BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP)

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  • commenter
    Deltaxray7
    Sep 02 06:46 PM
    Potash Corp. Earnings Shouldn't Peak Until at Least 2011 [view article]
    Yeah guys, POTs a great company, it has everything going for it.
    The stock should be climbing like a monkey by all the indicators.
    But ya forgot one thing.....
    I bought a handful of shares.
    That instantly brings down the share price by 40% by the end of the week.     Reply
  • commenter
    canb888
    Sep 01 10:33 PM
    Can China Carry the Post-Olympic Torch? [view article]
    Eowyn, you try to hijack Seeking Alpha, which is mainly a blog for investment ideas, and make it into a political battlefield. Instead of getting into your trap and debating the politics, I just want to assure you that if we want to discuss political issues, we know where to go. Copy-pasting other people's article which are mostly unrelated to the topic will not help this blog. You would be welcome to try to discuss investment ideas here. Try to write something more of your own and don't worry about spelling, we never do on blogs. TIA. Reply
  • commenter
    Eowyn
    Sep 01 09:47 PM
    Can China Carry the Post-Olympic Torch? [view article]
    Hello, wnwbmf:

    Fair enough, you caught me in a typo: "subtantive" instead of "substantive.&quo... Of course, my typo is hardly in the same league as Mr. Jefferson's "cow-towing" (instead of the correct term of "kowtowing), "reely" (instead of "really), and "dissonants" (instead of "dissidents"... Those mistakes are not typos.

    As for your sneering dismissal of me as being "a typical tree-hugging liberal - Hollywood elitist with a bumper sticker on the back of your broke-back mountain Subaru that says 'Free Tibet!'," only those who cannot argue on subStantive grounds resort to name-calling. But then, your paucity of imagination ensures that you're not even close when it comes to name-calling. I'm a proud paleo-conservative, I'm straight, & I drive a 17-year-old Toyota Corolla with no bumper stickers, Tibet or otherwise.     Reply
  • commenter
    Eowyn
    Sep 01 09:35 PM
    Can China Carry the Post-Olympic Torch? [view article]
    August 28, 2008
    The China Delusion
    by The Honorable Thaddeus McCotter and John J. Tkacik, Jr.
    Heritage Foundation
    www.heritage.org/Press...

    On Thursday, August 7, President George W. Bush spoke in Bangkok, Thailand about his vision for China's future. "Change in China will arrive on its own terms and in keeping with its own history and its own traditions," the president predicted. He pronounced, "Yet change will arrive."

    That is certainly true . . . change always comes. But the president sees China's change thus: “Young people who grow up with the freedom to trade goods will ultimately demand the freedom to trade ideas, especially on an unrestricted Internet.” And he sees that “those who aspire to speak their conscience and worship their God are no threat to the future of China. They're the people who will make China a great nation in the 21st century.” And in this, he is certainly wrong.

    By every objective standard, China’s freedoms of expression, press, assembly, religion, labor organization, were greater in April 1989 and have declined precipitously since. This is confirmed by the U.S. Department of State’s annual reports on human rights practices -- in no year since 1989 has the State Department noted any improvement in China’s human rights, and in several years it has documented serious declines. The few current liberalizations that Chinese enjoy -- new job mobility, burgeoning cultural expression, relaxed residence permits -- would have taken root without the catalyst of the April/May 1989 burst of freedom.

    It would be dishonest to deny the great changes from Mao Zedong’s days. But change, in fact, stalled in 1989. That first decade of Deng Xiaoping’s post-Mao reforms persuaded many of us that China would liberalize steadily, economically, socially, intellectually and, of course, politically. Those liberalizations were, we imagined, all interwoven. Some of us once saw the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen Massacre and the crushed democracy movement as hiccups in a process of inexorable progress, and we persuaded ourselves that so long as the United States encouraged economic and trade liberalization, the rest would be pulled along perforce.

    Twenty years later, alas, authoritarianism is much more deeply and insidiously entrenched in Chinese society than on the eve of Tiananmen. More alarming, the scope of Chinese Communist Party control over the media, religion, the judiciary and public dissent has broadened markedly since Hu Jintao took over as China’s supreme leader in September 2004.

    The Party’s authority over all aspects of human behavior is greater now than in 1989. And because Deng Xiaoping’s “liberation of productive forces” as the “core of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” has impelled the abandonment of central planning and employment of the competitive dynamic of market forces, there has indeed been prosperity and creativity -- of an Orwellian sort.

