Jamaican in Africa

Is China the Next Great Bubble?

Keen observers suggest that China does not possess a sufficient quantity of arable land or water to feed herself, nor does she possess a the quantity of natural resources needed to supply her factories in order to earn the money to purchase the consumer goods her growing middle class is begining to demand.

Here in Africa Chinese engineers, businessmen and technicians are ubiqitous. In tiny out of the way and impoverished countries like the Comoros the Chinese are building roads and developing partnerships that benefit the Chinese comercially, but are essential for these poor nations continued development. In Chad, Kenya and the Congo you see Chinese engineers and diplomats wherever development is taking place.

Africa is a huge continent, rich in under and un-developed natural resources and China is positioning herself to fuel her industries through commercial partnerships obtained with some of the world's most impoverished nations on the African continent.

If China's economy is a bubble that will soon collapse, the ramifications are significant in Africa where China's investments are funding the development of infrastructure (roads, bridges, irrigation projects, airports etc). Any fall in investment will be catostrophic for the poor nations that are depending on these projects to improve living standards and reduce morbidity and mortality rates.

A fall in China's investment in Africa will inevitably lead to food deficits causing more frequent episodes of starvation, epidemics, lower living standards and more pressure on already weak national governments. Let us pray to God in heaven that China's economy remains strong and its ability to assist the poor in Africa remains undeminished.

China, the US and Europe are all that stands between starvation for many millions of people on the African continent. Take away the ability of these regional powers to contribute to Africa's survival and the ensuing suffering and chaos will become acute leading to a cry of despair that humanity has never before wittnessed.

Oil to Retest $40/Barrel by Year-End?

A war between the generations is what seems to be coming. As resources approach exhaustion, and there without a corresponding fall in demand then competition will drive up the price and force consumers to substitue the goods and services they desire for the ones that they can afford.
Boomers are carrying too much debt and the cathostrophic fall in American household wealth is creating a fiscal crisis for them. The WWII generation survived the great depression, defeated the Nazis and out maneuvered the Comminists after they were too old to fight them on the battlefield. That generation also realized that the boomers were idealists, who were quick to point out every American short-coming while they idolized dictators, petty revolutionaries and petty tyrants all around the world.
Boomers ignored international atrocities and demonstrated little concern about national priorities like national defense, maintaining the nation's manufacturing capacity, protecting the borders and the crime and decay that burdened our cities and forced working families to flee. Baby boomers amassed tremendous debt in order to buy the newest BMW and McMansion rather than exercise restraint creating an unsustainable situation and the current economic downturn is giving them a lesson.
Fuel prices will rise even if boomers desire clean energy, because solar and wind power will not in the near term meet their demand to power their MacMansions, heat their hot tubs or fill the gas tanks of the three cars that occupy their gararges. As the fall in their wealth becomes more apparent, the reality will force them to work longer because they have not demonstrated any willingness to curtail their demand for consumer goods that drive the demand for comodities like petroleum, metals and chemicals.
Maybe, in the short term there may be a fall in demand for oil (as unemployment grows, GDP stagnates and real per capita purchasing power falls) but in the long term, the baby boomers will continue to demand the things that they have always demanded thereby forcing up the prices of natural resorces like oil. The climb in oil prices back to $140 per barrel is inevitable, it is only a matter of time, unless the baby boomers change their habits.

Obama: Stop the Witch Hunts and Stabilize the Banks

I am not sure that I understand her arguments.

Is she suggesting that legislation to limit rewards to people whose poor decisions have undermined credit markets, destroyed people's life savings and caused countless economic catostrophies is a witch hunt?

Perhaps she does not realize that rewarding inappropriate conduct only encourages the misbehaving party to continue the antisocial and destructive behavior. If telling a person that they won't benefit from conduct that harms others is a witch hunt we must re-evaluate our use of words.

