"The Bush administration has already charged the Chinese government with restricting the flow of American movies, music and software into its borders and then failing to enforce laws against piracy."

You've got to be kidding me. Walk down a street in China and you can pick up all the American movies, music and software you want for £3! Heck, they even deliver to Camden for £5.

China == Microsoft (competitors need to go through it to deliver data)

Dow Jones, Reuters == Netscape, Firefox, Opera (better product that can't compete with "linked" operating system/government).

Just musing.

This is the same US government that is reviewing the awarding of a large DoD contract to EADS over Boeing because it's going to affect, the American company, Boeing's profits.

Physician, heal thyself.

And given the present Western Capitalist "Greed is Good" Markets Meltdown, the Great Sub-Prime Deceit , with news/media groups complicit and instrumental in pushing such "dope" into the easily led, consumer market place, one can easily understand China's Caution/ProActive Constructive Response/Xinhua Firewall.

IT keeps the Pox which is ravaging the Federal Fractional Reserve Ponzi Fiat System and its Schemes, firmly in their Rightful Place........ queued and waiting until, under competent supervision and medication, the patient has been cured/stabilised and controlled.

And China's action is what is known as Leadership?

And those are just Facts which Criticise the Lack of US Leadership and should not necessarily to be thought of as Criticism with Facts, for they merely highlight the Problem which US leadership has to recognise to be able to even begin to Solve it with IT.

It may very well be that they do not possess the necessary Leadership and Intellectual Property themselves and will have to buy IT in, but fortunately they will have no problem with that ............ "Section 13 of the Federal Reserve Act allows the bank - in "exigent circumstances" - to lend money to anybody, and take upon itself the credit risk. It has not done so since the 1930s." .... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/03/03/ccview103.xml&page=2

So.......all they have to do is find someone New who can Lead Ahead whilst the main Body Rests and Recuperates from its Near Death Experience and Plans for AI New Start Appreciating Life rather than expecting to be able to Control IT Primarily.

not only did i understand an AMFM post, i agreed with significant parts of it.

the last thing the Chinese public needs is full understanding of exactly how badly the US has been mismanaged.

the last decade has provided abundant proof that the only thing worse than a tax-and-spend Democrat,

is a cut-taxes-but-spend-much-more Republican.

a nation is not a credit card, and spending it into the ground has global consequences.

of course, since the US does not own its own money, but borrows it from

a privately owned entity (the Federal Reserve system is arguably the greatest instance of theft in human history, wars included),

they can't really print their way out of the hole, either.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/tragedy-recession-its-bad-ending/story.aspx?guid=%7B5D72D7E3%2D76BB%2D4CAB%2DB4D0%2D60F87DA734B7%7D&dist=TNMostRead

we can only hope that the rest of the world goes along with the happy talk, until we get our house back into some sort of believable order.

please ignore our financial news. really.

Herby, you're being ripped off mate. Even a DVD 9 only costs about 10kui! (That's about 75pence by my admittedly rather crap maths).

I think you are maligning the greatest con in history : )

But its not the federal reserve that props your economy up, its everyone elses. Just keep blowing up anyone that even suggests setting up a rival oil borse, that trades in something other than dollars, and you will be fine.

The UK runs an oil borse, Brent Crude. It trades in dollars.Current price $98.08.

75p for a DVD in China ? What a rip off, its all FREE

Prepare for boarding !

to not trade with other countries? if china wants to cut off trade with the rest of the world, who are we to tell them they cant? hell they would be better off without our disgraceful american crap anyway. at this point i would rather buy a chinese made product than an american one, because the american one cost 5x the cost and is still crap. at least in china you get what you pay for.

... is busy locking people up for trying to sell their services from abroad in competition with homegrown American business ? I refer of course the the gambling spat with Antigua.

So yet again it seems to be a case of "one law for us" (we will ignore domesyic and international law to protect our own businesses) and "another law for them" (how dare they try and protect their own businesses).

Doesn't do much to improve my opinion of the US. And as for why on earth our lot are joining in with this, there are worse competition issues closer to home between supposedly open EU countries.

I would think that the U.S. knows perfectly well why China wants all foreign providers of financial news to go through Xinhua.

They don't want anyone sneaking in news about dissidents in China, movies and books banned in China, or other information considered 'sensitive', into the country. But, of course, the Chinese government doesn't want to openly admit that it wishes to control the minds of its people either.

So unlike the other WTO cases, this one isn't just about money; it is at least partly motivated by the desire to promote human rights and democracy in China, or at least remind countries China might try to influence about its lack in that regard.

"they would be better off without our disgraceful american crap anyway"

Umm, if I'm not mistaken, they're the ones that make a fair share of that american crap. Them, Taiwan and soon India.

I'll be interested in your argument the day they decide to stop making american crap for america, and start making their own crap for themselves. The Northern hemisphere has been teaching the Southern one to make their stuff for decades, it's only a matter of time before the South starts going it alone.

There is going to be a big shift in the coming years, where our current, well-known monopolists are going to find their feet cut out from under them by new and upcoming monopolists in a foreign tongue. And that has already started in the automobile industry.