8/24/2012

China will do very well by not learning from the corrupt West




There is a Bloomberg article in the ST yesterday about the great pay gap between the American and Chinese bankers. As an example, it said that ‘For every US$1b of profit, investment bank JP Morgan, the biggest US lender, pays its chief executive and chairman Jamie Dimon US$1.21m, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the world’s most profitable, gives its top executive Jian Jianqing US$9,400.’ Dimon’s total package last year was around US$23m while Jian was about US$300k.

The disparity is probably as wide as the income gap between the rich and poor in Sinkieland. The article also said that the gap would be narrowed in a matter of time. It would, but hopefully China would not be as crazy as to go all the way like the crazy American white collar crooks. The salary of their political leaders is another example of China refusing to do the wrong things and ape the West blindly. They are not going to restrict the number of banks and not going to let them grow to become too big to fall. This is something that will keep the Chinese income gap and inflation in an even keel. Remember, all the big money paid to top bankers, CEOs and govt leaders eventually is paid by the people. It comes from the people that they robbed indirectly.

Despite the hue and cry about property prices falling, the Chinese are not going to do the same crazy thing to let property prices go sky high. The developers are trying to frighten the govt by claiming prices would collapse. They did not know that there are more than 1.4b Chinese waiting for cheaper properties and waiting for the prices to fall. The Chinese have brilliant scholars and administrators who are studying the developments around the world and could see the pitfalls of high property prices. They are going to introduce more curbs and control measures to keep property prices low.

There are many things the Chinese are learning since they joined the world community in the last 60 years and they are very discriminating in what they would adopt and apply to their country. Heh heh, high property prices and high salaries are not in their cards, at least if the current leaders have their way. They are not daft, like Sinkies. Hope they don’t turn their stockmarkets into doubles of Wall Street, and allow computers to trade against small investors, and not to allow derivatives and snake oils to be sold in their markets. By not aping and copying the West blindly, the Chinese would do well and protect themselves from the greed that is destroying the western economies and system.

PS. For those wondering why I wrote so many articles about China, US and east and south east Asia, these are my academic interests. No man is an island and we must look beyond the little wells we live in. The world is so interconnected that everything affects us in one way or another.

30 comments:

  1. Competition for talent will eventually force ICBC to pay its executives well. If ICBC wants to go global to expand, they will have to hire talents from Goldman, Morgan. If you dont pay them at global rates, who wants to come ?

    If you only could understand. Talents are globally mobile.

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  2. ICBC and the other 3 biggest banks in the world, all Chinese, have reached this position on their own steam, their own talents. Why do they need to pay the crooks to come in and rob them of their fortune?

    It is like Sinkie banks that the locals have built to this size and inviting foreigners to run them claiming that the locals are idiots. Try telling Wee Cho Yaw that. Look at what is happening to Stanchart and those local banks that were hit by the Lehman bonds and toxic notes.

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  3. They are running on their own steam because so far they are still more or less in their own home turf dealing in simple products, Dumbo.

    Ditto for our local banks. For many years we have had local CEOs for local banks which expanded nicely for many years but once you want to expand globally you have no choice but to employ globally connected talents who has been there, done that, in sufficient numbers with the knowdledge of markets and products. Some locals do behave like idiots, not all of them.

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  4. You know how much GIC and TH lost in their flirtation with American and western banks?
    The Chinese banks are already the world's biggest banks and no need to flirt with the western banks. And they can do it the same way and get bigger on their.

    Do they want to become Citi, Stanchart, Barclay, UBS, RBS, all in shit? Who is the dumbo?

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  5. Redbean, there are a few insurgents sent here to disrupt your blog. Best to ignore them.

    Regards.

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  6. The Chinese banks are already the world's biggest banks by virtue of their huge domestic size, double Dumbo.

    The world's major transacted currency is the USD, and if they waht to plug into the world, they have no choice but to tangle with the likes of Citi, Stanchart, UBS, RBS to get funding, and the Chinese have big ambitions, and they will become as complicated, interconnected and sophisticated like them. And they eventually will have to pay their CEOs millions, because inetrnational shareholders will demand that their company increase profits year after year, expand overseas, else they will dumb their share price.

    The fact that some people are in shit, doeso't mean all peeple have to be in shit and stop eating.

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  7. "China-Singapore will do very well by not learning from the corrupt West"

    Things like free speech, democracy and freedom of assembly by law abiding citizens.

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  8. The Chinese have more free speech and even street demonstration than Sinkieland. And they are loosening up. Their legal system is improving as in the case of Gu Kai Lai.

    In America or Australia, the murderers often got away scotch free by their kangaroo courts when they killed non whites in the past. Today they paid their way to freedom with a good lawyer.

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  9. So what has China contributed to Singapore?
    A 5,000 year old emperor system that could not change to save itself from western colonialism?

    There is very little worth preserving in the 5,000 year old Chinese system of government.

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  10. One has a few thousand years of histoy behind it and able to survive civil wars, foreign insurgents, natural disasters and isolation. One with just about 700 years of histoy and alreaady loosing its grip on where it is heading.

    Sure, China may yet suffer the consequences of economic slowdown, but will anyone dare to bet that it will sink into oblivion, like what is forecasted for Sinkieland without more banies by one senile old man.

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  11. I'll take my chances with a system that "counts heads" (democracy) rather than a system that chops heads.

