Luca Maestri (Apple CFO) probably has
very accurate, detailed financial/risk models describing what I'm pointing out,
but for obvious reasons, I'd doubt that he'll bring them up in a
next-quarter-earnings-focused Investor Call. Bullet points from the above
analysis are as follows.
- In the "Nationalization
Year" Apple's Net Income swings from a $45 Billion profit to a $42
Billion Loss and Apple's $600 Billion Market Cap is virtually wiped out.
- An enormous amount of money
must be spent to duplicate the Foxconn manufacturing process on
American/safe soil.
- Increased US Labor Cost will
require sophisticated process improvements and automation (i.e. fewer
employees) to remain price competitive with Samsung and other competitors.
My "guess" based on ratios is that roughly 115,000 US
manufacturing workers would replace 500,000 Chinese workers.
- "Go Forward"
profitability and shareholder returns will be much less given
un-subsidized increased US Costs to Manufacture.
- Given the size and scope of the
disruption, there is a good chance that Apple won't succeed in the
emergency conversion of their business model without a Tarp-like bail out.
- Fortunately Apple has a war
chest of about $238 Billion in cash, equivalents and marketable securities
they can use to start looking for alternatives to Foxconn. Is it
possible to build manufacturing plants and a fully functioning supply
chain on US Soil in time? Is Apple capable of hiring an army of fully
trained employees to fill Foxconn's production void in time to rescue the
business?
So hopefully, as I type,
Tim Cook is scouring the globe and talking with state governors, Senators and
the POTUS looking for relatively immediate, viable, alternative production
capability.
So I'll ask the question
again:
Does China need
Apple/Foxconn more than Apple/Foxconn needs China?
I hope you will agree
that the answer to this complex question is now obvious.
If "The Core" pulls the trigger....Apple is sauce.
Final Thoughts on
"MAED in America"....(Mutually Assured Economic Destruction)
Of course the Apple
example described above is just the poster child for the isolationist dilemma.
Any American Business or Industry that has substantial relationships with China
(Retail, Clothing, Footwear, Consumer Electronics, Construction Materials,
Steel, Aluminum, etc.) or any targeted trading partner (Mexico, etc.) are all
at risk. The cost and of raw materials, process and goods we import will
increase dramatically, supply/availability may be limited, increasing prices to
US Consumers, or in the case of Apple products, potentially killing the
business all together. The last fifty years of Globalism simply can't be unwound without a painful disruption.
The real issue is that
the American worker (I include myself in this group) when compared to much of
the world, because of gigantic productivity gains, has become accustomed to
doing relatively little "work" while, for those of us who still have
jobs, receive ever increasing paychecks. Personally, my day consists of
thinking deep thoughts, managing/evaluating risk, using computing power to help
make good, efficient business decisions and magically, insurance companies we
represent send us checks. There's much less "work" involved in
my business than there used to be. Paperwork and process is automated.
Filing and documentation is virtually automatic. We accomplish
three times as much work with the same staff. This "do more with less" phenomenon has taken
over American business. It no longer takes a crew of ten men to put on a
roof, two guys, some power tools and pneumatic nail guns get the job done in
half the time. It no longer takes a year and an army of skilled
carpenters, tradesmen and laborers to build a home. A few guys, using
pre-fab factory produced building materials, "assemble" a house on
site in just a few months. Employees generally don't carry or move materials on
the shop floor anymore. Factory automation, for the businesses that have
chosen to remain in America, has eliminated the lions share of the jobs that
the American worker has come to believe were "shipped overseas".
If America is to
"get these jobs back", or what remains of them, is it likely that the
US worker will have a "Rosie the Riveter" moment?....rising up in
patriotic harmony, working long hours for next-to-nothing, not to save America
from a foreign military threat by making tanks and B17's, but to stave off an
economic threat, to be redeployed to make iPhones and other "cheap plastic
stuff" keeping Apple and Walmart in business? Or is it more likely
that we, as Americans, continue to handle the transition like we did with the clothing,
textile, athletic shoe, construction material, auto, etc. industries? I'd suspect that
rather than take a huge pay cut, we'll prefer to have someone else do the heavy
lifting at a discount and continue to reap the benefits of their toil. Because of incredible productivity gains, only the highly skilled will be able to earn a paycheck, the rest of us will rely on some form of "universal basic income" and continue to buy our cheap phones, clothes, gadgets and plastic
stuff on-line at Amazon, E-Bay and, dare I say, fake businesses like Alibaba.
The populations of both
countries face an odd dilemma..... In America we must hope and pray that the
Administration's public position is fake and we
will continue along an, albeit modified, pro-globalization private
position. The Chinese people are hoping and praying that
Xi's "open China" public
position is becoming a reality and that the CPC has no private
position.
It's clear, at least to
me, that both the Chinese and US Governments possess ample financial firepower
to destroy the other's economy (along with their own). Symbiotic US and Chinese
business relationships and interests have become so interdependent and intertwined
that disruption of same would be catastrophic for the daily lives of both
Chinese and US citizens. Hopefully, all of the political blustering,
chest thumping, Tweets and threats of "Revenge" are just propaganda
intended to vilify the evil foreigners and galvanize each country's respective
population in support of its current leadership. If that's true, it will
be business as usual, and disruption will be kept to a minimum.
