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

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (51795)	7/25/2004 9:23:59 PM
From: TobagoJack	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74559

Hello Hawkmoon Ron, <<I fear>> ... you can rest easy that your fear regarding Chinese bubble collapse or Chinese hiccup burb may be unfounded. The events you have in mind will just as likely lead to even more sprightly growth, simply because it is time, and the time is right, as long as the energy keeps flowing (on this you must redouble your effort), and when not, as long the research into coal use bears fruit. A lot of PhD are chipping away at the problem at USD 10k per PhD per year cost. This approach may turn out cheaper than trying to change the desert tribes. And if the coal cannot be exploited cleanly in a commercial way for heat, electricity and locomotion, we are all in trouble in any and all cases. As to currency convertibility, it is coming, in its own good time, but as a consequence, not so much as a cause. As to ideas and values, they are big topics, and widely misunderstood ones at that, and so we will simply have to see. The sustainability of growth aside from the energy angle is not a concern IMO, because change is a constant. Chugs, Jay

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (51795)	7/27/2004 3:03:37 AM
From: Maurice Winn	Respond to of 74559

<I don't think of the US as "Rome", or as an "empire". What I perceive is that US values and economic ideas are pervading the rest of the world by way of globalization.> Hawk, that's funny. I think of the USA as adopting my values and economic ideas by way of globalization. Okay, they are slow learners, but they are getting there. But apart from the question of who is adopting whose values and economic ideas, the Rome and Empire ideas are a reasonable approximation to reality. As far as I am concerned, CDMA and QUALCOMM and the geopolitical position of the USA in relation to CDMA customers around the world are quite Roman in nature. The USA is the geopolitical military-industrial locus of the globalized world, with Washington even being similar to Rome in architecture. Rome was built on political-military-industrial power and was more like the USA's empire than the British Empire. The British Empire made British Subjects of the colonials, with habeas corpus and rule of law and universal human rights and all that jazz, albeit imperfectly. The USA colonizes without offering USA citizenship. I get to pay taxes to King George II, but don't get to vote. USA citizens get to vote the taxes that my company QUALCOMM pays and the USA citizens get to vote on spending of the taxes I pay. Yes, yes, I know it's a free world and blah blah blah and I don't need to invest in the USA. Which is of course true. But nevertheless, my taxes are disenfranchised and it's a colonialistic approach to we aliens. If you can't see the analogy with Rome, then I'm a bit surprised. Sure, it's not a perfect analogy, but it's not bad. I don't believe China is in the midst of a bubble, any more than the USA was in the midst of a bubble for 2 centuries of rapid growth based on sensible political attitudes to private property rights, free enterprise, capitalism, trade and all the good stuff with enables wealth creation. I think China can grow at 10% a year for a decade or two. It won't be an SUV/oil economy. It'll be a service and technological economy. If the Chinese get it right, they could grow at 10% a year for 5 decades. Hmm, I'd better check my arithmetic - they might be so wealthy by then that they all quit doing anything economic and do self-actualization stuff all day [art, mah jong, philosophical rambling, music, sex, drugs, degeneration]. Mqurice