The Chinese Spy Balloon Saga

mervyn · Jun 29, 2023

vanzandt said:
Yeah right. And Kroger didn't out-perform the S&P by a factor of 3 for the last 30 years because management is "incompetent". You're batting 1000 babe.
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Can you read a chart?

https://www.barchart.com/etfs-funds/quotes/SPY/interactive-chart/fullscreen

vanzandt · Jun 30, 2023

mervyn said:
Can you read a chart?

https://www.barchart.com/etfs-funds/quotes/SPY/interactive-chart/fullscreen
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I can.
3X spx for the last 30 years.
We covered this already, complete with pictures.

vanzandt · Jun 30, 2023

mervyn said:
Can you read a chart?

https://www.barchart.com/etfs-funds/quotes/SPY/interactive-chart/fullscreen
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~case closed

gwb-trading · Jun 30, 2023

athlonmank8 said:
This turned out to be a huge lie as usual. Hard to believe the left has any credibility with anyone. Truly delusional
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A huge lie? CITATION NEEDED

ph1l · Jun 30, 2023

mervyn said:
DOD: Chinese spy balloon did not collect, transmit data as it transited US
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The good news is at least the Chinese spy balloon helped preserve American jobs!
https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-balloon-used-american-tech-to-spy-on-americans-2e3f5039

Chinese Balloon Used American Tech to Spy on Americans
Preliminary U.S. findings show the craft collected photos and videos but didn’t appear to transmit them, officials say
By

Nancy A. Youssef
Updated June 29, 2023 12:00 am ET

The Chinese spy balloon used off-the-shelf and specialized equipment, according to U.S. officials. PHOTO: LARRY MAYER/ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Chinese spy balloon that floated over the U.S. early this year was loaded with American-made equipment that helped it collect photos, videos and other information, U.S. officials said, citing preliminary findings from a closely held investigation.

Several defense and intelligence agencies, along with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, have analyzed the debris retrieved after the U.S. military detected and shot down the balloon nearly five months ago in an event that added fresh, unexpected volatility to the already fraught U.S.-China relationship.

That analysis found the balloon was crammed with commercially available U.S. gear, some of it for sale online, and interspersed with more specialized Chinese sensors and other equipment to collect photos, video and other information to transmit to China, the officials said. Those findings, they said, support a conclusion that the craft was intended for spying, not weather monitoring as Beijing has said.

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The officials described the Chinese balloon, with its mix of off-the-shelf and specialized equipment, as an inventive attempt by Beijing at surveillance.

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A Chinese spy balloon and unidentified flying objects were shot down over the U.S. and Canada this year. An aeronautics historian explains the history of spy balloons and why countries continue to use them. Graphic: Miki Katoni
While the balloon took in data during its eight-day passage over Alaska, Canada and a swath of contiguous U.S. states, the craft didn’t appear to send that information back to China, the officials said. The officials declined to say whether the craft malfunctioned, though the Pentagon has said the U.S. military employed countermeasures to prevent information collection by the balloon.

The balloon’s detection and shootdown derailed a fledgling effort at rapprochement between Washington and Beijing, leading to recriminations and compounding distrust and tensions between the two powers. Only in recent weeks have the Biden administration and the Communist leadership begun a fragile reset, with both suggesting they want to consign the balloon to the past.

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President Biden earlier this month called the balloon “more embarrassing than it was intentional” for the Chinese leadership. As long as it doesn’t happen again, “that chapter should be closed,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told broadcaster NBC last week during a visit to Beijing rescheduled after he postponed a February trip over the balloon.

Meanwhile, Chinese officials have expressed concern that should the U.S. investigators’ report on the balloon become public, Beijing will be forced into a strong reaction, potentially derailing high-level engagement. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is expected to travel to Beijing early next month, following a course set by Blinken, and both governments are trying to engineer a meeting between Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping later this year.

The White House and the agencies involved in the investigation declined to comment.

Parts of the U.S. military, including the Defense Intelligence Agency, wanted to put on public display parts of the balloon’s debris, the officials said. The Defense Department did something similar in 2017 with Iranian weapons it said were used in Yemen and the Persian Gulf to show what the Pentagon described as Tehran’s malign activity in the Middle East.

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So far, the administration has decided not to share publicly its findings on the balloon, one of the officials said.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing last week, as Washington and China try to resume cordial ties. PHOTO: LEAH MILLIS/PRESS POOL
Members of Congress have been pressuring the administration for what it knows about the balloon’s capabilities and why it permitted the craft to pass over bases for intercontinental ballistic missiles and other potentially sensitive military facilities. Some have criticized the administration for delaying release of a report to avoid another blow to U.S.-China relations.

“Your administration has yet to provide the American people a full accounting of how this spy platform was allowed to traverse across sovereign U.S. territory, what the balloon carried, and what it collected during its mission,” Republican Sens. Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Marco Rubio of Florida wrote to Biden this month, following up on a similar request from February.

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After the Air Force shot down the balloon off the coast of South Carolina on Feb. 4, the FBI initially led the examination of the recovered debris. The Defense Intelligence Agency, among others, also got involved for expertise on military-related equipment, the officials said.

