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"You bring out the best in me/ You can always turn to me" in a
Geico commercial. He's supposed to look like a rock star (Axl Rose?)
according to the commentators on the Youtube
From the January 5, 2012 Financial Times:
Buffett to sing for Chinese New YearAnd here's the zinger:
Warren Buffett, widely revered in China for his investment savvy, will sing and play guitar to celebrate China’s upcoming Lunar New Year in a specially recorded performance to be aired online by state television.
CNTV, the internet TV arm of CCTV, the state broadcaster, said the 81-year-old Mr Buffett had recorded a video for a special “Spring Festival” gala performance to be aired online.
“We all know that Buffett is good at investment, but few knew he also did well in singing,” Wang Pingjiu, a production executive for the broadcast, told a press conference on Thursday, according to Xinhua, the state news agency. Mr Wang did not disclose Mr Buffett’s song choice.
China knows Mr Buffett as chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, and a high-profile investor in BYD, the Chinese car company that hopes to lead the Chinese electric vehicle industry.
Chinese investors, who saw Shanghai’s benchmark composite index fall 22 per cent last year, will doubtless be hoping for some tips from Mr Buffett’s online lyrics ["You bring out the best in me/ You can always turn to me."]."They all want to be like him - and he did it honestly. That is something that Chinese look up to."
“They all want to be like him – and he did it honestly. That is something that Chinese look up to,” says Shaun Rein, author of The End of Cheap China and head of China Market Research in Shanghai. Guo Guangchang, chairman and founder of Fosun, China’s largest private conglomerate, styles himself as China’s Warren Buffett.
Is doing business honestly such a rare occurrence in China that it warrants a special mention (and admiration)? Or do Chinese believe that American businessmen get where they are through deceit, and that Buffet is the special exception to that?
Either way, Buffet dressed up like a senior citizen rock musician only comes across as a buffoon to the Chinese (and anyone else willing to look closely. The 100+ commentators in the Youtube linked above, mostly Westerners, are full of admiration, and very few pick up on the buffoonery. One asks, "anyone realize his headset is on the wrong way?").
Buffet may be (or may have been) a financial wizard, but his embarrassing video only gives the Chinese more ammunition to act out their aggressions, including pulling more and more of American manufacturing into their country, and for their purposes. Surely they can use this semi-senile senior citizen for entry into America's institutions. Who knows how many more will want to sing to them to garner their favors?
Here's what the Financial Times article says:
China knows Mr Buffett as chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, and a high-profile investor in BYD, the Chinese car company that hopes to lead the Chinese electric vehicle industry.Here's a report from Bloomberg describing what looks like Chinese paranoia, but what I think is Chinese muscle-flexing:
Hu Says West Is Trying to Divide China by Using Ideology, Cultural Weapons
The West is using cultural means to divide China (PRCH), which needs to be alert to this threat, President Hu Jintao said in a Communist Party magazine.
“International forces are trying to Westernize and divide us by using ideology and culture,” Hu wrote in an article in Qiushi. “We need to realize this and be alert to this danger.”
Many countries, especially Western powers, are attempting to expand their influence through cultural hegemony, and China must deepen and promote its own values of “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” Hu wrote in the article, which was published on the government’s website on Jan 1 [2012]. China needs to strengthen its cultural values as it faces possible challenges from the West, he said.