China and power

In 2009 the Chinese authorities spent $75 billion on 'internal security,' nearly as much as the $80 billion they spent on national defense.

-- Li Xiaorong. See also Perry Link

Doing God's Work on the Magic Sugar Mountain

Not plutocracy but plutocrosis:

With Goldman’s investment in Facebook, we have a front-row seat to the process by which Wall Street creates and inflates financial bubbles.

-- William Cohan on a scam (with Nigerian overtones).

P.S. The Economist notes:

at $50 billion Facebook looks rather expensive. If its sales really are $2 billion a year, that implies that Goldman and DST are paying 25 times current revenues for their shares. That would be a breathtakingly steep multiple, even by the giddy standards of the start-up world.