Hacker News Reader

Comment by Fjolsvith | Hacker News Reader

Good.

The CCP pretty much owns every Chinese big company. And, they don't let people examine their books. Who's to say that all that American investment money isn't going into grossly or even fraudulently overvalued stock?

View on HN

The SEC. If your concern is that companies listed on US stock exchanges aren't correctly reporting their financials thats an issue for the SEC. It's not an issue for a blanket ban on Chinese companies being listed. Preventing Americans from being able to trade their investments easily on a reputable exchange isn't going to help them.

Running undercover espionage operations in China - which is what it would probably take to work out what's going on, given that the government there is in on it and extremely hostile to whistleblowers - is well outside the scope of what the SEC is capable of. Even the CIA has trouble with it.

The SEC has already failed miserably once in this exact role. What reason do we have to believe that even a fully-funded, well-staffed SEC could get the necessary _accurate_ figures out of China, and Chinese companies, to adequately perform this duty? Many Chinese companies have grossly exaggerated assets and earnings to the SEC before.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Hustle

Except the SEC has given Chinese companies an exemption from normal oversight. I agree that there shouldn't be a blanket ban - but the companies should have to follow the same rules as everyone else.

https://www.chinalawblog.com/2019/06/china-and-the-u-s-stock...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com