    Democracy is a human concept.
    Not a western concept.

    Your human rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness comes from God.
    Not from a king or an emperor.

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  12. The Chinese dynasties had always been perfecting the art of never ending rules to keep themselves in power forever.

    Sinkieland would be ruled forever if it could perfect the art of dynastic rules like the Chinese dynasties.

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  13. If Chinese culture wants to evolve and remain relevant to Chinese.
    The Chinese have to be willing to embrace universal human values.

    Rather than spend time arguing whether something is "Chinese" in origin or not.
    In a global world, a 'not invented here" type of xenophobia is a recipe for obsolescence.

    Not convinced.
    Just ask those arseholes-in-white.

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  14. All cultures and societies need to evolve, need to adapt, copy and borrow good ideas. The trick is not to swallow line, hook and sinker, and snake oil.

    China is burrowing and copying a lot from the west but guarding against the excesses and the snake oil and the crooks. That is the correct way.

    What do you think of the daft Sinkie way of putting on a blindfold and copy everything the snake oil sellers told them?

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  15. redbean talking crap again.

    China has its own brand of corruption. And they also learn new ways... from everyone.

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  16. When have I argued against this fact?

    What I can say is that they are blessed with very able leaders for the last 40 years and none of these leaders ended up rich to the point of becoming a scandal. They retired with enough to lead a pleasant and rich life and with a lot of respect from its people. No need to run into hiding. Those corrupt would be caught and terminated.

    And the country has prospered beyond anyone's imagination. How to feed 1.4b people and with a lot to spare, and eradicating poverty in 40 years? Mind you, no poverty, no beggars and for real. There are still plenty of poor, but no hunger and with a roof over their heads.

    When my relatives visited them 20 years back, they were feeding the pigs with cabbages from the farm, not swill. They are self sufficient in food.

    50 years ago, they were still begging us to send them food and practically everything. Salted pork in kerosene containers, old clothings, simple drugs, penicillin, bicycles, sewing machines.

    Today they are here buying multi million dollar properties that Sinkies will salivate, buy Ferraris and Lambhoginis. Sure plenty of the money are black money. Despite so much corruption, the country still got trillions in their reserves.

    They are now in a different class. Still a lot of flaws and fault lines. But they are moving ahead.

    Got problem?

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  17. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZcARgTqADU&feature=BFa&list=PL9FDC84610F27C0AA

    The Game of Their Lives 2002

    On a dif note , hope you wont mind RB.

    Just wanted to share a very touching doc from BBC about the north Korean 1966 world cup football team

    Regards
    Bengster

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  18. china as a ever changing and evolving civilization state?

    The Vid
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oT8ki6ciopI

    The Article
    http://articles.latimes.com/2009/nov/22/opinion/la-oe-jacques22-2009nov22

    Regards
    Bengster

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  19. redbean,

    I have no problem with corruption, which occurs almost exclusively in government.

    Corruption is arbitrage in action -- where the price difference is the "true market price" of a specific favour.

    In the private sector, giving and receiving incentives is normal.

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  20. P.S.

    Corruption doesn't impede progress. Just look at the whole world. Indonesia, China, USA, Latin America....Singapore ;-)

    China will prevail because of its PRIVATE SECTOR -- i.e. Chinese ENTREPRENEURS, and a government which essentially KEEPS OUT OF THE WAY and allows the business people to do whatever they need to to MAKE MONEY.

    Capitalism

    Got any?

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  21. All the major banks in China are SOEs,that is why MM Lee is successful in introducing his very successful model,State capitalism plus Western MNCs,for the world,it is going to be replaced pretty soon.

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  22. The new Communist Party of China is good at learning from mad man Dr Mahathir,who said that he couldn't help it if banks wanted to lend his son or daughter $1 billion to buy a company,as they were very good biz genius with no capital.This is a secret receipt that PAP did not learn yet.But Pak Harto did it well before his death.

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  23. Don't insult the CPC. No one is near them in the ability to run up a national reserves of US$3.3 trillion.

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  24. Well,I could not argue against the extra capabilities of CPC,it will be known soon,but until then,please allow me make the following statement:It is very stupid for CPC to put their Foreign Reserve with the crook FED in US$ which most of the people know are worthless.

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  25. Replace "capitalist" for "communist", then you have the present-day version of the CPC.

    Every economy is a 'mixed' economy .. in political science terms the Third Way. This is also BTW, the PAP's ideology. Look it up.

    Therefore, in our times, the idea of 'capitalism' is also mixed. No pure free market, unless it is a black or unregulated market -- and they are getting scarcer and scarcer.

    So when the term 'capitalism' is used, it is a mixture of free markets, plus crony capitalism, plus sovereign-wealth fund adventurism. EVERYONE -- without exception -- is seeking profits. That's THE GAME.

    Got game?

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  26. Anon 11:48.

    I share your view on this. I believe the CPC knows too that if they just sit on their reserves in US Treasury Bills, they are going to be cooked. They have a reserve equivalent to US$3.3 trillion. How is this stashed away and in what forms? A lot are in T bills for sure.

    It will be interesting to know what they are doing with the situation they are in and their strategies to safeguard their savingds.

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  27. 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whVf5tuVbus

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  28. Marxist asshole. Should banish him to North Korea.

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