Jack Ma's Disappearing Act Fuels Speculation About Billionaire's Whereabouts (reuters.com) 101
Alibaba founder Jack Ma's absence from public view in the past two months, including missing the final episode of a TV show on which he was to appear as a judge, has fueled social media speculation over his whereabouts amid a Chinese regulatory clampdown on his sprawling business empire. From a report: China's highest-profile entrepreneur has not appeared in a public setting since a late October forum in Shanghai where he blasted China's regulatory system in a speech that put him on a collision course with officials, resulting in the suspension of a $37 billion IPO of Alibaba's Ant Group fintech arm. The Financial Times reported on Friday that Ma was replaced as a judge in the final episode in November of a game show for entrepreneurs called Africa's Business Heroes.
An Alibaba spokeswoman told Reuters on Monday that the change was due to a scheduling conflict, declining further comment. While news coverage of Ma's absence from public view triggered speculation on Twitter, which is blocked in China, it was not a significant trending topic on social media in mainland China, where sensitive topics are subject to censorship. Chinese regulators have zeroed in on Ma's businesses since his October speech including launching an antitrust probe into Alibaba and ordering Ant to shake up its lending and other consumer finance businesses including the creation of a separate holding company to meet capital requirements.
An Alibaba spokeswoman told Reuters on Monday that the change was due to a scheduling conflict, declining further comment. While news coverage of Ma's absence from public view triggered speculation on Twitter, which is blocked in China, it was not a significant trending topic on social media in mainland China, where sensitive topics are subject to censorship. Chinese regulators have zeroed in on Ma's businesses since his October speech including launching an antitrust probe into Alibaba and ordering Ant to shake up its lending and other consumer finance businesses including the creation of a separate holding company to meet capital requirements.
Did they look everywhere? (Score:5, Funny)
Did they check at the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the Leopard"?
Re:Did they look everywhere? (Score:4, Funny)
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Ok, back up a second....
Is this a joke??
Re: Did they look everywhere? (Score:4, Interesting)
No China loves the idea of investing in Africa. It's by and large an untapped market. They often view it as one of their ways of making the world better, even though much like America, contracts benefit their own country significantly.
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Better place to check might be a plastinated corpse art exhibit, that's where the Chinese dissidents end up.
Re: Did they look everywhere? (Score:2)
Did he tweet about not wearing a mask? That'd do it. /sarc
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An Alibaba spokeswoman told Reuters on Monday that the change was due to a scheduling conflict
Specifically, Ma couldn't be both in a Xinjiang re-education camp and on a game show at the same time.
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If you get on their way, how could they even care about you?
No games there, all clean and well understandable - it's your choice, was wrong.
Re:If you're rich and Chinese... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not true. If you're rich in China, remember you act like a Duke or an Earl. Yeah, you get a ton of freedom, toys, women. Just remember to genuflect to the king (err, president for life) and the church (err, the party) to keep that going.
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Re:If you're rich and Chinese... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: If you're rich and Chinese... (Score:2)
Correct. It's rumored getting the virus under control was a period of increased struggle most recently.
We can argue about how effective China has been at stopping the virus and who is to blame. We can't argue that the Chinese government is doing everything in its power to show its under control and will never escalate to previous levels of infection. There is even news the vaccine will be free but I am not a citizen, so don't know all the details.
The new UK mutation has arrived here though, so we will
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There's no power struggle like in the USA. It's just one party to rule the nation for decades.
There are still power struggles. But the struggles are intraparty rather than between parties.
But the power struggles are now over. Xi won. He has eliminated all opposition and has his own people controlling every area of the CCP. He controls the military, the police, the economy, everything. Xi is even creating a Mao-like personality cult.
Unforced error (Score:2)
It's possible, although Jack Ma was high enough that he just had to follow Xi's lead. I mean, if he backed the wrong successor, sure, that's a risk. But Xi's in place for a while. And he did the unforced error of making an anti-CCP/Xi speech.
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Why do you think Russian Oligarchs leave Russia?
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A generation of communist leaders who were taught to hate a strawman version of American capitalism decided to actually *implement* that strawman.
Re: If you're rich and Chinese... (Score:3)
The New Democracy by Mao effectively says Marxist/Leninist Communism is doom to fail. Instead a transition from capitalism to socialism to communism must occur over time. This is because foremost the only way to bring your people out of poverty in global capitalism, is to embrace capitalism in some regard.
So you aren't wrong but you probably aren't nearly as right as you think you are...
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So you aren't wrong but you probably aren't nearly as right as you think you are...
Every new Marxist government finds a way to "correct" what Marx said in such a way as to justify the Vanguard, that is, itself, staying in power forever, to never, ever, transition into giving away their power to the actual proletarians below them. No surprise then when it inevitable produces either a new Capitalist system, or a new Fascist system, or a new Monarchy, or all even of those together. It's inherent to the way it's structured.
