China Raids Bank and Investor Accounts

[ronwagn + 6,290]

https://www.theepochtimes.com/ccp-forces-chinese-banks-and-its-investors-to-sacrifice-212-billion_3404104.html

How often has this happened in other countries? Could this happen in America? RCW

 

Chinese Regime Forces Chinese Banks, Their Investors to Sacrifice $212 Billion

BY FAN YU

 

June 28, 2020 Updated: June 28, 2020

 

 

Print

✉

News Analysis

China wants its banking industry to share the pain and help to boost a slumping economy—to the tune of 1.5 trillion yuan ($212 billion).

To combat the worst economic downturn in 40 years as the country attempts to rebound from the CCP virus crisis, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) State Council has asked its banks to forgo up to 1.5 trillion yuan in profits.

It’s an unprecedented and shocking demand and serves as a sobering reminder that China, under the CCP, is still fundamentally a socialist, command economy.

There’s a lot to unpack on multiple fronts. First, Beijing is reaching beyond its traditional monetary policy toolkit to boost the economy. Second, banks will suffer financially as the central government is squeezing its profits during a period in which profits may already be slim to none, given the expected number of loan defaults.

Third and most importantly, this sends a terrible message to shareholders—many of whom are foreign investors. Shareholders have few rights in the operations of the companies they believe they own, and these for-profit companies can, without notice, become nonprofit organizations in the service of the CCP. This probably isn’t what the shareholders signed up for when they bought their bank stocks.

Bank Margins Squeezed

The State Council, or China’s cabinet, announced the push in mid-June. While the form it will take varies, banks are expected to lower their lending rates, cut fees and service charges, defer repayments on existing loans, and provide more unsecured loans to small businesses. Unsecured loans are loans provided without liens on a company’s assets, which provide a level of guarantee should the borrower default.

Economically, the announcement is akin to a policy stimulus, albeit Beijing isn’t sacrificing its state budget. It’s passing the cost to the country’s financial institutions and, ultimately, their defenseless investors.

At a very high level, a bank’s business model is to make money on interest spreads. It attempts to lend or invest at a higher interest rate than the interest it has to pay depositors or creditors. Forcing banks to lend at lower rates squeezes revenues without a corresponding decrease in the cost of funding.

And Chinese banks were already facing unprecedented stress even before the mandate to sacrifice profits.

Many borrowers are facing solvency issues, and the level of nonperforming loans (NPL) is set to increase. S&P Global expected the officially reported NPL ratio for Chinese banks to be around 2.2 percent in 2020, up slightly from 1.74 percent in 2019. Unofficially, S&P estimates that the industry’s nonperforming assets will increase to 7.25 percent in 2020, up 2 percent from last year.

UBS estimates that in a case where China’s economic growth is at 4.8 percent annually until 2021, China’s banking sector could see a 39 percent decrease in profits, according to a Bloomberg report.

Disregard for Shareholders

Chinese bank shares have declined in Hong Kong and mainland Chinese exchanges since June 16, when the measures were proposed.

A Beijing mandate forcing banks to sacrifice profits—essentially coercing the banks’ owners to take losses at the behest of the CCP—is a violation of corporate governance protocols. It serves as another reminder to foreign investors that Chinese companies are unfit as investments.

The U.S.–China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) issued a report on May 27 warning U.S. regulators that Chinese banks pose a systemic threat that is increasingly worrisome, as an increasing number of U.S. savers, pensioners, and retirement accounts own Chinese stocks, including in Chinese financial institutions.

“They remain beholden to and supported by the state,” the report says. “The Communist Party-state retains the ability to intervene decisively in the banking system to achieve desired outcomes.”

Chinese companies—including many of its banks—are part of MSCI and FTSE Russell’s emerging markets and global markets indices. Chinese domestic onshore bonds also make up a portion of the widely followed Bloomberg Barclays Global Aggregate Index. And many popular investment funds in the United States are mandated to follow the indices by buying securities issued by Chinese companies.

In just a few weeks, the USCC report has proven alarmingly prescient.

