Qua TQ bán thận, có thể bị cắt trộm nội tạng

(Thanh Niên, 12-8-2011) - Thượng tá Nguyễn Phú Thương, Phó phòng CSĐT tội phạm về TTXH (PC45) Công an TP Cần Thơ, Trưởng ban chuyên án, cho biết đối với những người vượt biên bán thận, trong lúc gây mê để lấy thận, bác sĩ bên TQ có thể cắt thêm bất cứ bộ phận nào trong nội tạng như gan, tụy... để ghép cho người khác mà nạn nhân không hề hay biết và không biết khiếu kiện với ai.

Vietnam: Nguyen Tan Dung reconduit Premier ministre pour cinq ans

De Ian TIMBERLAKE (AFP)–26 juil. 2011 

HANOI — Le Premier ministre vietnamien Nguyen Tan Dung a été reconduit mardi sans surprise par l'Assemblée nationale pour un nouveau mandat de cinq ans, confirmant son rôle d'homme fort dans un pays communiste qui se bat contre les difficultés économiques.

Rein: US Downgrade to Worsen China's Inflation Problem

By Shaun Rein, CNBC Contributor - Chinese policymakers spent an uneasy weekend determining howhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif to deal with the S&P’s downgrade of America's debt. S&P’s decision risks eroding the value of China’s estimated $1.16 trillion in Treasury securities, especially if investors begin demanding a higher risk premium for owning U.S. government bonds. Already frustrated by the plummeting dollar, China blasted America after the downgrade.

inhua news agency, the official mouthpiece of the central government, lashed out: "The U.S. government has to come to terms with the painful fact that the good old days when it could just borrow its way out of messes of its own making are finally gone." It continued by saying America needs to end its addiction to debt by curtailing its military expenditures and social welfare programs.

MUSLIMS IN CHINA

There are 25 million Muslims in China, with 8.5 million of them in Xinjiang. They are the largest identifiable religious group in the country. They are found in small communities all over China but only in large numbers in the extreme west and northwest—the eastern extreme of the Muslim world. China has the potential to be the world’s largest Islamic nation.

More: http://factsanddetails.com/china.php?itemid=82&catid=3

Một thoáng về với Mẹ Thiên Nhiên

© Op-Economica, 6-8-2011 — Cuộc sống bận rộn, và những giấc mơ lúc xa, khi gần khiến cho chúng tôi, những người lao động, nhiều khi chẳng còn nhớ tới vẻ đẹp và sự cần thiết của thiên nhiên. Quên khác với không hiểu nhé. Biết rõ, và vẫn quên, chuyện là thế.

Ngẫm rằng, giá như có một khung cảnh đẹp, sự hài hòa trong khả năng có thể với thiên nhiên, thì cuộc đời sẽ đáng sống thêm biết bao.

Nghĩ thế và cũng cố làm thế. Chúng tôi kỳ cạch đặt rồi làm một bể nước cảnh ở trên tầng 4... Ban đầu thì lèo tèo vài con cá, một vài hòn đá cảnh. Bể đó hoàn thành lúc trời còn rét, đầu 2011 có trận rét ghê gớm, kéo dài tới đâu 35-40 ngày gì đó. Chỉ nghĩ đến sờ tay vào nước mà đã thấy ớn...

Vũ Viết Ngoạn phân trần về cáo giác sử dụng bằng cấp rởm từ degree mill LaSalle

Từ ngày 29-7-2011, BBC tiếng Việt đã đưa bài cáo giác tân Chủ tịch UB Giám sát Tài chính Quốc gia "TS" Vũ Viết Ngoạn sử dụng bằng cấp rởm từ LaSalle, thực chất là kiểu mua bằng qua danh nghĩa học "từ xa, qua thư tín" như sau:

7-Step Process of Private Equity Investment

Deal Origination (Deal Sourcing)
Due Diligence
Deal Negotiation
Deal Closing (Acquisition)
Post Acquisition Monitoring
Exit (IPO, Trade Sale or Buy back)
Repeat.

Bên trong chuyện giấu tai nạn tàu cao tốc ở TQ

3-8-2011 (Vietnamnet.vn) - Những người đứng sau Shinkansen của Nhật Bản - loại tàu chưa từng có một vụ tai nạn chết người nào kể từ khi bắt đầu hoạt động năm 1964, đã bị thua thiệt nhiều khi họ trao công nghệ cho Trung Quốc.

Trình bày Excerpt (tóm tắt) trên trang chủ

Google ngon lành, trình bày rất đơn giản. Sau phần tóm tắt chỉ cần đặt thêm   <!--more--> trong HTML. Thế là được luôn. Giản dị. Đẹp.

Ethnic Violence in China

Aug 1, 2011 (CFR) - At least eleven civilians were killed in attacks carried out by Uighurs (al-Jazeera), a Turkic Muslim ethnic minority, in the city of Kashgar in China's eastern Xinjiang province. Beijing claimed the violence was instigated by Pakistani-trained “religious extremists,” prompting a crackdown on religious activities at start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Vụ sáp nhập chưa có tiền lệ trong ngành ngân hàng

31-7-2011 (VnExpress) -Công ty Tiết kiệm Bưu điện (hoạt động từ 1999, thuộc Tổng công ty Bưu chính Việt Nam) gia nhập Ngân hàng Liên Việt với số vốn góp 997 tỷ đồng để tạo ra ngân hàng mới có tên gọi Ngân hàng thương mại cổ phần Bưu điện Liên Việt (LPB). Số vốn nói trên tương đương 14,99% vốn điều lệ ngân hàng, trong đó 360 tỷ đồng là giá trị của chính Công ty Tiết kiệm Bưu điện, phần còn lại sẽ được Tổng công ty Bưu chính Việt Nam góp nhiều lần bằng tiền mặt.

Trồng cây ngũ gia bì trong nhà xua muỗi

Hỏi: Nhà tôi mùa này rất nhiều muỗi, tôi đã dùng nhiều cách như xịt thuốc muỗi, đốt hương muỗi nhưng sợ không an toàn. Nghe nói có loài cây có thể ngăn muỗi vào nhà, xin hỏi đó là cây gì? Có thể trồng trong nhà được không?

Băn khoăn trên tôi nghĩ không chỉ của một người, mà có thể của rất nhiều người, trong đó có tôi. Tình cờ qua báo Khoa học & đời sống ngày 28/06/2011 tôi đọc được câu hỏi trên.

Environmental Group Links Vietnam's Military to Laos Timber Smuggling

July 29, 2011 (VOA) - The activist group Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), says Vietnam's military is involved in the smuggling of timber from Laos despite laws banning such exports. Vietnam denies the allegations, saying is working with the Lao government to prevent such smuggling.

Bạo động ở Trung Quốc

Theo tờ China Daily hôm 28/7, chiều hai ngày trước, hàng trăm người dân đã xuống đường biểu tình tại thành phố An Thuận, tỉnh Quý Châu (Trung Quốc) để phản đối nhân viên quản lý đô thị đánh đập một người bán hàng rong.

Nguồn tin cảnh sát địa phương cho hay, tới sáng ngày 27/7, đám đông đã được giải tán, song những cuộc xung đột trước đó đã khiến 30 người dân và 10 cảnh sát viên bị thương.

Bill Gates chi triệu đô nghiên cứu... phân người

Quỹ Bill Gates đã đầu tư 1,5 triệu đôla để thực hiện dự án chế biến phân người thanh nhiên liệu diesel sinh học chứa metan (Vietnamnet, 28-7). Phân người hóa ra có rất nhiều công dụng. Sau khi người Nhật tìm ra cách làm thịt từ phân, giờ tới ông Gates loay hoay với món này.

Сác chuyên gia cho rằng phân người là vật liệu hữu cơ đậm đặc có giá trị năng lượng cao so với nhiều loại năng lượng sinh học khác. Quỹ Bill Gates không loại trừ triển vọng đến một ngày nào đó, ác nhà khoa học sẽ thành công trong việc từ phân người tạo ra một nguồn năng lượng thay thế mới.

MPI công bố số liệu thu, chi ngân sách nhà nước tháng 7 và 7 tháng 2011: Nhiều điểm đáng bàn

26-7-2011 (VNEconomy) - Theo tài liệu của Bộ Kế hoạch và Đầu tư công bố chính thức tại buổi họp báo Chính phủ tháng 7, vừa diễn ra chiều 24/7, lũy kế 7 tháng năm 2011, tổng thu ngân sách nhà nước ước đạt 386,76 nghìn tỷ đồng, bằng 65% dự toán năm.

Như vậy, nếu áp vào so sánh với số liệu được Tổng cục Thống kê công bố vào tháng trước, thu ngân sách riêng trong tháng này đã tăng rất mạnh, tới gần 85,5 nghìn tỷ đồng, và làm tăng tỷ lệ thực hiện so với dự toán thêm khoảng 14,4 điểm phần trăm.

Mới qua 7 tháng, tỷ lệ thực hiện như trên là khá cao, đặc biệt là khi so với các con số tương ứng do Tổng cục Thống kê công bố, cùng kỳ năm ngoái là 57,5%; hay năm kia là 50,9%...

Vietnam PM set for second term

July 25, 2011 (AFP) -- Vietnam's one-party parliament is to elect Nguyen Tan Dung for another term as prime minister on Tuesday, confirming him as the country's most powerful politician at a time of economic crisis.

A symbolic vote by the communist-controlled National Assembly will choose Dung for a second five-year stint after his nomination on Monday as the sole candidate.

[...]

