Rokjok777

Ten Reasons to Invest in Malaysia

I'm a bit sceptical as well, I travel to do business in Malaysia frequently and while it has promise and yes there was less reckless lending, it still has quite a few structural problems before it becomes anywhere near as vibrant as Vietnam or Singapore or China. Corrupt business practices are still widespread, mostly they just cause delay. It seems you always need to "hire" a "bid manager" if you're competing for a large contract, usually that's a relative of a top official somewhere. He (she) skims a few percent off the top. Next, the "bid manager" hires a partner company, his crony, who also takes a few percent. Often there even a third company between seller and buyer. Not only is this corrupt and non-transparent, it also injects lots and lots of delay as paper bags (or the equivalent) full of cash are transferred.
Tourism is probably a pretty good industry but stories of girls receiving 20 lashes for the crime of drinking a beer at a resort don't help much. See William Pesek's recent article on Bloomberg for additional views...they recently cancelled Beyonce's show but that's the least of their worries.
Overall 6 out of 10, IMO.

U.S. Handling of Financial Crisis - A Less Optimistic View

I was a hardened Dem from California so I was in favor of Obama over McCain/Palin. But Obama's inexperience is showing. He trusts "experts": how to fix Wall St? Ask Summers & Geithner! What to do about Afghanistan? Ask the generals! Well, of course they're gonna say "yeah just give us thousands of more troops and plenty of more bombs and billions of dollars, it'll all be great!"
As I say, I used to be a hardened Dem from California, now I'm a sunburned Aussie from Sydney...

The Unspoken Threat Facing Telecoms

Major threat to telcos is the exploding demand for cellular internet. iPhone 3G data traffic is causing cells to fail with predictable results for voice calls dropping and very unhappy customers. There are few/no good solutions for this with any of the cellular technologies. Should be good for WiMax.

Knocking on Norwegian Wood

Excellent comprehensive article, thank you.

Plenty of Upside Remaining for Microsoft

Take a look at the BOD sometime: it's a bunch of "yes" men and women (from places like Harvey Mudd College). They've been bullied by Ballmer for years (when they should have fired him years ago for drastic underperformance, the stock closed at $35 bucks ten years ago fer chrissakes, now it's $27). Now that Gates is gone, they've brought in Ray Ozzie to be the startegy guy, and his head is in the cloud (maybe rightly so). So there IS no strategy, it's all tactics. And tactics are driven by Ballmer and Kevin Turner, who came from WalMart. What he learned at WalMart was how to take cost out, turn the box sideways and you can fit three more on the shelf. And that's what they're doing, just taking cost out, firing people, paying at the 66% percentile so they don't get the best and brightest anyhow. No, my friends, this company is not like Google....it's more like GM.

Today in Commodities: Vindication as Markets Make Sense

China demand will surprise on the downside before H2 2010. That will kill the AUD; and maybe alot more things too

Why Apple Is Worth $80

A waste of time. All of the traditional analytical tools and models are out the window right now. Two main factors regarding AAPL: government funny money entering the market in grotesque size, sending a market signal that none of the old models can correctly predict. Secondly, the Apple fan-boy effect: the stock being driven purely by sentiment, fueled by media hype and coolness factor.
The stock could be $50 or it could be $300, with good arguments either way.

World Recovery Is in the Hands of OPEC

This is not really a serious post. That America would/could somehow invade the MidEast and seize oil is a fantasy left over from WWII. For starters, we would have to borrow the money to do so. From whom? Would China sanction this? Japan? The Saudis perhaps?

If U.K. Is Still in Recession Why Are London House Prices Hitting New Records?

High-end London houses are rallying for the same reason that Easthampton house prices are on the rise. Traders at the "too big to fail" banks are making a killing trading their prop accounts using your (and my) money.
The only word for this system is "kleptocracy". Disgusting.

JP Morgan Cashes In at Taxpayers' Expense

No question, the biggest bank heist in history. Right under the noses of supposedly "socialist" Obama.
It's an obscenity. Everyone sitting on their couch and flicking the channels, and not ringing the phone off the hook of your local, state, and federal politicians....well, you're getting what you deserve. That is: nothing.

When Volcker Saved the Dollar

Thanks for pointing out the elephant in the room: America's pursuit of perpetual war.
Again the geniuses in Washington are asking the wrong questions. They shouldn't ask "should we send more troops to Afghanistan". Instead they should ask "should we imperil our nation's future by BORROWING more money to send more troops to Afghanistan". Or, even better, "should we BORROW more money to spend in an uneconomic activity that does nothing to advance America's future by trying to convice a bunch of goat herders to accept a completely foreign way of life and culture".
FYI, the Taliban has little or nothing to do with Al Qaeda...
Afghanistan is unwinnable, no matter how you define "winning".
1. The US military doesn't even speak the language, the Taliban does.
2. The US Military doesn't live there, the Taliban does. We send palette loads of bottled water via Federal Express just to keep our guys alive over there...yeah that's a smart use of BORROWED money.
3. The Taliban can deliver their program, AND WE CAN'T. The Taliban wants to return to the 12 century: goat herding and prayer calls. What do we want them to do, BUILD SHOPPING MALLS AND WATCH THE DISNEY CHANNEL???????
Sorry for the yelling but this issue does not get nearly enough play. And yes it does belong in an article about Paul Volcker and the decline of the dollar.