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

5 hours ago, ronwagn said:

How often has this happened in other countries? Could this happen in America? RCW

What you are seeing in China is not quite what has typically happened in other parts of the world.  China is demanding that its private banks use its private capital, provided by depositors, to make loans at near-zero interest in order to prop up the overall economy.  That is quite different than what happend in say Cyprus, where the banks got hammered by defaulted loans and the banks simply confiscated some 50% of their depositors' money over a specific threshold, in order to recapitalize their banks.  That was ugly enough; it was mentally justified by noting that the large deposits in the supposedly secure Cypriot banks were made by Russian oligarchs, who had stolen the funds from ordinary Russians in the first place.  The net result was that ordinary Russians, including the peasants, financed the reckless lending of the Cypriot bank managers. 

What is pointed out in your cited article is that Americans, including pensioners, have funds in the shares of those Chinese banks  (and presumably also in Chinese companies).  Those investments are at risk, but not quite the same way as in Cyprus.  Nobody is confiscating the capital.  What they are doing is confiscating the ability of tha capital to earn a revenue stream.  It is the Revenue that is being stolen by the CCP. 

[Strangelovesurfing + 737]

I once had a conversation with a taxi driver who pointed out in capitalist societies people are rich and governments are poor. Communist/heavy socialist countries the government is rich and people are poor.

[Strangelovesurfing + 737]

9 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

Those investments are at risk, but not quite the same way as in Cyprus.  Nobody is confiscating the capital.  What they are doing is confiscating the ability of tha capital to earn a revenue stream.  It is the Revenue that is being stolen by the CCP. 

For now maybe. I don’t think the CCP would hesitate to seize the deposits like Cyprus did should they deem it necessary.

Funny how people will have no problem accepting dirty money deposits in their banks then justify stealing that cash by claiming it’s dirty money. Nothing to see here folks, keep moving 🙃

Edited June 29, 2020 by Strangelovesurfing

[Hotone + 412]

1 hour ago, Strangelovesurfing said:

I once had a conversation with a taxi driver who pointed out in capitalist societies people are rich and governments are poor. Communist/heavy socialist countries the government is rich and people are poor.

In Singapore, the government is rich and the people are middle class

[Hotone + 412]

5 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

What you are seeing in China is not quite what has typically happened in other parts of the world.  China is demanding that its private banks use its private capital, provided by depositors, to make loans at near-zero interest in order to prop up the overall economy.  That is quite different than what happend in say Cyprus, where the banks got hammered by defaulted loans and the banks simply confiscated some 50% of their depositors' money over a specific threshold, in order to recapitalize their banks.  That was ugly enough; it was mentally justified by noting that the large deposits in the supposedly secure Cypriot banks were made by Russian oligarchs, who had stolen the funds from ordinary Russians in the first place.  The net result was that ordinary Russians, including the peasants, financed the reckless lending of the Cypriot bank managers. 

What is pointed out in your cited article is that Americans, including pensioners, have funds in the shares of those Chinese banks  (and presumably also in Chinese companies).  Those investments are at risk, but not quite the same way as in Cyprus.  Nobody is confiscating the capital.  What they are doing is confiscating the ability of tha capital to earn a revenue stream.  It is the Revenue that is being stolen by the CCP. 

At least they are redistributing the money without shooting the capitalist roaders like they used to do in the past 😅

Bear on mind, Vietnam, America's latest darling, is also a Communist country. I went on a business visit in 1999 and learnt that they had an income tax of over 90%. At that time they imposed a new law to tax all income, including earned overseas, closing loophole for expats, and many had to leave.  I have no idea how they practise Communism these days.

Edited June 29, 2020 by Hotone

[ronwagn + 6,290]

8 hours ago, Strangelovesurfing said:

I once had a conversation with a taxi driver who pointed out in capitalist societies people are rich and governments are poor. Communist/heavy socialist countries the government is rich and people are poor.

Sadly, America is in the middle right now and could be getting worse. Many people are now paying more in property taxes than they ever had to pay for their mortgage. So, who really owns the property and is the LANDLORD?

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

On 6/29/2020 at 9:06 AM, ronwagn said:

How often has this happened in other countries? Could this happen in America? RCW

@0R0 spoke to this some weeks back.  His vision appears to be pretty clear on the economics of the Middle Kingdom, eh?