Soros, Epstein, and Caldwell Debate the Meaning of Hayek

Cato Policy Report, July/August 2011 -

In 1960, F. A. Hayek published an important book that acted as the positive counterpart to his more famous The Road to Serfdom. Whereas the latter fiercely critiqued the very idea of a centrally planned economy, the former provided his view of what should take its place. This spring, a distinguished panel convened in the Cato Institute's F. A. Hayek Auditorium to discuss the new, definitive edition of that work, The Constitution of Liberty, edited by Ronald Hamowy.

The panel included Bruce Caldwell, Hayek's intellectual biographer; Richard Epstein, the brilliant legal scholar; and George Soros, the hedge-fund billionaire and founder of the Open Society Foundations. Soros opened his talk with his own interpretation of the great economist.

"Hayek is generally regarded as the apostle of a brand of economics which holds that the market will assure the optimal allocation of resources as long as the government doesn't interfere," Soros said. He went on to describe what he considers the two main pillars of this brand — the efficient market hypothesis and the theory of rational expectations — which, he insisted, place Hayek firmly in the dominant strain of American economics. Most label this breed the Chicago School. "I refer to it as market fundamentalism," Soros said.

Richard Epstein did not concur. "In some sense, I'm taking exactly the opposite side of George Soros," he said. While Soros praised Hayek's warning "against the slavish imitation of natural science" in the social sciences, Epstein thought his ideas weren't systematic enough. In acknowledging that they were "enormously instructive," he ultimately concluded that those ideas were "incomplete." Epstein argued furthermore that Hayek's work points not to unfettered markets but to a "presumption against regulation."

Giving voice to some of the raised eyebrows in the audience, Bruce Caldwell responded to Soros. "I think that George has a handle on some parts of Hayek, but misunderstands other parts," he said. With a better grasp of the missing pieces, Caldwell was convinced that Soros "would identify himself, I'll say it provocatively, as a Hayekian." He then countered some of the billionaire's specific claims. Hayek actually rejected the usefulness of the socalled twin pillars in "capturing the workings of the market process," Caldwell told Soros, demonstrating that "he's not the sort of market fundamentalist that you're describing. I think a pithy way of putting this is that there's definitely a difference ... between Chicago and Vienna."

Continuing his earlier call for all sides to acknowledge that they only have half of the truth, Soros made some concessions. "Maybe we can find common ground," he said. "I think that we would all agree that government regulation is a necessary evil ... so if you can avoid regulations, you should." Many observers picked up on Soros's criticisms of the less-than-savory political and legislative processes that produced the recent health care and financial-reform bills. In the end, the discussion was both provocative and civil. The event mirrored a long-standing debate over the great economist's influence. Last year, Kate Zernike wrote in the New York Times that Tea Party activists were resurrecting "long-dormant ideas [found in] once-obscure texts by dead writers." She was referring, of course, to writers like Hayek. But she may have sold him short.

This is the same man, after all, who won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1974. Years later, he met with President Reagan at the White House. He also met with Margaret Thatcher, who, in reference to The Constitution of Liberty, declared: "This is what we believe." Hayek was described by Milton Friedman as "the most important social thinker of the 20th century" and by White House economic adviser Lawrence H. Summers as the author of "the single most important thing to learn from an economics course today." He was the mind behind The Road to Serfdom, a book that has never gone out of print and, in fact, sold over 100,000 copies last year alone. Cato is proud to note that, in the last years of his life, Hayek became a distinguished senior fellow at the Institute.

But even that doesn't do him justice. "On the biggest issue of all, the vitality of capitalism, he was vindicated to such an extent that it is hardly an exaggeration to refer to the 20th century as the Hayek century," John Cassidy once wrote in the New Yorker. Hayek, however, was much more than an economist. He also published impressive works on political theory and psychology. He embodied the type of intellect that influenced disciplines across the spectrum, remaining relevant long after his own lifetime.

As executive vice president David Boaz wrote on Cato@Liberty, "He's like Marx, only right."

Tư vấn chuyên nghiệp là đây

25-7-2011 (Vietnamnet) -

Tại các thành phố Mỹ, việc mua dâm diễn ra khá công khai song có một góc của ngành công nghiệp tình dục lại được bảo vệ và giấu kín. Đó là thế giới của gái điếm cấp cao, nơi khách hàng bỏ vào đó hàng trăm nghìn đô la mỗi năm. Một thế giới bí mật với những quy định và cách hành động có thể thay đổi mọi thứ mà bạn nghĩ là mình đã biết về nghề mua bán dâm.

Tuy nhiên, thế giới bí mật này đã được hé lộ phần nào qua lời của người trong cuộc. Đây là một phụ nữ ở San Francisco lấy tên là Elise Vanderhoff. Cô vào nghề năm 28 tuổi, sau khi đã học hành xong xuôi và đang làm cố vấn cho những thiếu niên gặp rắc rối.

Bắt đầu nghề gái gọi...

"Tôi làm gái gọi khi đã tốt nghiệp và có bằng Thạc sĩ về tâm lý, đang làm bác sĩ thực tập. Tôi vào nghề một phần là để thanh toán các hóa đơn còn nợ, vốn không ngừng tăng lên sau khi tôi tốt nghiệp. Công việc bắt đầu khi tôi kết thúc giờ thực tập. Ngoài ra, tôi làm việc đó còn vì những lý do cá nhân khác, ví dụ tính chất phiêu lưu của công việc.

Không cần nói cũng biết, làm gái gọi, tôi kiếm được nhiều tiền hơn làm bác sĩ thực tập và cũng như giàu hơn nhiều nhà trị liệu khác mà tôi biết. Tuy nhiên, lại một lần nữa, tiền chỉ là vấn đề thứ yếu. Tôi hiện làm gia sư và hành nghề tổ chức hội thảo trong khi vẫn làm gái gọi cấp cao.

Bận bịu chăm sóc khách hàng...

Công việc này hay thay đổi và mang tính mùa vụ, vì vậy, khó nói con số chính xác ở đây vì nó thay đổi thường xuyên. Trung bình, tôi gặp 2-4 khách một tháng, ở bất cứ đâu từ khoảng 4h tới vài ngày một lần. Xin hãy nhớ rằng việc làm này không phải là lúc nào cũng gặp khách hàng.

Tôi dành khá nhiều thời gian để duy trì quan hệ với các khách hàng hiện thời, tìm các vị khách mới, chăm chút cho vẻ bề ngoài (gồm hẹn làm tóc, móng, chăm sóc da, tập luyện 3-5 lần một tuần với người huấn luyện, chăm sóc xương, mát xa..), chụp ảnh mới, quảng cáo, bảo trì website, theo dõi các sự kiện đang diễn ra, học về rượu, thức ăn và văn hóa.

Đây là việc bảo dưỡng cần phải làm bất kể tôi phải làm những việc gì trong tuần. Tôi chỉ được trả tiền cho thời gian ở cạnh khách hàng trong khi thời gian còn lại là tương đối lớn.

Quan hệ với khách hàng...

90% công việc kinh doanh của tôi được hình thành từ các sự kiện thường xuyên. Tôi xin lặp lại rõ ràng một lần nữa là lý do tôi làm việc này không phải chỉ vì tiền. IQ của tôi là 150+, tôi nói được 4 ngoại ngữ và tôi có bằng thạc sĩ. Tôi có thể kiếm nhiều tiền ở các lĩnh vực khác.

Tôi coi trọng mối quan hệ đã có với khách hàng và tôi coi việc dành thời gian với họ là đem lại lợi ích cho họ trong cuộc sống. Ngoài ra, làm gái cấp cao tôi cũng thấy thích thú. Do đó, tôi tập trung vào việc thiết lập những mối quan hệ lâu dài với khách hàng mà tôi thích. Mỗi năm, tôi chỉ tiếp xúc với một vài khách hàng mới.

Tiền công…

Giá tối thiểu trong vòng 4h mà khách hàng phải trả tôi là 2.500 USD, nếu chỉ trong thành phố, nhưng sẽ là 3.500 USD cộng phí di chuyển cho các cuộc hẹn ở ngoài San Francisco. Khi đi lại, tôi tính thêm phụ phí vì tôi tốn thời gian cho di chuyển. Khách hàng cũng sẽ phải trả tiền đi lại cho tôi.

• Hoài Linh (Theo CNBC)

Why banks do not lend at near-zero interest rates

By Philip G - The Fed is surprised. For more than two years it has held the Fed Funds Rate at near zero levels. Yet bank lending has remained anaemic during the whole of that period.

That meagre bank lending is due to, not in spite of, low interest rates is an idea that has never occurred to the Fed.

The logic behind keeping interest rates low seems to be as follows, to use an analogy. If the price of wheat is kept low, even the poor can afford it and demand will be high. Then, if the government supplies wheat at low prices to grocers, they will add a small mark-up and supply it to consumers.

The analogy seems apt, if you replace grocers by banks and the low price of wheat by the low supply cost of money. But in practice the analogy does not seem to have worked. Why?

To begin with, money is not wheat. When a grocer sells a kilogram of wheat to a customer he collects the price for it and that is the end of the transaction. When a banker lends money that is just the first leg of the transaction. He needs to get the money back and make sure that the value of the money he gets back is not only more than the value of the money he lent out but also meets all his costs and yields a profit besides.

During a period of near-zero interest rates the chances of this are bleak. The reason is inflation. If inflation is 0% when the bank lends at, say, an interest rate of 5% and is 5% at the end of a year when the load is repaid, the bank will have clearly sustained a large loss, if lending costs and provisions for bad loans are taken into account. And high inflation is not just a remote possibility. It is a certainty considering that it is the Fed's avowed aim to raise inflation. And given the Fed's record before and after the Great Recession, what guarantee is there that inflation will be just 5%? In such an uncertain situation why blame banks for not lending? Their chances of losing money are smaller if they don't lend than if they lend.

