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Strategies & Market Trends : Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RealMuLan who wrote (19935)	12/30/2004 2:41:32 PM
From: mishedlo	Respond to of 116555

China's Steel Threat May Be Excess, Not Shortage Global Supply Expected To Surge as Country Becomes Net Exporter By PATRICK BARTA in Bangkok, Thailand, and PAUL GLADER in Pittsburgh December 30, 2004; For much of the past two years, China has threatened to foster a world steel shortage with its prodigious appetite for imports of the metal. Now the country has become a net exporter, its domestic demand is slowing and steelmaking capacity is up around the world, sparking concern over global oversupply and tougher times for the industry in the years ahead. Behind China's shift is a sharp slowdown in the growth of steel consumption at home combined with continued increases in production. As Beijing has worked to cool an overheated economy, the growth in domestic demand for steel recently has been rising only about 5% a month compared with year-earlier periods, after average monthly increases of 26% in 2002, 2003 and early 2004, according to UBS AG. Meanwhile, UBS estimates that Chinese steel production will climb 22% this year to 268 million tons, and grow a further 14% next year to 305 million tons. In November, China reported net exports of more than one million metric tons of steel, more than double October's level and a reversal from November 2003, when it was a net importer of nearly three million tons. more... online.wsj.com

To: RealMuLan who wrote (19935)	12/30/2004 2:45:39 PM
From: mishedlo	Respond to of 116555

Pfizer Lawyers Grill Dissenting Executive Statements on Drug Imports at Issue By Tim Craig Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, October 1, 2004; Page A15 A drug company executive who spoke out in support of Montgomery County's proposal to import drugs from Canada and similar legislation before Congress said yesterday that his company has launched an investigation into his political activities. Peter Rost, vice president of marketing for Pfizer Inc., said the company has hired a New York law firm to find out what elected officials and media organizations he has spoken with in the past month. Rost, who disagrees with Pfizer's position that Canadian drugs are potentially harmful, said lawyers grilled him for several hours Wednesday. "I was peppered with questions from morning to evening," said Rost, who joined Pfizer in 2001. "As a private citizen in a protected political activity, my concern was getting all these questions about my discussions with elected representatives." Seven members of Congress wrote a letter to the company yesterday condemning the inquiry. "If this is true, [Wednesday's] interrogation, during which attorneys demanded details of private conversations with Members of Congress and their staffs, was clearly intended to intimidate Dr. Rost," said the letter, whose signers included Reps. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) and Dan Burton (R-Ind.). Jack Cox, a spokesman for Pfizer, confirmed that a meeting took place Wednesday between an attorney for Pfizer and Rost and his legal counsel. "The meeting was professional and entirely consistent with Pfizer's policy regarding respect for employees," Cox said. At a news conference last month, Rost became one of the first drug industry executives to come out in support of reimporting drugs from Canada. Ten days ago, the County Council voted to let county employees buy such drugs, many of which are produced in this country but are available at lower prices in Canada because of government regulation. Rost, who stressed that he was speaking as a private citizen, has said that he is tired of hearing colleagues call the practice a public health risk. He said that as director of European commercial operations for another drug company in the mid-1990s, he saw cross-border trade reduce prescription drug costs. Pfizer says there is no savings to European consumers. Rost joined about 10 members of Congress on Capitol Hill on Sept. 23 for a rally in support of importing Canadian drugs. The next day, he attended a rally with Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) to encourage the Senate's Republican leadership to allow a vote on drug reimportation. Nearly a dozen newspapers have reported Rost's stance, and several television news shows have interviewed him in the past two weeks. On Wednesday, Rost said, lawyers from the firm of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP asked him to detail all of his contacts with the media and reviewed his quotes in news articles. He said the lawyers noted all of his contacts with members of Congress and their staffs. Rost said he complied but has no plans to quit the company or stop speaking out on the issue. "People are dying, and if I can make a difference by speaking out, it is clearly worth it," Rost said. "I think it would be immoral for me not to continue to speak out." Rost said he believes that he cannot be fired for his comments because they were made on his own time and are protected in New York, where Pfizer is based, and in New Jersey, where he lives, under laws prohibiting employment discrimination based on political beliefs. Last week, Chuck Hardwick, a senior vice president at Pfizer, sent a letter to several members of Congress stating, "Dr. Rost has no qualifications to speak on importation, no responsibilities in this area at Pfizer, no knowledge of the information and analysis Pfizer has provided to the government on this issue, and no substantive grasp of how importation may impact the safety of this nation's drug supply." Montgomery County Council member Tom Perez (D-Silver Spring) was skeptical of Pfizer's response. "If Dr. Rost had been down here talking about the dangers of importation, I am sure he would have received a bouquet of flowers," he said. washingtonpost.com

To: RealMuLan who wrote (19935)	12/31/2004 12:51:42 PM
From: GraceZ	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 116555

Well the good news is that a free market price coordinated economy works so well that it's not necessary for most of the participants to understand why it works in order to receive it's benefits. This is very good, because, like you, most are completely ignorant of how it works! Even here in the US which hasn't suffered from 80 years of state supported Communist propaganda. They see plenty or poverty and they think some mysterious force is at play, just like how the primitive peoples assigned various gods to explain natural forces. Or they see some evil force. You look at Americans and see them as being somehow "other" than yourself, more greedy, less generous, consumptive, swallowing the world. A rising standard of living is the natural outcome of the free market. Your own country has learned this the hard way, after years of impoverishing their own people with their failed political theories. Now the cheapest resource on the planet is your own people's labor. I can understand why you resent this, but your anger should be directed at those who kept you poor, not those who will bring you up! These various anti-globalization moments simply strive to keep less developed nations at the same level of poverty they now exist in. This must seem OK for you since you have the luck and privilege to escape. Frankly, I find it rather selfish and inhuman to deny my own good fortune of living in a free market economy to others and I think most Americans would agree with me. This is why we have fairly liberal immigration policies and have dedicated ourselves to open trade agreements even at our own expense, even suffering those who rail against them with misplaced self-rightousness.