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

22 hours ago, Hotone said:

In Singapore, the government is rich and the people are middle class

All 5.8 million of them, or most of them anyways.  Singapore is an exception due to a number of factors, not the norm.  Having Lee Kwan Yew when they did and only having to deal with a relatively small population of people willing to follow him was arguably the biggest factor.

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

22 hours ago, Hotone said:

At least they are redistributing the money without shooting the capitalist roaders like they used to do in the past 😅

Not yet, anyway.

[frankfurter + 562]

Could this happen in USA? YES. It has, many times. In recent years, the USA has cleared bank accounts of Venezuela, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan to mention but a few. 

[Eyes Wide Open + 3,555]

1 hour ago, frankfurter said:

Could this happen in USA? YES. It has, many times. In recent years, the USA has cleared bank accounts of Venezuela, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan to mention but a few. 

I would like to pose a few fundamental questions. Why do these countries have money deposited in the US system?

Do these countries assume they have the same rights as a US citizen? If so what ever gave them that constitutional right? 

Perhaps the big question would be do foreign nations believe they have the right to do business or use the US in the same manner they are accustomed to in their country ...how could a foreign assume such a thing.

I believe I had a conversation with you in regards to the rules of conduct while one is in a foreign nation.

Edited June 30, 2020 by Eyes Wide Open

[0R0 + 6,251]

This is similar to the US PPP and small business lending facilities that the banks in the US are administering on a for profit basis, meaning that they provide the loans using their best judgement to make a profit or at least break even, with the Fed standing behind them to buy the loans with a leveraged fund capitalized by the Exchange Stabilization Fund money.

The big difference here is that the banks in the US are making profitable decisions and the risk is at the Fed and the Federal government. In China the risk for the losses is loaded on the depositors and shareholders.The other difference is that the banks are making "social financing" decisions rather than profitable ones.

This is very different from what China was attempting to do before with the wave of bank insolvencies around Baoshang bank and others where they attempted to give the depositors haircuts like Cyprus etc. had done. They started at 30% haircuts but ended it with 10% haircuts due to the fact that the largest depositors were SOE and CCP connected companies  that would have run into operational problems with that kind of cash loss.

The banks in China are SOE banks. The big 4 being at the center of the system, where the smaller banks obtain liquidity from the big 4. The Baoshang debacle led to a breakdown of the interbank liquidity system and overnight rates were persistently spiking into the 18% range on repos, which leaked into the dollar market via HK and the big 4 banks seeking liquidity in the dollar market.

The Baoshang case is going to go viral as these loss inducing lending programs forced by the CCP are going to spread through the bank system as a whole while NPLs grow from their 4.5% annual run rate or more up to the 12% range or worse.

This is from Charlene Chu, June 2019

It was already bad. It is going to get far worse. But they extended the automatic rollover of defaulted debt from the SOE  sector that has been aggressively rolling over NPLs since 2013, to the private economy. So that if you have employees you can borrow and forget about paying it back, even if you don't have anything to post for collateral. 

By next year the losses should have gone far enough to press the banks into cash flow problems as their "investments" don't produce a cash flow and the stream of savings from Chinese boomer savers is peaking now. Those will be declining and turning into retirement draws over the next 4 years. The deficit will have to be covered with something. That will most likely be fresh money printing from the PBOC buying garbage NPL bonds and loans from the banks at near face value, in order to meet their cash liabilities. That would have to cause another bout of food price inflation or unemployment, or both.

The May PMI reports were still pointing to declining output prices and stable input prices, as opposed to declining both input and output pricing falling in Apr. The June reports should be out next week and will show whether this trend of continued margin compression continues. The fact that nobody was hiring yet in May was already a bad sign of expectations as domestic orders did recover some.

 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

13 hours ago, Eyes Wide Open said:

Do these countries assume they have the same rights as a US citizen? If so what ever gave them that constitutional right? 

Yes, they do.  Everyone does.  As to the second question, the US Constitution itself gave them those rights. 

[Eyes Wide Open + 3,555]

29 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

Yes, they do.  Everyone does.  As to the second question, the US Constitution itself gave them those rights. 

I am by no means a institutional scholar, this constitutional wording...may I ask for a reference if you could or would be so kind. 

It has been over 40 yrs since I left the world of academics...it would seem I have some fog to deal with.

Hmm 14th amendment?