The other reason that banks don't lend when the cost of money is low is just plain common sense. But in an era of complex mathematical economics, common sense has been a prime casualty, so that I need to invoke an economist who has for long been held in considerable contempt: Alfred Marshall.

This is what he said in Principles of Economics (edition of 1920):

"If a person has a thing which he can put to several uses, he will distribute it among these uses in such a way that it has the same marginal utility in all. For if it had a greater marginal utility in one use than another, he would gain by taking away some of it from the second use and applying it to the first."

Now, loans are not the only use that money can be put to. Banks can also use money in trading, which has the singular advantage of not tying up money for long periods and so does away with the uncertainty connected with those long periods. If banks can earn profits through trading, they would naturally not risk making loans. The return of huge bank bonuses just a year after the financial crash is proof that this was what happened.

Why has such a commonsensical idea not occurred to the Fed or to most economists? I think the reason is that Keynesianism has held economics in thrall for more than half a century so that economists are unable to see past the demand side of an equation.

To illustrate the point he makes in the above quotation Marshall considers a housewife with a limited number of hanks of yarn who must make a decision about how to divide the yarn between making socks and making vests.

In the footnote he says:

"Our illustration belongs indeed properly to domestic production rather than to domestic consumption. But that was almost inevitable; for there are very few things ready for immediate consumption which are available for many different uses. And the doctrine of the distribution of means between different uses has less important and less interesting applications in the science of demand than in that of supply."

It almost sounds like an admonition to Keynesians from beyond the grave.

I hope readers will be interested in the following graph which plots a) Commercial and Industrial Loans at All Commercial Banks against b) the Effective Federal Funds Rate from January 2001 to June 2011 [The data are from (where else?) the web site of the Federal Bank of St Louis.]

Especially interesting is the period from around the beginning of 2001 when the Fed began to reduce interest rates to get out of a recession and kept reducing rates until the middle of 2004. All through that period, commercial and industrial loans shrank. From the middle of 2004 the Fed started raising rates to curb the housing bubble and immediately commercial and industrial loans began to rise.

Only an amazing coincidence, I'm sure.

Greed drives bourse to the brink

Vietnam Investment Review; March 5, 2007 -- Article Excerpt. Dr Vuong Quan Hoang, a research scientist at CEB-University of Brussels and managing director of InvestVietnam,. Inc. shares his ideas on the ongoing explosion of Vietnam's stock market. The thirst for a fast profit and groundless greed of many investors have blown up the stock market bubble and together with the absence of market makers, these factors are creating implicit market risks.

In 2006, the VN-Index rose nearly 150 per cent and during January, it increased by 36 per cent. What do you think of these gigantic rises?

From a psychological aspect, there are three reasons behind the market's recent explosion. First, Vietnamese in general really want to make money fast, easily feel satisfied with what they have earned and always seek easier profits. Second, business opportunities in the economy are not so easy to find, especially when one pursues it by themselves. Third, the transaction capacity of the market has yet to be brought into full play and the main reason for this is the periodical order matching system and the bottle-neck issue on the Ho Chi Minh City's Exchange. These factors result in a deviatory supply-demand relationship, strongly affecting stock price fluctuations.

What is the stock market's real risk rate now?

The risk is large. The most important function of the market is to create high liquidity for stocks. However, in Vietnam, that liquidity remains very low. The market can reach a total value, per trading session of VNDI trillion but in comparison with the market's entire scale (nearly VND30 trillion) or with the real demand for transactions of investors, the liquidity of Vietnam's stock market is quite worrisome. In addition, given the absence of market makers, the market has a special feature. When stock prices are high, almost none sell and when they are low, there are few buyers. This places the market in a situation when most transactions are unilateral and in terms of mathematical statistics, any big jump contains risk.

Unexpected market developments have led bourse management to continuously post warnings. But, many view such warnings as unnecessary, explaining that the market has its own rules?

Though the Vietnamese economy's annual growth rate from 7.5-8.0 per cent is high compared to the world average, there is no point if stocks keep rising 30 per cent monthly. When the market was small with total capitalisation of just 1-2 per cent of GDP, it was not worrisome. Now, the market exceeds 20 per cent of GDP, the market's growth has created illusory prosperity, which goes with panic. Panic is the single feature that distinguishes the stock market from normal commodities markets. If the commodities fall in price, they can be bought though they are not really necessary. They can be given away or replace old ones. By contrast, when financial products fall in price, many are ready to dump them though they used to believe these products were good. The panic psychology is very dangerous to Vietnam's stock market because of its low liquidity and absence of market makers.

The State Bank has warned commercial banks not to pour money into the stock market, but this phenomenon has yet to be curbed. This phenomenon creates a communicating 'vessels effect' between bank deposits, the money that depositors expect to be safe with fixed income generation, and the investment channel with unpredicted risks. As an economist, I feel very concerned when the market has grown excessively regardless of the authorities' warnings.

One reason often quoted to assure investors of the recent sharp rises in stocks price is that Vietnamese businesses have been sold at a low price (almost all of the listing businesses are equitised state-owned enterprises) and at present they are being reevaluated. What do you think of the quality of Vietnamese businesses in general?

If quality is measured in scale terms, this type of quality went up strongly last year. However, if the business quality is defined by such standards as business strategy, sectoral planning, core values and strategic vision, it is very doubtful. I have met with leaders of many big businesses in Vietnam and they are all worried about businesses' future in the context of the global game (the WTO)....

(*Read full article at: http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-6405279/Greed-drives-bourse-to-the.html)

Taking stock

Vietnam Investment Review; June 18, 2001 -- Article Excerpt. The past 11 months have been more a roller coaster ride than gentle learning curve for the nation's stock market pioneers. Vuong Quan Hoang analyses the quirks and deviations of the nascent bourse

FOUNDED on July 20, 2000, the Ho Chi Minh City Securities Trading Centre (HSTC) has not been in existence long enough to allow scientific models to function, either empirically or theoretically.

However, 11 months has been sufficient time for thousands of people to invest their money.

The establishment of the HSTC itself was considered the first success and the beginning of operations with two firms listed on the bourse's boards the second. Although there are currently only five listed companies, trading does happen.

The HSTC is governed by a set of regulations designed to avoid collapse and to ensure the smooth functioning of the market. Generally, these regulations work, with occasional exceptions.

One example is the temporary trading interruption of Transimex (TMS). Trading only resumed following re-assessment of the reference price. Also, some manipulation was believed to have taken place, with orders having been written then cancelled deliberately.

Following that incident, the State Securities Commission (SSC) decided to ban the discarding of orders written by market participants, a move that still makes investors uncomfortable. Another problem is the lack, or misrepresentation, of information.

Most recently, a "warning" message issued by the SSC in an attempt to ease the `irrational exuberance' that had built towards Hapaco's shares failed to produce the desired effect.

The qualitative statement is that the fledgling market is worth exploring, not because it has produced returns for some investors, but because it contains some interesting properties.

Based on observations of the HSTC over its first 113 trading session, the main trend has been for stock price to move by the maximum allowed fluctuation of 2 per cent.

In most trading sessions, share prices have hit the ceiling, but they have also sometimes dropped to the floor.

Graphical analysis of these movements shows that the market is caught in a "liquidity trap".

When traders expect the price to go up, they tend to place orders at the upper limit. But of course, knowing that the value of the shares they are holding are set to rise, shareholders are unlikely to want to sell them, leading to very low transaction volume, both in terms of the number of shares traded and their monetary value. In a non-parametric manner, the stock runs in this case are positive for many consecutive sessions.

When the direction turns, the "trap" again springs, only this time in reverse, with shareholders finding it extremely difficult to sell.

Again, few shares are traded. The only exception to this situation is right at the point where the direction starts to turn, and when this happens, large transaction volumes are recorded for the session.

The graphs below show a remarkable similarity between the five listed companies' share price movements. But this close correlation should not be so. For the time being, there is nothing normal in the distribution of stock returns on the HSTC.

When assuming normality,...

(* Read full article at: http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-3806704/Taking-stock.html)

Nurturing indirect foreign investment

Vietnam Investment Review; April 16, 2001 (more than 10 years ago) -- Vietnam could boost its coffers with much indirect foreign investment via the emerging stock market and growing domestic private sector. Reality? It rather depends on whether some recent thinktank suggestions become policy.

SOME possibilities for attracting strong inflows of indirect foreign investment can be seen in two drafts produced by the Ministry of Planning and Investment.

The first suggests some foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs) be allowed to list on the stock exchange, with the first firms going public on a trial basis. This would hopefully lead to plenty of extra capital being injected into these firms.

The second draft identifies 40 types of domestic private firms, including services companies, which should be permitted to sell up to 30 per cent of themselves to foreign investors.

For FIEs wanting to list, the MPI recommends that their capital base must remain at least 30-per cent foreign. Otherwise, says the ministry, the firms would have to operate under the Enterprise Law, which was activated last year to cover purely Vietnamese firms.

Jolly good idea too

Reacting to the MPI's draft identification of 40 domestic private-firm types which could go partly foreign, an attorney, Pham Nghiem Xuan Bac, was very upbeat,

Bac, managing Partner of Vision & Associates, said: "It is a positive move to boost foreign investment in Vietnam, as well as development of the private sector here.

"A strong private sector will absorb labour redundancies which may be the result of the acceleration of the equitisation and restructuring process and which may create difficult social issues ... [though it would promote the economy's efficient cy and competitiveness]."

