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Technology Stocks : Semi Equipment Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: FJB who wrote (49246)	9/5/2010 11:39:00 AM
From: Sam	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 95572

OT--general economic comment Well, first of all, the Bush41 recovery was weak in terms of job growth as well. Second, although the following is often true: "It was of course unique in severity as well, but the snap back should have been bigger," we have to look at the macro background rather than just apply cliches like "The worse the slump, the sharper the snapback." In this case, the real macro problem for the US is the constant draining of jobs to the developing nations which have both cheap labor and access to technology, especially China and Asia generally. Further, these developing nations have economies that are still more export driven than internally growing--they have been built to serve markets that are already developed (like the US), rather than build up their own internal markets. I met a guy yesterday who used to own his textile business. He survived NAFTA OK, but he couldn't compete against the Chinese, and now he barely pays his bills by maintaining a few vending machines in various places around town. It wasn't just him that was put out of business, of course, it was also all of his employees. And millions more like them. The Chinese have access to far more cheap labor than we have and they are now also graduating far more engineers than we graduate (and I wouldn't be surprised if they are graduating more MBAs as well, although that might actually be a plus for the economic fortunes of the US, we'll see<g>), which means that they have the intellectual capital to put all that cheap labor to work to produce both for us and for themselves. We are living on our savings and our access to debt right now, though, how long can that last? Have to go, will try to complete this comment later.