    Orwell’s 1984 totalitarianism was a social environment within which your survival in comfort depended upon your submission. And your advancement depended on the degree to which you enforced “Big Brother’s” rule.

    Germany in the 1930s and well into the 1940s is an instructive example of totalitarianism co-opting its population with economic prosperity and international power. Those two factors persuaded 5 percent of the population to rationalize themselves into “True Believer” status; and 94 percent rationalized their acquiescence. Those that resisted, one percent, were shot, not counting the ethnic minorities and Jews who simply disappeared -- the 94 percent either not caring or not daring to care what happened to them.

    Sadly, Chinese who endured the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) and the Tiananmen Massacre (1989) understand that opposing the State is bad for one’s health and career prospects. Still, some try and are jailed, detained, harassed, their phones tapped, their internet chats monitored. As President Bush visited a state-controlled church on Sunday, August 10, a fellow worshiper was arrested on his way to the same church, presumably because the police feared they would try to approach the American leader. Who else gets arrested by the Chinese state? Religious believers who oppose state-controlled worship, AIDS activists, lawyers representing displaced farmers, advocates against forced abortions, labor organizers, protesters against pollution, ethnic minorities and grieving families outraged by corrupt Communist Party officials who cut safety corners when building schools that collapsed in the Sichuan earthquake.

    The vast majority of Chinese citizens understandably try to stay out of trouble. Like Germans or Japanese in the 1930s, they have relatively comfortable lives. But surely, one cannot mistake this for freedom.

    China is not just a major economic power. It is something more challenging: it is an emerging superpower where ultimate authority over economic decisions rests with the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

    Since the early 1980s, China has evolved from a command economy to a mixed economy with increasing use of the market. But the state presence remains very ample in many different sectors. So, while the last three decades of unprecedented prosperity and economic growth rest largely on what Deng Xiaoping called the “socialist market economy”, China emphatically is not a market economy. And -- quite the opposite of the world’s true market economies – China’s full economic power can be marshaled and directed at the will of the state.

    Over the past decade, China’s economic and military strength has expanded with startling rapidity and presents a profound and unsettling change in the balance of global power and influence. Yet, despite China’s signal disinterest in human rights (either for its own people or anywhere else), its equanimity toward nuclear proliferation, its insouciance with environmental degradation, and its border harassment of neighbors from Japan to India, from the South China Sea to Bhutan, and (of course) Taiwan, our leaders appear more comfortable facilitating its leadership than challenging it. Perhaps, they calculate that China has simply become too big to do otherwise. That calculation is not worthy of our ideals and represents an error of epochal proportions.

    Thaddeus McCotter is a Michigan member of the U.S. House of Representatives and Chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee.John J. Tkacik, a retired foreign service officer, is Senior Research Fellow in Asian Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
    First appeared in Human Events

    Reply
  • commenter
    wnwbmf
    Sep 01 08:18 PM
    Can China Carry the Post-Olympic Torch? [view article]
    Eowyn......before you criticize someone on something like an editing error, learn how to spell "substantive"... You're criticizing spelling and then you yourself spell wrong. I think the author made it clear that China is far from being perfect, and I especially like the line about China being a relative newcomer in the game of monopoly. From the context of the article, the U.S. should be embracing them to help them develop a more capitalist and democratic society. You sound like you're a typical tree-hugging liberal - Hollywood elitist with a bumper sticker on the back of your broke-back mountain Subaru that says "Free Tibet!" Reply
  • commenter
    Eowyn
    Sep 01 06:48 PM
    Can China Carry the Post-Olympic Torch? [view article]
    I'll begin with the observation that the author, C.S. Jefferson, is a near illiterate. Before the author posted his long panda-hugging article, it would be good if he first used a dictionary. For his information, it's (a) "kowtowing," not "cow-towing" (although I would really love to see a cow being towed, but that's not what Jefferson meant); (b) "really" instead of "reely"; and (c) "dissidents" instead of "dissonants."...

    Now, onto some of Mr. Jefferson's subtantive claims.

    (1) He wrote "This Olympic event captured...in spirit, our potential as a global community to both compete and participate on level terms when the rules are fair, and the game isn't rigged." Hello? Has Jefferson not been paying attention to the news at all? What about the suspiciously below-age Chinese female gymnasts?

    (2) The author opines that "China's rise should not be feared." Try telling that to India (which has disputed border claims with China), Vietnam (which also has disputed territorial claims with China, over the South China Sea), Japan (whose aggression against China continues to be regularly invoked by Beijing to stoke populist anti-Japanese nationalist passions), to name just a few.

