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

To: FJB who wrote (50935)	1/23/2011 6:36:26 PM
From: Sam	Respond to of 95520

OT--subsidies No one--least of all me--doubts that subsidies can be done badly. But you want to measure the effectiveness of the Chinese subsidies in terms of immediate profits, lol. Even if they reported profits--and some of them certainly have done so--I wouldn't necessarily trust them. It isn't that that is irrelevant, but it isn't the way their govt looks at that particular investment for sure. There are multiple motives, not just immediate profit. Look at what subsidies did to railroads in the 19th C--nearly all of them went bankrupt. But in the meantime, the railroad infrastructure got built, and the improved transportation helped many other industries thrive. It took years for airlines to turn profits, even with the govt paying for airports and giving them all sorts of business. Are you suggesting that the govt shouldn't have built the thousands of dams in the western US? An environmental case can be made against them, but the business case is pretty clear-cut, IMHO. Perhaps the govt shouldn't have been in the road building business? Again, a case can be made against it, especially by people who think that railroads should have been subsidized instead of autos, but it can't be doubted that the road building has led to plenty of private profits. Plenty of taxpayer money has gone to research in universities as well as some privately owned companies (private in the sense of not govt owned, not private in the sense of not listed on exchanges) that has proven to be fruitless, just as plenty has gone to research that produced profits. And plenty has gone to research that may not have directly produced profits, but has kept the academic research infrastructure alive and humming, to the ultimate profit of the country and its citizens. Our largest and best universities wouldn't be what they are if not for govt money. As China's green industry--there are reasons why their solar and wind sectors are driving others out of business. Some of those reasons have to do with low cost labor, and some of them have to do with the Chinese govt giving them low cost loans, directly or indirectly through Chinese banks. A couple of years ago when the solar sector was getting overbuilt, the word was that the govt ordered some companies to merge and others to fold to reduce capacity. And I don't mean to pick on China here alone, plenty of other countries have done the same. Where would Japan's tech industry be without MITI? You can argue if you want that government interference led to their real estate and financial bust of the early 90s, and the so-called "ten lost years," but the fact remains that they are still the 3rd largest economy in the world. We don't read about widespread suffering in Japan. Even if their growth rate dramatically slowed from what it was in the 70s and 80s, that was inevitable as they got larger. given their demographic situation and the fact that they don't encourage immigration. Samsung and Hynix wouldn't be the companies that they are today without Korean govt help in the 80s and 90s, and Hynix got bailed out again just a few years again by Korean banks, essentially on orders of the govt. Some people like to claim Singapore is a capitalist haven. LOL, what a joke. They are a benevolent dictatorship with elections, whose government continually interferes with the economy as well as the private lives of its citizens all the time. Of course you can point to failures. And you can point to successes. Like, duh. It is tough, though, to point to successful economies that have become successful without government aid and subsidies.