Officials of the MPI were quick to outline how the firms would have to "keylock" stake sales to foreign entities at a maximum 30 per cent, because foreign investors must not be allowed to dominate the country's financial and economic structure.

On this point, Minister of Planning and Investment Tran Xuan Gia said: "When we talk about the ratio between foreign capital and domestic investment in Vietnam's financial structure, it is naturally a little complicated."

Presently, domestic investment sources, both state and non-state, account for 60 per cent of investment in the country.

Official development assistance (ODA) and FDI account for the rest (around $16 billion has been accumulated from these sources in the past five years).

For the coming five-year period, said Gia, it would be tough to make ODA and FDI cover one third of the $60 billion of investment being targetted.

A misleading notion?

Asked whether focusing much more on indirect foreign investment was appropriate, Vuong Quan Hoang, a financial expert for the World Bank's International Financial Corporation, said: "Clearly this notion of categorising between direct and indirect foreign investment is vague and misleading.

"Investment is investment, with the money being spent and associated with some risks. One should not care whether it is `direct' or `indirect.'"

Added Hoang: "The boosting of investment via the stock market depends on whether such a market can really generate substantial investment prospects for investors at reasonable risk.

"In addition, all investments will not come across easily. Investment approaches will require more open...

(Full article content at: http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-3792940/Nurturing-indirect-foreign-investment.html)

Vietnam Sees Second-Quarter Growth

June 29, 2011 (Wall Street Journal; June 29, 2011) -- HANOI—Vietnam's economic growth sped up slightly in the second quarter, but remained restrained amid government efforts to rebalance the economy and rein in inflation.

Gross domestic product expanded 5.7% year-to-year in the second quarter of 2011, the General Statistics Office said in a statement. The economy grew 5.6% in the first half of the year.

The second-quarter growth was slightly faster than the 5.4% increase in the January-March period, thanks to higher industrial and construction output, but significantly slower than the 7.3% expansion posted in the final quarter of 2010. Vietnam's economy expanded 6.8% last year.

"I think after the government admitted itself that [full-year] growth can be around 6%, it's probably signaling that it's putting stability in front of growth," said Santitarn Sathirathai, an economist with Credit Suisse, who had expected the second-quarter growth figure to be 5.8%.

In February, Vietnam's government announced a major policy switch as what was once one of the most promising developing economies spun out of control, resulting in rising inflation, an entrenched trade deficit and a battered local currency—which has been devalued several times in the past year and a half.

Authorities have pledged to keep credit growth below 20% this year, cap the budget deficit at 5% of GDP, boost domestic production and curb the trade deficit. The central bank has raised benchmark interest rates several times this year.

The government this month cut its 2011 GDP target to 6% growth from 6.5%, and lifted its inflation forecast to 15% from 11.75%. It was the second time this year the government lowered its growth forecast and raised its inflation outlook.

The consumer price index rose 20.8% year-to-year in June, up from May's 19.8%, with some economists predicting that inflation won't peak until August or September.

Though the government has taken steps to tighten lending in the first half, Vietnam will continue to face high inflation in the third quarter, and more anti-inflationary efforts should be taken in coming months, says economist Vuong Quan Hoang of Hanoi-based DHVP Research & Consultancy.

"As June CPI rose 20.82% on year and it's thought that it will rise further in July; it's very difficult for the government to pull it back to 15% or even below 10% any time soon," Mr. Hoang said.

--Leigh Murray in Bangkok contributed to this article.

Write to Nguyen Pham Muoi at phammuoi.nguyen@dowjones.com

Russia Stamps Out Political Opposition

July 15, 2011 (Ariel Cohen, National Interest) - Russia has emasculated the country’s center-right. Steps have been taken to split the liberal vote in anticipation of the Duma elections in December. “Right Cause,” a Kremlin-supported quasi-opposition founded in 2008 under the aegis of Anatoly Chubais, the architect of Russia’s controversial privatization, elected an oligarch as their new party leader. Mikhail Prokhorov, Russia’s third-richest person (worth $18 billion, according to Forbes), the owner of the NBA’s New Jersey Nets, a playboy and allegedly Russia’s most eligible bachelor, became the party’s new boss.

Prokhorov made headlines when, in a brilliant move, he got out of the metals business on the eve of the 2009 economic recession. His name was in lights once again when the French police briefly detained him for bringing a planeload of “party girls” from Moscow to the fancy ski resort of Courchevel. Today, he is launching the Ё-car, the first Russian hybrid vehicle aimed at the mass market. If successful, it may make Prokhorov even richer; if not, it would be an expensive flop.

As much as Prokhorov and “Right Cause” want to be known as pro-business and pro-reform, he has already ruled out identifying his party as a part of the political opposition. No wonder. Anyone who has to do business with the government all the time—and with a government headed by Vladimir Putin—certainly doesn’t want to get on the wrong side of the establishment.

In the end, then, he and his party support the status quo. In fact, Arkady Dvorkovich, President Medvedev’s economic advisor, tweeted recently that Prokhorov’s views were “close to [his].” Any real opposition gets shafted when rulers are propping up friendly political forces. And now there is the creation of the “Popular Front” to support Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s return to presidency and to boost the ruling party, United Russia. Needless to say, it is “business as usual.”

Anyone who doubts this should look at the fate of PARNAS, the Party of People’s Freedom. The Russian Justice Ministry just banned PARNAS, a center-right opposition party, from participating in the elections. Led by well-known democratic politicians, including former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov, former Duma Vice Chairman Vladimir Ryzhkov and former Deputy Minister of Energy Vladimir Milov, it is neither violent nor extremist.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton released a statement on the State Department’s website that "it is hard to understand how this decision…is consistent with Russia's international commitments and recent statements by Russia's own leaders."

Why is the secretary surprised with this sort of behavior after her administration gave Russia carte blanche to crack down on the remnants of democracy, and what is she planning to do about it?

The decision to deny registration is illegal on its face. Russian authorities said that the party ranks contained some “dead souls” (some names necessary for registration could not be confirmed), yet these numbered no more than 70 out of more than 46,000 people who signed the registration petition. Furthermore, authorities claimed that the party did not allow for a “rotation of leadership,” required under election law, which, PARNAS says, is patently false.

PARNAS is one of nine opposition parties that the Central Electoral Commission and the Justice Ministry have denied access to Russia’s electorate in the last four years. And opposition politicians also lack access to national TV channels. The European Court of Human Rights has cited Russia for its handling of opposition movements, including the forced dissolution of another opposition party in 2007.

While President Medvedev and the tame “Right Cause” are calling for greater democracy, the government denies millions of Russians the right to vote.

As SAIS scholar Donald Jensen and I noted recently, the Obama administration bet on the wrong horse when it engaged Medvedev as the lead contact in its “reset” with Russia. This was a failure to realistically assess who are we dealing with, and who is making key decisions. The United States should take note, as the administration’s “reset” policy demonstrates its futility once again.

* Vebimo's question: Is this the corporate Russia?

Beijing through Rose-Colored Glasses: Why Democracy Cannot Tame China

July 13, 2011 (by Harry Harding, National Interest) - There is an increasing drumbeat for pushing a democratic project in China to fend off its inevitable aggressive authoritarian ambitions. There is little doubt that China will wish to become a preeminent power in its own hemisphere. But the argument that creating a pluralistic, democratic system in China will sideline a coming clash between Washington and Beijing is overly optimistic. Certainly it is true that China and the United States will be competitors, even rivals, not only because one is an established power and the other a rising power, but also because their political systems embody very different ideologies. American concepts of democracy pose an existential threat to the Communist regime; Successful Chinese growth under an authoritarian system is a threat to American leadership and exceptionalism.

Recently, Aaron Friedberg masterfully combined, in a way that is quite unusual, realist and non-realist components in an argument whose crescendo is that “it is likely that a more democratic China would ultimately create a more peaceful, less war-prone environment in Asia.” It would also, of course, simultaneously remove the threat to the American sense of ideological supremacy. Thus “in the long run, the United States can learn to live with a democratic China as the dominant power in East Asia, much as Great Britain came to accept America as the preponderant power in the Western Hemisphere.” But, “until that day, Washington and Beijing are going to remain locked in an increasingly intense struggle for mastery in Asia.”

This is an argument that has been made before. It’s one of the rosy forecasts that Jim Mann has called a “soothing scenario.” And it is fraught with uncertainty. It is, in fact, highly unlikely that China will become a truly democratic political system, and moreover a democratizing Middle Kingdom may well be overwhelmed by the nationalistic sentiments that are part of China’s contemporary political culture, and that the present Communist government has deliberately cultivated. Even if we arbitrarily and optimistically assign a 50 percent probability to each of these outcomes, over the next decade or so, that means that the chances of a Chinese regime that is both democratic and cooperative would be no more than 25 percent. Those are not the best of odds. Nor are these odds of true democratization within our ability to change.

Given this, it is far more important to ask the fundamental question of how the United States can manage China’s rise through its own behavior. Which leads us to some of the policy implications that those others who cling to the democratization-as-solution mantra might be better served by drawing.