Our jails provide that housing for rapists, child pornographers, murderers and thieves are full of people who have harmed others. I am not suggesting that the bonus recipients be jailed (except if criminal behavior is demonstrated during a thorough investigation), but I believe that their irresponsible conduct should be discouraged.

Her logic on the other hand may be interpreted to suggest that the residents of our jails are victims of a relentless government witch hunt and society would be better off rewarding their misconduct rather than taking steps to discourage it. A pox on such logic and all who advocate it.

TARP Is Bad for Dividend Investors

Tarp in my mind is a life line to inestors with a long term outlook. OK perhaps today dividends may be reduced, but at least the company is still operating. Without TARP many of these organizations would have been forced to liquidate assets in order to satisfy creditors. Share holders values along with the probability of return to profitability would have been eliminated.
At least now shareholders have a prospect of dividends after the markets and the publicly traded companies they have invested in return to health. People should stop complaining and thank the US taxpayers for extending them a lifeline.

Free Trade Agreements = Evaporated Jobs Worldwide

Goods and services produced (supply) respond consumer demand (disposable income, tastes and other factors) that is ralated to the marginal propensity to consume.
Free trade agreements reward efficiency, and force regions and countries to produce the goods and services that they have a competitive advantage in producing.
If everything is produced in a manner to maximize efficiency, then the production of goods and services minimizes waste and the cost of every product in the market place is reduced. The result is that natural resources, labor and capital are employed in such a manner to maximize return on investment.
If we are globally managing our resources in such a way to minimising waste, increase efficiency and provide the highest return we can on an investment, then all over the world consumers benefit from high quality good, produced at the lowest cost for all consumers and the highest profit for investors.
Please advise me why this is a bad thing.

Looking to Buy BRIC? The 'ABC's Are Better (Part I)

China has grown tremendously in the last three decades. Still I am cautious about long term investments in China. China's government has presided over the re-education camps, the Tiannamen Square massacre, Tibetan strangulation and constant threats to Taiwan's experiment with freedom. This is a country that I will only reluctantly invest in and I will be the first to pull my investment out at the smallest signs of unrest.
A criminal with a big house, a tough angry posse and a fancy car who intimidates his neighbors and makes his community fearful will not hesitate to enrich himself at your expense when he can.

China's Economy: Last to Weaken, First to Recover

China’s growth over the last three decades is impressive, but China is not a juggernaut, but is a nation with severe structural problems and disadvantages. These problems will undermine China's growth and the author is ignoring them.

1. China lacks sufficient of arable land to feed its large population (www.worldwatch.org/nod...) . Large population and substitution of arable land for growth of urban centers, industrial growth and infrastructure projects like the three gorges dam are going to force China to purchase more food from abroad at a greater cost.
a. Countries with efficient agricultural sectors like the US will face increasing demand for agricultural products from Chinese consumers which will make them much them more profitable. In the end the cost of food to the Chinese consumer (who earns much less than his American, European and Brazilian counterpart) will force him to substitute a greater portion of his income to buy food, than to purchase consumer goods produced locally thereby reducing the domestic demand for manufactured goods.
b. As demand falls workers will get laid off, and the demand for social services in the urban centers will increase with the probability of social unrest that may begin to demand greater freedoms from the autocratic regime. The memories and resentments of the Tiananmen Square massacre, suppression of Tibetan demands for freedom, and denial of personal and religious freedom to various ethnic groups is fueling resentments that China’s current prosperity is allowing the government to manage (www.carnegieendowment....) . If the prosperity falters, these resentments will be difficult to manage and China could face internal chaos. As recently as 1993 China documented less than 9,000 episodes of social unrest, this has grown steadily, and by 2003 this number was greater than 58,000 a growth of more than 600% in less than a decade even while the economy was providing more and more Chinese with unprecedented prosperity.

