The Problem with China

I must admit having been fascinated with China for some time. Similarly as a young man I was fascinated with the Soviet Union, you know they had all those nuclear missiles pointed at us and all. The USSR was a construct nation, not unlike America in that it was built on an idea not necessarily on a culture. Russia aside the Soviets only lasted 70 years. America is just a few hundred years old. China on the other hand is an ancient culture, thousands of years old. China's known history extends back further than any in the west, rivaling the Middle East's pre-biblical times. China's history is as rich and intriguing as any in the West. So one might be compelled to ask - what happened? It seems that China failed to progress on pace with the West. Is it as simple as China was looking inward while the West and Great Britain was looking outward? Whatever the case may be it's safe to say China is not merely looking inward any more.

Since the great cultural and economic awakening of the past 40 years China has made incredible strides, now rivaling the United States as a dominant economic power. Take a look at these comparison charts for a moment.

However remarkable China's ascent has been the problems facing the emerging giant are huge. The causes span the range from as simple as the growing pains of a rural society transforming into and urban society to rampant corruption from the top of the Communist party down to the local building inspector. Look at these headlines randomly pulled from the Internet...

China’s Massive Water Problem

There's no denying it: China's got a debt problem.

China's Massive Pollution is Indicative of Broader Problems

There's just one problem with China's economic recovery 

The Ten Grave Problems Facing China

The Real Problem with China’s Ghost Towns

Why Americans Should Worry About China’s Food Safety Problems

 True, several of these could easily have America replacing the word China and no one would bat an eye. However, when you add them up and understand the depths of the issues you start to see not everything is coming up roses in China these days.

It's hard to say which of these challenges China will rise up to face, but the pollution problem and the debt problem float to the top. The pollution in China is worse than industrial America at it's peak. Rivers are choked with industrial run off and the air in the major cities is literally toxic. These things seem odd to Westerners who began to tackle these issues decades ago. Air pollution was a huge concern when the Olympics were held in Beijing in 2008. The problem does not end at the Chinese borders, toxic clouds easily traverse the Pacific Ocean and have bee detected in Canada and the U.S. China is an ecological disaster by any standards. Recently the central government announced pollution was a top concern, it remains to be seen if industry and locals make it one.

The debt problem is trickier, just as it is in the U.S. and the West. Debt is obviously vital to economic growth and it's been badly mismanaged in the West and there's no doubt it's being mismanaged in China too. In China the concern is that the Shadow Banking system rising up at the local level will have nothing to back it up when the credit market collapses in the face of slower growth - which is inevitable as the economy matures. The issue with debt fueling economic growth for the sake of economic growth - to keep workers working - is a question of demand and therefore repayment. You need one to achieve the other. Yet building continues even when demand is light or non-existent as is the case of the famous Ghost Cities. It would be like building Detroit (or re-building as the case may be) with no one being able to afford to live there. There is zero demand for the new buildings, shopping centers and housing in these Ghost Cities. Overbuilding is one thing, but to do it over and over is bizarre.

Despite all the problems one cannot fail to be awed by the rise of China in such a short time. As American's struggle to find anything on the shelves of our big box stores not made in China we wonder what will become of our workers, our economy. Clearly China can manufacture quality stuff, particularly consumer electronics under the guidance of American and Japanese companies. They also produce a lot of cheap junk. Junk so cheap we don't get too upset when it falls apart or breaks, we just buy another.

Therein lies the problem.

American's can look high and low for American made products but they aren't likely to find them. The very nature of the cheap junk paradigm means that American manufacturers have pulled up stakes and left for China too. Only the suits live back in the States. Their former workers have the luxury then to go to Walmart and buy - very cheaply - what they used to make and pay for it with their government assistance check. Is it me or is there something very wrong with this picture?

American companies are between a rock and a hard place. To stay in the picture they have to abide by the laws of jungle which means capital will follow the cheapest labor when all else is equal. For low cost consumer goods there's not much that can be done. Cheap labor is cheap labor. American companies can choose then to go with quality and high end luxury goods where the margins are higher. The problem with that is the Europeans and the Japanese have already staked that territory out and they do a pretty good job of it.

Well then, American companies can rely on innovation, right? We've always been the innovators, right? Not so fast. An increasing number of research facilities have moved to China too. It only makes sense to innovate in the same place you manufacture.

