Freetrader: "You tell me, Hull, who is more of a friend of the Chinese - those who believe that the Chinese deserve to be treated with dignity, or those or don't? There is only one possible answer, as far as I'm concerned."
Based on how you described how you treat your staff while making $4 million a year is an example of treating Chinese with dignity? If they speak up and complain about working 24/7 for lousy wages you fire them. At least you do make a decent point now and again vs just attack personally.
My sense if that you are naive or too US centric when it comes to China - not more knowledgeable as you claim to be. It is you FT who doesn't seem to grasp the complexity of things.
To improve China is to improve the rule the law and also eliminate corruption. The latter is tough but must be done.
Like the USA is the model for all things good and the PRC the model for all things evil:
C.I.A. Data Show 14-Year Project On Controlling Human Behavior; Data From C.I.A. Show Project on Human Behavior By NICHOLAS M. HORROCK Special to The New York Times ();
July 21, 1977
WikiLeaks cables recount how U.S. pressured allies
2001-03-06, San Francisco Chronicle
They have received little attention in the United States, but a set of WikiLeaks disclosures of confidential documents has caused an uproar in Europe by showing that U.S. officials pressured Germany and Spain to derail criminal investigations of Americans.
More than 2,500 State Department cables ... include accounts of three cases that shed new light on U.S. responses to allegations of wrongdoing: -- The case of Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen seized in Macedonia in 2003 by officers who mistook him for an al Qaeda agent with a similar name. He said they turned him over to U.S. authorities, who flew him in shackles, a blindfold and a diaper to a prison in Afghanistan, where they beat him, injected him with drugs and interrogated him. The CIA analyst who advocated el-Masri's abduction and argued against releasing him even after colleagues reported the mistaken identity has been promoted to run the agency's al Qaeda unit and regularly briefs CIA Director Leon Panetta.
-- The case of four Spanish residents who said they were [B]tortured by U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay before being released without charges. [/B]--
The case of Jose Couso, a Spanish cameraman who was one of two journalists killed in April 2003 by a U.S. artillery shell at a hotel in Baghdad. A U.S. military investigation concluded that troops were responding to reports of rocket attacks from the building, but journalists on the scene have said the hotel was a well-known media headquarters and was not the source of any hostile fire. A May 2007 WikiLeaks cable quoted then-U.S. Ambassador Eduardo Aguirre as saying that "behind the scenes we have fought tooth and nail to make the charges disappear." The Obama administration has refused to discuss the content of the State Department documents or of previous WikiLeaks disclosures about Iraq and Afghanistan.
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley resigns after flap over his WikiLeaks remarks
2011-03-13, Chicago Tribune/Associated Press
Crowley's comments about the conditions for Army Pfc. Bradley Manning at a Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Va., reverberated quickly. Manning is being held in solitary confinement for all but an hour every day, and is stripped naked each night and given a suicide-proof smock to wear to bed.
Rights Are Curtailed for Terror Suspects
2011-03-24, Wall Street Journal
New rules allow investigators to hold domestic-terror suspects longer than others without giving them a Miranda warning, significantly expanding exceptions to the instructions that have governed the handling of criminal suspects for more than four decades. The move is one of the Obama administration's most significant revisions to rules governing the investigation of terror suspects in the U.S. The new rules give interrogators more latitude and flexibility to define what counts as an appropriate circumstance to waive Miranda rights.
(Miranda rights to an attorney...right to remain silent...anything you say... court.)
Obama creates indefinite detention system for prisoners at Guantanamo Bay
2011-03-08, Washington Post
"It is virtually impossible to imagine how one closes Guantanamo in light of this executive order," said Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "In a little over two years, the Obama administration has done a complete about-face." Recent legislation now makes it extremely difficult to transfer any detainee out of Guantanamo Bay even if he is believed to be no threat.
Sen. Graham voices support for restrictions on free speech
April 4, 2011 Source: Midlands Connect
Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is drawing national attention stemming from controversial comments he made this weekend seemingly calling on Congress to impose limits on free speech.
Graham said on CBS Face the Nation Sunday that the need to protect U.S. servicemembers overseas may justify limiting of political speech at home.
"I wish we could find some way to hold people accountable," said Graham. "Free speech is a great idea, but we're in a war. During World War II you had limits on what you could do if it inspired the enemy."
