| When the Truth Came Out... That evening, we were treated to the main event: a cocktail party along with some unmentionable "extras." They passed around their version of a local hooch called "woolongye" (or something that sounded like that). I'm not a big drinker, especially not in places I am not familiar with. But people were getting rowdy, and tongues started wagging. Management started to get very loose... and then it slipped. The steel mill, which was a company listed on the over-the-counter exchange network, was really owned by the municipality. It was neither private nor public. It was actually just a vehicle for the local government officials to cash in on selling stock in the U.S. under the guise of a legitimate public company. Even the accountants and auditors were complicit. Needless to say, it wasn't a company I recommended... and a few months later, the shares were delisted as the fraud was discovered. Since that visit, I have always been wary of investing in Chinese companies as anything but pure speculations. They are not real companies but wards of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). That's who truly controls the success or failure of the companies and their listed shares. Just look at the Alibaba (BABA) fiasco if you want proof. The company and founder were getting too rich, so the CCP stepped in and chopped both of them down, causing hundreds of billions in investor losses. My Most Recent Visit On my most recent visit to China, I was treated with outright hostility - starting with being required to submit a letter, an affidavit of sorts, that I would not be writing anything that would come across as derogatory. I was hassled at immigration and spent at least five hours at the airport trying to clear the entry process. I reached my hotel at 2 a.m. after finally convincing a sketchy driver to give me a ride because everything else was shut down. The trip to the hotel was pretty spectacular. As I rode through Shanghai, the city was lit up like a Christmas tree. The roads were great, the hotel was outstanding, and the cars parked in the hotel courtyard were nothing but the highest-end Rolls-Royces, Bentleys... and even a Lamborghini. The Mercedes didn't qualify for primo parking.  | Pictured above: A black Rolls-Royce on the street during one of my China visits. |
I went shopping at my favorite tech markets the next day. I used to be able to walk in and wheel and deal... Not this time. Once I opened my mouth and my American accent was revealed, service was nonexistent. In fact, I was thrown out of a store. That was pretty much how the whole trip went. As an American, I wasn't welcomed. Fast-Forward to Today... China is now on the verge of outpacing the U.S. on many fronts. Its navy is bigger, it's in position to control the most precious resource on the planet, it can spy on our children without penalty, and it is well on its way to amassing massive caches of resources from Africa to South America. It makes no secret of its hostility toward the United States. Yet we seem to love investing in Chinese companies, even though they are controlled by the CCP. China sends a spy balloon over our country, and we laugh and argue about which state it flew over. But the worst of this is that we are on track to become China's new conquest if we don't pay attention to the biggest threat we are facing. YOUR ACTION PLAN I have put together a special presentation that outlines this IMMINENT threat and how we can avoid it. If we don't, we are destined for a future in which we are no longer a world power - truly. Click here to watch the presentation. | 
Post a Comment
Post a Comment