Free The Animal

Whatever you may think of it, the simple reality is that China is fast becoming the financial powerhouse of the world and they’re partly responsible for saving our financial ass. Here’s a 60 Minutes segment that gives quite an overview. You can judge for yourself, but I instinctively like the guy. He seems pretty forthright and talks good sense. “It’s our policy not to control anything,” Gao said. “So you’ll put a lot of money in a foreign company, and not even get on the board?” Stahl asked. “You’re right.” “Why?” “Simply because we don’t want to go in and say, ‘OK, I think you should change this person or I think you should change this product line,’” Gao said. “That’s not our business.” Investing is quite a different animal from management. Here’s the standard Churchillian logic for the maintenance of peace between nations. “What if our two governments had a serious dispute?” Stahl asked. “Over Taiwan?” Gao asked. “Yeah. Now could your government come in and say to you, ‘pull your money out now?’” “It could be. But I seriously doubt that will happen. “It would hurt you, too,” Stahl said. “Definitely,” Gao said. “It would hurt me. Hurt…

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