What's left? If it wasn't for the defense industry, aerospace and industrial machines there wouldn't be much left for high end, high quality manufacturing in the United States. It's true that there's a lot of manufacturing still taking place in the U.S. but the trajectory is heading in the wrong direction and the current national government is of no help at all. The gutting of the defense sector will have a domino effect on good paying jobs across the country. The animus between the current regime in Washington and our last great aerospace company Boeing makes you wonder to what depths will they sink to destroy what's left of our high end manufacturing industries.

There is hope that cheaper and more reliable energy will be the difference maker for the U.S. but again the current government despite all their claims to have presided over an incredible energy boon has done nothing but stand in the way. The Keystone Pipeline being one huge case in point, of course. Additionally they are on the record with a desire to kill the coal industry. They continue to deny any access to government lands for advanced oil and gas extraction. They are not so quietly turning "fracking" into a dirty word. They spread enough disinformation about potential environmental catastrophes to get the public to put the brakes on further domestic energy development. Will America snatch defeat from the jaws of victory? Yes, if the current leadership gets it's way.

All this will result in China's continued ascent and continued job losses in middle America. China's ghost towns are shiny and spectacular, America's ghost towns are sad remnants of a once great nation sold down the river for reasons a once great people don't really understand.

Will the world be better off with China holding the leadership mantle?



Ugh

Not so fast...

I have commented on several occasions in this space about the seemingly rapid decline of the United States as the preeminent power on the planet. In influence, innovation, economic and military dominance America still has no rival.  I have been guilty of missing the same thing many others have missed. America is the Himalaya's to the rest of the world's Appalachians. America in every respect is simply huge. Our economy is 25% of the entire world's GDP and it has been for decades. Our military is the most advanced, best trained and the most supremely capable fighting force the world has ever known. Our universities, research centers and corporations bring miracle technologies and medicines to the world that create untold wealth and save uncounted lives. It's actually hard to quantify the impact this one nation (the good, and sometimes the bad) has on the world.

In many ways it's not that America is coming down from Everest it's that the Appalachians have now become the Rockies.

It was just 40 years ago that we thought it was all coming to an end. The economic mess in the West and the rising confidence of Soviet communist expansion was supposed to see America crumble. It didn't happen. Instead the Soviet Union collapsed. America rebuilt it's military and it's confidence. In the late 80's and the 90's it was the Japanese that were going to own the world. They took our consumer electronic business and very nearly the auto industry - as well as many famous New York skyscrapers. At the time many thought America was done, a mere shell of what it once was. But that was wrong too. Japan is now entering its second lost decade and is rapidly falling behind its chief Asian rival.

For the last 15 years we have watched the ascent of China as it took a huge slice of the West's manufacturing base with its endless supply of cheap labor. The Chinese, by embracing capitalistic tendencies, have rocketed past Japan and Germany economically and threaten America's dominance as an influence peddler. In fact, 2012 America looks rather bleak with regards to the unemployment and the public debt situation.

But is it really so?

On the surface America looks like a tumultuous mess. Tea Parties, Occupy movements, bitter elections and a 50/50 red/blue split that offers the casual observer an ugly picture of discontent. The hatred of Obama and the uber-liberals on the one side is only matched by the hatred of Bush and neo-cons on the other. Unemployment and rising prices for the staples of food and fuel multiplied by the decline in home values has created the sharpest downward spiral in wealth seen in decades. Economically there has not been this level of misery since the Great Depression. It's bad right now, there is no denying that.

On the other hand China looks like the picture of calm and confidence. Enjoying nearly double digit economic growth year after year after year has put China in the driver's seat. Busily building world class cities and infrastructure while becoming a military power to boot has resulted in rising influence internationally. They sit on billions in foreign currency and a trade surplus never before seen in modern times. To the outside world there is seemingly little political strife and the central planning by a powerful one-party system seems to work pretty well.

But does it?

In America the roiling sea of distraction masks what is a remarkably stable society. Orderly -  if spirited - political campaigns result in a transfer of power that requires no bloodshed. Americans get up and go to work, by and large follow the rules and get things done. The Tea Party movement is far from radical or dangerous to the authorities - the same is largely true of the Occupiers except they are much messier and more uncouth. In truth America is the picture of stability in these extremely trying times.

China, while seeming cool and confident on the surface - the part the outside world sees - is actually a seething mess underneath. The dirt poor living in the interior have nothing except the pollution after effects of the rapid expansion of the coastal cities. Even in the wealthy cosmopolitan cities there is great discontent over wages and working conditions. Chinese consumers watch endless piles of consumer goods that they make shipped off the America and Europe with little left over for them. We hear only snippets of the news of massive riots on a scale we can scarcely imagine. What the West perceives as confident one-party rule and the certainty that comes with it is actually a paranoid club of bullies and dictators. The only way to get ahead is corruption, bribery and cheating.