Rather than simply hoping for democratization, I would look toward creating greater economic interdependence between China, the United States and the rest of Asia. The Communist party is dependent on economic growth for legitimacy—and that growth presently depends very much on exports, and exports depend very much on foreign investment. The policy of economic rebalancing that Beijing is attempting may change those ratios somewhat, making the Chinese economy increasingly dependent on domestic consumption and less reliant on exports, and exports more contingent on Chinese firms and less on foreign invested ones. But as the economy matures, there will also be increasing interest in outbound Chinese foreign investment, and that will increase Beijing’s interdependence with the rest of the world—albeit in a different form. This creates an environment in which American can promote interdependence based on reciprocity. Actively welcome Chinese investment in the United States, as long as comparable opportunities are available for American (and other foreign) firms in China. Chinese investment in an advanced economy like that of the United States will mean that Chinese goods sold stateside will be increasingly produced by American—not Chinese—workers. Concomitantly, it will give those Chinese firms with investments in the United States a stake in stable relations between Washington and Beijing.

Second, continue to welcome China’s growing presence within existing international institutions—like the IMF, the World Bank and the United Nations—and its efforts to create new organizations to meet unfilled needs—like the SCO, the ASEAN+3 and the East Asian Summit—as long as the United States is also given an appropriate role. There is a huge difference between a rising power that wants more say within the existing international system and a rising power that wants to promote fundamental changes to that system. It will be key to ensure that those institutions—both old and new—are robust enough to simultaneously impose some constraints on Chinese behavior and reassure Beijing that its rise is being accommodated.

Above all, the United States needs to maintain a favorable balance of power in the region. China may wish to dominate its region the way that the United States historically dominated the Americas, or in the way that China itself dominated parts (but only parts) of Asia in the Ming and Qing dynasties. But those seventeenth- and nineteenth-century visions will be hard to achieve given twenty-first-century realities. Whatever Beijing’s ambitions may be, securing a dominant role in contemporary Asia will be extremely difficult. It is a very crowded region, in which at least four other major powers (Russia, Japan, India and the U.S) are located or have major interests, and it is home to an increasingly strong regional community (ASEAN) and to several important middle powers (notably Pakistan, Bangladesh, Australia and South Korea). Some scholars say that a dominant China—and a system in which others in the region defer to Beijing and China exercises a limited form of hegemony—is a “natural” outcome in the region. So far, however, few Asian powers seem to actually prefer such an outcome. (They probably didn’t prefer it in the past, either, but they had no choice.) There is a strong trend toward multipolarity in this diverse and vibrant area, and a unipolar Asia would represent an enormous failure of power and will on the part of the other regional actors.

The role of the United States will be particularly important in determining the area’s future. Despite the potential and clear preference for multipolarity, Japan is stagnant, Russia is focused more on Europe and its “near-abroad” in Eurasia, ASEAN still struggles to forge consensuses on foreign policy and India’s future rate of economic growth remains uncertain. Washington will be key if the aim is avoid a bandwagoning scenario in which one frightened Asian country after another sides with China. Revitalizing the American economy, refocusing more American military and diplomatic resources on the Asia-Pacific region, and restoring the attractiveness of American economic and political models will be far more effective ways of promoting an open and stable Asia than simply hoping China will democratize.

Yes, China is rising, and rising powers have posed challenges in the past. But to me, the most important variable in determining the outcome is not the democratization of China but the revitalization of the United States.

Mystery Mortgage Economics

July 17, 2011 (by Paul Krugman, NYT) -

As most of our attention is focused on the debt-ceiling crisis, another issue is coming to a head: whether prosecutors will rush to let banks off the hook for mortgage abuses in return for a modest settlement, without having done anything like a complete investigation.

I’ll leave the legal issues to others; what puzzles me is the economic argument being made for a rush to settlement:

Indeed, halting the long slide in home prices has emerged as the government’s primary goal in its settlement talks with lenders. Following the robo-signing scandal last autumn, many major servicers halted home seizures. But in the months since then, more homeowners have fallen into distress amid high unemployment and a weak economy, adding to the inventories of potential foreclosures to come.

Help me out here: why would accelerating the foreclosure process halt the slide in home prices?
I mean, let’s think supply and demand here. When you evict a family from a home, you’re adding that home to the supply of homes for sale. Yes, some evicted families will go out in search of new housing — but almost by definition, they won’t be able to buy or rent as much house as the one they were living in.

So this looks to me like an increase in housing supply not matched by an equal increase in demand. Shouldn’t this push prices down, not up?

OK, there’s supposed to be mortgage modification along with the deal. But first of all, if that’s a concern, why not make an aggressive push to use the more than $40 billion still sitting, unused, in the HAMP program? And why not wait a few months to collect more evidence, and thereby get a better deal? It’s not as if the housing slump is going away any time soon.

As far as I can tell, officials are essentially relying on a metaphor — purge the system, and health will return.

But I see no reason to believe that this metaphor is useful.

Xét lại hàng trăm tỷ đồng kích cầu bị trục lợi

29-6-2011 (Dân trí) - Trong gần 400.000 tỷ đồng tiền hỗ trợ lãi suất năm 2009, xác định được 15 tỷ đồng cho vay lại “ăn” chênh lệch, 18,2 tỷ đồng cho vay mua hàng “khống”… UB Tài chính ngân sách của Quốc hội đã chỉ ra nhiều sai phạm trong quyết toán ngân sách nhà nước năm 2009.

Báo cáo quyết toán được Chính phủ trình Ủy ban Thường vụ Quốc hội sáng 29/6. Cơ quan thẩm tra báo cáo - Ủy ban Tài chính ngân sách khẳng định, thực hiện các giải pháp kích cầu trong thời điểm khủng hoảng kinh tế 2009, cơ chế hỗ trợ lãi suất, vốn vay là chính sách quan trọng.

Theo đó, khoản dư nợ hỗ trợ lãi suất đến 31/12/2009 là gần 400.000 tỷ đồng, số tiền phải hỗ trợ lãi suất là hơn 11.000 tỷ đồng. Ngân hàng Nhà nước đã chuyển tiền hỗ trợ lãi suất cho các ngân hàng thương mại, công ty tài chính hơn 6.200 tỷ đồng (tương đương 363,8 triệu USD). Dự kiến đến hết năm 2011, Ngân hàng Nhà nước sẽ sử dụng số tiền khoảng 16.000 tỷ đồng để thực hiện chính sách này. 

 

Trong quá trình triển khai, cơ quan thẩm tra cho rằng, chính sách hỗ trợ mới chỉ tác động trên phạm vi hẹp, chưa bình đẳng và thiếu trọng tâm trọng điểm.

Chủ nhiệm Ủy ban Tài chính ngân sách Phùng Quốc Hiển chỉ ra, thực tế việc cho vay bị “đánh đồng”, cho cả doanh nghiệp thừa vốn, sử dụng vốn sai mục đích. Không ít trường hợp lợi dụng chính sách để trục lợi, vay vốn hỗ trợ lãi suất rồi chuyển sang tiền gửi.

Theo kết quả thanh tra, nhiều doanh nghiệp đã vay 15 tỷ đồng vốn hỗ trợ lãi suất về cho vay lại. 58,5 tỷ đồng là số vốn hỗ trợ lãi suất vượt thời gian sử dụng thực tế và 41,5 tỷ đồng cho vay hỗ trợ lãi suất không phù hợp với nhu cầu.

Vốn hỗ trợ lãi suất còn được cho vay với các khoản vay không xác định được hàng hóa sản phẩm đã tiêu thụ hay chưa hoặc hàng hóa đã được tiêu thụ trước thời điểm giải ngân với số tiền 5,9 tỷ đồng. Cho vay hỗ trợ lãi suất để mua hàng nhưng không có hàng 18,2 tỷ đồng…

UB tài chính ngân sách cũng cho rằng việc mở rộng đối tượng và kéo dài thời gian chưa hợp lý, dẫn tới việc chương trình cho vay hỗ trợ lãi suất dự kiến phải kéo dài đến 2012 mới hoàn thành.

Báo cáo quyết toán ngân sách năm 2009 cũng thể hiện vấn đề các khoản thu chi khi quyết toán đều khác biệt đáng kể so với dự toán. Tổng thu ngân sách nhà nước năm 2009 là gần 455.000 tỷ đồng (vượt dự toán 16,6%), chi ngân sách là hơn 560.000 tỷ đồng (vượt dự toán 14,2%).

Chính vì vậy, tỷ lệ bội chi cũng phải điều chỉnh theo từ mức 4,82% GDP lên 6,9% khi hết năm, để lại áp lực lạm phát cho những năm tiếp theo.

Bàn lại vấn đề tiền đã tiêu từ năm 2009, Chủ tịch Hội đồng dân tộc Ksor Phước thở dài cho rằng “chuyện đã rồi” như này đã lặp lại năm này qua năm khác suốt 3 nhiệm kỳ ông làm việc tại Quốc hội.

Ông Phước yêu cầu khi chính thức báo cáo trước Quốc hội kỳ hợp tới, Chính phủ cần có thái độ nghiêm túc, thẳng thắn về vấn đề này, không thể năm nào cũng nhận khuyết điểm rồi lại tái phạm.

Chia sẻ trăn trở này, Chủ nhiệm UB pháp luật Nguyễn Văn Thuận nói thẳng: “Xét về thể chế và trách nhiệm của bộ máy nhà nước trước nhân dân thì đây là một điều đáng buồn. Những khuyết điểm trong việc lập dự toán và thực thi kỷ luật ngân sách đều bộc lộ một thiếu sót có tính hệ thống”.

Ông Thuận đặt vấn đề, những khuyết điểm qua hàng chục năm vẫn không biến chuyển là do những người có chức sắc, có trách nhiệm quản lý tiền của dân. Dường như có tâm lý tự thỏa mãn, chấp nhận tồn tại như một điều “biết rồi, khổ lắm, nói mãi”.