Edited July 1, 2020 by Eyes Wide Open

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

18 minutes ago, Eyes Wide Open said:

I am by no means a institutional scholar, this constitutional wording...may I ask for a reference if you could or would be so kind. 

If you leaf through the US Constitution, it references specifically "the people", not "the citizens."   US law is crystal clear: the US COnstitution protects any person found on US Soil.  How that person got here does not matter.  If that person is a "citizen" does not matter.  the person is here; the person is under the mantle of the US COnstitution.

The guarantees do break down in the matter of migrants over the Southern border.  There, hysteria has taken over, and the migrants are routinely denied Constitutional protections.  What happens is that the interpreting forces, typically various governmental agents, conclude that being here "illegally" means that Constitutional protections and guarantees do not apply or do not exist.  That interpretation is totally wrong.  The one person who has advanced those wrongful ideas more than any other, incidentally, is Mr. Obama. 

A great example of the extension of universal US Constitutional guarantees was during the capture of Manuel Noriega, the dictator of Panama, and his being brought (in chains) back to the USA  [Florida].  Under the US Constitution he was guaranteed legal representation  (that was established by the Earl Warren court decisions). Since he was indigent, the US Government had to appoint him his legal defense team, and the US Government also had to pay for it.  Unfortunately for Noriega, he got convicted by a Florida jury on various drug charges, and ended up in some maximum-security prison.  But at least he had a shot.  You would not get that in, say, Communist China.   Or Russia.  Or Zimbabwe.  If you get my drift. 

Poke through the Bill of Rights and you will see the references to "the people," not "the citizens."  Cheers. 

[Eyes Wide Open + 3,555]

10 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

If you leaf through the US Constitution, it references specifically "the people", not "the citizens."   US law is crystal clear: the US COnstitution protects any person found on US Soil.  How that person got here does not matter.  If that person is a "citizen" does not matter.  the person is here; the person is under the mantle of the US COnstitution.

The guarantees do break down in the matter of migrants over the Southern border.  There, hysteria has taken over, and the migrants are routinely denied Constitutional protections.  What happens is that the interpreting forces, typically various governmental agents, conclude that being here "illegally" means that Constitutional protections and guarantees do not apply or do not exist.  That interpretation is totally wrong.  The one person who has advanced those wrongful ideas more than any other, incidentally, is Mr. Obama. 

A great example of the extension of universal US Constitutional guarantees was during the capture of Manuel Noriega, the dictator of Panama, and his being brought (in chains) back to the USA  [Florida].  Under the US Constitution he was guaranteed legal representation  (that was established by the Earl Warren court decisions). Since he was indigent, the US Government had to appoint him his legal defense team, and the US Government also had to pay for it.  Unfortunately for Noriega, he got convicted by a Florida jury on various drug charges, and ended up in some maximum-security prison.  But at least he had a shot.  You would not get that in, say, Communist China.   Or Russia.  Or Zimbabwe.  If you get my drift. 

Poke through the Bill of Rights and you will see the references to "the people," not "the citizens."  Cheers. 

Mr. van Eck I do believe the body of my post referenced to country's and not individual citizens.

I do make this point due soley your intellect and the discipline you always illustrate so well. 

I am not challenging your thoughts by no means,however I do find what motivates and moves people absolutely fascinating. It is truly eye opening.

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

1 hour ago, Eyes Wide Open said:

Mr. van Eck I do believe the body of my post referenced to country's and not individual citizens

Point taken.  A "Country" has no Constitutional protection in the USA, although its citizens do, albeit they are aliens.  Notwithstanding, its citizens absolutely cannot be discriminated against just because they are aliens.  For example, an alien has the same right to "reasonable bail" if confronted by a criminal complaint by the police as any citizen.  vUnfortunately, as a practical matter that gets denied or made unreasonable, mostly due to over-zealous prosecutors and compliant judges who forget that aliens are entitled to exactly the same rights as anyone else. 

