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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: foundation who wrote (10554)	10/25/2006 9:16:20 AM
From: TobagoJack	Respond to of 218318

don't worry about it, macromonitor says the middle class cannot be destroyed ... presumably not because they have no savings, runs a deficit, is under-insured, lives in a house owned by the bank, requires to operate two point three cars, and is taxed at every turn also, their wallets leak, even what cash resides in the bank, via fiat inflation

To: foundation who wrote (10554)	10/25/2006 3:22:53 PM
From: critical_mass	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 218318

For what it's worth, I would like to put the Spiegel online in perspective. About twice per month a colleague will send a link such as this one to me as if I and other Americans have been caught unaware. The problem is that if you look at the magazine over several months, this particular writer has missed the idea that Europe is about 2-3 years behind the US, but certainly soon to ship many of its jobs to China in the same exact fashion. Perhaps the title should add "could the EU's middle class be heading the same way?" Let me highlight some interesting remarks. newcomers more concerned with preserving their guaranteed rights than with making the extraordinary effort necessary for success - did nothing to foster the kind of daring you see in the United States. Smackdown of eastern Germans that is another trademark of Der Spiegel. West Germans are fairly risk averse, IMHO and this remark is more than a little smug. Third, the United States is the only nation on earth that can do business globally in its own currency. Indeed, the dollar has established itself as the world's currency. AFAIK, the dollar did not promote itself, but rather the Bretton Woods agreement elevated the dollar to reserve currency. Whoever wants to own it has to purchase it in the United States. No comment necessary. They're going into the 21st century like a poverty-stricken, Third World family, living from hand to mouth without any financial reserves whatsoever. The statement is a bit dramatic. ;-) Housing bubble looks pretty dire to me and I would not want my assets overallocated in USD, but this writer ignores the notion that if everything implodes, the Ami's will stop buying German products. Seriously, there are a lot of Germans that have not made that connection. Some production sectors -- such as the furniture industry, consumer electronics, many automobile part suppliers, and now computer manufacturers -- have left the country for good. exactly as they have in Germany. Trade deficit numbers for the EU and China came out recently and surprise, surprise, the deficit was much higher this year than last. Schumer and Graham have been transformed into Mandelson and Ferrero-Waldner. If you read Der Spiegel long enough, you come to realize that the spin on everything is that things in Germany may be tough, but Germans are smarter, braver, thinner, healthier, more efficient, more moral, better informed and despite being better in every way than the Ami's, less nationalistic than they are. ;-) IMHO of course.

To: foundation who wrote (10554)	10/25/2006 10:30:39 PM
From: TobagoJack	Respond to of 218318

<<US and Globalization: Eating One's Young>> Europe also finds its young delicious :0) But, not to worry, Chindia will save the world ... be bullish :0)) ft.com For Alstom China train success comes at a price By Robert Wright Published: October 26 2006 03:00 \| Last updated: October 26 2006 03:00 When Patrick Kron, chief executive of Alstom, the French engineering group, signs a deal with the -Chinese ministry of railways to supply the country with 500 of the largest freight locomotives ever built, it will highlight the increasing importance of the world's most populous country for Europe's rail suppliers. The deal - which could be signed as soon as today - is thought likely to be China's biggest single rolling stock order with one of the big three rail equipment suppliers that dominate the world market. Mr Kron has told journalists the deal will be valued at more than €1bn ($1.26bn, £670m). Alstom is world number two in global rail equipment sales behind Bombardier Transportation, part of -Canada's Bombardier Group, and ahead of Germany's -Siemens. However, the deal will also highlight a more complicated and sensitive issue - China's insistence on technology transfer. Under the deal, Alstom will set up a joint venture with Datong Electric Locomotive, a -Chinese manufacturer, to -co-operate on the order. The Chinese partner is likely to have full access to the modern technology at the heart of the locomotives' design. It will also learn, in the course of the production run, how to manufacture the vehicles. While none will say so publicly, suppliers suspect that China will soon build far more rail vehicles without western help. There is also the possibility that China could start exporting railway equipment to the big three's core market in Europe. Chinese suppliers have started to show an interest in tenders to supply cut-price regional trains in some European markets, including the UK. "It's no secret that the Chinese market is an extremely interesting -market from the volumes point of view," says Drewin Nieuwenhuis, general manager of Unife, the European railway suppliers' association. "The issue always is the technology transfer. The Chinese are smart people, good negotiators and they always want the technology included." Under a typical deal, a western supplier will build the first few vehicles of a Chinese order itself, possibly in a European factory, then export the vehicles to China where they will be inspected by the Chinese manufacturer and used as a blueprint for future vehicles. The foreign partner then does less and less of the work over the construction run, with -vehicles exported in kit form for part of the run and -production sometimes moved entirely to China for the last few units. Large trainmakers have been involved in some high-profile deals of this kind. -Siemens agreed to share its technology under the agreement to build Shanghai's Transrapid magnetic levitation rail line to the city's airport which, with a top speed of 430km per hour, is the world's fastest regular passenger rail service. Bombardier braved protests from Tibetan independence activists to participate in the joint venture that built trains for a new rail line linking the Chinese heartland to Tibet. The trains had to be highly sophisticated to withstand mountain conditions on the route, the world's highest rail line. Yet, however unhappy they are at handing over such sensitive designs to China, most railway suppliers feel the market is too large to ignore - particularly since their rivals are likely to accept the terms. China is building large numbers of metros and -constructing long-distance high-speed lines that require the fast trains, which are among the European suppliers' flagship products. The country is also investing in regional passenger markets and improving its freight capabilities. Even though it will have to share the revenue from the freight locomotive deal, Mr Kron has said the agreement will be worth several hundred million euros to Alstom. The Chinese market is all the more significant because orders in the core European market are limited by constraints on the public budgets of eurozone countries. David Slack, communications director for China for Bombardier Transportation, says that, while Europe still accounts for 70 per cent of Bombardier's revenues, the Asia-Pacific is the fastest-growing region. Neil Harvey, a Bombardier executive, says the company agrees to the technology transfer because otherwise it would simply not win Chinese orders. "The short answer to why we do it is we wouldn't get the work if we didn't do it that way," he says. Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006