Hmm...I wonder what the free traders are thinking these days. We have
been losing our ****rt every which way we turn around--and still
haven't learned a ****ing thing. Maybe we really do need to lose our
country; who knows...? The greatest common denominator about the
impulsive thinking of this country is we insist on learning EVERYTHING
the hard way. Or...there is only one to do things...MY WAY. It's all
good. In the state the country is in, it should be no other way.
It's truly entertaining to watch capitalism self-destruct. This is
especially the case when an arrogant country is in question and all
the once abundant alternative and options have all but disappeared and
then the grasping for straws begins. In the future, many books will
be written about our great fall.
Unfortunately, for some of you guys who might still be still around at
that point, you might have to learn Chinese in order to read it.
Yeserieeee American CEOs, keep up the fine work in outsourcing
jAmerican jobs and by all means beat the middle and working cl*****
down into poverty and squallor. All the former third world countries
are cheering for you!!
Predictions:
"Blessed are those who expect nothing; for they
shall not be disappointed."
What to expect from the next administration
1. No solutions for health care
2. Public education will remain the underachiever that it is
3. The subprime screwing of America will run its course--no magic fix
4. Our troops in Iraq will remain in Iraq
5. Soon more people will be starving in America; compliments of the
ethanol brainchild
6. The dollar will continue to fall
7. Commodities prices will continue to climb
8. The income gap will broaden
9. A new surge in crime, and more early prisoner releases
10. More red ink for local and state governments
11. The US equity markets will continue south
12. Agriculture will be the place to put your money
13, The Chinese will do an extraordinary job repairing our
infrastructure
14. Television programming will continue to get dumber with the
passage of time
15. More people will stiff creditors due to their lack of money
16. More people will be driving without auto insurance
17. More people will be driving with suspended or revoked drivers
licenses
18. Wa****ngton will continue to attract dumber people
19. Latin America will eclipse us by 2018--if not sooner
20. Georgia credit cards will become the most popular car and truck
accessory
21. The lingua franca of America and the rest of the world will be
Chinese by 2025.
....anyone up for some more nation building so we can bring about more
free trade? Bring it on!!!
The time has long since come and gone to kiss America good night--
forever. Is there anything else we will do for money?
Remember, you heard it here frist.
==============================================
http://www.cnbc.com/id/23660532/for/cnbc/
China's private firms set sights on rest of world
Companies accelerate expansion backed by strong domestic economy amid
the torrent of clothes, electronics and toys surging out of China
comes a little-noticed ex****t: international companies.
For centuries, individual Chinese have sought their fortunes abroad,
creating Chinatowns around their restaurants and shops. Now, Chinese
firms are going global, pushed by a government turned capitalist,
pulled by untapped markets and armed with bundles of money from a
thriving economy back home.
Auto plants are popping up in Latin America. A sprawling commodity
bazaar promises a provincial Swedish city new life. A car parts
distributor is snapping up ailing companies in the U.S. Rust Belt, a
TV factory hums in South Africa and a high-tech firm is landing
contracts to revamp the Persian Gulf's telecommunication networks.
Just as the earlier arrival of Japanese companies changed U.S.
manufacturing, over time Chinese companies could affect how their
Western rivals approach innovation, competition and business itself.
"We not only consider ourselves pioneers," says Sean Chen, who at 26
is overseeing the construction of a $100 million electrical parts
plant and industrial park in the American South. "We also consider
ourselves explorers."
Chen and his fiancee, Joy Chen -- both took American first names --
moved from Shanghai to Atlanta to set up shop for General Protecht
Group Inc., a company controlled by his father. While the goal is
profits, Sean Chen and his father view the venture almost as a social
experiment -- its aim, he said through an interpreter, is to marry the
best Chinese and American work practices.
"I want to have the efficiency and execution normally shown by the
American employees and the brotherhood that a Chinese company normally
shows," Sean Chen says. "There are capitalists and there are
socialists and I want to see whether they can get along."
The Chinese cor****ate presence is still small overseas, but it's
growing fast:
Chinese companies invested more than $30 billion in foreign firms from
1996 to 2005, nearly one-third in 2004-05 alone, according to an
analysis by Usha Haley, a professor of international business at the
University of New Haven. Computer maker Lenovo Group helped launch the
frenzy in December 2004 by announcing it would acquire IBM Corp.'s
personal computer unit for $1.75 billion.
In the United States and Canada, Chinese firms now have about 3,500
investment projects, compared to 1,500 five years ago, according to an
estimate by Maryville University professor Ping Deng. Large state-
owned companies jumped ahead; medium and small private firms are
catching up.
Total investment in the U.S. is between $4 billion and $7 billion,
Ping estimates. In Europe, Chinese acquisitions last year alone
totaled $563.3 million, according to research company Dealogic.
Last year, 29 Chinese firms debuted on U.S. stock exchanges, just two
shy of the total for the previous three years combined, according to
the Bank of New York Mellon Corp.
The number of U.S. visas issued to Chinese executives and managers who
transfer to U.S. posts within their companies nearly doubled to 2,043
between fiscal years 2004 and 2007. The current fiscal year is on pace
to top that, U.S. State Department statistics show.
Chinese businesses are not just establi****ng offices and factories
overseas. They also are developing and selling products under their
own brands, rather than simply supplying Western firms in search of
cheap manufacturing.
