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

To: Joe S Pack who wrote (64540)	6/3/2005 2:09:02 AM
From: energyplay	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

Hi Joe - Those GDP figures are 'corrected' for PPP Purchasing Power Parity. This is useful for comparing domestic CONSUMER experiences, as it factors out exchange rate and other external financial effects. en.wikipedia.org However, when a purchasing agent for a factory in China goes to Chile to buy a metric ton of copper, he doesn't get a PPP discount.... Same issue when China or Japan or the US wants to buy oil sands in Canada - they all get to pay in $CDN. 2004 estimates for GDP - From US Department of Energy US 11.0 Trillion Japan 4.8 T Germany 2.4 T UK 2.12 T France 2.01 T China 1.56 T Canada 0.96 T South Korea 0.83 T Taiwan 0.23 T If you are selling medium to low priced consumer electronics, clothing, etc. the PPP numbers are a useful metric. For more expensive items, such as cars, which use lots of imported ores, metals, etc. the non-corrected numbers are a better guide. ******** The rest of your points are valid.... However, to some degree, this is one of those "Japan will take over the World" articles, a follow on to "EU to take over the world" "Russia to take over the world" I'm sure the IEEE has recomendations on how to deal with this "threat" - might involve more money for universities and R&D, maybe ? Funny, the financial magazines seem to focus on investing OPPORTUNITIES in China.... Maybe J6P should buy some PetroChina, like Warren Buffet. ******** The high proportion of engineers can be a strenght and a weakness. Fujitsu is a great example of very strong engineering company with a marketing void. The US Baby Bells were so bad at marketing the joke was they would try to sell sushi as "Cold, Dead Fish"