Thread: China

Well, this is what you could call a lack of creativity.

Jun 12, 2007
BEIJING (AFP) - With more than a billion people now sharing just 100 surnames, Chinese authorities are considering a landmark move to try to end the confusion, state media reported Tuesday.

Current Chinese law states that children are only allowed take the surname from either their mother or father, but the lack of variety means there are now 93 million people in China with the family name Wang.
In a country of around 1.3 billion people, about 85 percent share only 100 surnames, according to a nationwide survey conducted by the Ministry of Public Security....

Link & Entire: Chinese surname shortage sparks rethink - Yahoo! News

"China has halted ethanol production from corn and food crops because it was driving up the costs of food"

Everyone's gotta eat...

Source

Good for them. Food prices are increasing here as well due to the same problem.

Why food prices should increase so that we can keep selling SUVs is beyond comprehension.

Originally Posted by Sir Burr

I asked whether the old story about a bill for the equivalent of $1 was sent to the family of an executed prisoner, was true.

it's not entirely a bad idea, it puts the moral burden of the execution back to the family and out of the state so there couldn't be any resentment against the state, as the state is just doing a job, a paying job.

Originally Posted by surasak

Good for them. Food prices are increasing here as well due to the same problem.

Why food prices should increase so that we can keep selling SUVs is beyond comprehension.

Agree 100%.

Eventually something will have to give.

Wednesday said China would be "foolhardy" to attempt to push down the dollar in retaliation for US pressure over Beijing's alleged currency manipulation.

Bush said he had not seen the report that Beijing was hinting at such a move, in Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper, but warned against any attempt by China to hit back at Washington using vast foreign currency reserves.


"That would be foolhardy of them to do that," Bush said in an interview with Fox News, adding he doubted the report was based on sources from the office of Chinese President Hu Jintao.
"If that's the ... position of the government, it would be foolhardy for them to do this."


US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson meanwhile said on CNBC that suggestions that China was considering selling off dollar denominated assets to hammer the already weakened US dollar were "absurd."


"We have tensions and we have to deal with tensions on both sides ... but overall, both of our countries are committed to a constructive economic relationships," said Paulson, who returned from talks with top leaders in China last week.


China said on Friday it would not be pressured into currency reform as Washington and the US Congress renewed calls for it to speed up changes to make the yuan more market-oriented.


The Telegraph reported that two officials at leading Communist Party bodies had given interviews in recent days warning that Beijing might use more than a trillion dollars in foreign reserves as a political weapon in the event of US sanctions designed to punish Beijing for yuan manipulation.


Described as China's "nuclear option" in the state media, such a move could trigger a crash of the already-falling greenback and a spike in the US bond yields, which could then dampen the beleaguered housing market and put the world's richest economy into a recession.


When asked whether such an option would hurt China more than the United States, Bush said, "Absolutely. I think so."


China reportedly holds some 900 billion dollars in a mix of US Bonds.

Entire & Link: China dollar attack would be 'foolhardy' : Bush



Almost 1 trillion dollars....

It will be interesting to see how China progress's over the next decade and half.

If you think back to the 80's when Korea was seen as a place for cheap but crap quality everything. Goods that had made in Korea stamped on them were laughed at by people. 20 years on and goods that come out of Korea are actually pretty good. Hyundai make decent cars (shut up MTD), Kia has made huge progress, Samsung make pretty nice cars but they are only sold domestically. Korea is now the leader in LCD technology, cell phone technology. They have installed a completely free and operational Digital Media Broadcast which is still at least two years away in the UK.

China is hot on the heels of Korea IMO, give it another ten years or so and the demand for quality control and quality goods will tighten things up.

^ The main problem with Korea now is that their labour is too expensive and they are beginning to become complacent. I presume China will mature at the right time and fill the gap that Korea is about to leave.

I agree about Kia. I saw some of their cars in Vientiane and they look pretty good actually.

Huge change in them, all the Korean brands in fact. Went to the Samsung musuem of transport and the change is quite dramatic. That's what comes from taking older japanes technology reverse engineering it then producing their own.

Migrant workers get a good deal here though. Got a dozen or more at school rebuilding the toilets. Everland the amusment park has whities who sing and dance. Few darkies as well who dance with spears.

Average salary for a factory worker appears to be around 50,000 won or so per day. so they are doing ok.

Here's a little bump on this China thread, since China seems to get discussed more and more from the Olympics, to policies, to its economics.

Here's an article with pictures of the horrid pollution.

It's not just China, as many other countries are promoting and propelling this, including the USA.

Graphic photos:

Link & Entire: more words and photos in the link:
Amazing Pictures, Pollution in China | ChinaHush

Amazing Pictures, Pollution in China

October 21st, 2009 by Key | Posted in Featured, News | 752 Comments »
[QQ] October 14, 2009, the 30th annual awards ceremony of the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund took place at the Asia Society in New York City. Lu Guang (卢广) from People’s Republic of China won the $30,000 W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography for his documentary project “Pollution in China.”



Lu Guang (卢广), freelancer photographer, started as an amateur photographer in 1980. He was a factory worker, later started his own photo studio and advertising agency. August of 1993 he returned to post-graduate studies at the Central Arts and Design Academy in Beijing (now is the Academy of Arts and Design, Tsinghua University). During graduate school, he studied, traveled all over the country and carved out a career, became the “dark horse” of the photographer circle in Beijing. Skilled at social documentary photography, his insightful, creative and artistic work often focused on “social phenomena and people living at the bottom of society”, attracted the attentions of the national photography circle and the media. Many of his award winning works focused on social issues like, “gold rush in the west”, “drug girl”, “small coal pit”, “HIV village”, “the Grand Canal”, “development of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway” and so on.
1. “At the junction of Ningxia province and Inner Mongolia province, I saw a tall chimney puffing out golden smoke covering the blue sky, large tracts of the grassland have become industrial waste dumps; unbearable foul smell made people want to cough; Surging industrial sewage flowed into the Yellow River…”
- Lu Guang


2. Chemical waste from Jiangsu Taixing Chemical Industrial District (江苏泰兴化工园区) dumped on top of the Yangtze River bank. May 15, 2009


3. Fan Jai Zhuang in Anyang City, Henan province, (河南安阳市范家庄) there is only one wall separating this village from the steelmaking furnaces. The villagers live in this heavily polluted environment where the village is under the iron rain every day. March 24, 2008


4. Industrial sewage of Zhejiang Xiaoshan Industrial District (浙江萧山化工园区) eventually flowed into Qiantang River. April 24, 2009


5. Henan Anyang iron and steel plant’s (河南安阳钢铁厂) sewage flowed into Anyang River. March 25, 2008


6. Guiyu, Guangdong province, (广东省贵屿镇) rivers and reservoirs have been contaminated, the villager is washing in a seriously polluted pond. November 25, 2005


7. Shizuishan Industrial district in Ningxia province (宁夏石嘴山湖滨工业园区), the tall chimneys spitted out smoke and dust. Residents took preventive measure for the falling dust from the sky when going outside. April 22, 2006


8. In the Yellow Sea coastline, countless sewage pipes buried in the beach and even extending into the deep sea. April 28, 2008


9. In Ma’anshan, Anhui province (安徽马鞍山), along the Yangtze River there are many small-scaled Iron selection factories and plastic processing plants. Large amounts of sewage discharged into the Yangtze River June 18, 2009

The West used to delve into Africa for resources. Now, why the concern about China?

bound up with the politics of aid
Peter Guest
guardian.co.uk
5 November 2009

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...nvestment-fear

The reasons why China invests in Africa have been
Why the West Fears China in Africa much discussed, and while there have been some very coherent and nuanced explanations given on these pages and elsewhere, the prevailing sentiment still seems to be one of unbridled fear. Likewise, we are engaged in a post Dead Aid discussion about the efficacy of western aid.

As Rwandan president Paul Kagame's article on Cif demonstrated, the two are not discrete issues. However, the public discussions on both have been alarmingly one-dimensional and highlight and a surprisingly retrograde notion of both Africa's self-determination and what constitutes influence in 21st-century global politics.

There have been valid criticisms of the way that China has invested in Africa, notably in terms of the import of labour in the early days. (Arms, too, but China is far from alone in supplying questionable regimes, to put it mildly). However, to think that China is a monolith is naive. China's models have been in flux since the new wave of investment began at the start of this century and Beijing is surprisingly sensitive to criticism. The rate at which China has evolved domestically is testament to its ability to learn.

There is a more persistent theme to the debate, though, which I think says more about us than any other. Does China's investment undermine human rights? Does China, with its record on curtailing freedom, transfer its values to the African states that it invests in? Does it have a pernicious influence that will tear Africa away from western values? Is China building a "Beijing consensus" to displace Washington?

I am not even convinced that the US, barring a few cold warriors, sees this element of danger. The last administration saw threats everywhere, but the Bush-era assistant secretary of state for Africa, Jendayi Frazer, rightly scolded me a few months ago for using the word "influence" when talking about the interplay of the international actors on the continent.

International relationships in the 21st century are not exclusive, and neither is there the cold war expectation that countries align to a dominant power then act at their beck and call – if that was ever a true paradigm. The US has been the biggest single investor and the biggest trade partner to the continent for decades. Why did this not translate into "influence"? The US has asked for African nations' support on the UN security council as recently as 2003. China's most persistent campaign for a say in Africa centred on its desire to get on to the security council in place of Taiwan. This was achieved in 1971, well before Beijing amassed its giant surplus of dollars.

And yet the fear seems to be durable. Why? Because it stands in stark contrast to the relationship we think we think we are supposed to have with Africa. We cannot separate this debate on China from the parallel one on aid and aid effectiveness. If anything is about influence, it is aid, and nowhere is this demonstrated better than Brussels.

I have just come back from European Development Days in Stockholm, the EU's annual aid community get-together. Here you can get to see what next year's fashion in development will be, and meet with the new donors on the scene. There were sizeable displays from the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovenia, for example, who have recently begun to operate national development agencies.

Accession countries do not give aid entirely for altruistic reasons, nor do they do so simply because they have bought into the global self-interest. They do it with at least one eye on Brussels, and probably both. Aid gives a disproportionate amount of influence – not in Africa, but in Europe. Aid gets you a seat at the table within the UN. Aid is not designed to be efficient, it is designed to be influential. This is why our own development agency, the Department for International Development, has been so committed to European multilateralism.

It is thus inevitable that there are hypocrisies. That is why subsidies – particularly in agriculture – destroy what aid builds and why donor cash is used for elaborate ceilings in Geneva. It is why vast amounts of money are spent on the proliferation of isolated projects that have little or no system-wide impact on poverty alleviation.

I am not a believer in Dambisa Moyo's thesis that aid is dead, but I feel we need to inject more realism into what we expect of it. Distilling the debate to "aid is bad, China is good" or vice versa, and not examining the complexities and the nuances of the two interlocking themes will leave us in a weak position to adjust to the new global paradigm. We still like to see ourselves as the saviours, and African nations as places dangerously liable to fall under the sway of seductive foreign powers. This is patronising at best.

As President Kagame has said, Africa is not a marginal player squeezed between two great giants. The cold war is over and the new world, while it might seem bipolar, is not. Africa – the whole developing world, in fact – is building relationships with a multitude of partners, some who subscribe to our values and some who do not. We are only ever going to be one of them, and unless we understand the full context and the interrelation of all of these factors, we are going to be a partner of waning relevance. If that happens, we have no right to begrudge anyone for stepping into the vacuum.

Link at top, inside the quoted section.

Note* this is the "China" thread and contains all things related to China: politics, culture, pollution, life, etc.

The "China Bubble" thread focuses on the topic of a bubble or potential bubble in China and is more economic-centered.

Interesting topic here. China's "black" contestant on a TV show and the reaction it's drawing.

Link is inside the quotes, near the bottom.

China's black pop idol exposes her nation's racism
Contestant on Shanghai TV talent show draws barrage of internet abuse because of her skin colour

Stephen Vines
The Observer, Sunday 1 November 2009 Article history

---------------------------------------------------------
The following correction was printed in the Observer's For the record column, Sunday 8 November 2009

An error introduced into this article at the editing stage had us state that black contestant Lou Jing was one of five finalists on Dragon TV's Go Oriental Angel. She was, however, one of the five Shanghai representatives picked to appear on the show, which featured contestants from all over the country. Judges denied her the chance to go further than the top 30.
-----------------------------------------------------------

She is attractive, effervescent and has an appealing voice. But these qualities alone would not have made Lou Jing the most famous television talent show contestant in China and the subject of national debate in the world's most populous country. The reason they are talking about Lou is because she is black.

The 20-year-old daughter of a Chinese mother and an African-American father who left the country before she was born, Lou was a highly unusual entrant to Shanghai-based Dragon TV's Go Oriental Angel. Her appearances – she became one of five finalists – have provoked a storm of abuse on the internet, a rare debate on racism in the media, and a bout of self-examination in a country where skin colour is a notoriously sensitive subject.

Dragon TV initially had doubts about allowing Lou to perform, but then realised that her presence would do much to attract publicity for the show. But few executives can have expected the fury contained in many of the blogs and online posts that accompanied her performances. The internet is the only place in China where the public can express views with near-freedom – although they are rapidly cut off by an army of state censors if they stray into territory that attracts official disapproval. The huge online interest in Lou clearly does not fall into this category.

"Ugh. Yellow people and black people mixed together is very gross," was one representative post. And Lou's critics are incensed not only by her colour but also because she is apparently the product of an extramarital relationship. Another blogger wrote: "Numb! This bitch still has the audacity to appear on television! I don't know what to say! One cannot be shameless to this kind of level!"

Lou admitted to Neteast News that the level of hostility had come as a shock. "The whole thing was a big bomb to my family and me and it caused great harm," she said. "I wish netizens could tolerate my particular parentage and let it go as soon as possible."

She has stressed that she is a true Shanghainese, an assertion underlined by her accent. There has been no official response to the racism, but public figures have been quick to join what has become an impassioned debate on the Chinese and race. Media commentator and author Hung Huang wrote on her blog: "In the same year that Americans welcome Obama to the White House, we can't even accept this girl with a different skin colour."

The China Daily newspaper also published a sterling defence of the young theatre student, written by one of its top columnists. "There are two factors at work here," wrote Raymond Zhou. "Lou Jing is not a pure-blood Chinese and anyone who marries a foreigner is deemed a 'traitor' to his or her race. More relevant, Lou's father is black."

Zhou concluded: "It is high time we introduced some sensitivity training on races and ethnicities if we are going to latch on to the orbit of globalisation. People should realise that if you have a right to discriminate against another race you have automatically given others the right to discriminate against you."

Chip Tsao, one of Hong Kong's leading columnists and cultural commentators, believes that a child of a Chinese woman and a black person hits all the buttons that cause prejudice among Chinese. "It's an obnoxious novelty," he said, adding that Chinese prejudice against black people was part of "prejudice against people less well-off than themselves".

There was, he said, greater acceptance of Europeans because they were viewed as successful, but mixed Chinese/white European couples frequently attracted racist comment.

One leading actress, Jiang Ziyi, who has an Israeli boyfriend, has routinely been accused of betrayal for consorting with a foreigner. A stark reminder of official racism came last year when Ding Hui, of mixed Chinese and African parentage, was barred from representing his country in the national volleyball team.

China officially lists 56 approved ethnic minorities within its borders, but discussion about ethnic differences is largely taboo. Racial tensions have recently broken out between the Muslim Uighur population, who look more like Europeans, and the "Chinese"-looking majority.

In the Mao era there was much talk of China's brotherhood with the developing world, which led to many African students arriving to study in Chinese universities and the export of many Chinese workers to Africa, to help with development. Tsao said that although modern China invested in African raw material companies it did not trust local workers and instead imported its own.

Many Chinese remain unaware that certain forms of behaviour and language are unacceptable in multicultural societies elsewhere. In Hong Kong one of the biggest-selling toothpaste brands was called Darkie, its trademark being a caricature of an Al Jolson-type smiling black man with gleaming white teeth. Overseas protests eventually led to the name being changed to Darlie.

Unsurprisingly shaken by the fallout from what was supposed to be a talent contest, Lou and her mother are contemplating legal action against a Shanghai newspaper that they claim fabricated an interview about her father. In two years she will graduate. After that she plans to study in Europe or America.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009...se-talent-show
http://www.chinahush.com/2009/09/15/...girl-lou-jing/
http://www.chinasmack.com/stories/sh...nese-netizens/
Attached Images

Yes, many Chinese are racist in a way reminiscent of our society fifty years ago. In the cosmopolitan places- Shanghai, Guangzhou and so on- it is gradually changing, but in traditional China attitudes remain the same.

They are even racist amongst themselves actually- the lighter skinned, taller, more Mongolian featured people of Shanghai and the north look down upon the shorter, darker skinned people of Guangdong and the south. White is associated with Mandarin class, brown with peasants, black with monkeys- of course Thailand has inherited this from China big time.

This is interesting. Is this just "talk." Can some of you who know about this issue, provide some insight?

China has ordered managers of its vast currency reserves to withdraw from risky dollar assets and retreat to core debt guaranteed by the US government, a clear sign that Beijing is battening down the hatches for fresh trouble on global markets.

A Communist Party directive leaked to the Chinese-language edition of the Asia Times said dollar reserves should be limited to US Treasuries or agency mortgage debt such as Freddie Mac that enjoys Washington's implicit backing.

BNP Paribas said the move has major implications for global risk assets. "The message from Beijing is that we don't like this environment," said Hans Redeker, the bank's currency chief.

"When the world's biggest investor turns risk-averse, that is something you take notice of. We think this could become the new theme for the markets in the medium-term," he said.

The directive covers both the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) and China's state-controlled commercial banks. Together they have an estimated $3 trillion (£1.9 trillion) of foreign holdings.

The exact break-down of China's holdings are a state secret but it is understood that SAFE bought large amounts of corporate debt as well as municipal and state bonds during the boom years of 2006 and 2007. Any move to liquidate holding of California debt at this crucial juncture could have serious implications.

The exact motives for China's shift of strategy are unclear. Analysts say the authorities may fear that the end of quantitative easing by the US Federal Reserve could cause risk spreads to widen sharply, triggering heavy losses. The shift in policy appears unrelated to the US spat with China over Taiwan.

SAFE has some very sophisticated economists. The chief investment officer of its reserve management department is Changhong Zhu, until recently head of derivatives for the hedge fund operations of the giant US financial group PIMCO, and viewed as one of the 'rock stars' of the global hedge fund industry.

The move by Beijing comes at a time when China's current account surplus is falling. This reduces reserve growth, reducing the supply of global liquidity.

Mr Redeker said this will have the paradoxical result of boosting the dollar. Flight from risk can lead to an automatic rise as hedge funds, banks, and investors across the world cut back leverage on dollar balance sheets.

David Bloom, head of currencies at HSBC, said the explosive dollar rally over the last six weeks has been the reversal of the dollar carry trade. "It has been short, sharp, and vicious. People borrowed in US dollars to invest in places like Brazil, Turkey, and New Zealand and now it is unwinding."

"We don't think the dollar rally is going to last much beyond the first quarter because we're in a new world of rotating sovereign crises where politics matters again. It's Greece right now but it could be the UK next, and then US which has yet to take any steps at all to tackle it fiscal deficit," he said.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/c...ky-assets.html

Plain fact is, the big outward Sovereign investors like China, Taiwan, India and Japan should have diversified their foreign currency investments years ago- their over reliance on the USD was ridiculous. A far better model would have been to diversify their foreign currency investments basically in a similar ratio to their exports. By not doing so, they just helped distort the market, and helped the US to an orgy of cheap debt, that exploded in everyones face.

So in the end, they did no favours to the USA, the USD, or themselves.

China uses certain laws to crackdown on people....just like VN is doing now, as VN copies China in many ways.

China Sentences Quake Activist to 5 Years' Jail
February 8, 2010

BEIJING (AP) -- A Chinese court Tuesday sentenced an activist who investigated the deaths of thousands of schoolchildren in the country's massive 2008 earthquake to five years in jail for inciting subversion of state power, the man's lawyer said.

Attorney Pu Zhiqiang said activist Tan Zuoren was convicted of the charge Tuesday by the Chengdu Intermediate Court. Tan's trial in August had concluded with no ruling, while police detained and threatened the man's supporters.

Tan's supporters say they believe the authorities were trying to silence him for his investigation into the collapse of schools in the 7.9-magnitude earthquake that struck in Sichuan province in May 2008, leaving almost 90,000 dead or missing. Tan estimated at least 5,600 students were among the dead.

The charge of inciting subversion of state power is believed linked to his quake investigation as well as essays he wrote about the 1989 student-led demonstrations in Tiananmen Square that ended in a deadly military crackdown. Beijing routinely uses such broad and vaguely defined accusations to imprison dissidents, sometimes for years.

Pu said Tan would appeal the court's decision.

''Tan thinks one of the reasons behind this case is that he was leading an investigation into the poorly built schools after the earthquake, which would have embarrassed the local government in Chengdu,'' Pu said.

Critics allege that shoddy construction, enabled by corruption, caused several schools to collapse while buildings nearby remained intact -- a politically sensitive theory that the government has tried to quash.

In a related case, the same court rejected the appeal of Huang Qi, a prominent dissident who had criticized the government's response to the Sichuan earthquake.

Huang had appealed against a three-year jail sentence he was handed in November on the charge of illegally possessing state secrets, his lawyer Mo Shaoping said Tuesday.

Huang, founder of a human rights Web site, was detained in June 2008.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010...2&ref=aponline

Is this report accurate? And, this could happen anywhere. But as corrupt as the US gov is and as corrupt as US businesses are, I see China are more, corrupt, on every front.

My point: Even thought the concept of "freedom of speech" and "individuality" is not followed, the countries that do follow it, are slipping, and the countries that oppose it, are rising - namely, China:

By Malcolm Moore in Shanghai
Published: 12:30AM GMT 06 Mar 2010

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...evelopers.html


A 70-year-old Chinese grandmother in the central province of Hubei was beaten and buried alive by property developers eager to get their hands on her land.

Wang Cuyun was attempting to prevent a demolition team from knocking down her house when she was allegedly beaten by a worker with a wooden stick and then pushed into a ditch that had been dug around the property.

A bulldozer then covered Mrs Wang with earth, burying her alive. By the time her relatives dug her up, she was dead. The incident occurred last Wednesday in Maodian village in Huangpi district.

Mrs Wang's case is the latest in a series of cases in China that have drawn widespread public condemnation of the behaviour of rapacious property developers and the government's failure to intervene. Last year, Tang Fuzhen, a woman in Sichuan province, climbed on to the roof of her three-storey house and set herself on fire to protest against being evicted.

With house prices rocketing across the country, developers often team up with local governments to force homeowners out of their property, according to a recent report by Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD), an NGO based in Hong Kong.

It is not possible to refuse an eviction in China, since the government technically owns all the land.

Chinese law also does not require developers to agree a compensation fee before they demolish a property.

"The current framework offers little protection to homeowners," said a spokesman for CHRD.

"Evictions are often carried out in the middle of the night and without prior notice. Evictees are rarely, if ever, given any legal aid and some sink into poverty after being evicted from their homes," he added.

The government has said it is aware of the growing, and often middle-class, anger against forced evictions, and is currently drafting new regulations that will protect homeowners. In particular, the government has said that property developers must not force residents out of their homes by beating them or cutting off the water and electricity supply.

But in Mrs Wang's case, three policemen helped supervise the demolition team while she was being buried, but did not intervene to protect her.

Local residents tore off the police officers's badges in scuffles afterwards.

Chen Xiao, Mrs Wang's son, moved his mother's body to the main road nearby to protest against the killing and thousands of locals soon crowded the scene to demand an explanation. One neighbour, who remained unnamed, told Hubei Television's economic channel that the policemen had "stood around, acting like it was none of their business".

The local government confirmed the death on its website.

"Wang Cuyun, 70, a villager from Maodian, received an accidental injury at a local demolition site on March 3," said a notice. "She was taken to hospital but had passed away. The government has begun an investigation and has already arrested a number of people. After the investigation is complete, a notice will be issued," it added.

The government also thanked China's "internet citizens" for bringing the matter to its attention. However, all news reports about Mrs Wang were censored on the Chinese internet on Friday.

Link & Entire: Chinese granny buried alive by property developers - Telegraph

An interview with George Soros on China. Very interesting.

Notes the US-China mistunderstanding and it could hurt the economy.

Starts of with the VAT tax, and this is good, too.

This interview ends with Soros discussing the Euro and the EU's flaws. Common central currency, but no common central banks.

It's a video interview but I can't embedd. Click lick to see.

Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com