Graham's comments follow the burning of a Quran by Florida pastor Terry Jones, who said he organized the burning to "stir the pot." The burning of the Islam holy book sparked rioting in Afghanistan, where at least seven people had been killed over the weekend as protests erupted again Monday for the fourth straight day.
Graham's comments about limiting free speech to discourage violent protests were quickly picked up by multiple national media outlets including Politico, Mediaite and The Atlantic.
What do you think about Senator Graham's comments? Is limiting free expression sometimes justified to protest U.S. troops overseas, or is the Senator's oath to preserve and protect the Constitution more important?
US Army 'kill team' in Afghanistan posed for photos of murdered civilians
2011-03-21, The Guardian
Indiana prosecutor resigns for encouraging fake attack on Wisconsin governor
2011-03-25, CBS News
Last month, another Indiana official -- Deputy Attorney General Jeff Cox - lost his job for calling on law enforcement to "use live ammunition" on Wisconsin protesters.
Agent: I was ordered to let U.S. guns into Mexico
2011-03-03, CBS News
And as ATF stood by watching thousands of weapons hit the streets. The Fast and Furious group supervisor noted the escalating Mexican violence. One e-mail noted, "958 killed in March 2010 ... most violent month since 2005." Dodson feels that ATF was partly to blame for the escalating violence. Senior agents including Dodson ... confronted their supervisors over and over. Their answer ... "If you're going to make an omelette, you've got to break some eggs."
The Michigan Monarchy Legislates Financial Martial Law -- Nation Yawns
2011-03-18, Forbes
The new law, described by one of the GOP legislators sponsoring the bill as “financial martial law”, empowers the governor’s appointees [referred to as ‘Emergency Financial Managers’] to fire duly elected local officials, cancel labor contracts and even dissolve entire communities and school districts.
Audit: Pentagon overpaid oilman by up to $200 million
2011-03-17, Washington Post
The audit by the Defense Department’s inspector general ... estimated that the department paid the oilman “$160 [million] to $204 million more for fuel than could be supported by price or cost analysis.” The study also reported that the three contracts were awarded under conditions that effectively eliminated the other bidders.
IRS: 400 richest averaged $345M in '07 income, 16% tax rate
2010-02-18, USA Today
The [IRS] reports that the nation's 400 highest-earning households reported an average income of $345 million in 2007 — up 31% from 2006 — and that their average tax bill fell to a 15-year low. Bloomberg writes that the elite 400's average income more than doubled that year from $131.1 million in 2001, the year Congress adopted tax cuts urged by then-President George W. Bush. Each household in the top 400 of earners paid an average tax rate of 16.6 percent, the lowest since the agency began tracking the data in 1992.
Where'd the Bailout Money Go? Shhhh, It's a Secret
2008-12-22, Fox News/Associated Press
CIA and DOD Human Subjects Research Scandals
2007-00-00, U.S. Department of Energy Website
"In December 1974, the New York Times reported that the CIA had conducted illegal domestic activities, including experiments on U.S. citizens...."
The War On Waste
2002-01-29, CBS News
Pentagon ... while its own auditors admit the military cannot account for 25 percent of what it spends. "According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions," Rumsfeld admitted. $2.3 trillion—that's $8,000 for every man, woman and child in America. A former Marine turned whistle-blower is risking his job by speaking out ... about the millions he noticed were missing from one defense agency's balance sheets. Jim Minnery, Defense Finance and Accounting Service ... tried to follow the money trail, even crisscrossing the country looking for records. "The director looked at me and said 'Why do you care about this stuff?' It took me aback. My supervisor asking me why I care about doing a good job," said Minnery. He was reassigned and says officials then covered up the problem.
G.E.’s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether
2011-03-25, New York Times
Fed to release bank loan data after Supreme Court rejects appeal
2011-03-21, Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg News
The order marks the first time a court has forced the Fed to reveal the names of banks that borrowed from its oldest lending program, the 98-year-old discount window. "I can't recall that the Fed was ever sued and forced to release information" in its 98-year history, said Allan H. Meltzer, the author of three books on the U.S central bank and a professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
Parents Lose High Court Appeal in Vaccine Case
2011-02-22, U.S. News & World Report/Associated Press
The Supreme Court closed the courthouse door ... to parents who want to sue drug makers over claims their children developed autism and other serious health problems from vaccines.
Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the court, said Congress set up a special vaccine court in 1986 to ... create a system that spares the drug companies the costs of defending against parents' lawsuits. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissented.