Greetings Truth Warriors, This is the first article I've written since visiting China with a reporter's eye. There will be a Series of posts on China, and this first one gives a broad overview of what we are going to be looking at, as well as some very interesting facts you'll never hear about on Bloomberg!
http://www.debtorsprisonblog.org/journal/2010/2/20/underground-reporting-from-china-part-i.html

Underground Reporting from China, Part I
Saturday, February 20, 2010 at 06:43PM

Greetings Fellow Inmates,

On this February 20th, the official holiday of guatemalan cultural hero Tecún Umán, we are also celebrating our First Anniversary! As we promised, this, our 90th post, is the first in a Series of articles inspired by our correnpondents’ travels through the land of the Rising Sun, China. It goes without saying that it is nearly impossible to get a clear, accurate, descriptive, thorough, or even true vision of what China is really like from the mainstream media (MSM). For that, we thought we would visit The East once again, this time with a camera crew, a digital notebook and a persistent and thorough approach to explore China. We explored a wide range of Chinese life, visiting several cities (financial, industrial and cultural) and got intimate first-hand looks at Chinese life from very adept local Inmates. We did this, clearly, mostly for ourselves, and because we are setting up another little branch of this outlaw band of destitute Inmate MonkeySlaves over there. Though our descriptions here will stick to economic matters, rest assured that our understanding of the true global nature of our penitentiary system has increased in leaps and bounds in a variety of ways. Feel free to Contact The Warden (CTW) through your medium of choice for more alternative info.

We were surprised to find that DP servers were blocked in China. Naturally, we tried everything: the cells themselves, internet cafes, mobile devices and even some analog devices. Surely, this must be a mistake and we invite any wayward travellers, multidimensional or not, to attempt the same exercise. Not only are we fairly certain that our lonely desperate cry in the night is of no importance to such an important part of the machine as the People’s Republic of China. Moreover, we have never said anything even remotely negative about that country’s government. Now, perhaps, we might.

Some of you still entertain the idea that China is a very useful FOIL to the US and an INDEPENDENT actor working as hard as it can to assert its God-given power on the world stage. We assure you that we believe you are completely mistaken. All the facts and the implications of certain actions certainly lead to the rational deduction that the Chinese government is colluding to the fullest extent in this global penitentiary. One must only look at the oft-mentioned Group of 30 to see that the Governor of the People’s Bank of China, Zhou Xiaochuan, is a member, and hence close intimate pals with some of the biggest Enforcers . Not to mention that amongst the Financial Enablers, the Federal Reserve and the People’s Bank of China are amongst the most notorious contributors. But, we digress, we have asked you many times to do your homework regarding the Group of 30, and we won’t say it again. The point of the matter is that China’s fiscal and monetary policy, at the highest levels, is closely and intentionally synchronized with that of the would-be master hell-bent on further enslavement of all of Us. We will go into more detail on this in this Series of URC Posts.

The above is meant as a useful foundation when exploring China; after all, once you realize China’s true place and influence in the world, then, and only then do certain things begin to make sense. Over the next few posts we will explore in detail some of the most important mechanisms: Chinese banks, the middle class, the soft-peg to the USD (why o why?), domestic consumption, etc. For now, we will simply present to you a potpourri of interesting facts we picked up in our travels. Our own notes were quite copious, and in the interest of time and clarity, we will only synthesize them here, so feel free to CTW for further details on any of this.

1. Gold:

It is possible to buy gold at your retail banking shop. Moreover, there is NO LIMIT to how much you can purchase. This contrasts greatly with the US, where it is nearly impossible to get gold anymore, not even from the COMEX, let alone your local Judy & Trust Co. Branch. We verified this fact ourselves as your humble correspondent got dressed up in their most expensive suit and outfit and opened an account at Bank of China. We then asked to speak to the manager at the HQ of Bank of China in Shanghai. This was the dialogue that proceeded:

DP Correspondent: I was told I can buy gold from you, with no limit. Is this true?

BC Manager: Yes

DP Correspondent: So tomorrow I can come in and buy $100 billion of gold?

BC Manager: Hmmm. Well, how would you take it?

DP Correspondent: Id get trucks and guns

BC Manager: Ok, well, it would take us about two weeks to find that much.

This provides very useful insight into our very important question Where has all the Gold gone? Maybe it’s all in China!

2. Credit Cards:

Very few places accept credit cards. Even fewer of those accept MasterCard or Visa. We even got a Chinese bank card, which uses UnionPay, and even this was not accepted at major retailers, even McDonalds. In the US, we have charged amounts even less than $1 on plastic, yet, in China they would not even take it. The prevalence of cash certainly denotes a lack of trust in the digital MoneyMatrix.

3. US dollar:

Very, very few people or businesses, formal or informal would accept USD. This does corresponds to rumours heard in the west. Not much to comment on here beyond “right on Chinese!”, don’t get bamboozled, unlike your government.

4. Hospitality:

We found the Chinese people to be overwhelmingly accomodating, helpful and gracious. Perhaps we were lucky, but we did encounter and interact with hundreds of people, and this characterization was 99% true. Even the dreaded Chinese police where very helpful and spoke very good English. We were even able to finagle and talk our way out of a $700 fine due to a legal infraction on our part. A far cry from the belief that you get jailed for life for minor offenses.

Well, we will leave it at that for today. To celebrate our first anniversary, we will now launch a major update to this site over the next couple of weeks. This community will finally get the space it deserves. We have also updated our DP Dictionary, so that you may look up definitions of terms we commonly use here and are not necessarily in the public lexicon. It has been a good year, thanks to you.

May your capital be safe and your investments prosperous,

MAAA