Alternatively, if this
level of animosity is real, and both the Politburo and our Government choose to
go the scorched earth route, both US and Chinese citizens will suffer
unimaginable economic pain. US Asset values will again be reset, wiping
out Trillions of dollars of net worth. The FED will be forced to open the
spigot again, providing unimaginable levels of liquidity in order to prevent
systemic defaults and collapse. Inflation will rear it's ugly head and
the purchasing power of the dollar will plummet. All of those high paying
"Make America Great Again" jobs will fail to materialize. We're
talking about good old fashioned depression era bread lines and civil unrest.
On the other side of the
Pacific, facilities like iPhone City as well as much of China's manufacturing
infrastructure will be retooled or mothballed, causing massive unemployment. Much
like in the US, all of the fake Chinese assets, real estate and business values
will be reset. Despite heroic efforts by the PBOC, loans, bonds, wealth
management products and all of the fake shadow bank assets will finally default. The newly minted
net worth of the hard-working Chinese people will be destroyed. Another
big party at Tiananmen Square wouldn't
be hard to imagine.
The Chinese will blame
the Americans and the Americans will blame the Chinese.....and so it goes....
Interestingly, in the
United states we have a relatively civilized method for dealing with civil
disobedience. We do our best to disburse the crowds, but if something
goes awry and folks get shot, we put it on Youtube, Twitter, CNN and other
"fake" news outlets. The authorities apologize, promising a
full review. They conduct a fake criminal investigation and trial
consistently exonerating the government sponsored shooters who are always found
to be acting "well within the bounds of the law". The trial is
often followed by a sternly worded Federal report demanding systemic change.
That report is nearly always followed by a wrongful death civil suit
awarding the family of the deceased dissident, either by settlement or jury
award, a sizable amount of money. The process takes a few years and is
extremely costly, but in the grand scheme of things, considering government
authorities, in their zeal to keep the peace, caused the death of a US Citizen
on video for all to see, this template would seem about as fair as any. Albeit acknowledging on a personal level, if one of my loved ones were a victim, my opinion of "fairness" might be radically different.
Like many aspects of the
CPC, the Chinese system for dealing with protesters, dissidents and people
seeking to have their voices heard, as well as the journalists, Youtubers and
WeChat-ers trying to cover it, is a bit more efficient and far less
costly.....these people and anyone asking about them simply disappear.
Perhaps that's why so
many Chinese citizens want to move here? I also have a few American
friends who are expats living in China, enjoying the experience. They're
not in tin roof shacks and they have a comfortable life, well above the poverty
level that a half billion Chinese have become accustomed, but not
surprisingly, my friends always look forward to coming "home". In
American business, we refer to that as a "competitive advantage".
God Bless America......
Additional Reading
POTUS Tweets
Tweeting Foreign Policy
The
"One-China" Policy - China's Reaction to Trump discussions with
Taiwan
China's Foreign Minister
- Seriousness of the "One-China" policy
Time - "China will
'take revenge' if the 'OneChina' policy is disrupted" - Tsai-Ing Wen meets
with Ted Cruz and Texas Governor
NYT - IPhone City
US President believes
Jack Ma to be a "Great Entrepreneur" ... "Jack and I are going
to do some great things".
NYT - Trump/Ma video
US Ambassadors - Blanket
"You're Fired"
Whitehouse ties to
AnBang Insurance
Jay Clayton - Op Ed NYT
Bloomberg - Impact of a
US/China Trade War
Apple Not Likely to Move
Production to US
1980's Vintage Video of
the Apple Manufacturing Process
Terry Branstad - US
Ambassador to China
Rex Tillerson's
Confirmation Hearing Video - China 1:00; 2:28
Mr. Pompeo -
"Russia has reasserted itself" & China "Creating real
tension".
Steve Jobs eMail re:
Foxconn Suicides
Venezuela
Nationalizations/Asset Seizures under Chavez
Tiananmen Square
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/tiananmen-square-what-happened-to-tank-man-9483398.html
Chinese Aircraft Carrier
passes through the Strait of Taiwan
Marko Rubio grills
Tillerson on Russia
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/01/11/marco-rubio-drills-former-exxon-ceo-rex-tillerson.html
Tillerson Hearing
- Rubio & Mendez (1:15:00 through 1:40:00) - part 1
Tillerson Hearing - Part
2
Tillerson Hearing - Part
3
Xi Jinping - Davos
Xi Jinping - Davos video
Xi Jinping - Full Video
- Davos Keynote Speech
End of the "strong
dollar"
Ron Paul on Hillary
Clinton's "Public and Private" positions
Chicago Tribune -
American Business No Longer Welcome in China
China has fewer tools to
deal with it's mess...
Trump - Inaugural
Address
How Much does it Cost to
Make an iPhone?
Apple Supply Chain
Apple Product Costs
http://www.macworld.co.uk/feature/apple/where-are-apple-products-made-how-much-does-iphone-cost-make-trump-3633832/The Economist
"The idea running through Mr Trump’s diplomacy is that relations between states follow the art of the deal. Mr Trump acts as if he can get what he wants from sovereign states by picking fights that he is then willing to settle—at a price, naturally. His mistake is to think that countries are like businesses. In fact, America cannot walk away from China in search of another superpower to deal with over the South China Sea. Doubts that have been sown cannot be uprooted, as if the game had all along been a harmless exercise in price discovery. Alliances that take decades to build can be weakened in months.
Dealings between sovereign states tend towards anarchy—because, ultimately, there is no global government to impose order and no means of coercion but war. For as long as Mr Trump is unravelling the order that America created, and from which it gains so much, he is getting his country a terrible deal."
Please stick to writing about financial fraud and Alibaba. Would be greatly appreciated as an avid follower. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteGreat stuff, please write more on this topic and the others that you write on.
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