Jottings from the Granite Studio

Heartbreaking story out of rural China via the LA Times: poor farmers defrauded in a pyramid scam involving–would you believe it–ants. Somewhere, a grasshopper is smiling a little too smugly.

The story illustrates the get-rich-now mentality here, the constant search for a new angle by those struggling to make a go of it with the communist economy having all but given way to private enterprise, and the frequent collusion of government officials in shady dealings.

Old rules of caution don’t carry much weight in a society that has seen some become absurdly wealthy, seemingly overnight. And government officials often are first in line to fleece the laobaixing, or common folk.

It’s hardly the first case like this here, in fact it’s probably not even among the first 10,000, and it certainly won’t be the last, especially if local officials and the central government stick with a policy of covering their own asses rather than trying to fix the problem.

It’s the dark underbelly of a reemerging China. The noveau riche zip around the country with their new cars and the latest in man-purse fashion. But while the economy is booming, the gap between the haves and have-nots continues to grow. China’s poorest citizens face difficult straits, desperate not to be left behind, they are increasingly preyed upon by confidence men hustling get-rich-quick scams and pyramid schemes.

Yilishen, the company behind the con, banked $1.2 billion at its height while thousands of poor farmers were left in ruin. According to the LA Times, many of those taken in had invested the payments offered when the government appropriated their land for official development. Left now without either land or savings, the swindled try to seek justice from the authorities and redress in the courts.

It’s an old story and one that is known the world over. Grifters, shills, and snake oil salesmen litter the pages of American history, and a pyramid scheme in the 1990s ended up tanking the Albanian economy. But once again, China’s desire to preserve its image and the CCP’s obsession with maintaining “stability” trump the desire to actually–you know–serve the people and solve the problem.

That’s really the most depressing part of all. Officials have discouraged lawyers from handling lawsuits against Yilishen, as well as placed a media embargo on the story and forbidding those who were cheated from telling their tale to foreign journalists.

It’s an odd logic that protects crooked companies in the name of social order and views the victims as a threat to ‘harmonious society.’

Sad.
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h/t: China Digital Times