The DIA declined to comment, saying “the investigation is still ongoing.” The FBI declined to comment. The State Department and U.S. Northern Command, which is responsible for U.S. military operations in North America and detected and tracked the balloon, referred questions to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which declined to comment.

Preliminary findings of the investigation, however, have been circulated within intelligence and defense agencies beginning in the second half of March, the officials said. The intent, they said, was to get the latest information about the craft’s capabilities as soon as assessments were made in case another balloon appeared over U.S. airspace.

Suspended from the balloon, the officials said, was a satellite-like device with sensors, solar panels for power and other devices to scoop up photos, take videos and capture radar data. With a propeller, the craft could maneuver and loiter over a site for long periods, depending on weather, the officials said. Biden has described the balloon as carrying “two boxcars full of spy equipment.”

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A further scouring of the debris gave the U.S. information about how the balloon worked, how it was controlled and supposed to transmit data and the sensors on it, the officials said. Investigators also traced purchase orders for some of the equipment and the purchasers’ relationship to the Chinese government, the officials said.

The Pentagon has said the balloon was part of a global surveillance program by China, with balloons being detected over Europe, Asia and Latin America, as well as the U.S. One official called the program sophisticated for conducting surveillance in airspace above 60,000 feet. Airspace just above that height and below 330,000 feet—the boundary of outer space, where satellites operate—is sometimes described as “near space,” and activities in that band aren’t governed by international law.

FBI agents in Virginia examined debris recovered after the U.S. shot down the Chinese spy balloon. PHOTO: FBI/ZUMA PRESS
China’s Foreign Ministry has accused the U.S. of hyping the balloon. A ministry spokeswoman last week reiterated the line Beijing has taken since February that the balloon was a civilian craft that was blown off course.

While the findings from the investigation conclude that the balloon was intended for surveillance, one of the officials and others in the Biden administration agree that the vessel likely traveled on a course operators didn’t originally intend.

“They took advantage of the path they found themselves on,” one of the officials said.

Biden said as much in remarks last week that mostly drew attention for his referring to Xi, China’s leader, as a dictator.

“The reason why Xi Jinping got very upset in terms of when I shot that balloon down with two boxcars full of spy equipment in it is he didn’t know it was there,” Biden said at a fundraiser in California. “It was blown off course up through Alaska and then down through the United States. And he didn’t know about it. When it got shot down, he was very embarrassed.”
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ph1l · Jun 30, 2023

gwb-trading said:
A huge lie? CITATION NEEDED
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Nobody in the U.S. government noticed the balloons until after Trump moved out.

Bing Chat said:
The transiting of three suspected Chinese spy balloons over the continental US during the Trump administration was only discovered after President Joe Biden took office, a senior administration official told CNN on Sunday. The official did not say how or when those incidents were discovered¹. Is there anything else you would like to know?

Source: Conversation with Bing, 6/30/2023
(1) Have Chinese balloons crossed the US before? Chinese spy balloon .... https://abc7chicago.com/chinese-spy-balloon-donald-trump-balloons-news/12777025/.
(2) Chinese surveillance balloon did not collect information over US ... - CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/29/politics/china-surveillance-balloon-pentagon-intl-hnk/index.html.
(3) Chinese 'spy' balloon used American technology - NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/chinese-surveillance-balloon-used-american-technology-rcna91961.
(4) US officials knew of more Chinese spy balloons, according to Pentagon .... https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...-leaks-us-officials-more-chinese-spy-balloons.
(5) Pentagon tracking suspected Chinese spy balloon over the US. https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/02/politics/us-tracking-china-spy-balloon/index.html.
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gwb-trading · Jun 30, 2023

ph1l said:
Nobody in the U.S. government noticed the balloons until after Trump moved out.
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So the Trump administration was so inept they did not notice the spy balloons. The Trump administration was even sadder than we thought then -- no executive level oversight in properly protecting our country. SAD. It took the Biden administration to stop the overflight of Chinese spy balloons across the U.S.

Mercor · Jun 30, 2023

gwb-trading said:
So the Trump administration was so inept they did not notice the spy balloons. The Trump administration was even sadder than we thought then -- no executive level oversight in properly protecting our country. SAD. It took the Biden administration to stop the overflight of Chinese spy balloons across the U.S.
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The balloon's first reported sighting was on February 1, 2023, when civilians on a commercial airliner spotted it. On the same day, former Billings Gazette editor Chase Doak spotted the object above Billings, Montana, after seeing reports that the airspace around Billings was closed.

gwb-trading · Jun 30, 2023

Mercor said:
The balloon's first reported sighting was on February 1, 2023, when civilians on a commercial airliner spotted it. On the same day, former Billings Gazette editor Chase Doak spotted the object above Billings, Montana, after seeing reports that the airspace around Billings was closed.
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Yet they have complete tracks with dates when the three Chinese spy balloons crossed the country during the Trump administration. Except the Trump administration ignored focusing on these type of risks -- because his defense appointees for the most part were complete idiots.

Mercor · Jun 30, 2023

gwb-trading said:
Yet they have complete tracks with dates when the three Chinese spy balloons crossed the country during the Trump administration. Except the Trump administration ignored focusing on these type of risks -- because his defense appointees for the most part were complete idiots.
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Sounds like you been reading to many opinion columns