Archive through August 30, 2007
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     holycow
Member
Username: holycow
Post Number: 3064
Registered: 08-2004
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Votes: 0
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| | Monday, August 27, 2007 - 07:26 pm: | 
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Here are some views...
1) Innovation, in general, thrives on competition. That is, a competitive environment would encourage a more efficient and effective use of resources. The need to compete and survive is a good motivator for inventive/efficient/effective use of resources, and in the process, new insights, new ideas, new inventions are born as result. In short, competition is the prerequisite for innovation.
2) Corruption may introduce inefficiency/ineffectiveness into the environment, but, it also introduces a degree of competitiveness. For those who have dealing in Asia would know corruption increases the cost of doing business, but it won't kill off business. In fact, looking at it from the other angle, corruption in certain way smoothes out and/or bypasses a lot of unnecessary red tapes - like it or not, it improves the efficiency of the whole process of doing business! Warp, but true! 
In America, France, UK, even Australia, there are corruptions. In USA for example, the military contractors are well known for their creative accounting. As recent as last year I think, Haliburton was charged by the US army to have "overbilled" services they did not provide in Iraq.
Does corruption remove competition and kill innovation in the West? Don't think so.
3) Innovation, invention, commercialisation - in the USA, a lot of new inventions are the results of government initiated projects - govt funding and contracts, esp in military weaponry development, and/or other NGO and agencies like NASA. In these cases, commercialisation came about later - for eg TEFAL, the non-stick fry pan, a result of the heat shield development of the space Shuttle.(correct me if I am wrong here)
So, the same can be said for the Chinese and Indian government in their need to catch up with the West militarily. The have the right ingredients - capital (funding), human resources, preliminary know-how. So, it's hard to argue at this point that they will fail.
4) Commercial innovation - innovation through commercial competition - let's take a look. There are two ways innovation or new invention can be achieved, either through evolution of existing technology, or a jump off the paradigm, a completely new invention.
Google, Amazon are not ground breaking invention, they are just "invention through evolution". Hardware wise there are many examples - the Japanese in the automobile and, electronics fields, now the South Korean are fast catching up with their micro-electronics development... the list goes on and on.
Specific to China, Lenovo bought over IBM PC, now the Chinese are thinking of buying over a disk drive business from the USA. Most of the notebook and laptops are now produced in China, designed by Taiwanese. The Science Park in Taiwan started years ago raised the standard of computing technology, bringing up a whole new generation of computing/manufacturing engineers, scientists dominating the designing/production of computer/computing equipment. Today, Taiwan builds 90% of the notebook and laptops of the world.
Many of them have set up shop in China. Many of them have development centres in China. New idea, new design, innovations are happening right now in China...
5) In Melbourne, I know of not less than 3 small local manufacturers have been bought over by the Chinese. Chinese managers are being sent here to run the business - business and technology know-hows are being transferred... while the local managers are learning how to speak Mandarin! No one can tell if there will be new innovation coming from these ventures...
6) A very basic observation - the Chinese, in many ways have beaten the American - by the simple fact that they are holding close to a trillion $US. With that, they can simply kill off the commerce/economy of the USA by dumping this money - this, just for argument only, coz it makes no sense for them to self harm, and it is definitely not the objective or the preferred outcome of world domination.
6) This debate is getting a little too academic, too much what-if, I think, it's best to wait and see as usual. The future however, my own belief is it won't be too American centric... the new millenium, like they had said back in 2001, belongs to the Asians.
Cheers.
HC
"... he ain't no chart addict, but a TA junkie"
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lafee
Member
Username: lafee
Post Number: 648
Registered: 04-2003
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Votes: 0
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| | Tuesday, August 28, 2007 - 10:44 pm: |
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HC
Do you actually raise beef in Vic?
Cheers
Lafee
Don't ask an academic if what he does is relevant
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holycow
Member
Username: holycow
Post Number: 3065
Registered: 08-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0
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| | Wednesday, August 29, 2007 - 09:26 am: |
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Lafee,
No. But I do eat beef though.
Cheers.
HC
"... he ain't no chart addict, but a TA junkie"
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holycow
Member
Username: holycow
Post Number: 3066
Registered: 08-2004
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Votes: 0
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| | Wednesday, August 29, 2007 - 10:15 am: |
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http://tinyurl.com/2ttukx
... "It's a dangerous game we're playing, especially if the Fed doesn't follow our script," said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Jefferies & Co. of market assumptions the central bank would trim the Fed funds rate at least 25 basis points.
"There is a bit of a head-in-the sand feeling to the minutes, even if they were predictable. More important are the Fed's actions since the meeting and the policy response that will be crafted in the weeks ahead," said Crescenzi...
*** not sure if you can detect the arrogance and take-for-grantedness" in these two chaps' comments, but, if I am BB, I will show them my middle finger... there's no reason why he has to bail the market out like Greenspanner before him. And I don't believe the FED chief's main task is to act according to scripts crafted by scums like these two.
