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Strategies & Market Trends : Asia Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Stitch who wrote (2620)	3/11/1998 9:16:00 PM
From: Ramsey Su	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9980

Stitch, Mohan and all, back from Beijing and noticed Mohan is trying to push DELL here also. Sorry, Mohan, I posted on DELL today hoping to flush out some of the more knowledgeable posters. Unfortunately, there are none on the DELL thread so I won't post there again. Regarding Beijing and China, I am very pessimistic. Overall, I think Zhu Rungji is a shoe in and his strategies are excellent. Cutting dn bureaucracy by 11 agencies is the stone that kills many birds. Aside from cutting costs, the government should be more efficient and the message should be clear to the remainder to start getting off their behinds. Further more, it is a step toward dealing with corruption, which by the way, is reportedly a lot worse than before. In the mean time, the problems are massive. Unemployment, known as "off duty" in China, is quite different than the US. There is an entire generation of ex-red guards around 40-50 years old who are practically unemployable. Civil service reform is expected to dump another 4 million workers. Privatization is expected to "off duty" 10+ million. This is especially significant because the unemployment was technically ZERO under communism. Walking through shopping centers, restaurants, tourist centers etc., the signs of recession are apparent. There weren't many lookers, not to mention actual shoppers or diners. The plan to use domestic infrastructure improvements to deal with the recession is sound. The question is feasibility. From an investor's perspective, I have counted China out as a big contributor to corporate earnings for the next few qtrs. Aside from the corrupt, the average consumer simply has no purchasing power. The family structure remains strong in China. Many of the unemployed are being supported indefinitely by employed relatives. I see more dn side risk from China than upside surprises for the next few qtrs. Specifically related to high tech stuff, I found no computer stores in Beijing during my walks. I asked the taxi drivers and was told that the stores are in the university district. Driving by the area, I also did not see any stores, only to find out later that they are all located on one street. Needless to say, I have no idea what hardware do they use in China, other than a few ASTs that I used to log on in the hotel that I stayed. ORCL's qtr rpt tomorrow should be the first indicator as to how Asia is doing in the immediate past. I was tempted to short ORCL today. Unfortunately, the SI ORCL thread is also one of the weakest, with no heavy analysis from bulls nor bears. Last qtr, ORCL said Asia went from 50% growth to almost negative. If this is the case for the current qtr, there is no chance that ORCL can meet estimates this qtr. Finally, Beijing was a lot of fun but probably not very "friendly" to the non-Chinese speaking tourist. The only English words in the best museum, the Chinese History Museum, were "W.C." Ramsey