[xxpor]

A) What do you propose the US do?

B) Why should the US do anything? If your risk profile when dealing with Chinese companies doesn't include the risk that the CPC will change the rules of the game later to benefit the domestic economy, you're a sucker.

[gpm]

A) I'd suggest that there are a wide variety of options here, reciprocal actions are common in diplomacy, so for instance the US could default on an equal amount of US debt that China holds, or perhaps pass a law that in the case of the bankruptcy of US companies bonds owned by Chinese nationals at any time after the proposal of said law (to avoiding them just selling them) are void.

Of course these options (and probably any other options you imagine) would have pretty wide reaching side effects - to the extent that I'm not even sure they are worth the cost - but they definitely exist.

B) Because transfer of wealth from US investors to China harms US interests, the US government exists to serve US interests and part of that is standing up for their nationals in international trade.

[whimsicalism]

The United States government defaulting on any amount of its debt would be really really really stupid policy.

> Because transfer of wealth from US investors to China harms US interests, the US government exists to serve US interests and part of that is standing up for their nationals in international trade.

I am not convinced apriori that this is the case, and don't feel comfortable having politicians who definitely have no clue whether that is the case making the calls.

[Robotbeat]

> The United States government defaulting on any amount of its debt would be really really really stupid policy.

Also arguably unconstitutional

[viro]

>Also arguably unconstitutional

Umm how?

[shagie]

The 14th amendment, section 4.

https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/amdt14_S4_1_1...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_Un...

[scoopertrooper]

The market has a way of dealing with this. Chinese corporate debt is currently trading for pennies on the dollar. Chinese companies are going to be essentially locked out of global credit markets for the foreseeable future.

[shagie]

> for instance the US could default on an equal amount of US debt that China holds

https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/amdt14_S4_1_1...

> The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

The US defaulting on any debt is unconstitutional.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Why should the US do anything?

If private investors want to invest in China, that's fine. But pensions and banks should not, and should not be investing in funds that do. Their risks are shared, and China trashing their balance sheets is a public policy concern.

[chii]

> But pensions and banks should not [invest in china], and should not be investing in funds that do.

It could be argued that pensions should not be investing in risky bonds (or assets), but this idea shouldn't have anything to do with china specifically. Institutions that can't absorb these risks should not take them.

Just because it's china related, doesn't mean that the gov't should have a specific policy to prevent it from happening (but allow these institutions to invest in other, equally risky assets). To allow such policy to be set is to turn investment into political weapon. I do not want to see that.

[rp1]

For A) the U.S. should delist all Chinese ADRs to start. There were literally billions of stock in completely fraudulent companies being sold on U.S. exchanges.

[_xnmw]

A) Fight back by limiting Chinese expansion with US financial influence. Sanctions, etc.

B) The US should do something, because if they don't, China will continue to take advantage of US ineptness. States have powers which investors simply don't have.

[shmatt]

US government ineptness? Or US citizen ineptness. It's not the government buying this debt

Now what, the government stops people from trying to make a quick buck on a high risk investments? We can start from stopping Americans from paying 7 figures for digital drawings of monkeys

[mschuster91]

> We can start from stopping Americans from paying 7 figures for digital drawings of monkeys

NFTs are even more moronic than that: they are nothing more than links to external content - Tweets, images, videos, whatever. Meaning that everyone who wants to see and reproduce the content you paid a million dollars for only has to download and dump the corresponding blockchain... and also meaning that you are the proud owner of a bit of nothing when the external hosting service goes down.

If you ask me, NFTs are a combination of tulip mania, scams and good old-fashioned money laundering using art.

[Specie33]

There is other value than the current outlook on NFT's. It is a record of a digital thumbprint. This is really the value of all blockchain based tech.

The example i use is this. Think of the Green Rolling Hills photo that was on however billion windows desktops. The original owner could have copyrighted that photo and registered its first upload onto the blockchain. It is registered then as the first photo of a very specific high use photo and i would say that digital asset has a value.

Crypto Kitties etc are not my cup of tea, its the value created by the option of the tec that i think will have ramifications. I am working on a project in this space currently.

[mschuster91]

Why do you need a blockchain with all the environmental waste (CO2 from electricity generation as well as heaps and heaps of eventually discarded mining equipment) for the purpose of maintaining who is the owner of the copyright for a piece of work?

That's what the US has the Copyright Office for ffs!

[_xnmw]

> US government ineptness? Or US citizen ineptness. It's not the government buying this debt

You are focusing on this one type of transaction whereas the reality is that the Chinese state exercises influence in a lot of other areas where US investors have no control. Say, for, example using state-sponsored hacking and espionage to give an unfair advantage to their investors on the international free market. Something US investors could go to jail for if they tried to do. I repeat, if the US doesn’t fight for US investors interests, China will nonetheless fight for theirs.

[throw9000]

If the US intervenes, they're branded as interlopers. If they don't, they're branded as inept. Seems like they're fucked either way in the eyes of the rest of the world.

[uoaei]

The government should do everything* to protect me, the citizen.

*Except the things that make me confused and angry, even if they benefit other citizens.

Welcome to neoliberal hell.

[adfm]

Bashing on neolibs and alt-right isn't going to solve anything.

The problem with politics is the left knows it's not always right.

[uoaei]

I want to understand that second sentence better. Is it the same sentiment as the Bukowski quote stating “The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence”?

[rp1]

Neoliberalism is an economic policy, it has nothing to do with liberal politics.

[uoaei]

If we hamfist "politics" to mean nothing but culture war noise, then sure, economics and politics are separate. I always thought that people were smarter than that.

[justicezyx]

It's naive to split economy and politics... Just like it's naive to split culture and engineering in a company.

[sudosysgen]

Did you really just say that economic policy has nothing to do with politics?