Wall Street Cornered:WashPost,12.23/07 page F3

Morgan Stanley sells a 10% stake on unfavorable terms to the Investment arm of China, which is accumulating dollars at the rate of $1 billion a day. Bear Stearns,reeling from the dissolution of two of its hedge funds and $1.9 billion in write-downs,arranged a $1 billion equity swap with China Citic Securities. It is a simple parable. A wealthy country that lives beyond its means,takes on too much debt and thinks it can slide by with a lot of clever financial engineeing is finally forced to sell some of its crown jewels to its creditors. My comment: lifestyle of Americans are far different from Chinese custom and tradition. Such discrepancy can hardly be changed overnight in the days to come. The readers can detect the future of Sino-American economics in the 21st century. Francis Shieh a.k.a. Xie Shihao. December 23, 2007