    (3) The author puts his entire emphasis on China's increasingly capitalist economy, but conveniently glosses over & outright ignores China's government and political system, which remain a one-party dictatorship. Does the author not know that political dictatorship + capitalism = fascism?

    (4) Given this, when Jefferson writes that "it should be a matter of public policy for the United States to openly embrace China because China represents a global power that helps to restore stability and balance in the world," I can only wonder if Jefferson would make the same recommendation about Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan? All three countries had a capitalist economic system and a dictatorial government.

    But then, one can hardly expect Jefferson to write anything critical about China because doing so would definitely put a damper on what he really is about--$. In the end, his disclaimer says it all: "Disclosure: Author holds positions in some of the above-mentioned securities."

    Way to go, Mr. C. S. Jefferson!
    Reply
  • commenter
    thedarkknigh
    t77
    Sep 01 04:26 PM
    Potash Corp. Earnings Shouldn't Peak Until at Least 2011 [view article]
    I think the place for you is Russia !! We are in the USA my friend we can say whatever we want!!, go take your anger somewhere else my friend. You probably got dumped !! but get a bottle a celebrate it happens to all of us buddy


    On Aug 31 12:12 PM Thought-Abou t-It wrote:

    > Well said. DITTO !
    > ______________________...     Reply
  • commenter
    hsh
    Sep 01 03:16 PM
    Can China Carry the Post-Olympic Torch? [view article]
    It is extremely rare nowadays to find an unbiased report about China.Since the Lhasa incident in March, there has been a relentless orchestration of anti Beijing news reports. Mr. Jefferson's article deserves a gold medal for unbiased reporting. As a Canadian, I salute him for his courage and wisdom. Reply
  • commenter
    canb888
    Sep 01 01:25 PM
    Can China Carry the Post-Olympic Torch? [view article]
    I have read this article many times and have forwarded it to more than 30 good and serious investor friends. Thank you agian. Reply
  • commenter
    fxtrader07
    Sep 01 12:43 PM
    Is This the Death of Gold & Silver Stocks? Part II [view article]
    this bragging by silly daytraders about their alleged profits is annoying, to say the least. Don't know why these spammers have to deposit their nonsense right here as commentaries to an article they never bothered to understand and never will understand.
    I agree with the author but I may add that owning physical silver should be another top priority for longterm investors. It may or may not pay off tomorrow or next year or even in five years. but in 10 or 20 its will feel like looking back from 1980 after buying gold at 35$ in 1970     Reply
  • commenter
    Kunst
    Sep 01 01:32 AM
    Is This the Death of Gold & Silver Stocks? Part II [view article]
    "Abraham Lincoln may have been an even worse president than FDR"

    Wow, that's a new one! And where do you put Washington?     Reply
  • commenter
    mari
    Sep 01 12:01 AM
    Can China Carry the Post-Olympic Torch? [view article]
    Intriging commentary and observations, in a progressive positive outlook! Carry on , bravo. thank you.
    Reply
  • commenter
    jester
    Aug 31 10:53 PM
    Can China Carry the Post-Olympic Torch? [view article]
    great artical Mr Jefferson

    i,m in Austrailia and are economy has exelent growth because of China demand for our commodities and resources ......keep the articals comming     Reply
  • commenter
    Delta
    Aug 31 08:10 PM
    Is This the Death of Gold & Silver Stocks? Part II [view article]
    I am buying RBY, the neighbor at Red Lake is GG. The 43-101 on gold drilling results are amazing for a company flying under the radar. Reply
  • commenter
    Leser
    Aug 31 04:55 PM
    Largest Companies in the World [view article]
    User 218405 and user 138602, everything can be overdone.
    It's not just unions, but also management that can be excessive and seriously hurt the bottom line with tremendously bloated salaries and perks. The Golden Mean of the ancient Greeks, nothing in excess, is what we have to follow even now. Companies need to act ethically, workers too. So do we as consumers need to think of others.
    When we're buying our cheaper goods from China, we are all supporting an immoral, criminal regime and acting irresponsibly towards U.S. and Canadian workers. When North American executive is making many millions while his/her workers are getting $8.00 (give or take a buck) an hour, s/he is being immoral--although perhaps not acting illegally. Society (we family members) need to teach our children to think about what's responsible and correct--not how can I take financial advantage of the people whom I work with. We need to stop pointing the finger at the other people, but develop a sense of fair play in ourselves, our colleagues and families. In the long run much more good for the company and the individuals involved is accomplished that way.     Reply
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