(Thấy đỏ tưởng chín) China to Trounce U.S. in Next Decade

Martin Jacques July 7, 2011, National Interest

 The Western financial crisis heralded a significant shift in the balance of power between the United States and China. Most starkly, it brought forward the date when the Chinese economy will overtake the US economy in size from 2027 (the Goldman Sachs projection in 2005) to 2020. The reason is simple: while the US economy is around the same size as it was in 2008, with the prospect of perhaps a decade of very weak growth ahead, the Chinese economy has continued to grow at around 9 percent and future economic growth is likely to be in the region of 8 percent. While 2027 sounded sufficiently far in the future to sound speculative, 2020, in contrast, is less than a decade away and feels much more like an extension of the present. The rise of China and the decline of the United States is becoming more tangible by the year.

Significant landmarks are happening thick and fast: in 2010, China overtook Germany to become the world’s largest exporter; in the same year it overtook Japan to become the world’s second-largest economy; at the beginning of 2011, it overtook the United States to become the world’s largest manufacturing nation, a position the United States had held for 110 years; in 2020, if not earlier, it will overtake the United States to become the world’s largest economy; and perhaps not too long afterwards, when the renminbi is finally made convertible, the latter will replace the dollar as the world’s leading reserve currency. With each landmark we move a little further away from a world shaped by the United States and toward one shaped by China.

There has been a strong tendency in the West to see this world in narrowly economic terms, with China assuming similar characteristics as the United States during the process of its rise and the global furniture that we are familiar with remaining little changed. This is to greatly underestimate the nature and import of China’s rise. It will not even be true economically. When China overtakes the United States, it will still be both a developed and a developing economy; it will continue to be a huge trading nation, on a far greater scale than the United States; and it will be far more orientated towards the developing world, to which it presently sends over half its exports, than Washington has been.

Nor will the international financial system remain more or less unchanged. The only way that the IMF and the World Bank will survive China’s rise to economic ascendancy is if they come to reflect the new configuration of global economic power: in other words, if, in time, China comes to call the shots in the IMF. But even in this eventuality, it is entirely possible that the IMF will be effectively replaced by a different kind of body, one more in line with Chinese interests and aspirations, along with those of other developing countries like India. In this context, it should be noted that already, in 2009-10, the China Development Bank and the China Exim Bank between them lent more to the developing world than the World Bank, which suggests that the latter could, within a decade or so, become increasingly marginalized. Then factor in the renminbi as the dominant world currency, with Shanghai replacing New York as the global financial centre, and we are clearly looking at a very different world economic order.

Furthermore, the accompanying geopolitical and cultural changes are likely to be even more profound. China may have called itself a nation-state for the last century, but it remains primarily a civilization-state, as it has been for more than two millennia. Whereas the Western sense of identity is overwhelmingly shaped by their history as nation-states, the Chinese sense of identity is rooted in and shaped by their civilizational past. It is impossible to comprehend the very distinctive nature of the Chinese state, and the roots of its legitimacy, or similarly distinctive Chinese attitudes towards race, otherwise. Likewise, to make sense of China’s rapidly changing relationship with East Asia, it is necessary to take account of the tributary system which was the organizing basis of China’s relations with its neighbors for thousands of years until around a century ago.

Indeed, China’s present claim on the Spratly and Paracel Islands in the South China Sea, which is based on inter-temporal law rather than territorial water law, derives directly from its history as a civilization-state. Those who believe that China’s rise to global hegemony will in practice change little can only hold to this view by ignoring China’s quite different history to that of the West.

Will this Chinese world be better or worse than the Western-made world we are familiar with? In one very important sense it will be better: while the West has never represented much more than a sliver of humanity, China and India between them constitute 38 percent of the world’s population. Their rise represents a huge rough and ready democratization of the world. Nor should we fear this world because it will be so unfamiliar to us. We need to understand and embrace it: the sooner the better, because, willy-nilly, we have no choice. In time it will come to pass.

I Saw the Crisis Coming. Why Didn’t the Fed?

By MICHAEL J. BURRY, NYT, April 3, 2010

ALAN GREENSPAN, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, proclaimed last month that no one could have predicted the housing bubble. “Everybody missed it,” he said, “academia, the Federal Reserve, all regulators.”

But that is not how I remember it. Back in 2005 and 2006, I argued as forcefully as I could, in letters to clients of my investment firm, Scion Capital, that the mortgage market would melt down in the second half of 2007, causing substantial damage to the economy. My prediction was based on my research into the residential mortgage market and mortgage-backed securities. After studying the regulatory filings related to those securities, I waited for the lenders to offer the most risky mortgages conceivable to the least qualified buyers. I knew that would mark the beginning of the end of the housing bubble; it would mean that prices had risen — with the expansion of easy mortgage lending — as high as they could go.

I had begun to worry about the housing market back in 2003, when lenders first resurrected interest-only mortgages, loosening their credit standards to generate a greater volume of loans. Throughout 2004, I had watched as these mortgages were offered to more and more subprime borrowers — those with the weakest credit. The lenders generally then sold these risky loans to Wall Street to be packaged into mortgage-backed securities, thus passing along most of the risk. Increasingly, lenders concerned themselves more with the quantity of mortgages they sold than with their quality.

Meanwhile, home buyers, convinced by recent history that real estate prices would always rise, readily signed onto whatever mortgage would get them the biggest house. The incentive for fraud was great: the F.B.I. reported that its mortgage fraud caseload increased fivefold from 2001 to 2004.
At the same time, I also watched how ratings agencies vouched for subprime mortgage-backed securities. To me, these agencies seemed not to be paying much attention.

By mid-2005, I had so much confidence in my analysis that I staked my reputation on it. That is, I purchased credit default swaps — a type of insurance — on billions of dollars worth of both subprime mortgage-backed securities and the bonds of many of the financial companies that would be devastated when the real estate bubble burst. As the value of the bonds fell, the value of the credit default swaps would rise. Our swaps covered many of the firms that failed or nearly failed, including the insurer American International Group and the mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

I entered these trades carefully. Suspecting that my Wall Street counterparties might not be able or willing to pay up when the time came, I used six counterparties to minimize my exposure to any one of them. I also specifically avoided using Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns as counterparties, as I viewed both to be mortally exposed to the crisis I foresaw.

What’s more, I demanded daily collateral settlement — if positions moved in our favor, I wanted cash posted to our account the next day. This was something I knew that Goldman Sachs and other derivatives dealers did not demand of AAA-rated A.I.G.

I believed that the collapse of the subprime mortgage market would ultimately lead to huge failures among the largest financial institutions. But at the time almost no one else thought these trades would work out in my favor.

During 2007, under constant pressure from my investors, I liquidated most of our credit default swaps at a substantial profit. By early 2008, I feared the effects of government intervention and exited all our remaining credit default positions — by auctioning them to the many Wall Street banks that were themselves by then desperate to buy protection against default. This was well in advance of the government bailouts. Because I had been operating in the face of strong opposition from both my investors and the Wall Street community, it took everything I had to see these trades through to completion. Disheartened on many fronts, I shut down Scion Capital in 2008.

Since then, I have often wondered why nobody in Washington showed any interest in hearing exactly how I arrived at my conclusions that the housing bubble would burst when it did and that it could cripple the big financial institutions. A week ago I learned the answer when Al Hunt of Bloomberg Television, who had read Michael Lewis’s book, “The Big Short,” which includes the story of my predictions, asked Mr. Greenspan directly. The former Fed chairman responded that my insights had been a “statistical illusion.” Perhaps, he suggested, I was just a supremely lucky flipper of coins.


Mr. Greenspan said that he sat through innumerable meetings at the Fed with crack economists, and not one of them warned of the problems that were to come. By Mr. Greenspan’s logic, anyone who might have foreseen the housing bubble would have been invited into the ivory tower, so if all those who were there did not hear it, then no one could have said it.

As a nation, we cannot afford to live with Mr. Greenspan’s way of thinking. The truth is, he should have seen what was coming and offered a sober, apolitical warning. Everyone would have listened; when he talked about the economy, the world hung on every single word.

Unfortunately, he did not give good advice. In February 2004, a few months before the Fed formally ended a remarkable streak of interest-rate cuts, Mr. Greenspan told Americans that they would be missing out if they failed to take advantage of cost-saving adjustable-rate mortgages. And he suggested to the banks that “American consumers might benefit if lenders provided greater mortgage product alternatives to the traditional fixed-rate mortgage.”

Within a year lenders made interest-only adjustable-rate mortgages readily available to subprime borrowers. And within 18 months lenders offered subprime borrowers so-called pay-option adjustable-rate mortgages, which allowed borrowers to make partial monthly payments and have the remainder added to the loan balance (much like payments on a credit card).

Observing these trends in April 2005, Mr. Greenspan trumpeted the expansion of the subprime mortgage market. “Where once more-marginal applicants would simply have been denied credit,” he said, “lenders are now able to quite efficiently judge the risk posed by individual applicants and to price that risk appropriately.”
Yet the tide was about to turn. By December 2005, subprime mortgages that had been issued just six months earlier were already showing atypically high delinquency rates. (It’s worth noting that even though most of these mortgages had a low two-year teaser rate, the borrowers still had early difficulty making payments.)
The market for subprime mortgages and the derivatives thereof would not begin its spectacular collapse until roughly two years after Mr. Greenspan’s speech. But the signs were all there in 2005, when a bursting of the bubble would have had far less dire consequences, and when the government could have acted to minimize the fallout.

Instead, our leaders in Washington either willfully or ignorantly aided and abetted the bubble. And even when the full extent of the financial crisis became painfully clear early in 2007, the Federal Reserve chairman, the Treasury secretary, the president and senior members of Congress repeatedly underestimated the severity of the problem, ultimately leaving themselves with only one policy tool — the epic and unfair taxpayer-financed bailouts. Now, in exchange for that extra year or two of consumer bliss we all enjoyed, our children and our children’s children will suffer terrible financial consequences.