These are a great people, capable of so much more. The Chinese people have only scratched the surface of what they can do - but their system is incapable of unleashing the true potential locked up inside.

In spite of everything the Chinese people are a happier lot than Americans right now. Americans are discontented - and maybe we always have been - because we know there are so many more possibilities, we have glimpsed them. Our corrupt government and their corporate benefactors have skewed everything. The Chinese simply expect less of their corrupt institutions. A vast majority of Americans feel the country and the culture is heading in the wrong direction.China on the other hand is plodding however indelicately away from their oppressive past.

America unfortunately is being led by a man who sees America's decline as the only solution equalizing the human experience. He could not be more wrong. We are voluntarily cutting off our noses to spite our faces. We have seen what can be done by unleashing human potential. Our imperfect but mostly free culture has spawned the most powerful nation in human history. It was no accident. We are letting it be squandered by ideological maggots (on both sides). Our system while not as paranoid and corrupt as China's is heading in that direction. The political and corporate corruption in Washington DC in 2012 is beyond sickening - and it's dangerous.

The world is craving leaders. Many were fooled into believing we elected someone who was different in 2008. Someone ready to throw out derision and work toward a functional (if contentious) body politic. Instead we have a petulant, ideological man-child offering very little leadership or inspiration. He offers only decline. What the world needs now is some real hope and change.



CW

2012 Disaster? The China Bubble

For years we have been hearing two tales about China. The obvious one that China will overtake the U.S. as the dominant economy on the planet and eventually even hold the world' s default currency. Not to mention China's expanding military and its ambitious goals to lead in space exploration among other likely conquests. Who's to stop it? The other tale is the specter of the grand daddy of all "bubbles".

If you have been listening and reading you will have seen the occasional China bubble story. While it seems impossible in the back of your mind you wonder to yourself what will it mean to me...

I've relied on one of my favorite bloggers for specific information, that would be Al Fin of http://alfin2100.blogspot.com/. While I find Al Fin extremely credible it doesn't hurt to see evidence in main stream publications. Take a minute to read this article in The Times of London called "Hedge funds bet China is a bubble close to bursting".

FTA
We think we’ve experienced credit bubbles over the past few years, but China is the biggest. And yet the global economy is looking to China as not just a crutch but a springboard out of the recession. It’s crazy.”


He is not alone. Hugh Hendry, a former star of Odey Asset Management, has launched a distressed China fund at Eclectica Asset Management.


He follows Mark Hart of Corriente Advisors, the American hedge fund manager who made millions of dollars predicting both the subprime crisis and the European sovereign debt crisis, who started a fund based on the belief that rather than being the “key engine for global growth”, China is an “enormous tail-risk”.


There have been academics and analysts who have argued about the dangers of China’s economy overheating for some time. But for many, the fact that hedge funds, particularly those with track records on previous crises, are launching specific funds is the sign that the bubble is close to bursting.


One academic said: “Economists have contrarian views all the time. But these hedge funds have their shirts on the line and do their analysis carefully. The flurry of 'distress China’ funds is a sign to sit up.”


More analysts are becoming bearish too. Last week, Lombard Street Research put out a note warning of China’s “already dangerously home-grown inflation”.


The analysts said figures showing the continuing boom in China were far from welcome: “On the contrary, Chinese policymakers have to slam on the brakes.” The financiers are warning that rather than depending on China as the prop of the recovery plan, Britain needs to be braced for another shock.
END QUOTE


The housing bubble in The U.S. and to some degree in Europe has caused a near global economic meltdown. It's hard to say what havoc the bursting of the China bubble will do. Nothing good I'm sure.

If one thinks about it the very fact that China became an economic powerhouse is intrinsically tied to the American housing bubble. Through the 80's and 90's technology, computers, the Internet and the digital device revolution helped keep the U.S. economy afloat. First it was the manufacturing of the devices and later, when the manufacturing went overseas, the servicing of the technology culminating in the Y2K economic boom. Thereafter it was the housing market and the wildly inflating real estate prices forged by bad government policy and ridiculously low interest rates that fed the economy the equity capital that would float the economy for a few more years. All the while the jobs flooded out of the U.S. and into China with the blessing of the multi-nationals as well as the Federal government. U.S. consumers flush with all that home equity money bought a lot of Chinese manufactured goods.