The competition may make it harder for American and European firms to
milk early profits from cutting-edge products before reducing prices
and releasing them to the mass market. Vulnerable sectors include high-
definition TVs, ****table DVD players, medical technology, and perhaps
even cars, according to Peter Williamson, a professor of international
management at the University of Cambridge with extensive China
experience.
At the Detroit Auto Show in January, one mid-sized SUV from China with
goodies including a leather interior was priced at just $14,000 -- less
than half what many comparable cars cost. Models could be available by
early next year in nine states.
Chinese firms can use their low-cost manufacturing advantage to pile
on additional features. And they can do that by copying taste-making
Western firms, cir***venting the expense of product development. If
the quality is high enough, the strategy can be devastating.
"It will pull to pieces the profit models of their competitors,"
Williamson says. "It's a classic case of attacking your competitor
where you know they're reluctant to respond, because it's very
costly."
The dynamic recalls how Japanese auto makers forced their U.S.
competitors to make options such as power windows and air conditioning
standard.
Unlike the Japanese, whose 1980s arrival in the U.S. was at first
greeted as a threat, Chinese businesses are being courted by states
including Michigan, California, Illinois and Georgia.
Not that all arms are open.
Congressional scrutiny has dogged several investments, including the
billions of dollars that government-owned funds are investing in top
Wall Street institutions. National security concerns have scuttled
several deals, including the attempted 2005 purchase of oil giant
Unocal Corp. and a $2.2 billion bid to buy the tech company 3Com in
February.
In the Swedish coastal city of Kalmar, labor union and media criticism
has been the backdrop for delayed Chinese plans to open a hotel and
wholesale warehouse for Chinese-made commodities. Project manager
Angie Qian tromps around, trying to get things done at the speed she
was used to in Shanghai.
"China is developing very quickly and so people work very fast and
don't plan very far ahead," says Qian, herself a study in constant
motion. "In Sweden everything takes a much longer time."
The $160 million project, going up on the site of a shuttered
chocolate factory, could help revive a city abandoned by car maker
Volvo and train maker Bombardier Trans****tation.
It wouldn't be the first project of its kind. Dubai boasts an enormous
Dragon Mart shopping mall and residential complex; Chinese centers
with other backers have opened in Eastern Europe, Italy, England and
Russia.
But the Kalmar project faces problems.
Fanerdun Group, the company bankrolling the project, has re****tedly
not received Chinese government approval to transfer funding from
China to Sweden. The company has said it will pay wages of Chinese
workers into Chinese bank accounts instead of Swedish accounts.
The national construction workers' union and local media have
criticized Fanerdun for not paying some of the Chinese workers who
helped prepare the site at all. The issue has delayed construction.
Elsewhere, miscalculations have led to early, and sometimes
spectacular, failures. There was the Splendid China theme park in
Florida that no one really visited. A group of investors never
recovered from the fiasco of trying to evict poor tenants from the
downtown Los Angeles hotel they planned to refurbish.
Chinese companies that wither often see the first branch as a trophy,
and neglect the long-term strategy that can lead to greater profits,
according to business professor Ping. He based his survey on 400
Chinese companies doing business in the U.S. and Europe.
Drastic differences in business culture also can hobble a venture.
Western managers can demand more authority than Chinese bosses are
accustomed to, and official directives can alienate workers.
For all their energy and drive, many Chinese managers and executives
lack formal training. That is changing.
At UCLA's Anderson School of Management, for example, Chinese
applications more than doubled from 87 in 2005 to 180 in 2007. The
2007 class had 14 Chinese students, the most in the school's history.
Wife and husband Stella Li and Steven Zhu quit high-profile careers in
China to study in Los Angeles. Li is slated to graduate this spring --
Zhu got his MBA last year and landed at Google doing data-driven sales
analysis. Both see an op****tunity to gain a sophistication in finance
and strategy they couldn't get working back home.
"We definitely want to take all the experience and the things we
learned in the U.S. back to China," Li said. "But short term, we would
like to get more exposure in business here."
Chinese firms are still learning the kinds of data-driven market
analysis, branding and other business practices that are commonplace
in the West.
"What's scary to think of is when they marry cost consciousness with
U.S.-style just-in-time inventory management," says Charles Freeman, a
China specialist at the Wa****ngton-based Center for Strategic and
International Studies, who recalls talking to a cell phone maker that
was storing 100 million headsets behind its factory.
Few Chinese companies have been in the U.S. longer than the American
subsidiary of the auto parts giant Wanxiang Group, which incor****ated
in 1993. The founder of the home company is one of China's richest
men. His son-in-law, Pin Ni, led the Chicago-area subsidiary from
cheap parts supplier up the value chain by buying or working with
companies that were distressed -- owing to competition from China.
Wanxiang America Inc. has been welcomed for saving manufacturing jobs.
Illinois has proclaimed a Wanxiang Day and Michigan offered the
company subsidies.
Pin talks exactly like what he is -- an executive who's part of a
multinational. It's all about core competence and optimizing strength
and horizontal integration. He casts himself as a matchmaker who spots
what disparate firms do best to create as efficient a manufacturing
process as possible.
"Even today you want to say, is there enough Chinese companies in the
United States?" Pin asks. "I would say no."
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This
material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
|