Yet, your post shaded towards "companies."  In US law, a corporatiioon is a legal person.  OK, that is both artificial and semantic, and I don't think much of that decision, but it is like abortion rights, it is the established law of the land, it is what is called "settled law."  So your foreign corporation that deposits funds into a US Bank has, in theory, exactly the same rights of due process and equal protection as any other legal person on the lands.   Is that properly honoured and respected?  Nope.  Again, the USA is an imperfect society, and it is up to The People to ensure that is remains a great nations.  And The People do that by carefully extending the legal protections of the Constitution to everybody and anybody found on its shores. 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

1 hour ago, Eyes Wide Open said:

I am not challenging your thoughts by no means

I woould encourage you to challenge my thoughts.  This forum would be boring if we all agreed on everything!

You will find that I do not agree with most of the posters here. They tend to be both Republican and Trump Supporters.  I am neither. That said, for the most part we are all good friends.  So there is hope for the USA, if not the planet.  Gotta stick with it!  I try to work hard for eve3yone's betterment.  But I also demand that the counter-parties make an effort  (particularly, these days, the Russians and the Chinese). 

[SUZNV + 1,197]

On 6/29/2020 at 8:08 AM, Hotone said:

At least they are redistributing the money without shooting the capitalist roaders like they used to do in the past 😅

Bear on mind, Vietnam, America's latest darling, is also a Communist country. I went on a business visit in 1999 and learnt that they had an income tax of over 90%. At that time they imposed a new law to tax all income, including earned overseas, closing loophole for expats, and many had to leave.  I have no idea how they practise Communism these days.

I cannot see the point of Vietnam is America's latest darling. Vietnamese government depends on CCP's economics model but depends on exporting very low value products/labours to overseas. If people love the Western democracy enough and without borrowing from CCP the VCP cannot be in power but if the Government did not pretend to be anti China, it cannot be in power either. People have more freedom than China to curse their government as long as don't join any organization advocating to overthrow them. China wouldn't want VCP to collapse as well that make them "lonely" and push Vietnam to the Western side and vice versa, US wouldn't want to push Vietnam to China. Thanks to that balance, Vietnam did not become another North Korea or in situation like Ukraine since 2014.

Currently Vietnam is under the risk of get into tax tariff if they don't put more control on relabelling "made in China" to "made in Vietnam". And un like China who is at one hand threaten to surpass US, the other hand keep the status developing country to have less tax, Vietnam is a truly developing country.

Besides the aging combinations that prevents China can catch up with the US in real GDP, even if they can catch up with real GDP, it just roughly means China reaches the same "income". Many people overlook the assets US accumulated with that large "income" for the last many years. Just like you shouldn't judge UK power with its GDP alone.

-------------

Vietnamese citizens work oversea don't pay Vietnam income tax. Vietnam doesn't have tax agreements with US like NZ,Australia,UK,EU... did. Vietnam depends on foreign currency sending home to support families from these expats. Most of Vietnamese left the countries from from 1975 to around 1997 (when the last refugee camp in Malaysia closed) on boats but only the 1975 to 1990 for no futures. The laters risk their lives for better living standard. Since 1990s most of people left Vietnam because sponsorship from their relatives who successfully escaped on boats or ex south Vietnamese soldiers went to the US with their families. Not many boatman refugees around 1999 because no country let the refugees in their countries anymore. 

In 1999 I don't think Vietnam even have the ATM machines, internet and PCs was very expensive and most people didn't  have much money ( They didn't trust because of multiple money changes in the past) and in 9 years after opening economy the private sectors were really weak. Most were still state employees so they could not collect tax effectively from the private sectors (were in black market before 1990). Most people didn't put money in the bank. Firstly they didn't have that much while all the day to day transactions were in cash and secondly if they can save more, they would buy gold. Houses trading at that time were calculated in gold mints. Gold was the standard money in many wars and economy crisis in Vietnam with hyper inflations and money changes ( a way to rob money from people as there was very low bar limit).

The tax system in 1999, 9 years after reopening the economy was not complete. My parents were both employees at that time. Even I was in athlete team in high school prepare for SEA GAMES 2003 in Vietnam and earn money at the age of 13 and my mum was a treasurer in high school for at that time 20 years. My dad were an engineer for a company importing/servicing Germany manufacturing machines and lots of the share holders (his friends since West Germany) did not pay tax in Vietnam because they got salary in Germany ( they are Vietnamese origins). 

