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Mao nostalgia in China

On October 1, the People's Republic of China marked its 60th anniversary with an impressive military parade, musical performances and portraits of Sun Yat-sen, Deng Xiaoping, and Mao Zedong.

It's the occasion for a boomlet for Mao nostalgia in China. This, one can kind of understand. He was the founder of the PRC. After liquidating his rivals, he was the maximum leader of the Chinese Communist Party.

Here's today's article on the nostalgia for Mao in China: Mao presides again in China as nostalgia runs high. It's fun stuff. Young people who don't know more about him than his name and image are taking the commercial opportunity to sell T-shirts, hats, badges and snow globes.

In the US, within the Obama administration, Mao Zedong is also enjoying a revival. Communications Director Anita Dunn commends him as a political philosopher to the graduating class of a parochial school. Manufacturing Czar Ron Bloom cites with approval Mao's saying that "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun" ["Problems of War and Strategy" (November 6, 1938), Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 224].

The thing is this. In China, it is not Mao's Communism that is being celebrated; the country has spent the last thirty years correcting the leftist errors of the previous thirty. Apart from the retail opportunity, Mao's real reputation in China is as a nationalist (not a Nationalist, which in China is a different thing):

1 Mao would work with anyone, anywhere to resist Japanese aggression, including the Nationalists or the Americans, even to the extent of putting the Red Army under their command.

2 Mao unified the war-torn Chinese mainland under Chinese rule for the first time since 1644.

3 In its first five years, the PRC under Mao was drawn into superpower conflict with the US in Korea, and managed to stay in the fight with the nuclear-armed US to secure a draw on the peninsula.

4 When Mao fell out with Khruschev, the PRC found itself surrounded by enemies: the USSR to the north, Taiwan with its US backing to the east, India with its designs on Tibet and implicit backing of the UK, US, and USSR to the south. Mao prosecuted a war in the Himalayas and backed them all down, sustaining the country's independence through a dangerous time.

5 Forty-five years ago this week, the PRC got the bomb; if any of the other powers thought attacking China would be easy, after that it meant mutually assured destruction.

6 When the time came for a new way forward, Mao came to terms with Richard Nixon, and it was easy for the two cold warriors, as if getting reacquainted with old friends. This upset the balance of power in the far east, putting the USSR on the defensive. As much as the US played the China card, China played the America card.

Seek truth from facts, as Deng Xiaoping always said. Mao Zedong's reputation in his homeland has very little to do with his Communism at this stage, and everything to do with his nationalism. Which is fine -- it is his homeland after all.

But like many others, I would like to know just what it is that his highly-placed admirers in the US Obama administration are getting out of Mao Zedong at this time.

From Alphaclone via SeekingAlpha: Galleon Group's 50 Largest Holdings

My first employer on Wall Street was the world's largest pension fund; my second, the fastest growing hedge fund. When I was at the first and interviewing for the second, I had this idea that the best hedge fund were investing on some higher plane, with qualitatively different instruments and strategies put to use by people who were just altogether smarter than those of us at conventional money managers. Once I was in a hedge fund, I realized that these people put their pants on one leg at a time, that they were subject to all the usual range of human abilities and weaknesses, and that their funds may or may not be better though they certainly were more expensive for clients.

Galleon's top fifty holdings list from earlier in the year is utterly ordinary.

Wyeth went the way of all flesh on Friday; now part of Pfizer.

keywords: Hedge Fund

 

 

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Galleon Group's 50 Largest Holdings

via SeekingAlpha.com: Home Page by AlphaClone on 10/18/09

AlphaClone submits:

The founders of the Galleon Group, a hedge fund started in 1997 and which has a technology and healthcare focus, have been charged with insider trading. Galleon is one of the 250 hedge and institutional investment funds that are available on AlphaClone. The fund's Top 10 Holding Clone, which invests quarterly in the the fund's ten largest holdings at the time they are disclosed, is up 48.2% so far this year but has not performed very well over time returning a negative 3.9% annualized over five years and a dismal negative 18% annualized since 2000 (all returns as of 10/15/09 close). We thought we'd list the fund's 50 largest holdings below (as of 6/30/09). Now that the fund will almost certainly wind down, perhaps there are some good short opportunities.

