Topic: Where is Jack Ma?
jaish's photo
Tue 04/27/21 08:34 AM

2 months ago, Jack Ma was arrested by CCP on charges of running a monopoly.

CNBC Int. News:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2EHB1WM_V4

Ali Baba Group - ANT - now has a new CEO.




motowndowntown's photo
Tue 04/27/21 01:19 PM
The real question is; "who is Jack Ma??"

Slim gym 's photo
Tue 04/27/21 01:45 PM
Jack Ma has gone underground.....and is keeping a low profile .... he knows he is being watched ......

jaish's photo
Tue 04/27/21 08:44 PM
Edited by jaish on Tue 04/27/21 08:50 PM

The real question is; "who is Jack Ma??"


You mean 'why Jack Ma'?

JM (reportedly) told CCP they have to restructure the risk averse Chinese Banks to lend to private enterprise. (Ali Baba / ANT is listed in the US Exchange)

He also told CCP they were handling the Covid crisis 'poorly'.

Billionaires disappearing in Commie China is not a new thing.

But JM has a presence worldwide - as motivational speaker, 'debate with Elon Musk' - not to mention role modelling for Chinese youth ...

--- not anybody's fan; just clarifying CCP policy.


jaish's photo
Sat 05/01/21 07:41 AM
Edited by jaish on Sat 05/01/21 07:45 AM

Appears he's still alive but something tells me, if he weren't a high profile, global sensation and billionaire, he'd have experienced the same treatment so many critics of Russia or North Korea experience... like poisoning.


He's alive and holding online classes for rural school teachers.

ANT has been fined $21 billion - a quarter of ANTs cash reserves of 80 billion


no photo
Sat 05/01/21 07:48 AM
in my pack

jaish's photo
Sun 05/02/21 06:51 AM
Opinion piece from The New York Times / April 28:


Ant made digital payments and banking products available to a wide segment of the country’s population, aiding anti-poverty efforts. The Alipay app has over 700 million monthly users, including residents of remote rural areas. Ant has financed some 29 million small businesses, including street vendors.

Perhaps Mr. Ma believed he need not look over his shoulder. After all, for many years, China tacitly tolerated underground financial institutions subject to fewer regulations and less supervision than traditional commercial banks. These outfits, known as shadow banks, offered higher interest rates to depositors and provided credit to riskier borrowers, including small-scale entrepreneurs the government-backed banks ignored. (Eventually, the government clamped down on this sector once it became too risky: rising loan defaults and bank failures meant depositors could lose their savings.)

Ant took advantage of the government’s passive approach to regulating fintech companies, developing a wide range of financial products and services catering to a growing middle class. Mr. Ma used his influence and political power to shield his company from regulatory oversight, even refusing to share its trove of consumer data with the government.

Financial regulators fretted about how Alipay, along with a rival, WeChat Pay, swiftly dominated digital payments, deterring new entrants. Indeed, this has spurred a government project to develop a digital version of China’s currency as an option for digital payments. Ant, they feared, was also harvesting data on its users to judge their creditworthiness and offer them loans on better terms than state-owned banks.

Meanwhile, it could hide any risks from these loans by shuffling its revenues and losses across different arms of its conglomerate. Even while it expanded, as a fintech company Ant could dodge the stringent regulations banks are subject to. In effect, it could become too big to fail.

For fintech firms in China, Ant’s forced restructuring will serve as a template. Competitors like Tencent have been put on notice: Be transparent, comply with regulations, protect consumer data — or else. (China’s government knows only too well how extensive data gathering confers power.) While the government tolerates private enterprise and encourages innovation, entrepreneurs should think twice before voicing overt defiance of the government.



For the full article: 'Jack Ma Taunted China. Then Came His Fall'

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/28/opinion/jack-ma-china-ant.html




Rock's photo
Sun 05/02/21 04:36 PM
The CCP can suck wind from my rectal cavity.

jaish's photo
Sun 05/02/21 09:51 PM

It would be a sad day indeed if people didn’t learn anything from history, the main lesson being – ‘be close to your enemy’. We must accept that post WWII, countries like China, India were 3rd world countries - at one time could not afford basic necessities; literacy for instance.

It is in this context, over the backdrop of ‘rising China’ that JM’s rags to riches story needs to be viewed. His remarkable story gives insights on the two politico-economic systems that divide the World iconize by the US system; and the Chinese.

Chinese Policy:
1. Power first,
2. Wealth next (mainly through masses (people's) sweat equity),
3. Distribution to People third.

In other words, any entrepreneur who generates wealth is a bonus and he must understand that the government allowed him to do so. The wealth ultimately belongs to government.

American Policy:
1. Wealth creation by people / entrepreneurs,
2. Power through taxation (power to compete and retain status quo),
3. Distribution by way of infra / loans at lower rates.

In other words, businesses may run as monopolies overseas – but within US they must abide by anti-trust laws.

What is the difference when like Big Tech; giant corporate form consortiums to influence their government?
--xx

One may fault CCP for it's expansionism but one must credit where it’s due. Post WWII when Asian countries had to restart from scratch (Japan and SK are exceptions) CCP vastly improved the standard of 1.4 billion people.

Coming to India with its socialistic model (mix of capitalism and government run companies) – we also have our Jack Ma stories – fact remains that 60% of our population is stagnated in poverty - hidden in rural India and visible in our city slums. This was the level we degenerated to when Arab / Islamic invasions began in the 1200s. Till then, India was a net exporter. The slip downwards increased with the Mughal rule (Genghis Khan descendants) and their expansion in the 16th Century. Finally, India was ripe for takeover by Europeans in the 1800s when traders from England / France established their depots in India. (I live in Chennai, the first base that was leased to the English by a local ruler).

From what little I know about history, it was the French Revolution that inspired the ‘Rights of Man’ in the West and later Marxism in Russia. I wonder if the British policies had not evolved to include Indians in self government whether or not this Country with its unarmed citizenry would not have gone the Communist way to dislodge foreign rule. If that had happened, the largest volunteer army that fought in Europe (Indian volunteers) may not have taken place. Further, US planes would not have had a safe base in India and WWII may have resulted differently in Asia.

History, as they say, is written by the victorious. What they do not say is victory hangs by the thread of fortuitous accidents.

jaish's photo
Thu 08/19/21 07:02 AM
Edited by jaish on Thu 08/19/21 07:10 AM


Guardian's cover this week examines President Xi Jinping’s assault on China’s $4trn tech industry.


Chinese regulators have mounted over 50 actions against scores of firms for a dizzying array of alleged offences, from antitrust abuses to data violations, costing investors around $1trn.

Not clear who the investors are ... Hong Kong Chinese and ...

Mr Xi’s immediate goal may be to humble tycoons and give regulators more sway over unruly digital markets. But the Communist Party’s deeper ambition is to redesign the industry so as to sharpen its country’s technological edge while boosting competition and benefiting consumers.

In this, it echoes many of the concerns that motivate regulators and politicians in the West: that digital markets tend towards monopolies and that tech firms hoard data, abuse suppliers, exploit workers and undermine public morality.

China is about to become a policy laboratory in which an unaccountable state wrestles with the world’s biggest firms for control of the 21st century’s essential infrastructure.