Let the good times roll, right?

Where does that leave us now. Well, does a sustained (official) unemployment rate of nearly 10% ring a bell? Does record bank foreclosures sound familiar? Do bankrupt state governments and multi-trillion dollar Federal deficits come to mind? Bad, yes, all bad, but thank God we have cheap Chinese imports at WalMart!!!

If the Chinese bubble bursts we could actually see shortages of some basic supplies since they are not made here anymore, but that would be the least of our worries. Many companies would be hurt and it could cascade into more job losses here, maybe even enough to send us into a deep recession or even a global depression.

No one really knows what might happen. These hedge fund managers, some of whom were ringing the warning bells about the U.S. housing bubble, will point out the canaries in the coal mine for us - we should listen this time.


CW

WWWW I:World Wide Web War

That the Internet has been revolutionary is an understatement. The reach of instant information, entertainment and personal communication is nothing short of miraculous. It has changed the music industry, the banking industry, the newspaper industry and every other industry and organization that has embraced it and particularly those that haven't. It has spawned several of the largest most powerful companies that have ever existed - it has destroyed even more. It is no coincidence that the modern world has become dependent on it.

I'm hear to tell you the the Internet is in danger. A cyber war is raging under the covers that threatens to invade and destroy the very civilization that spawned it, funded it, nurtured it and most importantly propagated it.

Today the company that has come to epitomize the success of cyberland, Google, Inc. is locked in a battle of wills with a nation with vast potential and billions of idle dollars. China, more precisely the Chinese government is suspected of a cyber attack that was ultimately aimed at Google's e-mail servers. This attack was under reported as most of these are since companies and government agencies (including the DOD) are loath to let on when they have been compromised. Google has decided to call China out...

Google may be the only entity that can - it's a hugely powerful company and it isn't tied to the U.S. government and therefore touchy international relations won't stand in the way of accusations and retributions. However the market potential of China is so great any company including Google would be insane to walk away. Still, the sophistication of the hackers indicates Chinese government support at some level and Google is steaming.

So far Google hasn't conclusively tied the Chinese government to the recent attacks, but the source of those attacks was traced to mainland China. It's well known that a huge majority of dangerous and malicious cyber activity homes out of China, Southeast Asia and Russia. The U.S. government and top security-firms indicated that over 30 other companies were targeted in this latest attack. Even then most companies weren't very forthcoming with information and trail soon grew cold.

Tracking the source of these attacks is increasingly difficult. Most attackers use relays to direct their attacks - and with millions of seriously compromised computers attached to the Internet (possibly even yours or mine) its easy for the cyber criminals to hide their tracks.

Corporations (and governments) that employ state of the art firewalls and web security systems walk a fine line between making the Internet a useful, or more precisely an indispensable tool and protecting their data, their money and their equipment from the cyber warriors. Even locking down what sort of traffic can enter or leave a company's electronic walls it seems the very "ports" that have made the World Wide Web what it is are the avenues of choice for the invaders. The familiar ports 80 (http) and 443 (https) are increasingly to dangerous to leave unattended.

The bottom line is that you've got to presume that there is a dangerous, hostile, invader inside your network, inside your computer. The idea is to control who's on your network system and it takes highly skilled teams whose only job is searching for computer attacks. In light of the current economic situation unfortunately most companies are severely understaffed in this area. Just buying the latest whiz bang security system is not enough, human eyes and expert training is key... The Internet infrastructure is very fragile right now.



CW

Will China Go Boom?

As a frequent reader of Al Fin's web pages - as I know all of you are - you've seen numerous articles questioning the conventional wisdom on the future of China and the Chinese economy. Many pundits in business, journalism and economics see China as a rising star that will soon overshadow every other economy as it steps over the United States as the dominant player on the global economic stage. It's hard not to view it that way considering what has happened in the last 20-30 years. Still, the one thing we need to consider when evaluating China's ascendancy is the little fact that they didn't get where they are today all by themselves.

The lure of an endless supply of cheap labor and lax environmental laws was irresistible to the world's 3 largest and most technically advanced entities. The U.S., Japan and Europe have sunk huge amount of capital and resources into China. The hard liners in the upper reaches of the (communist) Chinese government have not let the Americans or the Japanese run all over them and have kept an iron grip on the ultimate control of all these enterprises foreign and domestic. On paper it looks like a brilliant strategy - but it might be the very thing that sinks them in the end.