	Name	Ticker
1	EBAY INC	EBAY
2	GOOGLE INC	GOOG
3	APPLE INC	AAPL
4	OSI PHARMACEUTICALS...	OSIP
5	BANK OF AMERICA COR...	BAC
6	JP MORGAN CHASE & CO	JPM
7	CISCO SYS INC	CSCO
8	SPDR S&P 500	SPY
9	DELL INC	DELL
10	NVIDIA CORP	NVDA
11	E M C CORP MASS	EMC
12	WYETH	WYE
13	PEPSI BOTTLING GROU...	PBG
14	MEMC ELECTR MATLS INC	WFR
15	First Solar Inc	FSLR
16	VERISIGN INC	VRSN
17	YAHOO INC	YHOO
18	ELECTRONIC ARTS INC	ERTS
19	SPDR Gold	GLD
20	INTEL CORP	INTC
21	QUALCOMM INC	QCOM
22	COGNIZANT TECHNOLOG...	CTSH
23	FORD MTR CO DEL	F
24	NATIONAL SEMICONDUC...	NSM
25	NETEASE COM INC	NTES
26	SUNTRUST BKS INC	STI
27	TYCO INTERNATIONAL LTD	TYC
28	TERADYNE INC	TER
29	RESEARCH IN MOTION LTD	RIMM
30	ALCON INC	ACL
31	HEWLETT PACKARD CO	HPQ
32	VISA INC	V
33	AMAZON COM INC	AMZN
34	BIOGEN IDEC INC	BIIB
35	NOVELLUS SYS INC	NVLS
36	ANADARKO PETE CORP	APC
37	COMMSCOPE INC	CTV
38	FTI CONSULTING INC	FCN
39	PEPSICO INC	PEP
40	ABERCROMBIE & FITCH CO	ANF
41	F5 NETWORKS INC	FFIV
42	LAM RESEARCH CORP	LRCX
43	LEXMARK INTL NEW	LXK
44	GAP INC DEL	GPS
45	Seagate Tech	STX
46	YINGLI GREEN ENERGY...	YGE
47	RADIOSHACK CORP	RSH
48	KLA-TENCOR CORP	KLAC
49	FIDELITY NATIONAL F...	FNF
50	ALLERGAN INC	AGN

Complete Story »

 

 

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Malevolence? Stop the insanity!

“There has to be a counterweight to the malevolence of the insurance industry.” So says Senator Jay Rockefeller to mop-topped interviewer Al Hunt of Bloomberg.

Malevolence? What's next out of the mouth of the Democratic senator from the state of Tourette's syndrome?

You will wait in vain for the industry to fight back hard against this Alinskyite campaign of vilification. Like all other industries that depend upon the US government to treat them with minimal sanity, the insurance industry deals with Uncle Sam the way you would any other lunatic with a trunkful of loaded guns . . . veeeeeeeeeery caaaaaaarefully, for fear of pissing off the lunatic and having him go berserk.

This is the state of play for all owners of capital in the United States today. They hold their breaths; they hold their tongues; they even contribute to the lunatics' campaign, hoping it will buy them some goodwill! Look how well that has worked for you, health insurers -- you're public enemy number one.

The last trade association leaders who was any damned use at all to his membership was the late Jack Valenti of the Motion Picture Association of America.

General Electric profit slumps 44%

from Marketwatch: General Electric profit slumps 44%

Financial business being run down rapidly, industrial business, a basic GDP play, seeing 8% lower revenues from the year ago period.

The pre-eminent American industrial company manages decline.

Book extract on Chinese history

China’s people take pride and inspiration from their history, but it can be burdensome too in some respects. The Sinologist Lucian Pye referred to “the millstone of greatness”, noting that “awareness of the greatness of Chinese civilization, together with an appreciation of the distinctiveness of ‘Chineseness,’ is universal”, not least among the Chinese themselves. They never forget that they are the heirs to a unique, identifiably Chinese civilization which arose in the valley of the Yellow River and endured continuously through the last four thousand years of recorded history. On the one hand, the burden is to have so much to live up to; on the other, it is a source of considerable frustration that their universally acknowledged greatness has so seldom translated into peace, prosperity, and a good life for the Chinese people.