So, while the CCP may say that eventually they'll try going for Social
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Communism is by nature a very challenging system. I personally think it's apolitical in that only in groups not seeking political motives, does communism potential flourish and perhaps does it only exist for short periods of time because being part of one of these "communes" is fundamentally based on the liberty to chose such a life a sharing. As such those "forced" into the system will likely bring back political agendas within the group. So again I agree with you.
My original point was that the Chinese ap
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My original point was that the Chinese approach to communism was never meant to be divorced from capitalism, it was suppose to re-invent it and the very language is in the title of the work, "The New Democracy".
More or less. At first it was very, very strict about achieving equality, to the point it reached the lowest Gini coefficient ever measured anywhere in History, that is, the lowest inequality ever. Sure, it was equal in the sense everyone was equally poor, but equal all the same. Then it switched gears and went for another direction, raising inequality measurements steadily over the years, but also raising the standards of living for those at the bottom of the (re-instituted) social pyramid. This switch was
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All your points seem more than fair and very insightful. Nice to hear your perspective, especially in regards to Libertarianism vs Distributism.
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And remember that you became rich in the system you're now spitting on. What a surprise that they don't take that lightly.
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Re:If you're rich and Chinese... (Score:4, Informative)
Lots of Chinese are doing this.
That has raised the house prices in places like Vancouver a huge amount as Canada has fairly simple way for rich people to get residence.
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>
That has raised the house prices in places like Vancouver a huge amount as Canada has fairly simple way for rich people to get residence.
Which led them (or at least some of their provinces) instituting a 15% or thereabouts surtax for foreign owners - they don't want another Silicon Valley type thing with a bunch of foreigners (or have them freeloading their healthcare when not generating any income tax revenue).
Incidentally, that extra tax (designed to avoid foreign owners skimping out on taxes by using a postage-stamp size portion of a large property as 'farm land') ended up having a negative impact [biv.com] on legitimate owners of farmland that als
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Canada has a big trade deficit.
It is easy to see why.
When foreigners want to buy X, their knee jerk reaction isn't "How can we make more X?" but "How can we get them to stop buying X?"
If foreigners want to buy houses in Canada, they should BUILD MORE HOUSES.
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Where do the Canadians live and work now? they can stay where they are.
Reminds me of Russia (Score:5, Insightful)
Back when Putin was first elected, there was an oil baron in Russia that was doing quite well for himself. He was taking full advantage of the recent move to capitalism. So successful that he was eventually brought in for fraud. Now he is in jail and Putin has become a multi billionaire despite only every receiving government paychecks. That Putin - must be a genius at investing.
Moral of the story - pay respect to those in power when you live in a country with a "flexible" justice system and limited property rights. You can be shut down and have everything stolen at any time.
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Putin has proven that that's not the case. Many other barons did just fine - they just remembered to give Putin his cut (up to 50%). In return, they kept the other half and got government contracts.
Putin and others know that you can sheer a sheep many times.
Mikhail Khodorkovsky (Score:5, Informative)
Now he is in jail
Mikhail Khodorkovsky; he's out of jail since 2013, but lives in exile.
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Thanks for the name. Not the case I was thinking of, though last I read he was also allowed to leave the country after surrendering his station. (But I can't verify the name and I can't visit the library to get it just now... I could cite the books where it most likely to have been mentioned.)
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Mikhail Khodorkovsky; he's out of jail since 2013, but lives in exile.
Also, he was not jailed for "being rich", but for using his money to politically challenge Putin.
In authoritarian countries, you don't challenge authority.
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You should provide the name. The only candidate that comes to my mind was disposed of in order to obtain control of his independent and (even worse) highly popular television station. Can you believe that Putin was scared of the journalists once upon a time?
However a similar dynamic does apply in China if they decided that Jack Ma was an actual threat to "the system". But the Chinese are more subtle about these things. Rather than a show trial and prison, I would expect them to negotiate a deal without much
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This isn't Ma's first strike either. Remember last year or maybe it was a little while before that when he announced he was a pound member of the communist party; that was almost certainly in exchange for forgetting about whatever the last thing he'd done to tick off the wrong officials was.
He went running his mouth about Chinese banking policy this time, and I suspect given his history, the price tag for his failure to toe the line will be high this time. Will he come back - I think yes because ABBA is im
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Basically concurrence and not much to add. Whatever the Chinese are doing now, communism in any form recognizable to Marx or Lenin has extremely little to do with it. Jack Ma frequently reminds me of the railroad or rubber barons of yore.
Xi does NOT remind me of Teddy Roosevelt. But maybe that's the real reason Xi hates Winnie the Pooh?
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The oil baron's biggest crime, IIRC and if it's the same guy, wasn't his success. It was because he openly/publicly suggested to the Russian oligarchs that they clean up the corruption (in their financial sector?) so they could be more efficient and work more closely with the Western economies to grow Russia's economy.
