China’s Xiaomi Takes A Big Bite Out of Apple, But That’s Not All It’s Doing

There is a new number one phone in China. It is not a Samsung or an Apple. It is a Xiaomi. A “who-mi?” No. Xiaomi. It’s pronounced “shiao-me” and it’s the newest most serious threat to Apple’s phone dominance in years.

Image Credit: Gadget Review
Image Credit: Gadget Review

Xiaomi is a company started by “the Steve Jobs of China,” Lei Jun. That is if Steve Job’s parents had been highly placed government officials who were able to steer government contracts, patents, and stolen cash his way. Lei Jun, according to Wikipedia,?”Is a Chinese businessman.” Apparently he sprung fully formed from out of thin air because his parents aren’t mentioned in any source I can find. Not even when Forbes magazine first reported on the rise of this new “internet tycoon” did they mention his family. According to Forbes, in March of 2013 Mr. Lei was worth one billion seven hundred and fifty million dollars. Which is really good. However, by October of 2014, one year and seven months later, that same man is now worth over nine billion dollars! You would think that if any business person anywhere in the world had made eight billion dollars in a year that the world press would interview his parents, interview his or her school chums, hell there would be parades, book deals, and fireside chats with Oprah! ?But not when the money is made in China. Because in China, as we all know, there are no self made men, or women, of wealth.

When Bloomberg ran stories on the wealth of the children and grandchildren of the Communist who founded China, it found itself kicked off the Chinese internet and several of the reporters and editors who worked on the story found themselves fired or reassigned. ?When thousands of documents were leaked showing that up to four trillion dollars has been placed in foreign banks by government officials and their appointed “princelings” all that happened was those stories were waved away and never reported on by any other media.

The one main difference historically between America’s Guilded Age and China’s current one is that the American oligarchs at least tended to keep their money in America. The new Age of Oligarchy we are living in sees money being kept in computers on Islands in the middle of the ocean. The historical lesson is clear: America’s rich used to believe in the future of America, and the new rich believe in nothing.


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