Well Al Fin has company in his skeptisism. This week Politico the fine political/economics web site has run this article Is China headed toward collapse? that challenges the conventional wisdom on China's economic outlook.

FTA:
First, they point to the enormous Chinese economic stimulus effort — with the government spending $900 billion to prop up a $4.3 trillion economy. “Yet China’s economy, for all the stimulus it has received in 11 months, is underperforming,” Gordon Chang, author of “The Coming Collapse of China,” wrote in Forbes at the end of October. “More important, it is unlikely that [third-quarter] expansion was anywhere near the claimed 8.9 percent.” Chang argues that inconsistencies in Chinese official statistics — like the surging numbers for car sales but flat statistics for gasoline consumption — indicate that the Chinese are simply cooking their books. He speculates that Chinese state-run companies are buying fleets of cars and simply storing them in giant parking lots in order to generate apparent growth.


Another data point cited by the bears: overcapacity. For example, the Chinese already consume more cement than the rest of the world combined, at 1.4 billion tons per year. But they have dramatically ramped up their ability to produce even more in recent years, leading to an estimated spare capacity of about 340 million tons, which, according to a report prepared earlier this year by Pivot Capital Management, is more than the consumption in the U.S., India and Japan combined.

I have also read that China has built countless condo complexes in their large cities employing thousands of construction workers and involving hundreds of suppliers only to have them sit empty when finished - primarily because Chines citizens can't afford them. Over capacity in housing and manufacturing creates a shaky economic outlook.

With the U.S. consumer joining the Japanese consumer as savers instead of spenders where will all these Chinese-made goods go if the Chinese don't start to become consumers themselves? Personally I don't doubt the American government will make all the wrong moves in regards to throwing it all in with the Chinese - as long it helps the short term view. With all the talk of one big globalized marketplace where everyone dances in concert America would be unwise to trust China or for that matter the Japanese who are in bed snuggling even closer to the communists than anyone else.

The truth is a China crash is not good for anyone really. The China boosters like economist Mike Norman and NYT writer Thomas Freidman can gush about how China is doing everything right while the Americans fiddle, but smart, serious people like Jim Chanos, a billionaire and founder of the investment firm Kynikos Associates, Gordon Chang as well as Al Fin believe otherwise - or are at least highly skeptical of China's "dominant" future.

The question is when will China falter? The compression of growth to dominance to decline is sped up by modern technology. Britain is still in a slow decline from a dominance that ended 60 years ago. The U.S. having been far more dynamic is declining even slower, but if one looks at the Japanese ascent to dominance and decline it has happened in the course of the same 60 years. China could be entering decline after only 30 or 40 years...

I have little faith that the Obama administration, who is in the finishing stages of dismantling the most dynamic economic system the world has ever seen will do anything to arrest the slide toward global economic collapse led by the U.S./Japanese/Chinese decline.



CW

Thomas Friedman: To China with Love

Of all the commentators the major news networks trot out for their reasoned take on the issues of the day there is one who continually gets his ass kissed like he's some kind of royalty or wise elder statesman. All of them - David Broder, Mark Shields, David Gergan, Paul Krugman, Newt Gingrich and David Brooks - can be thoroughly nauseating at times but New York Times opinion sage Thomas Friedman is hoisted on a pedestal as the breathless nation awaits his perspicacious proclamations.


He is, in fact, a partisan sloganeer pretending to be an oh so wise intellectual progressive. I have read some of his books and will say he delivers valuable insight on several economic and cultural trends. He is a trained observer of socio-economic world. He is however completely predictable. In his eyes Liberals, Democrats and Progressives while at times misguided are inherently good and decent, having only the best intentions. Conservatives, Republicans and Traditionalists are troglodytes.


One of his latest books called "Hot, Flat and Crowded" is demonstrably wrong on all counts. For someone with one clever slogan after another it doesn't seem to matter that the facts just don't support his suppositions. Hot, of course, is a reference to Global Warming. Despite what the true believers believe the facts are proving the opposite is true - we are headed into period of global cooling and that climate change is a fact not a symptom. Flat is a shout out to his previous bestseller "The World is Flat" which presumes that the global economic playing field has been leveled by technology and transportation improvements. While their might be some merit to his idea - the rules of the game are not the same for everyone and every nation - the playing field is far from level. Crowded means population explosion and resource depletion. Here again the actual trends point to the world population peaking sometime in this century and then receding precipitously. White Europeans and the Japanese literally could be on the road to extinction if current demographic trends continue. All around the world fertility is waning - almost all peoples are having fewer children. Global resources have kept pace in a world that has seen the human population double since the 1960's.