It did not have to be this way. And at this point there is no reason to reflexively dismiss the analysis of those who foresaw the crisis. Mr. Greenspan should use his substantial intellect and unsurpassed knowledge of government to ascertain and explain exactly how he and other officials missed the boat. If the mistakes were properly outlined, that might both inform Congress’s efforts to improve financial regulation and help keep future Fed chairmen from making the same errors again.

About Michael J. Burry
Michael Burry (born 1971^[1]) is founder of the Scion Capital LLC hedge fund, which he ran from 2000 until 2008, when he closed the fund to focus on his own personal investments. Burry was one of the first investors in the world to recognize and invest in the impending subprime mortgage crisis.^[2] Author Michael Lewis profiled him in his 2010 book The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, and he was featured in Gregory Zuckerman's 2009 book The Greatest Trade Ever: How John Paulson Bet Against The Markets and Made $20 Billion.

Burry graduated from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine^[3] and did his residency in neurology at Stanford Hospital.^[2] While off duty at night, he worked on his life-long hobby, which was an interest in financial investments.^[2] He quit the medical profession in 2000 and started an investment company Scion Capital, which he shut down in 2008 due to personal and professional reasons.^[2] As of 2010 he has purchased almond farms in California, "a fancy way to essentially invest long-term in water," Michael Lewis said, "they require a lot of water to grow and he’s got a very complicated argument about why these almond farms are a good idea so I trust him." ^[4]

Burry is married with children and lives in California.^[2] He has been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, as has his son.^{[5] [2]}

Burry left work as a Stanford Hospital neurology resident to become a full-time investor and start his own hedge fund. He had already developed a reputation as an investor by demonstrating astounding success in "value investing," which he wrote about on a message board beginning in 1996. He was so successful with his stock picks that he attracted the interest of such companies as Vanguard, White Mountains Insurance Group and such prominent investors as Joel Greenblatt.

After shutting down his web site in November 2000, Burry started Scion Capital, funded by a small inheritance and loans from his family. The company was named after The Scions of Shannara, a favorite childhood book. Burry quickly earned extraordinary profits for his investors. According to Lewis, "in his first full year, 2001, the S&P 500 fell 11.88 percent. Scion was up 55 percent. The next year, the S&P 500 fell again, by 22.1 percent, and yet Scion was up again: 16 percent. The next year, 2003, the stock market finally turned around and rose 28.69 percent, but Mike Burry beat it again—his investments rose by 50 percent. By the end of 2004, Mike Burry was managing $600 million and turning money away."^[3]

In 2005, he veered from value investing to focus on the subprime market. Through his analysis of mortgage lending practices in 2003 and 2004, he correctly forecast a bubble would collapse as early as 2007. Burry's research on the runaway values of residential real estate convinced him that subprime mortgages, especially those with "teaser" rates, and the bonds based on these mortgages would begin losing value when the original rates reset, often in as little as two years after initiation. This conclusion led Burry to short the market by persuading Goldman Sachs to sell him credit default swaps against subprime deals he saw as vulnerable. This analysis proved correct, and Burry profited accordingly.^[6][7][8]

Though he suffered an investor revolt before his predictions came true, he earned a personal profit of $100 million and a profit for his remaining investors of more than $700 million.^[3] Scion Capital ultimately recorded returns of 489.34 percent (net of fees and expenses) between its November 1, 2000 inception and June 2008. The S&P 500 returned just over two percent over the same period.^[3]

According to his website, he liquidated his credit default swap short positions by April 2008 and did not benefit from the taxpayer-funded bailouts of 2008 and 2009.^[9] He subsequently liquidated his company to focus on his personal investment portfolio.^[9]

In a April 3, 2010, op-ed for the New York Times, Burry argued that anyone who studied the financial markets carefully in 2003, 2004, and 2005 could have recognized the growing risk in the subprime markets.^[10] He faulted federal regulators for failing to listen to warnings from outside a closed circle of advisors.^[10]

CFR's Top of the Agenda: Karzai's Brother Killed

Ahmed Wali Karzai, the powerful half-brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, was shot dead (al-Jazeera) by a security official visiting his house in Kandahar on Tuesday morning. The Taliban immediately claimed responsibility for the murder, but Afghan officials insisted the man, Sardar Mohammad, was a longtime confidante of Karzai's.

Wali Karzai, a formidable powerbroker in the southern province of Kandahar--the Taliban's strategic base and locus of the U.S. military surge--had been accused by the United States of having ties to southern Afghanistan's lucrative narcotics trade and engaging in other corrupt practices. However, over the past year, U.S. officials courted his support, seeing him as necessary for stability (WSJ) in the fragile southern region.

The murder undermines the power structure (NYT) in southern Afghanistan--widely understood to be built around the Karzai family--and laid the groundwork for a power struggle to replace Wali Karzai. Stability in the region is likely to be further challenged as the United States prepares to reduce troop levels.

President Karzai confirmed his brother's death (WashPost) at a news conference, noting, "This is the life of the people of Afghanistan."

Analysis:

Ann Marlowe of the Hoover Institution challenges the prevailing concept of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan as a "war of perceptions."

President Barack Obama's decision to remove thirty thousand troops from Afghanistan in just over a year heightens the difficulty in securing the east and south of the country against far-from-defeated Taliban forces, writes CFR's Max Boot.

Obama should pursue a more sweeping troop drawdown in Afghanistan that focuses a residual force on counterterrorist operations, and helps Washington devote more resources to fixing severe domestic problems, says CFR President Richard N. Haass.

Vùng nguyên liệu VN có nguy cơ vào tay người TQ?

Bài học phải thuộc ngay, càng sớm càng tốt của không chỉ các cấp quản lý mà cả giới doanh thương Việt Nam được Trần Minh Quân nêu lên trên Vietnamnet ngày 12-7-2011.

Không phải đợi đến khi thương nhân Trung Quốc ráo riết thu gom hàng nông sản tận tay người nông dân như trong thời gian vừa qua mà thực trạng khan hiếm nguyên liệu đầu vào tại các doanh nghiệp Việt Nam đã tồn tại trong một vài năm qua.
 

Năm ngoái, khi trả lời báo chí ông Đinh Ngọc Đạm, Tổng giám đốc Công ty cổ phần Cao su Đà Nẵng (DRC), cho biết: Năm 2010, công ty cần khoảng 13.000 tấn cao su nguyên liệu để sản xuất. Tuy nhiên, việc mua nguyên liệu rất khó khăn và công ty mới mua được của Tập đoàn Cao su được khoảng 4.000 tấn. Để đảm bảo đủ hàng cho sản xuất, DRC phải mua nguyên liệu ở bên ngoài với chất lượng không ổn định như tính năng cơ lý, độ nhớt, thành phần tạp chất... nên phải mất thêm chi phí để xử lý nguyên liệu.

Thường thì các doanh nghiệp có nhu cầu cao su nguyên liệu đều phải mua từ Tập đoàn cao su Việt Nam, tuy nhiên do giá cả tăng cao trong thời gian qua nên các doanh nghiệp thuộc Tập đoàn công nghiệp cao su Việt Nam (VRG) đã tập trung cho xuất khẩu. Do đó, mặc dù Việt Nam là nước xuất khẩu cao su thiên nhiên đứng Top 5 thế giới, nhưng ngành công nghiệp sản xuất các sản phẩm từ mủ cao su thiên nhiên vẫn bị động về nguồn nguyên liệu!

Trong khi các doanh nghiệp trong nước đang quá bị động đối với việc tiếp cận vùng nguyên liệu hay phụ thuộc quá nhiều vào các thương lái thì thương nhân Trung Quốc lại rất chủ động đến tận nơi thu gom với nhiều hình thức thanh toán rất linh động.


Theo ghi nhận của TBKTSG thì một doanh nghiệp chế biến cao su tư nhân cho biết "Nếu như trước đây, các doanh nghiệp cao su muốn xuất sang Trung Quốc thì phải vận chuyển ra tận cửa khẩu Móng Cái nhưng hiện nay thương nhân Trung Quốc tới tận nhà xưởng mua, đặt trước tiền cọc, thậm chí có cơ sở thiếu vốn, thương nhân nước này còn cho ứng vốn trước".

Đây cũng là tình trạng chung của rất nhiều loại nông sản khác tương tự như: tôm, cá, hồ tiêu, cà phê, trứng vịt, ...


Từ trước đến nay, hầu hết các loại nông sản thực phẩm Việt Nam vẫn được thu gom bởi một lực lượng thương lái hùng hậu. Thực tế thì lực lượng thương lái này đã nắm quyền chi phối thị trường nông sản thực phẩm trong một thời gian dài. Khi sản phẩm được làm ra từ người nông dân đến được tay các doanh nghiệp sản xuất thì giá đã bị đội lên đáng kể do các khâu trung gian. Do đó, khi xuất hiện ồ ạt các thương nhân Trung Quốc thu mua tận tay nông dân với giá cao hơn thì thương lái Việt Nam bị "đói hàng" dẫn tới tình trạng khan hiếm tại các doanh nghiệp là điều khó tránh khỏi.

