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

To: elmatador who wrote (67295)	10/17/2010 5:56:19 AM
From: Chas.	Respond to of 218860

Absolutely... Casino's are the start of the Great Slide into Decadence... omigod...what's next ??? Do they have Reality TV yet...??? or Dancing with the Stars...??? other sure signs of Moral Decadence and the beginning of the Slide... Chas

To: elmatador who wrote (67295)	10/17/2010 6:04:21 AM
From: average joe	Respond to of 218860

Forget mad dictators. The price of cabbage is what really worries Koreans Of cabbages and Kims Oct 7th 2010 \| seoul IN SEOUL, the South Korean government is staring nervously across the border, wondering about the succession under way in North Korea. The city is also preparing for a G20 summit in November. But the word on everyone’s lips is cabbage. The price of this humble vegetable, which forms the basis of kimchi, the Korean national dish, is soaring. Everyone from the president to the commonest crook and blogger is getting in on the act. It is hard to exaggerate the importance to Korean life of kimchi, which is usually made of fermented cabbage. Its presence at every meal, as well as its health benefits, give it an almost religious status. It is a national symbol, and the one food item that (in an entirely unscientific poll undertaken by The Economist) a majority of Koreans “cannot live without”. .It is unfortunate, then, that one head of cabbage can now cost over 11,000 won ($10), more than pork and up from 2,000-3,000 won a year ago (see chart). Kimchi is now being dubbed keum-chi, the first syllable being Korean for gold. Such is the clamour for the stuff that when the municipal authority of one rural town announced that it would sell cheap packets of cabbage in brine, its website was inundated with inquiries and crashed. Last week a group of men was arrested for trying to steal 400 cabbages in rural Gangwon province. A poor harvest brought on by bad weather was the original culprit, but with prices soaring, hoarding may also be responsible. Year-on-year inflation jumped from 2.6% to 3.6% between August and September, pushed up by cabbage’s new status as the Ferrari of vegetables. Annual cabbage-price inflation is now 400% in Seoul, say official statistics. Normally, Koreans serve home-grown kimchi as a matter of honour. But people are now looking abroad for their fix, sparking a debate about the suitability or otherwise of different countries’ cabbages. Many Koreans think Chinese-grown agricultural produce is unsafe, but they are having to swallow their pride about that. President Lee Myung-bak says he will be getting his personal stash from Western producers, earning him comparisons to Marie-Antoinette from South Korea’s numerous and critical bloggers. His administration has announced the temporary lifting of tariffs on imported cabbages, in advance of the traditional kimjang season, in which kimchi is prepared for the winter. The country has not yet seen rioting in the streets, as happened in Mexico’s tortilla crisis of 2007. Nor are trenchcoat-clad men whispering down dark alleys, “psst, want some cabbage?” However, Korea’s kimchi crisis is a worry, not just for cabbage-munchers but policymakers. Food-price inflation—as in much of the world—is a serious matter. Asia economist.com

To: elmatador who wrote (67295)	10/17/2010 8:27:18 AM
From: alpine_climber	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 218860

I disagree with your conclusion, for the following reasons: a) Taiwan has gained a permanent advantage in bringing electronic products such as IPad, IPhone, PCs, LCD TV, IPods to market far faster than anyone else can do in the world, beating the Japanese, Koreans, West in their process, design and logistics capabilities; and they operate under the radar of any American protectionist tendencies; b) China is no longer heavily dependent on US for export markets, as its stranglehold on exports to rest of Asia, Africa, Middle East and I guess, even Latam is no longer in dispute; c) China has forged close ties with SEAsian countries in investing directly in these markets, in property, factories, banks, and infrastructure projects; d) China has secured one of the most reliable, quality suppliers of raw materials in the world: Australia and NZ, as they can supply both minerals, food, and even energy cost effectively to China. Brazil is almost a cream on the cake at this stage; e) most importantly, China is growing its domestic market rapidly, retail, property, infrastructure, environment, power, pharma, services, banking, insurance etc etc all at the same time. China imho is not going to backslide, instead the real momentum has just started and most companies in the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchange (A shares) are still trading at a bargain. I feel it is an opportunity of a lifetime, as you are likely to gain from stock price as well as currency appreciation. An ETF launched in the US, PEK, a first time play on the A shares closed with a near 15% premium to NAV on first day of trading. Have you not seen Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore are all at new highs, some even all time highs? 2011 will, imho, be the year of China and SEAsia....of course, I am also thinking African markets will provide tough competition, but relative market cap and sophistication is a fraction of the above.