Lu Xun, China’s great modern writer and scathing social critic, captures that frustration as he dismisses the entire enterprise of Chinese historiography:

But however fine the phrases of those splendour-loving scholars, or however grand the expressions they use in their chronicles, such as "the rise of the Hans," "the age of Han expansion," or "the age of Han resurgence," while appreciating that their motives are of the best, we cannot but feel their wording is too ambiguous. A much more straightforward mode of expression would be:

1. The periods when we longed in vain to be slaves.
2. The periods when we succeeded in becoming slaves for a time.

These periods form a cycle of what earlier scholars call "times of good rule" and "times of confusion." [Lu Xun National Characteristics 2 150-]

Lu Xun was writing his polemics during yet another time of confusion, after one Chinese empire had fallen, before what was to come had really taken shape. If he was not a man of the left, he certainly admired the Soviet Union and thought its model worth considering for the modernization, democratization, and independence of China. He includes a reminder to us that down through the ages, the great historic achievements of great men were the endeavor of one-twentieth, one-fiftieth, or as little as one-hundredth of the population, of no positive moment to the great mass of the Chinese people who labored mutely on the land, desperately trying to stay alive, produce enough to pay taxes, and escape undue attention of the Emperor’s officials. But when the great men failed or turned out to be evil men, it was the common folk who paid with their lives, hundreds of millions of lives, so many that the mind simply balks.

Book extract on Confucius & The Way

The Chinese concept of the Way, or Tao, was current before Confucius lived or taught; the Books of Odes and Rites tell of Heaven, and reveal beliefs in ancestor-spirits and a supreme being with a human face. However, Tzu-kung reports that “one cannot get to hear [Confucius’] views on human nature and the Way of Heaven. (V, 13, 78) Confucius does not conjecture about the nature of God or Heaven, but he felt the full force of Heaven’s Decree upon him, and suggested that shame is the feeling of falling afoul of the Way of Heaven: “When you have offended against Heaven, there is nowhere you can turn in your prayers.” (III, 13, 69) The subject of Confucius’ teaching is not the nature of man, but man’s conduct. It is not the Way of Heaven in the sense of ultimate truth about the universe, but rather in the most down-to-earth sense of each person and each state acting dutifully, benevolently, in compliance with the Rites, outward form conferring inward grace. Confucius’ Way is in no means mystical. It can be learned, and taught. “The Gentleman . . . goes to men possessed of the Way to be put right. Such a man can be described as eager to learn.” (I, 14, 61) The fact that Confucius’ conception of the Way relies on learned forms rather than mystical revelation does not make it any less a matter of life and death:

The Master said, “He has not lived in vain who dies the day he is told about the Way.” (IV, 8, 73)

When the ruler governs according to the Golden Mean, observes the Rites, and follows the Way, he brings his state to a condition of harmony, for “when the Way prevails in the Empire, the Commoners do not express critical views.” (XVI, 2, 139) In this dialogue with the senior minister of the State of Lu, Confucius asserts that the Way is all the ruler needs, rebuking the Legalist School of philosophy and every gang of thugs and killers to assume power from his own time down through the ages:

Chi K’ang Tzu asked Confucius about government, saying, “What would you think if, in order to move closer to those who possess the Way, I were to kill those who do not follow the Way?

Confucius answered, “In administering your government, what need is there for you to kill? Just desire the good yourself and the common people will be good. The virtue of the Gentleman is like the wind; the virtue of the small man is like the grass. Let the wind blow over the grass and it is sure to bend.” (XII, 19, 114-115)

With his reverence for precedent and antiquity, his abiding conservatism, and his conception of a hierarchical society led by benevolent example, Confucius could be either an instrument or an impediment to the rulers of China. To some, he was both at the same time.