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WikiLeaks Cable: NASDAQ Folded To Chinese Pressure
jjp9999 writes "A WikiLeaks cable reveals that the NASDAQ folded to pressure from the Chinese regime and kicked out a U.S.-based Chinese TV network, NTD TV. The Chinese Communist Party has been trying to block this station for years now, since it's one of the few major Chinese media that refuses to censor its content. Although they're blocked in Mainland China, they broadcast in with satellites. The timing of the incident aligns well with other actions launched by the CCP against the TV station. They used to broadcast into China through French satellite company Eutelsat, but their connection was cut. Reporters Without Borders investigated and found the Chinese regime was behind it. They now use a Taiwanese satellite."
Around the time the cables were released, Assange said Wikileaks were about to release a tranche of documents implicating a certain US bank in shenanigans. What happened to those?
if you get the stalled situation, like you said, maybe that's not too bad!
all our 'progress' in the last 10 or 15 years has been backward.
if we stand still, that's actually going forward! (head asplodes).
seriously, though; I'd be ok with having a guy in office that congress can't work with; as long as its both parties that can't work with him. enemy of my enemy and all that.
at this point, even a lunatic would get my vote if he's a true outsider. insiders are all messed up and voting for the same-old is not working. get some crazy guy in there as long as he's not R or D crazy. we've all had enough of that fake R/D choice, haven't we?
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Ron Paul isn't selling easy solutions: that's precisely why he won't get elected.
People don't want to hear that saving the country requires major changes and serious pain... which is why they'll vote for more of the same and then act surprised in ten years when the Chinese bailiffs turn up to load everything of value into ships as debt repayment after America goes bankrupt.
Whereas it used to be "democratic capitalism" vs. "totalitarian communism", what we see now is the merger of the two ideologies into "totalitarian capitalism".
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
>>>The idea of a perfectly-balanced budget makes little sense for a government.
Clinton and the Democrats bargged about it in 1998 and 99. They said it would enable them to pay down some of the debt, and they were correct.
Our current national + state government debt is 18 trillion, or about $180,000 per American home. Add another $110,000 in personal mortgage/credit card debt per household.
Almost $300,000 of debt per American household is NOT a sustainable policy. Even if your "some liquid cash needs to be available" theory was correct, almost 300K/home worth of debt is a Greece or Italy-like situation. It is NOT good.
We need a balanced budget as soon as possible, so we can pay down some of that debt load.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Actually, his point is quite valid. There are situations where congress should have stepped in but didn't (banks), and also situations where congress needs to stay the hell out of it but is eagerly trying to regulate (the internet). Literally, not regulating the internet is a far smarter move than actually doing so.
Same people do both, and it's bipartisan.
Basically, the issue is that money is still funding politics.
It's like giving your home keys to robbers. And then you wonder "how it came out!"
People think we call the Chinese and say "can you lend us $100 billion this week?
That's not how it works. It's an open auction, and the Chinese are as free to bid and buy as anyone, or they can buy it on the secondary market. As it is, they own about 8% of US-issued debt.
The ownership entitles them to one thing: repayment of the debt with interest. That's it.
"Oh, but if China ever dumped all their debt..." So what? Simple economics...supply rises, price falls (in this case, the interest rate would go up a half-point and other people would buy).
"Oh, but if China ever stopped buying our debt..." Same thing. Demand would fall, price falls. Government pays a little more interest and other people buy.
Advice: on VPS providers
In all seriousness, what the hell is the American middle class? Here in the UK it pretty much means you've got two employed adults or one adult in a high-paying, professional job and your big problems are all First World Problems. In the US media it seems to mean anything from a highly-paid expert consultant for space rockets to a family scraping together mortgage payments on an pile of 1970s drywall by taking on four part time jobs at the minimum wage.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
He's selling crazy, and we're all stocked up on the stuff. For every good idea he has, he has two that are the ramblings of a freeway off-ramp prophet.
His competition includes a known adulterer and hypocrite who claims he can build a functional moon base in 8 years, an imbicile who thinks Jesus rode dinosaurs (not to mention bearing a terrifying verbal resemblance to Gee-Dub), and a third guy who made his fortune by raping the American economy and honestly believes Joseph Smith was anything but a con man... that's not even taking into account the Liar in Chief.
Compared to those guys, Ron Paul is positively fucking enlightened.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
They were destroyed by a former WikiLeaks employee who left with them, then destroyed the key. Yes, somehow there wasn't a backup of the documents or key (or at least one of the two).
I'm not sure how much we can trust Domscheit-Berg and OpenLeaks. Check their News page (latest 26 Jan 2011, SSL cert expired months ago), Identi.ca (5 months ago), Blog (29 Jan 2011, quote: "Right now we are working on extending our infrastructure and setting it up for testing with our alpha users group. The 1.430 Euro we received as donations in December and January will help us to do so. We will spend this money to help cover infrastructure costs e.g. SSL certificates").
Also Thompson-Reuters isn't a terrific source when it comes to 'piracy'/'hacking' stories so here's an alternative to the rawstory.com link:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/tag/daniel-domscheit-berg/