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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RealMuLan who wrote (33067)	5/6/2003 12:56:59 AM
From: elmatador	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

QUOTE “The geographical size, population, and natural resources of the British Isles would suggest that it ought to possess 3 or 4% of the world’s wealth and power, all other things being equal; but it is precisely because all other things are never equal that a peculiar set of circumstances permitted the British Isles to expand to possess, say 25% of the world’s wealth and power in its prime; and since those favorable circumstances have disappeared, all that it has being doing is returning down to its more ‘natural’ size. In the same way, it may be argued that the geographical extent, population, and natural resources of the U.S. suggest that it ought to possess perhaps 16 or 19% of the world’s wealth and power, but because of historical and technical circumstances favourable to it, that share rose to 40% or more by 1945; and what we are witnessing at the moment is the early decades of the ebbing away from that extraordinarily high figure to a more ‘natural’ share.” Kennedy Paul, (1988), The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, Fontana Press, London. UNQUOTE The quotation is 15 years old. It was written at the end of the Reagan years. Since then, everything has followed the arrow of time. Little changed: the pattern of technology development, demographics, concentration of consumption, industrial overcapacity, and product demand saturation; it only got more apparent and their effects started to be felt more than 15 years ago. The industrial basis of OECD countries has been continuously eroded, so much that it is not even news anymore. The hollowing up of industries have continued and no one can make a best-seller out of that subject today. Look what happened since the collapse of fixed rates by the Nixon administration in 1972. You'll see only by artificial playing around with the economy has kept the construct above water. Watch: 1973-1980 High oil prices -Oil boom for OPEC or Oil shock for importers- was not more than a tax on every single person n earth to build infrastructure in OPEC countries with oil proceeds and everywhere else by recycling the Petrodollars. 1980-1988 Milked for all it was worth, the oil taxation on every single person on earth. By the end of the 70's Americans had counted themselves done for and needed a wake up call. Europe added Iberian countries and Greece. Reagan exploited that feeling with his 'It is morning in America' wake up call telling: There is still life on this thing. It was necessary a real actor to claim that. But it worked. a 600-ship navy, talk of Star Wars, evil empire and the people started to believe. By the way, by 1982 interest rates reached 21% and indebted countries, the ones that borrowed petrodollars, started exporting capital into the US. 1989-2000 The old dog was not barking but with a couple of false teeth it could show some fangs. But you know it is all artificial: Evidence of the shrinking of the Europe’s industrial basis was disguised with artifices such as the integration of Europe 1992. A shrewd publicity campaign and a maneuver to keep old Europe going. With a lot of double-speak, contrasting views and vague and undefined promises, the Europeans managed to attract a lot of investment. In 1987 Americans spent 2.4 billion acquiring European companies and direct investment totaled $122 billion. Berlin Wall collapse, the photo opportunity for the death of state economy, provided a opportunity to put the body into a wheel chair, rolled out for some pictures -hiding the pipes to the life support machine- saying here is the winner of the Cold War!!! De-regulation, privatization, and the embryo of Enron, Williams and WCOM was only a couple of cells sized. It was no more than another tube into another vein of the arms vein of the lifeless body. But it carried out the economy for a good ten years. When the system faltered, 1997 Asia, 1999 Russia and Brazil, another artificial creation the Y2K, was brought in to another market creation out of thin air. Water and sewage companies were buying Hollywood studios, Japan, continued its slow march back to the insignificance that it came from. OK, after March 200o it is too recent. You know how it's been the last three years. Now is either, concoct a new artificial way to prop the economy or let the script play for the next 15 years. It is very simple.