I just find it amusing that a communist country has people with money, I thought it was the ultimate expression of fairness that Marxist loved? (like a certain O candidate)

obviously its fairer for certain people, like those of the party

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The eventual failure of all Communist system is the surrender to the very capitalistic ideas they so despised, and the elite ruling class embraces the concept of profit and extravagance.

Let see how long before the ruling members become alarmed by the excess of the liberal bourgeoisie and begin andother cleansing.

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China has been anything but communist in the past decade or two. It's more like a capitalist oligarchy .. but I digress.

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@ Chris

Well obviously you haven't been very in tune with world politics, or else you would have known that China is 'communist' in name alone. The market has long since been home to a more-capitalist-than-America style of capitalism. So this new Veyron owner is more that likely a successful entrepreneur, rather than a party official.

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The PRC nowadays is a totalitarian regime which has tight control of the media, uses/incites nationalism to justify its hold on power and to deflect any internal criticism and has close relations btwn govt., the military and business.

I seem to recall that we have a term for this - oh, yeah - Fascism.

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jsjs, just being authoritarian, even while promoting nationalism doesn't make a country fascist.
For one thing, fascism wouldn't allow the rather free economy of China. And while China may be nationalistic, it's not in an insane superiority over all others sort of way.

Lots of countries are nationalistic, and lots of places have somewhat authoritarian governments, but that doesn't make them all fascist.

Anyways, in time the Chinese government will loosen up. It's still a pretty new government, so you can't expect it to be able to loosen up as easily as a government that's been around for a long time. Mostly I suspect that too many government leaders still remember overthrowing the previous government ;)

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lol! very true...

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maybe its yao ming...

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Believe or deny what you want, but people in China today have many ways and opportunities to get rich, without having ties to the "Communist" Party.

China is NOT what it used to be 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago, or even 5 years ago. Don't believe everything CNN and Jack Cafferty tells you.

I'd be willing to bet that this buyer is just a super successful / lucky business person and is not tied to the government in any significant fashion.

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I agree. The Chinese government is definitely taking a backseat in terms of publicity compared to its past days, but not relinquishing any kind of grasp in terms of running the country. I even had to use google to find the name of the current leader of China.

The sad truth is that the illusion of improvement is just as, if not more, important as real improvement. The politicians of the world seldom concern themselves with more than superficial appearance. That's exactly how China got the Olympics.

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Asia is having very dramatic changes right now. A very large young and rising middle class is emerging in the Asian countries such as Vietnam and China. And yes, they are accepting capitalism. In Vietnam you could own land again, and real estate over there is insane. My family recently purchase a plot of land there for 300k and sold it for 1.2 mil we sold it too early because a couple of months later it hit 2mil. I even see advertisements for investing in Asian countries in my copy of Forbes. Man as America slowly falls China/Vietnam is slowly picking up. Its a whole new world. One difference though, I don't think they will ever truly get rid of that extreme poverty level at the very end of the spectrum. Us American's still need cheap labor so lets hope it doesn't stays put. I can think of a couple of companies going out of business once China becomes too good to produce goods at the old price.

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@joe23521:

Tell that to the tibetans, the taiwanese, and anyone who is found to be a practicing Christian in China.

Freedom is not the ruling principle in China, regardless of wealth. What happens has state approval, or it doesn't happen.

@Seoultrain,
unfortunately, you are right, and political leaders let themselves be satiated by mere appearances, not on real world effects. I don't see that changing anytime soon, despite US candidates talking about it.

@M3Driver,
America may be in a bit of a pickle, but I am not sure that it is "falling". Even if it is, it has miles to fall before it becomes comparable to anything in the third world. And the third world has a lot of room to grow before it becomes an effective economic force, the likes of the United States, and other western countries.

Rapid inflation of prices in Vietnam is not a good sign, any more than rising prices in the US. If values are skyrocketing that much, something is wrong, and will be corrected. (which is exactly the pickle the US is currently in. A market correction, which may get more rough before it gets better.) Vietnamese citizens are not the ones buying or benefiting from that market trend, nor are the Chinese people directly profiting from China's trade surplus and wealth.

Businesses probably won't go out of business, because worker pay is not increasing in china to meet the economic growth. Cheap labor is what China is built on, and they aren't going to give that economic advantage up.

And even if the market forces it, cheap labor will get outsourced from other countries, including the US, to other countries. Central Asia, and Africa, as the far east, middle east, and South America get more modernized and economically developed. China and other current sources of cheap labor will have to adapt to that, or try to hold on to it as long as they can.

The only constant is change.

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@MK
Maybe I am taking this the wrong way, but Vietnam is not in a state of hyper inflation at the moment. When I said I sold the land, it was in USD not the Viet currency. I am guessing you are American, because you are trying to defend your country so blindly. No Vietnam is not in the same pickle as the US. Because the land sold usually has to be paid in full. Its not the kind of housing crash like over here with scandalous loans and not enough money to back it up. Their real estate market is a whole different beast, base on actual demand. (Vietnam is smaller than California but has a 85mil pop. while Cali has a 35mil pop.) And no where did I state that the US will ever hit 3rd world levels. Not to mention you state that the citizens of China are not directly profiting from the surplus. How come their economy is booming then? How come they have a rising middle class. Ever listen to NPR or read any news articles on china lately other than Tibet? If not I am just agreeing with you. The only thing that is Constant is change and all the countries were talking about is changing for the better or worse.

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