2. China is currently importing a large quantity of the raw materials it needs and is expected to import an even greater portion of the raw materials it needs from unstable regions in Africa, the middle east and throughout the third world (www.cfr.org/publicatio.../) . The world today is less unstable than it was 30 years ago, and instability restricts supply causing cost to rise. The outlook is for lesser developed countries to become more unstable, thus it is reasonable to project that the cost to China for acquiring raw materials from poor nations to increase further eroding it’s competitive advantage.

3. Because China has experienced rapid growth it has also experienced increased urbanization, dramatic increase in pollution, a tremendous increase in the production in raw sewage from urban centers and degradation in the water quality and environment. The World Bank estimates that pollution costs China between 4 and 5% of GDP (web.worldbank.org/WBSI...~pagePK:34004173~piPK:... . As the pollution worsens it is reasonable to expect that the cost to reverse the pollution also increase.

a. The result of environmental degradation and increased population density in urban centers is that the population has experienced increased morbidity and mortality (AIDS wjz.com/health/AIDS.be... , cancer www.ictradiotherapy.co... , respiratory diseases like asthma www.emaxhealth.com/108... and infectious diseases like SARS) associated with crowded urban centers, pollution from industrial and domestic waste and improper use of fertilizer in an attempt to boost agricultural production.
b. China will have to divert a tremendous amount of money to address these issues. The money will have to be diverted from needs like the purchasing raw materials, funding its military growth and continued to modernization of its industrial centers.

I have carefully selected documents to support and validate my arguments in order to demonstrate that I am not responding emotionally to the author's arguments. So, before the author continues the fallacy that the US economy is terminally ill (which it is not) and suggest that China’s growth is unstoppable he should examine the facts about the Chinese economic and industrial miracle and the environmental, social, economic and healthcare pressures facing that nation. It might surprise him.

Is China the Next Great Bubble?

Your prescription is dead on, and many wise people have expressed an opinion that is identical to your own.

Here is the dilemma, Doctors can frequently warn people about how eating habits, a lack of exercise and drug abuse can contribute to ill health. The Doctors are frequently able to diagnose and illness and prescribe a treatment, but getting the patient to accept the medication and the more unpleasant parts of the therapeutic intervention is quite another matter.


On Apr 24 03:00 PM Alphameister wrote:

> Jamaican in Africa
>
> The ultimate resource in this world is the unfettered human mind.
> Consider what Japan was able to accomplish despite a lack of the
> fertile land and raw materials typically regarded as resources. If
> you seek to end poverty in Africa, persuade the benighted leaders
> of African nations to create an environment of freedom and to welcome
> profit-seeking investments by capitalists around the world.

Obama: Stop the Witch Hunts and Stabilize the Banks

Mr. Desantis was well rewarded when times were good and AIG was profitable, and that is how it should be. The organization that he helped to lead is no longer profitable and the division he is Vice President of has helped to cause economic havoc for people at home and across the globe by destroying their life savings, bankrupting their employers and weakening their governments.
He insists that tax payers, many of whom earn thier living moving garbage, fighting wars, waiting tables, confronting criminals, running into burning buildings or riding ambulances use their taxes to pay him a seven figure bonus rather than fund their local schools, fix the roads or improve their access to healthcare. Mr. Desantis clearly does not realize the magnitude of what happened to many of these people because of what his organization did.
To him, perhaps the rising unemployment, home foreclosures and hunger statistics are nothing more than abstract figures in a newspaper and not a part of his reality. He may not have made the connection between people who are victimized by the organization he helped to lead and the real economic dislocation these people face. These people have collectively said no to rewarding him and his colleagues for destroying all they have tried to save for a life time.
He now says... well it wasn't me, and the people who did it left... didn't he as a leader have a responsibility to tell the people engaging in the destructive scheme that what they were doing was wrong? He clearly did not stop thier destructive behavior, and for his inaction he wants tax-payers to subsidise his bonus because it was "promised". Did he say a word while GM contracts with hourly paid workers were re-negiotiated because the tax payers said that they had to be?
I cannot look into his heart, he may well be a good and decent person and model citizen who goes to church, supports the local PTA and helps out at the Boys and Girls Club or local soup kitchen. I believe that as well intentioned as he is, he is also out of touch with economic realities facing many Americans who came from the background that his parents did. His letter also suggests that he is not aware that he and hisorganization had a fiduciary responsibility to the IRA holders and 401K savers who are AIG shareholders and were depending on their retirement savings.
I believe that Mr. Desantis may be so insulated that he is truly unaware of the suffering his inaction or lack of vigilance as a leader at AIG has inflicted on people who are more vulnerable to economic dislocations than he is and he just does not understand why tax payers and the people who represent them are outraged.
May God bless him, and open his eyes to reality. He can give $700k to charity and walk away from a job, and his family will be fine. The people who would empty bedpans in a hospital if he were sick cannot walk away from thier $30K a year job if they want to keep their kids clothed and fed, yet he does not understand their outrage.