HC
"... he ain't no chart addict, but a TA junkie"
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lafee
Member
Username: lafee
Post Number: 649
Registered: 04-2003
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0
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| | Wednesday, August 29, 2007 - 05:28 pm: |
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Greenspan had a lot of ties with the laize fair capitalists. He even wrote of few articles for Ayn Rand. I think he lost support after dropping interest rates so low in the tech bust. Philosophically, is BB more or less likely to 'manage' the money supply them Greenspan?
Cheers Lafee
Don't ask an academic if what he does is relevant
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easymoney
Member
Username: easymoney
Post Number: 39
Registered: 03-2005Rating: N/A
Votes: 0
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| | Wednesday, August 29, 2007 - 08:41 pm: |
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HolyCow, I saw the same two quotes on Marketwatch and thought the same thing.
So often the commentary is so obviously deficient. We get comments like "the market was looking for ..." which are gross over-simplifications.
Then again, if the reports said "the flock changed direction for no particular reason" it would remove the mystique.
Two of them say they're Jesus.
One of them must be wrong.
Industrial Disease
Dire Straits
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holycow
Member
Username: holycow
Post Number: 3067
Registered: 08-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0
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| | Thursday, August 30, 2007 - 01:07 am: |
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... below is jmv
I think Greenspan during Clinton's Presidency had 2 very good partners running the Finance Secretariat - Robert E. Rubin,1995–1999 and Lawrence H. Summers, 1999–2001. I believe both have good working knowledge on how Wall Street works.
A laissez-faire system to an extent relies a lot more on self regulation, something I believe both Rubin and Summers did very well in getting across to the big capitalists. And when they were around, Greenspan was cruising... until there's a regime changed - when GWB took over the Presidency. GWB's did a copycat job on Ronald Reagan's economic policies, putting heavy emphasis on debt to fund all his pet projects; budget deficit was readily brushed aside, and without much discipline being shown from the Administration, the laissez-faire and easy money approach that used to work very well went haywire and backfired badly...
... the rest is history, I guess.
There's a basic difference I can see between BB and Greenspan, BB had stated many times that he would combat inflation through various methods/data/stats/indicators instead of Greenspan's thumb sucking, marble counting, and guess what I have in my left hand kind of "personal" approach. If BB is true to what he has said, there is a good chance that he won't raise rate IF all those indicators that he is watching do not raise any alarm on inflation.
This coming FOMC meeting on Sep18 I think will be a test of fire for him - the market, and history will judge him either as a man on his own or a Greenspan wanabe, pandering to the Wall Street big guns - if I were him, I will bite the bullet and keep rate unchanged.
Cutting rate, unless supported by data/indicators, seems too high a cost he has to pay at a personal level, can't see how he will opt for it. But then, no one can tell really, after all we are talking about big stake here - currently US$300 bil and counting...
Cheers.
ps: laissez-faire - a synonym for strict free market economics, it is generally understood to be a doctrine that maintains that private initiative and production are best allowed to roam free...from Wiki
HC
"... he ain't no chart addict, but a TA junkie"
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holycow
Member
Username: holycow
Post Number: 3068
Registered: 08-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0
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| | Thursday, August 30, 2007 - 01:11 am: |
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EM,
I think it is essential that we filter the news that we read into three parts - facts, fictions, opinions. In general, I look for facts first, then opinions.
Cheers.
HC
"... he ain't no chart addict, but a TA junkie"
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hilarius
Member
Username: hilarius
Post Number: 2818
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0
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| | Thursday, August 30, 2007 - 04:51 am: |
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So greed is good?
I come in peace to share my thoughts and to shine my candle light on possible long term opportunities
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hilarius
Member
Username: hilarius
Post Number: 2819
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0
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| | Thursday, August 30, 2007 - 05:02 am: |
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Laissez faire :-
Chinese food-safety breaches highlight a new problem: As domestic consumption of imported food increases and foreign products enter via 300 ports, the FDA’s capacity to monitor safety simply cannot keep up.
I come in peace to share my thoughts and to shine my candle light on possible long term opportunities
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hilarius
Member
Username: hilarius
Post Number: 2820
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0
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| | Thursday, August 30, 2007 - 05:03 am: |
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Above refers to American ports
I come in peace to share my thoughts and to shine my candle light on possible long term opportunities
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easymoney
Member
Username: easymoney
Post Number: 41
Registered: 03-2005Rating: N/A
Votes: 0
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| | Thursday, August 30, 2007 - 08:23 am: |
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Is greed good? Together with fear it drives every market!
Two of them say they're Jesus.
One of them must be wrong.
Industrial Disease
Dire Straits
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hilarius
Member
Username: hilarius
Post Number: 2821
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0
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| | Thursday, August 30, 2007 - 08:47 am: |
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Easymoney
Neither fear nor greed are good
All behaviour should be rational and based on concern for others
Earthly rewards are irrelevant when we are gone, and how we treat others is how we will be remembered
Each day we are writing our own funeral service by the way we act
With Best Wishes
Hilarius
I come in peace to share my thoughts and to shine my candle light on possible long term opportunities
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