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

To: TobagoJack who wrote (27123)	12/31/2007 10:49:05 AM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 217792

sustain economic growth, regardless of any weakness in the US. Even the FT has been persuaded. God must laughing! Infrastructure in emerging markets Published: December 30 2007 19:01 \| Last updated: December 30 2007 19:01 Like any good investment theme, the bull case for emerging market infrastructure is simple to spot, harder to actually pin down. The essence is as follows. Surging economic growth has led to higher investment in emerging markets’ infrastructure, with governments splashing out on everything from roads to power plants. This internal spending should help to sustain economic growth, regardless of any weakness in the US. Does it bear close scrutiny? Spending on infrastructure now makes a bigger contribution to economic output than external trade in many emerging markets. And there are lots of large numbers to throw around. Russia plans to spend $500bn on 20,000km of railways by 2030 – roughly two thirds of the total built during the Soviet period. Brazil is in the middle of a three-year, $250bn project to improve its infrastructure. Saudi Arabia wants to invest $1,000bn over the next 15 years. ELMAT: Does anyone listen to Elmat when he talks about scale? Politicians’ promises, however, tend not to provide the most solid foundation on which to invest. Grand plans can be curtailed, especially if tax receipts – often boosted by high commodity prices – weaken. Yet while oil revenues help, another factor behind the surge in investment has been cheaper financing. Average yields on emerging market sovereign bonds have fallen to record lows during the past two years. Even if this is not sustained, ELMAT: Now this for Elroy: the larger emerging markets have healthy balance sheets and do not need to borrow abroad for new projects. Infrastructure funds from the developed world may provide extra funding in the form of equity. In the short term, particularly given China’s pre-Olympics facelift, that should keep investment humming. Yet emerging markets still rely on the developed world’s consumers – particularly in the US – to buy their goods and justify fixed-asset expansion. Infrastructure is not developed in a vacuum. Ultimately, if less demand means less factories, then the roads and power-lines feeding them are also unlikely to be needed. ELMAT: Cement scarce in Southenr Africa and South Africa builds for World Cup 2010, then Brazil will build for World Cup 2010.

To: TobagoJack who wrote (27123)	12/31/2007 2:27:48 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217792

TJ, as usual, your reading talents are found wanting. Interesting is a different word from surprising. Such things do not surprise me. It surprises me when such things are NOT happening. When I wrote "It can't be so", I meant that I thought I would have heard of such a thing at some stage since it's such a significant thing. Some things are surprising, but political shenanigans and machinations are normal. For example, I was not in the slightest surprised that there were not WMDs in Iraq. The disbanded Office of Disinformation did not convince me that there were any significant such weapons. I try to avoid surprises, but surprises are hard to avoid. Happy New Year. I'm sure there will be surprises in store. Roll on 2008, Mqurice