On Mar 25 09:18 PM reality chk wrote:

> I don't care about Jake DeSantis or any of these multi million dollar
> annual wage packages. These free agent type wages have escalated
> to unreasonable levels because of competition, greed and manipulation.
> Get away from the isolated island called Wall Street and look at
> the real people who barely make $50K /year This disparity is not
> acceptable. For the past 15 years the Wall Street Vultures have been
> pushing the manufacturing world around until they pushed millions
> of people into the ocean on their way to China. Look at the earnings
> data for the pat 15 years. You will see a disturbing trend . Wages
> for the manufacturing sector have either stayed static or have declined.
> Even with cost of living adjustments. That means that people who
> work for a living are working for less and less each year. It also
> means that as we loose manufacturing, people loose their jobs, these
> same people are taking service jobs for a lot less wages further
> perpetuating the decline of the working class. All this while the
> Wall Street vultures are thriving with smoke and mirrors promoting
> themselves and genius, superstars demanding more and more.
> I'm not sure if AIG is a good example but it is the one in front
> of us today. I go back to my original question: If these superstars
> are so damn good why can't they make it on their own merits?
> Also don't you think the game changes somewhat when you go begging
> to the poor worker (taxpayer) for a bailout. The same worker that
> you are constantly see as a liability and you are pushing him to
> either take less or you do away with his job.
> This huge disparity in the Free Market system will cause further
> problems when the classes are getting further apart this way. So;
> I don't care about Jake DeSantis or any one else of that group.
>
> I care about the little guy who is being taken advantage everyday.
> These are hard times in the manufacturing world, I employ 16 people
> and I owe everything I have to those 16 people. I share everything
> I have with these 16 people. I may never be a rich man but I am a
> happy and content with a CLEAR conscience knowing my success did
> not come from someone's demise.

Obama: Stop the Witch Hunts and Stabilize the Banks

The freak show are you call the executive bonus compensation are a result of the executives own hubris. It is their outrageous conduct that threatens the whole bailout, nothing else.
Had they not persisted in demanding that taxpayers reward them with millions of dollars after they destroyed so many people's life savings there would be no outrage.
What we have here is a classical case of cause and effect, their conduct caused a storm of popular outrage. Shame on them for threatening the world's financial system and thier greedy folly which now threatens to derail efforts to efforts to repair their earlier blunders.


On Mar 24 04:32 PM Libby Mihalka wrote:

> I said in the article that these bonuses are egregious. My point
> is these bonuses represent just 0.02% of the entire taxpayer funded
> bailout and yet the outcry regarding these bonuses could derail the
> plan. It will be difficult for Congress to allocate additional funding
> to the bailout if everyone is having a tantrum regarding these bonuses.
> This whole sidshow reminds me of last fall when everyone was saying
> we shouldn't help homeowners or banks because of moral hazard. Look
> at how well that worked out. If we had taken steps sooner we wouldn't
> have such high unemployment and be in such a mess. We should keep
> our eye on the ball and not be distracted by the freak show.