Based on what happened right after that suggestion, someone didn't like his idea at all and he paid the price. The oligarchs have it good; Why mess it up?
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That's quite of greenwashing you are doing there. Russia at that time had just converted to capitalism and many of those early oligarchs had become rich not in the way of US startup founders. Russia at that time was worse than Chicago in the worst days of Al Capone. There are a LOT of graves of young men in either the gangs or the police, all dead in a those few years, all shot on the streets. That period was so violently criminal, that the average appartment door still today is from metal and has a dozen d
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I did say this some time ago (Score:2, Insightful)
My previous comment: https://slashdot.org/story/20/... [slashdot.org]
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LIteralb0y. Son of Captain Obvious.
Re:I did say this some time ago (Score:4, Interesting)
He's a brilliant business man and I don't want such a fate for him.
The same guy who is on record saying he thinks people should work 12 hours a day, 6 days a week? Really?
Re:I did say this some time ago (Score:5, Funny)
That's what he's doing now at Reeducation Camp.
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Wish I had mod points, because that’s brilliant, karma is one heck of a vengeful mistress.
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The same guy who is on record saying he thinks people should work 12 hours a day, 6 days a week? Really?
Yes really. The two are not at odds with each other. Brilliant businessmen often exploit working classes. They also tend to be on the clock 100% of the time and expect everyone else to as well. The idea that they sit around in some gentlemen's club smoking cigars is 1950s era Wall Street view of the world.
You can be brilliant and an exploitative asshat at the same time.
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His inability to make his country's government not seem him as a threat worthy of being locked up argues against this. What is "a brilliant businessman" but someone who understands and works within they system they live in?
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His inability to make his country's government not seem him as a threat worthy of being locked up argues against this
Realized it or not, the sentence above has 4 negative instances. Don't try to fry your brain too...
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The instances are negative, but entirely meaning of different things. I can rephrase: "A counterargument to the position that his is a good businessman would be the evidence that he is unable to work within the system he and his company exist. The evidence that he is unable to operate inside the previously mentioned system is that the system decided he was a threat worth of being locked up. Presumably, this was not his goal, so it constitutes a failure on his part - one that seems both to impose a massi
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Mind you though, I do think Jackie knew this, but he thought the level of his succes
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Re: possibilities (Score:1)
"The CIA invented AIDS to kill black people" has less reach coming out of a lily-white taking head with a Russian accent.
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Spotted the CCP propagandist.
Literally. All hackingbear appears to do here is shill for China.
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Cool (Score:3)
If only we could do this to our CEOs, right? They get mouthy about regulation we should stick them in a camp! Sounds like a great system. All hail China.
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Whataboutery being the vastly more annoying cop-out.
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China is coming to you, son.
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Not really. The amount of personal freedoms we'd all have to give up to get to the point where we could "do this to our CEOs" would be staggering.
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If the Parler ( or Parlor, I can't remember which one is right) CEO disappeared tomorrow, would that still hold true? We're working out way there slowly but surely.
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To be fair, there are a few CEOs in the west who could benefit from a bit of this action. Probably preferable to coming in, taking over, stripping a company for parts, and then moving off to a start some "revolutionary startup" that is built on the backs of ignoring labour laws.
duh (Score:2)
[Jack Ma] blasted China's regulatory system in a speech that put him on a collision course with officials
There is really no mystery about this. The kleptocrats running the PRC routinely disappear troublemakers who speak against the regime.
happens regularly (Score:2)
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Thanks for the link. While I understood the concept, I didn't know the exact term for it.
CCP stock answer (Score:1)
"Jack who?"
Don't speak ill of Xi, or challenge the establishment or you can find yourself as a faceless number in some XInjiang concentration camp.
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Hmm. Remind me again, who in Washington DC is demanding election audits, signature verification and other measures to assure that a fair election took place, and that the result is democratic and not corrupt?
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Hmm. Who are the two "Trumpers"?
That isn't a term that accurately describes me. I merely sit in another country watching events dispassionately, observing the hypocrisy and lies.
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"Jack who?"
Are you saying they don't know jack?
Jack's gone to re-education camp! (Score:2)
Jack's gone to the CCP re-education camp! Soon he'll re-appear and he'll be constantly praising the party. When the cameras are off he'll be found hiding in the shower and muttering to himself.
Think out of the box (Score:2)
Any sightings of a new, suited crimefighter or a sleek Jackmobile around town?
Another victim of Pooh Bear (Score:2)
Pooh puts on a happy face, but behind closed doors he is just a honey addict with a basement full of skeletons, and a deep seated rage against the human race that denies him his rightful place as emperor.
Noone escapes the Great Winnie the Pooh, Pooh of Poohs, golden sun of the People
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Nothing to see here (Score:1)
Probably "caught" corona virus (Score:1)