On Oct 09 03:52 PM Broxburnboy wrote:

> Yes.. the inflation of the late 70s - 80s was caused by the expenses
> incurred for the disastrous Vietnam War, and the malinvestment and
> destruction of wealth associated with that event.
> No establishment economist seems to want to come to terms with the
> wealth destruction and inflation associated with the current forever
> war on foreign soil. As long as the unfunded, malinvestment continues,
> the dollar will worsen, unemployment rise and wealth destruction
> continue.
> Buy gold...

Faces of Death: The U.S. Dollar in Crisis

Currencies are affected by two main factors, cross-border trade and investor risk appetite.
USD has had "home court advantage" on both of these for decades. First as the wordwide trade currency and secondly as a good, visible, safe, transparent, and popular place to invest, both for institutions and individuals. This home court advantage has saved the US tens of billions of dollars by allowing US interest rates to remain relatively low because there is a background demand for our currency.
But this "home court advantage" is slipping on both counts. Cross-border trade MAY increasingly be done in other currencies, but the shift will be slow. IMF says the USD share of trade transactions will fall from 60% to 52% in the next ten years.
The real effect IMO will be because of the second factor, investor appetite for USD assets. In the last 30 years, the American myth has been propagated throughout the world via Hollywood, mainstream media, and indeed, the US military. Everyone "knew" America was not only the strongest country but also the smartest, and also the best place to be an entrepreneur. America rescued the world from fascism and put a man on the moon. Most giant pools of investor assets are still controlled from NYC and London, and in most cases those investors didn't know anything about the rest of the world, didn't understand those locations, hadn't heard of their brands, didn't like their political instability and sketchy contract law. And let's face it, inherent racism also played a role: they didn't want to invest their money with someone with yellow or brown skin.
As giant pools of money are increasingly directed from places like Dubai and Beijing and Moscow and Rio and Norway and Singapore, however, many of those knee-jerk biases will be much less powerful. Yes America can and will create the next Google and Apple and Microsoft, but so will Brazil and China and India. And as America slips in things like education, taking care of its citizens, regulatory oversight (Bernie Madoff?) and replaces private capital formation with public entitlements, The USD will be less and less attractive to investors. It will be a generational change, kind of like sterling after WWI. IMO.

The Great Shift: China Rising, U.S. Falling

Superb post and comments.

Though I didn't see any reference to the core value systems that have underpinned these shifts.
In the US we've been encouraged to live for today, appearances are everything, if your nose is too big or your boobs are too small well then just borrow some money to get plastic surgery, if your neighbor got granite countertops then you should borrow money to get them too, etc etc. Borrow and spend, not save and invest. Take a look at the movies and TV shows and music videos of the last 30 years, it's all there. Add in a little Texas-style bragging about "We're Number 1" (and if you disagree then we'll send our military and $1 trillion to change your regime...)
Contrast that to Confucianism: save, invest, get educated, sacrifice, pay your debts, think about family, think about the future.
Two completely different value systems

Marc Faber: Equities Safer than Dollars

Very simple. The Fed hands banks money (through 17 different "extraordinary" programs at last count, including TARP etc., (and before the purists start screaming about whether these programs "equal" real money, Fed cannot "create" money etc, the fact remains that the banks have more money than they did before the Feds actions)) Banks funnel that money to their "prop" desk, trading their own "proprietary" accounts in various markets. Hence we get the phenomenon where Wall Street "picks each other's pockets", trading in sub-millisecond executions, fractions of a pip, creating new "instruments" to pick their customer's pockets, all completely unhinged from the world of capital formation, company financing, and the economic activity the economy REALLY needs to get moving again.
That's how.


On Sep 29 03:41 PM Thomas J. Gordon wrote:

> Faber is an interesting guy. I watched the videos. I have a question.
> Faber said the stock market was going up be Bernanke was giving people
> money to buy stocks. What is the mechanism for that? When I took
> macroeconomics, the fed increased the money supply, the banks applied
> the multiplier affect, and overall prices rose. Overall prices aren't
> rising (yet?). How does money printed by the fed wind up in the hands
> of people that want to buy the overall stock market? I have a problem
> with the recurring statements that excess money printed by the fed
> ends up in some particular market (real estate, oil, etc..)

U.S. “mass lay-offs” at RECORD high

Wow, "billions" going to ACORN?
Um, what color is the sky on your planet? If you can manage to twist your brain into thinking that 9 months of Obama has somhow created all these problems, I wish you luck.
No, this mess took 20+ years and true bi-partisan cooperation to bring about.
You might say that the Founding Fathers had a hand in it, they set up a system that made sure that the status quo was preserved (their status quo, as rich farmers, that is...). 2 Senators from each state? and now 60 votes required to avoid a filibuster? That means podunk states like Wyoming and Oklahoma (not exactly bastions of higher thinking) can team up and control the nation. So less than 20% of the population controls our destiny. These are people who don't even believe in evolution, fer chrissakes, how are they supposed to manage things like global financial systems...


On Jun 26 09:20 AM Whippet wrote:

> With billions of dollars of Porkulus money going to ACORN and its
> allies, we'll continue to have not only uneducated voters but more
> and more DEAD voters on the rolls. While I agree all members of society
> are "stakeholders", there is a difference between jobless-Section
> 8-dwelling-food-stamp-... and taxpayers. It's like having your elementary
> school kids participate in financial decisions because they receive
> an allowance. No, it's far worse than that. I do think some sort
> of "voter's license" is a good idea, but we'd have better luck simply
> eliminating gubmint transfer payment recipients from the rolls. With
> exceptions, like veterans.
> Neither will ever happen, of course- we're closer to having aliens
> vote and deferring to the United Nations on all matters of import.
> The Republic has died a death from a thousand cuts.