Dow Chemical Says 'See You in Court' to Kuwait

You know, it would be easy to agree with you if I were to only look at the numbers, and I believe that DOW's position has been made stronger now that it has an alternative to Kuwait. Here is the problem, geopolitical considerations sometimes interfere with what would otherwise be good business decisions.
Let us look at three significant recent geoplitical facts:
The Israeli/Palestinian war.
The Russian decision to cut off of gas to Western Europe.
The anticipation that oil prices will rise.

Let us briefly look at these three factors, and notethat the condition on the ground is much more complex, but these provide an explanation into what many who pay attention to economic data might fail to realize.

1. The Israel/Palestinian conflict is part and parcel of what some people in the region see as an ongoing Arab-Israeli disagreement. Islamic parties are using this and other military operations to push Kuwait away from the west. As the government weakens, tribal alliegances and Islamic Parties strengthen. An ex Kuwaiti Oil Minister wrote an editorial (www.arabtimesonline.co...) highlighting the role of tribalism and religious parties in an era when the government has become weak. i Religion, tribalism and an age old conflict are competing with sound fiscal considerations and influencing government decisions in Kuwait.

2. As winter deepens, and energy supplies fall in Europe due to the disagreement between Russia and the Ukraine, European policy makers have been scrambling to find alternative energy suppliers for the anticipated fall in supplies of natural gas. Guess what is the best next available substitute for natural gas... you got it, oil. In the short run, oil cannot be easily substituted for natural gas, because plants will have to be modified, new infrastructure built etc... but it is providing an opportunity that OPEC is desperately seeking to increase the demand for oil even as industrial production and associated demand for energy falls.

3. The anticipation that oil prices will rise. Kuwait is in the enviable position of producing oil at about $20 per barrel, so even when oil fell to less that $40/ barrell Kuwait continued to make almost 100% profit on each barrel of oil it produced. Most forcasters believe that as the international economy recovers, that the demand for oil and other natural resources will increase, and it is likely that oil may command a price of between $60 and $70 per barrel in late 2009, providing a tremendous increase in revenue and financial resources at its government's disposal.
Add to that fact, that Kuwait is fiscally very conservative. Unlike other major oil producers like Iran and Venezuela, the Kuwaiti's typically do not have budget crisis, infact they frequently understand thier budgeted outlays by as much as 30% (www.ameinfo.com/32099....), so when other OPEC nations struggled to meet obligations, Kuwait had few concerns.

Kuwait can afford to pay the cost of breaking this agreement without significantly weakening itself financially in the short term, and it has many cards to play in this matter. I believe the Kuwaitis would be making a mistake in the long term to abandon this deal... but the fact is that they can afford to do it without too much pain in the short term, and too frequently we note that policy makers opt for short term satisfaction rather than exercising good judgement that would be helpful in the long term.
Can I predict the how likely DOW will be in convincing Kuwait to honor its obligation? No, but I would not hold my breath in anticipation that the Kuwaiti government will come to the table and try to revive the deal. My gut tells me that they are going to pay up and walk. This is just a gut feeling.

Kuwait and Dow Chemical Deal Will Get Done Despite Opposition

If this deal ever becomes a reality I would be surprised. People sometimes fail to realize how important religion is and how much it influences government policy. Right now the Islamic parties are holding the line, and stalemating every initiative that apprears pro-western. The Islamic parties are hoping to gain more influence through populist appeal and are using the Israeli/Hamas confrontation to consolidate their influence especially since the Kuwaiti executive has no real cabinet currently. The Prime Minister, who supports the deal wiht Dow Chemical has been weakened, and was recently forced to tender his resignation.
This deal is essentially a "proxy war" of sorts between pro-western forces and pro Islamic forces in Kuwait's government. Kuwait's economy has taken a beating as a result of the fall in oil prices, and the Islamic politicians are suggesting that the failure to prepare for the impact that the fall in oil prices is having on the economy is the pro-western Prime Minister's fault.
I would be very surprised if this deal succeeds.