Thực tế này cho thấy, trong khâu thu mua nguyên liệu, các doanh nghiệp Việt Nam đang có vấn đề và đã bộc lộ những yếu kém nhất định. Việc để cho thương lái nắm quyền chi phối thị trường như trong thời gian qua đã làm cho giá nguyên liệu vừa bị đội lên cao nhưng người nông dân thì lại bị o ép. Nông dân Việt Nam đã không được nhận xứng đáng giá trị sản phẩm do mình làm ra trong một thời gian dài nên sự ưu ái dành cho những thương nhân đến từ Trung Quốc là điều dễ hiểu.

Sự xuất hiện ồ ạt của thương nhân Trung Quốc thu gom nông sản trong thời gian qua đã khiến nông sản Việt Nam "chảy" quá nhiều qua biên giới đồng thời đẩy giá các mặt hàng tiêu dùng chủ yếu lên cao bất thường.
Trước tình hình đó, ngày 09.07 vừa qua Thủ tướng Chính phủ đã có công điện yêu cầu Bộ NN&PTNT chủ trì phối hợp với bộ Công Thương và UBND các tỉnh có đường biên giới khẩn trương kiểm tra và có biện pháp quản lý chặt việc xuất khẩu lương thực, thực phẩm sang các nước có chung đường biên giới.

Cũng trong công điện này, Thủ tướng Chính phủ còn yêu cầu các Bộ, ngành, địa phương khẩn trương tăng cường công tác quản lý giá cả, thị trường; không để xảy ra tình trạng đầu cơ, găm hàng, tăng giá bất hợp lý, tùy tiện; kiểm soát chặt chẽ việc tuân thủ các quy định pháp luật về quản lý giá; tạo điều kiện thuận lợi để các doanh nghiệp, tổ chức, cá nhân đẩy mạnh sản xuất, kinh doanh các mặt hàng thiết yếu, nhất là các mặt hàng lương thực, thực phẩm, bảo đảm cho nhu cầu tiêu dùng và tăng thu nhập cho nhân dân.

Để thực hiện được các yêu cầu trên thì ngoài các phương án kiểm soát chặt chẻ hàng hóa lương thực, thực phẩm đang ồ ạt xuất khẩu qua biên giới bằng nhiều con đường từ tiểu ngạch cũng như chính thức thì cần có sự vào cuộc mạnh mẽ của các doanh nghiệp trong nước.

Các doanh nghiệp chế biến nông sản, thực phẩm Việt Nam cần chủ động tìm kiếm nguồn nguyên liệu, đồng thời phải tiết giảm những chi phí không cần thiết nhằm có chính sách thu mua nguyên liệu đầu vào hợp lý bởi người nông dân sẽ khó chấp nhận bán sản phẩm của mình với giá thấp hơn giá bán cho thương nhân Trung Quốc nhưng lại bị o ép, kiểm soát chất lượng quá khắt khe.

Có một thực tế đáng để các doanh nghiệp trong nước học hỏi và xem xét đang diễn ra từ các vùng nguyên liệu Việt Nam. Đó là từ chỗ tìm kiếm, thu gom hàng hóa thì nay, các thương nhân Trung Quốc đang bắt tay vào việc đầu tư, hợp tác với người nông dân để thu gom, chế biến rồi xuất sang Trung Quốc, thậm chí họ còn đưa cả người Trung Quốc qua để tham gia trực tiếp sản xuất và kiểm soát chất lượng ngay tại các cơ sở mà họ vừa thỏa thuận hợp tác, đầu tư tại một số cơ sở giết mổ gia cầm ở Đồng bằng Sông Cửu Long.


Từ chỗ các doanh nghiệp Việt Nam bị 'hớt tay trên' ngay trên sân nhà thì nếu doanh nghiệp và nhà nước Việt Nam không có những chính sách kiểm tra, giám sát chặt chẽ thì nguy cơ các vùng nguyên liệu ở Việt Nam rơi vào tay người Trung Quốc là điều khó tránh khỏi.

Theo các thông tin trên báo chí trong thời gian qua thì thương nhân Trung Quốc không ngồi ở văn phòng mua hàng qua mail, fax, mà rất cơ động. Họ thường vào tận các vùng nguyên liệu, tuyển thông dịch, thuê thương lái hoặc doanh nghiệp Việt Nam lo việc thu gom, còn họ thì đứng ra giám sát. Trong khi đó phương thức thu gom của các doanh nghiệp Việt Nam thì như thế nào? Chẳng lẽ đến khi phải mua lại nguyên liệu từ người Trung Quốc thì họ mới tỉnh ra? Khi đó thì đã quá muộn.

Bỗng dưng trở thành... con nợ

Câu chuyện được Thanh Niên phản ánh rung chuông cảnh báo nạn lừa đảo tín dụng đang gia tăng, và đáng lo hơn, người bị hại là lực lượng lao động phổ thông (đông đảo, ít hiểu biết, hầu như không có năng lực kinh tế). Câu hỏi về năng lực quản trị rủi ro của tổ chức tín dụng, công ty tài chính cũng cần được đặt ra thêm một lần nữa. Các tổ chức cho vay chuyên nghiệp này thực sự có quan tâm gì tới chất lượng các khách hàng của họ - chất lượng tài sản của họ - hay chỉ đơn thuần là họ cứ cho vay, cho vay thật nhiều... rồi thì sẽ có mọi cách khác nhau để xử lý con nợ.

(TNO) Hiện nay, rất nhiều người dân ở các vùng ven TP.HCM bị sa vào bẫy lừa mua hàng trả góp của một nhóm tội phạm. Hậu quả là bà con vướng một khoản nợ khổng lồ. 

 

Nạn nhân Nguyễn Thị Mỹ Phượng (P.Bình Trị Đông, Q.Bình Tân) kể: Cuối tháng 1.2011, chị được người quen đưa tới một quán nước đối diện cửa hàng điện máy Xuân Quang (893 B, đường tỉnh lộ 10, P.Bình Trị Đông B, Q.Bình Tân, TP.HCM) để… kiếm tiền. Chỉ cần mang chứng minh nhân dân, sổ hộ khẩu đến quán nước, ngồi học cách khai báo thông tin cá nhân rồi khai với nhân viên cửa hàng điện máy, ký vài chữ ký là có tiền triệu mang về.

Tại quán nước, chị Phượng gặp bà N.T.K.H (tên thường gọi là Nạ). Sau khi dạy chị Phượng cách khai báo thông tin và đưa cho chị Phượng số tiền 5 triệu đồng, bà Nạ dắt chị Phượng vào cửa hàng điện máy. Khai thông tin với nhân viên cửa hàng, ký vài chữ ký tại cửa hàng, chị Phượng được bà Nạ đưa trở ra quán nước đợi lãnh tiền “thưởng”. Sau đó, bà Nạ đưa chị Phượng số tiền 5.100.000 đồng.

Một tháng sau, chị Phượng tá hỏa biết mình đã bị lừa khi nhân viên công ty tài chính gọi điện báo đã đến kỳ chị trả tiền lãi và nợ gốc số tiền chị đã vay để mua ti vi trả góp tại cửa hàng Xuân Quang. Giờ đây, mỗi tháng chị Phượng phải trả cho công ty tài chính số tiền 1.238.000 đồng trong vòng 15 tháng, trong khi thu nhập từ việc bán bánh tráng trộn của chị chẳng bao nhiêu.

Tương tự, anh Ngô Quang, sinh năm 1973, ngụ tại P.15, Q.8 cũng đã bị bà Nạ lừa đảo. Anh Quang được bà Nạ “thưởng” 4.700.000 đồng nhưng anh phải nhận khoản nợ 18.900.000 đồng.

Bằng chiêu này, nhóm của bà Nạ không chỉ lừa chị Phượng, anh Quang mà còn rất nhiều người dân khác đã trở thành nạn nhân.

Đại diện một công ty tài chính tại TP.HCM cho biết: Cho vay tiêu dùng là chương trình phối hợp giữa các tổ chức tín dụng và các cửa hàng (điện máy, xe gắn máy…), chương trình này hiện thu hút rất nhiều người dân tham gia.

Thủ tục vay mua hàng khá đơn giản: Khách mang chứng minh thư và sổ hộ khẩu đến gặp nhân viên cửa hàng và khai một số thông tin cá nhân. Nhân viên cửa hàng sẽ chuyển thông tin của khách đến tổ chức tín dụng để nơi đây xác minh.

Sau khi xác minh (thường là xác minh qua điện thoại), nếu tổ chức tín dụng đồng ý cho vay thì khách hàng chỉ trả một khoản tiền tương ứng 30% giá trị sản phẩm mua, số còn lại sẽ được tổ chức tín dụng cho vay, khách hàng trả góp cả lãi và nợ gốc cho tổ chức tín dụng trong vòng 15 tháng.

Lợi dụng sự đơn giản trong thủ tục vay, các nhóm tội phạm đã chiêu dụ người nghèo, cần tiền và thiếu hiểu biết đến cửa hàng ký tên mua các sản phẩm điện máy, xe máy. Có nhiều khả năng, nhóm tội phạm này liên kết với nhân viên bán hàng tại các cửa hàng để thực hiện tội phạm. Sau đó, nhóm tội phạm này đã chiếm đoạt tài sản, mang đi bán, chỉ cho nạn nhân một số tiền nhỏ bằng 20 - 25% giá trị sản phẩm mà lẽ ra nạn nhân được hưởng trọn.

Hậu quả là nạn nhân phải lãnh một khoản nợ khá lớn so với thu nhập của họ. Hầu hết các nạn nhân là những người rất nghèo, trình độ học vấn thấp, thu nhập không ổn định. Vì thế việc các tổ chức tín dụng thu hồi công nợ từ các khách hàng này là rất khó. Do đó, chính các tổ chức tín dụng cũng là nạn nhân của các chiêu lừa đảo mới này.