Basically Friedman is just plain wrong more often than not - in my opinion.


In his latest proclamation he is picking China as the winner in the Global Dominance sweepstakes. The reason? China is a one party autocracy led by a reasonably enlightened group of people. America on the other hand is shackled by red state troglodytes.


He writes: China is committed to overtaking us in electric cars, solar power, energy efficiency, batteries, nuclear power and wind power. China’s leaders understand that in a world of exploding populations and rising emerging-market middle classes, demand for clean power and energy efficiency is going to soar. Beijing wants to make sure that it owns that industry and is ordering the policies to do that, including boosting gasoline prices, from the top down.


So what if all this is absolutely true? They are essentially a party dictatorship. They don't respect the rights of their own citizens. They have embraced the economic growth and wealth of capitalism but none of the ancillary costs. China does not innovate they steal. China does not compete they cheat. Sure there's a lot to like about getting things done by simple decree instead of messy legislation negotiated with backward leaning troglodytes, but we are a democracy with a representative form of government that must consider the will of the people.


Friedman is quite impressed with the way China gets things done. He admires their progressive vision for the future. But paragons of virtue and stewards of the planet China is not. While complaining that the troglodytes are standing in the way of meaningful carbon (read: wealth) restrictions on Americans, Friedman doesn't seem to mind that the dash toward economic development that has been official state policy in China for the last few decades has left it one of the most polluted countries on the planet. This while America's GDP increases and our pollution decreases... The U.S. leads all industrialized nations in the reduction in the growth of our carbon output. In other words we are going in the right direction (if one believes carbon is a problem). Meanwhile China brings online a new coal fired power plant every week and cares not a whit for worker's rights or the pollution they breathe. According to Friedman America's rebuttal should be draconian taxation on carbon imposed to all businesses and industries that operate in America, making everything we do more expensive.


The far sighted Chinese regime continues to outlaw the formation of real trade unions and the right to strike which of course leads to artificially low wages. How does a $2/day salary with no benefits strike you Tom? And we ought to emulate China because that's what we want for America and our workforce, right?


While others share Friedman's belief that globalization is a form of salvation the American capitalist class just keeps on outsourcing, shuttering U.S. industry and moving jobs overseas. These captains of American industry refuse to invest in their own country's future because most of the returns go to workers in the form of higher wages and not to the shareholders. Perhaps the most devastating aspect of this trend as we dismantle our manufacturing capabilities and move them to China - we are generally required to transfer our most advanced technologies to their factories.


Does Friedman's admiration of the "Chinese Way" include the suppression of consumption in order to accumulate capital wealth to be controlled by the government? Where is the vast Chinese market for American goods we were promised? Ultimately opening up American markets to China has not fostered the spread of "democracy" instead it has been devastating to the U.S. economy and American workers.


So Mr. Friedman, perhaps the Chinese will lead the world in manufacturing all manner of energy efficient and "green" technology, but they won't be the ones developing it and its citizens will still be living in a cesspool - and ours will live in poverty. Go China, long live the troglodytes!




CW

American Millionaire Murdered in Beijing

This is shocking and incredibly sad. While I obviously didn't know Todd Bachman I can't help but feel for him and his family. He was the CEO of an institution here in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Bachman's Garden Center has been around for as long as anyone can remember and we've all shopped there. My heart breaks for the family.

I see little mention of the man himself in the articles I've read. Except for the local newspapers the fact that he was a wealthy and successful businessman is hardly mentioned. There is speculation that the Chinese government has censored the local news of the murder - gee, that's hard to believe...

It's hard to know what to make of it - other than it should be a bigger story than it is. Perhaps this paragraph from Time.com's story explains why it isn't front page news for days:

The murder did not appear to have been pre-meditated. "It seems like a senseless act of violence by a random individual with no motive," says Richard Buangan, spokesperson for the U.S. embassy in Beijing. "They were not targeted because they were Americans." The USOC said the victims had not been wearing any USA apparel. Still, athletes and officials walking around the village were stunned, and even a little afraid. Violence against foreigners is rare in Beijing and across China...

If it was terrorism or directly attributably to Mr. Bachman being an American (or a millionaire) then maybe this would be a true "international incident" in the eyes of the main stream press.

God Bless the Bachman's.



CW