Foreigner got jobs in Vietnam in 1999 had high incomes which leaded to high tax. Most Vietnamese at that time could not reach that tax bar while foreigners who got salary in Vietnam easily got into in highest income tax brackets. Rich Vietnamese people at that time had assets, lands, gold, dollars, not income yet.

Even now in the real-estate without borrowing money from the bank, both the land owner and buyer agree on very lower price and bribe the properties tax agency to accept the transaction values to avoid tax. Unless you are employees then your income taxes has been deducted from salary. But the highest tax bracket currently is 35% only.  

 

Edited July 1, 2020 by SUZNV
typo

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

22 minutes ago, SUZNV said:

Rich Vietnamese people at that time had assets, lands, gold, dollars, not income yet.

I thought the Vietnamese fought a long brutal war to become one communist country? Therefore the only "rich" would then be someone from that new government, since like China, those with means got them taken away. I do know some boat people, nice family, ethnically Chinese but didn't speak the language so were hurting from both sides. All their children have done well here. 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

18 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

If you leaf through the US Constitution, it references specifically "the people", not "the citizens."   US law is crystal clear: the US COnstitution protects any person found on US Soil.  How that person got here does not matter.  If that person is a "citizen" does not matter.  the person is here; the person is under the mantle of the US COnstitution.

The guarantees do break down in the matter of migrants over the Southern border.  There, hysteria has taken over, and the migrants are routinely denied Constitutional protections.  What happens is that the interpreting forces, typically various governmental agents, conclude that being here "illegally" means that Constitutional protections and guarantees do not apply or do not exist.  That interpretation is totally wrong.  The one person who has advanced those wrongful ideas more than any other, incidentally, is Mr. Obama. 

A great example of the extension of universal US Constitutional guarantees was during the capture of Manuel Noriega, the dictator of Panama, and his being brought (in chains) back to the USA  [Florida].  Under the US Constitution he was guaranteed legal representation  (that was established by the Earl Warren court decisions). Since he was indigent, the US Government had to appoint him his legal defense team, and the US Government also had to pay for it.  Unfortunately for Noriega, he got convicted by a Florida jury on various drug charges, and ended up in some maximum-security prison.  But at least he had a shot.  You would not get that in, say, Communist China.   Or Russia.  Or Zimbabwe.  If you get my drift. 

Poke through the Bill of Rights and you will see the references to "the people," not "the citizens."  Cheers. 

That brings up another one of our judicial fairness problems. The wealthy can get great legal help while the middle class goes bankrupt trying to get any help at all. That actually applies to people I would consider wealthy too. The poor have to settle for mediocre public defenders in most cases. 

You might not like this recent Supreme Court Decision, which I agree with. 

https://freebeacon.com/courts/supreme-court-sides-with-trump-on-fast-track-deportations/

Edited July 1, 2020 by ronwagn
added reference

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

1 hour ago, ronwagn said:

You might not like this recent Supreme Court Decision, which I agree with. 

https://freebeacon.com/courts/supreme-court-sides-with-trump-on-fast-track-deportations/

Ron, your link does not flow to the case itself  (the Opinion), which I have not studied.  I gather you have.  Interesting that you say that you "agree with"  [presumably the majority Opinion of Justice Alito].  Could you expound on that a bit?  I find it odd. 

Here is the actual Opinion, issued June 25, 2020:

https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=10855391038629466044&hl=en&as_sdt=6,46

Edited July 2, 2020 by Jan van Eck
Added link to actual Opinion

[SUZNV + 1,197]

4 hours ago, Ward Smith said:

I thought the Vietnamese fought a long brutal war to become one communist country? Therefore the only "rich" would then be someone from that new government, since like China, those with means got them taken away. I do know some boat people, nice family, ethnically Chinese but didn't speak the language so were hurting from both sides. All their children have done well here. 

It is true for people who owned assets in North Vietnam. When it was under communism since 1954, even if you supported Communism for Independent, you eventual betrayed and executed or became proletariat and had a bad record.  Unless you moved to the south in 1954. And the definition of "rich" started from owning a small peace of land that was too small to have peasant.

In South Vietnam after 1975 people can still have some assets if:

-You could hide your gold well enough that the metal detecting device could not detect it, your family didn't accidentally sold the containers. (some people hid gold in rubber slippers and their spouse mistakenly exchanged old ones for new ones. Lots of the time even their sons/daughters were bribed with candies to answer "where do your parents keep the gold?".

