March 27, 2025 - Epoch Times
04:34
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| Time | Text |
|---|---|
| If you could ask a question, for example, at the confirmation hearing of the SEC secretary, if you could have one question, what would that be? | |
| Do you think it's okay to have blacklisted Chinese companies for national security violations or egregious human rights abuses to be integrated into the investment products that are being held by scores of millions of unwitting Americans? | |
| Now, again, that's only one sliver of this thing. | |
| I might ask, do you support the President's America First investment policy? | |
| Do you concur with the Secretary of Treasury that the American people don't want their money used for these purposes, and he's prepared to block it? | |
| Are you? | |
| Are you prepared to block it? | |
| Are you prepared to say no to... | |
| Are you prepared to tell us what's in the over-the-counter market? | |
| Are you prepared to outlaw A-shares that are unregulated and probably have us underwriting the Chinese military? | |
| Are you prepared to do these things? | |
| Are you going to end dollar-denominated sovereign bonds of China being held by Americans? | |
| Are you going to end those joint ventures between our largest asset managers trying to merge themselves with Chinese state-owned banks that are under the iron fist of the Chinese Communist Party and the People's Liberation Army? | |
| These are the questions in plural. | |
| That I would be asking the incoming chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. | |
| These are the kinds of questions that I would be asking again more fulsomely of the Secretary of the Treasury. | |
| And also, where is the security community? | |
| Why isn't this mainstream part of the Department of Defenses? | |
| And the combat and commands of the United States. | |
| And where is our military on this? | |
| We are funding the adversary's weapon systems designed to kill us, that is, American armed forces. | |
| Why isn't that a bigger issue for the security community? | |
| Where is the National Security Council? | |
| I know where it was under me, under Reagan. | |
| Where is it today on this? | |
| We would be all over this. | |
| It wouldn't have lasted an afternoon under Reagan. | |
| So these are some of the tough questions that need to be asked, and I'm not... | |
| I don't mean to be railing it, folks. | |
| I don't mean to be sounding as critical as I do, perhaps, because there's some pent-up frustration there after a few decades of working this problem. | |
| I'll try to return to my smiling self, but the point is that it's still a very serious subject, and there are passions involved, and we need answers. | |
| Because the beauty of finance is that it's empirically provable. | |
| It's not my opinion canceling yours. | |
| You know, you may think space-based missile defense leads to arms race in space. | |
| I may think that it's essential to the protection of the American people from ballistic missiles of our adversaries. | |
| We can agree to disagree. | |
| That's not the way this works. | |
| These are empirical facts. | |
| The numbers don't lie. | |
| And that is a good thing. | |
| Because that allows us to measure. | |
| That allows us to establish metrics. | |
| That allows us to scrutinize and hold feet to the fire. | |
| What do the numbers say? | |
| What are the numbers to begin with? | |
| You folks have never told us the numbers. | |
| Why am I estimating what these numbers are on the outside? | |
| Why can't I be told by officialdom? | |
| Why can't Treasury just tell me? | |
| What's the total risk exposure of the American people to China? | |
| How many trillions is it? | |
| I'd like to know. |
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