Free Trade Agreements = Evaporated Jobs Worldwide

John, please don't look at the short term. In the long term if we hope for efficient resource allocation, and therefore minize waste, we must embrace the idea that the most efficient regions will produce the goods and services that they are most capable of producing cheaply.
For example, America produces food, movies, medication and some manufactured good more efficiently than anywhere else in the world because of our good climate, abundant water, developed cinema industry, productive farmers, heavy investment in biotechnology and educated workforce.
If Japan that produces cars more cheaply decides to stop producing cars and employ thier citizens to produce wheat, the result would be fewer cars (and the price of each car would rise as it became scarce), expensive Japanese wheat and eventually unemployment.
Multiply the effect of the example I provided thousands of times and the world would suffer from poor allocation of resources, high costs, and many more hungry hungry children than we see on CNN every night.
First we have to recognize the benefits of free trade, and how it works, and use that understanding to put ourselves in a position to utilize that knowledge when advocating government and social remedies resulting from market forces.


On Dec 15 08:50 AM john s. gordon wrote:

> this is called the race to the bottom. it's been going on for a long
> time. how many vacant textile mills exist in new england states?
> in the u.s.a corporations move operations to states that have the
> lowest labor costs and lowest standard of living (i.e., dixie).<br/>japa...
> loses jobs to china.
> taiwan loses jobs to vietnam.
> who's next?

Is China the Next Great Bubble?

Keen observers suggest that China does not possess a sufficient quantity of arable land or water to feed herself, nor does she possess a the quantity of natural resources needed to supply her factories in order to earn the money to purchase the consumer goods her growing middle class is begining to demand.

Here in Africa Chinese engineers, businessmen and technicians are ubiqitous. In tiny out of the way and impoverished countries like the Comoros the Chinese are building roads and developing partnerships that benefit the Chinese comercially, but are essential for these poor nations continued development. In Chad, Kenya and the Congo you see Chinese engineers and diplomats wherever development is taking place.

Africa is a huge continent, rich in under and un-developed natural resources and China is positioning herself to fuel her industries through commercial partnerships obtained with some of the world's most impoverished nations on the African continent.

If China's economy is a bubble that will soon collapse, the ramifications are significant in Africa where China's investments are funding the development of infrastructure (roads, bridges, irrigation projects, airports etc). Any fall in investment will be catostrophic for the poor nations that are depending on these projects to improve living standards and reduce morbidity and mortality rates.

A fall in China's investment in Africa will inevitably lead to food deficits causing more frequent episodes of starvation, epidemics, lower living standards and more pressure on already weak national governments. Let us pray to God in heaven that China's economy remains strong and its ability to assist the poor in Africa remains undeminished.

China, the US and Europe are all that stands between starvation for many millions of people on the African continent. Take away the ability of these regional powers to contribute to Africa's survival and the ensuing suffering and chaos will become acute leading to a cry of despair that humanity has never before wittnessed.

Highlights of the SEC Complaint Against Stanford

You know it is funny when people who are not from the British Commonwealth make comments about matters that they are uniinformed about.
The head of the British Commonwealth is the British monarchy, Queen Elizabeth. In each nation in the Commonwealth she is represented by a person nominated by that nation's parliment whom she approves as her local representive. The person is the Governor General. So any action by the Governor General is in fact an action by the Queen. Her Royal Majesty remains the head of state of every nation that is a part of the British Commonwealth just as she is the head of state of the United Kingdom..
When Antigua and Barbuda's Governor General, Sir James Carlyle knighted Sir Allan Stanford, he was infact knighted by the Queen's official representive in that nation acting with the Queen's approval. Sir Allan Stanford's position in the British Commonwealth was given with the full approval of Her Majesty's government. Make no mistake about that.


On Feb 18 12:42 AM kotika98 wrote:

> He was NOT knighted by the queen, he was knighted by Antigua.