-You were studying &working in the US, West Germany, France during the War and had pensions. You could buy the houses chealyp in the 1980s (where lots of people jumped on boat to rush out of Vietnam) with your savings.

-Vietnamese who were sent to Eastern Europe and Soviet Union countries for studying or working. In many case smuggled goods from Vietnam or from Western Europe to Eastern Europe and sold in black market (kind of mafia and criminals activity as well). Great businesses when the Wall of Berlin collapsed. 1 West Deutsche Mark could exchange for 1 Eastern Deutsche Mark.

-People who got kicked out of their houses in the city because they were belong to bourgeois class. Go to the forest and tamed the land. Many of them built up very large coffee farsm later on but many died if could not adapt to the new situations.

-People who had relative who lived in oversea sent them money to buy house. 90% of them would lose the house in 2000s. Another 9% was given back the exact amount of money they gave 20 years ago despite the value x20. Very few people who could benefit from this investment. With Communism you have the concept if you are rich, it is sinful if you don't share. Sharing is caring and even your parents advocated your brothers/sisters not to return them to you.

-You have people in the winning sides listed below, even if you have family members supporting US or South Vietnam Goverments, then your family can keep your land from joining collective farm or even assigned houses to live (which turned great value later on) :

1 North Vietnamese soldiers came from the south.  Lots of people joined anti French movement after 1945 and move north in 1954 because they wanted to get rid of the French coming back after Japanese surrendered. These were the leading faction "lobbying" for unification. Other factions weren't too keen on risk a war and wanted to keep the status quo. 

2 Vietcong ( Vietnamese in the South who joined rebel against South Vietnamese Establishment).

a) People were going the the forest to fight against South Vietnamese Gov and the French, and later US. They have no idea about Communism or Capitalism and just believed that US wanted to replace France and South Vietnamese Gove was puppet.

b) Poor people who were told US was the reason they were poor and the North were rich and equality, like paradise.

c) Rich and scholar people but anti Foreigner, may  recognize the bad things about Communism but chose to get rid of the US first and would discuss about Democracy, Communism or Capitalism later. Many of them studied in France, US, West Germany. 

* 1&2 had "good intention" but bad consequences. The failed uprising in 1968 made around 80% casualties. This is one of the reason many among  the survived 20% jumped on boat for refugees because they were minority and have no place in the new Goverment or broken heart to see that they were deceived. 

-------------

South Vietnamese culture are very different from North Vietnamese culture and Vietnam since 1600s was splitted and united many time with all sort of wars. South Vietnam colonists were consisted of 3 cultures who lived in harmony : Vietnamese, Souther Chinese (who against Qing Dynasties and ran to South Vietnam through boats and kind of sibling with Vietnamese in Bai Yue but adopted Han Culture), and Khmer. We didn't have much discriminations and origin, helped each other of taming the land (with lots of flood and pirates and tropical forests and harassment from Khmer or Siem(Thailand) while  fighting the civil war with the North. Later on it was official colonial of France so the foods & culture here kind of mixed with all 4. Most of Vietnamese cuisines oversea are South Vietnamese foods. The Vietnamese Community in the US don't separate Vietnamese Chinese or original  Vietnamese.

 

 

Edited July 2, 2020 by SUZNV
gramma

[Tom Nolan + 2,443]

Similar to China, the United States Banks are setup to take people's and companies' deposits and investment monies if they get in trouble.  It is called a "Bail-in".  Not "bail out".   You can see the international agreement made by the corrupt Bank of International Settlements (BIS) which sets the standard.  BIS handles all international banking transactions.  Sources and documents in the footnotes.

(I should mention that China set the precedent for how to handle COVID.  The world mimicked China, including contact tracing / social credit scores.  October 18th, 2019 Bill Gates helping with the coronavirus pandemic exercises (Event 201) (which with this drill shut companies down across the world)  via the World Economic Forum (videos of the Event 201 exercises at their website) set the stage for what we see now.  October 18th was the same day Wuhan China had the "World Military Games" which can be seen on YouTube also.  It was 'spooky' to see the games parade, especiall the U.N. part.)