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whyeye 12 points ago +12 / -0

Recently (a couple of weeks ago) travelled to the US from Australia. During the entire trip, at no point was I ever asked to show proof of vaccination. I think the "requirement" has merely been lip service for a while now.

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whyeye 114 points ago +115 / -1

I already made this into a post but it probably won't show up. So I'll paste the contents here:

As a person of Chinese heritage I think it's important to remember that the CCP does not follow any rulebook. The words "default", "debt", "liability", etc. don't really hold any meaning. So it would be a mistake to think that that a failed public company, in itself, is of any cause concern to the Chinese ruling class. Certainly they don't need to worry about any uprisings inside China. The CCP is actually more of a conglomerate of powerful families, each looking after their own interests. All these mega companies are ultimately controlled by different factions inside the CCP. The ultimate goal of anyone inside the CCP is to guarantee the security of their ill-gotten personal assets so they can be passed on to their descendants (all living in western countries). The overall condition of China's economy and outlook for its population is wholly and absolutely irrelevant.

The cynic in me would guess that companies like Evergrande have completed their role. That is, they have successfully, through corruption or coercion, tricked foreign investors and institutions (including your damn retirement fund) into pouring massive, stratospheric, amounts of USD into it for as long as possible. Using multiple layers of intermediaries, a large portion of the money would have already been laundered into real estate and other legitimate investments in western countries, thereby protected by the rule of law. This is the only way that CCP affiliated individuals can reliably hold onto their riches. Anything and everything they own inside China can be taken from them on a whim.

Hope this gives a bit of insight to what could be happening and the nature of the CCP. I personally don't believe their is a "white-hat" operation of any significance inside of China. The only way to truly deal with them is to investigate and seize assets that can be traced back to individuals linked to the CCP. Sadly, the vast majority would have been already legitimised through the very best legal and accounting firms, so even this is not all that actionable. Not with the amount of corruption we have been seeing in western governments. Money talks, and sometimes it does feel like all levels of government has been compromised. The only good thing to come out of this would be that in the future, people will be more sceptical about investing in Chinese companies. But you can bet they will just think up new ways to steal from you.