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

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (50576)	1/2/2011 11:56:31 PM
From: Sam	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 95572

The one labeled "A history of world GDP" (about the 10th graph) is fascinating. It shows that, for 18 of the last 20 centuries, China and India combined have produced 1/2 the world's GDP. The last 2 centuries are an outlier, a bizarre deviation....and we are in the process of returning to the LT norm. Our grandchildren are going to live in a world where the U.S. doesn't matter, and the center of the world (economically, politically, militarily, socially, culturally, in every way you can think of) is in Asia. That is a little scary, but, IMHO, the demographic numbers that, at least in part, has given India and China their economic clout will prove to be challenging in the coming century. They face water issues that will be very difficult for them to overcome. Northern China is already dry and the main rivers that flow through there are terrifically polluted. The Yellow River is in even worse shape than the Colorado in the US, and the latter is bad enough. As part of their solution to the water problem in northern China, the Chinese are talking about diverting the major tributary of the Brahmaputra River, one of the 5 major rivers that flow in India and Bangladesh, as well as damming the Mekong River, which feeds a good part of southeast Asia (the headwaters for both rivers are in the Tibetan Plateau). If they do this, it will be disastrous for everyone. If they don't do it, northern China will be in big trouble in a couple of decades, if not sooner. Desertification is already happening in Mongolia, and is spreading south and east. China is pushing as hard as they can for alternative energies because they see firsthand some of the consequences of climate change for their country, and it isn't good. Of course, resource depletion will hit everyone. But substitutes can be found for most things. Not so with water. If someone doesn't come up with a cheaper and more efficient method of desalinization, Asia will see an enormous amount of suffering in the coming decades. Even if they do, transporting water is expensive, and getting enough of it to China's cities and farms will be difficult.