Wouldn't it be cool if they could leap technologies too - picture a boom and cheapening in world wide sustainable agriculture and cheaper sources of energy with more efficient products to utilize it with.
from NY Times
Corporate executives from cities across China said in interviews last week at the Canton Fair in Guangzhou and the Global Sources consumer electronics show in Hong Kong that while layoffs were rising, joblessness did not yet appear to be a serious problem.
Many laid-off migrant workers in export-reliant regions like Guangdong province, next to Hong Kong, have returned to their home villages, because high food prices have made farming more remunerative. Others are finding jobs in inland cities that depend more on consumer demand within China.
Workers are not yet lining up outside factory gates in search of work, as they did a decade ago. But they are nonetheless becoming easier to find and hire, said Bill Chen, a sales manager at the Tinly Jieyang Electro-Acoustic Devices Company, which makes automotive stereo speakers in Shenzhen that recently halved its work force to 100 employees.
* * *
With less to fear from rising prices, China’s central bank has already begun reducing regulated interest rates and loosening restrictions on bank lending, even though these steps could result in an expansion of the money supply and an increase in inflationary pressures. With the government running a large budget surplus, the finance ministry has begun lowering taxes on stock market transactions.
“We expect the Chinese government to continue to loosen policies on the back of fast-slowing activity growth and dissipating inflationary pressures,” said Hong Liang, an economist in the Beijing office of Goldman Sachs, in a research note late Monday morning.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Buy American by Warren Buffet
re-posted from NY Times
Op-Ed Contributor
Buy American. I Am.
By WARREN E. BUFFETT
Published: October 16, 2008
Omaha
THE financial world is a mess, both in the United States and abroad. Its problems, moreover, have been leaking into the general economy, and the leaks are now turning into a gusher. In the near term, unemployment will rise, business activity will falter and headlines will continue to be scary.
So ... I’ve been buying American stocks. This is my personal account I’m talking about, in which I previously owned nothing but United States government bonds. (This description leaves aside my Berkshire Hathaway holdings, which are all committed to philanthropy.) If prices keep looking attractive, my non-Berkshire net worth will soon be 100 percent in United States equities.
Why?
A simple rule dictates my buying: Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful...
* * *
Let me be clear on one point: I can’t predict the short-term movements of the stock market. I haven’t the faintest idea as to whether stocks will be higher or lower a month — or a year — from now. What is likely, however, is that the market will move higher, perhaps substantially so, well before either sentiment or the economy turns up. So if you wait for the robins, spring will be over.
A little history here: During the Depression, the Dow hit its low, 41, on July 8, 1932. Economic conditions, though, kept deteriorating until Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in March 1933. By that time, the market had already advanced 30 percent. Or think back to the early days of World War II, when things were going badly for the United States in Europe and the Pacific. The market hit bottom in April 1942, well before Allied fortunes turned. Again, in the early 1980s, the time to buy stocks was when inflation raged and the economy was in the tank. In short, bad news is an investor’s best friend. It lets you buy a slice of America’s future at a marked-down price.
Over the long term, the stock market news will be good. In the 20th century, the United States endured two world wars and other traumatic and expensive military conflicts; the Depression; a dozen or so recessions and financial panics; oil shocks; a flu epidemic; and the resignation of a disgraced president. Yet the Dow rose from 66 to 11,497.
* * *
Equities will almost certainly outperform cash over the next decade, probably by a substantial degree. Those investors who cling now to cash are betting they can efficiently time their move away from it later. In waiting for the comfort of good news, they are ignoring Wayne Gretzky’s advice: “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been.”
I don’t like to opine on the stock market, and again I emphasize that I have no idea what the market will do in the short term. Nevertheless, I’ll follow the lead of a restaurant that opened in an empty bank building and then advertised: “Put your mouth where your money was.” Today my money and my mouth both say equities.
Warren E. Buffett is the chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, a diversified holding company.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Where Media Chafes
Where's the people saying the things that need to be said!
Where other than the margins!@*!
Why isn't anyone saying we should save our domestic oil resources for when our great-grandchildren might desperately need them?
How long have we known that the pharmaceutical, oil, and energy companies have been making hand over fist? and meanwhile, how many lives have been ruined by medical costs, urban pollution, and high heating/utilities costs?
Why can't science figure out a way to make dogs and cats get along together?
Why doesn't the whole nation collectively bargain to make it cheap to get a massage every week? Okay, maybe the whole State then?
Is farming really so bad that practically nobody wants to do it on a large scale other than Monsanto ilk?
Can't we teach students to spot bullshit politicians when they see them? like - "stranger, stranger"?
Why aren't the gas companies taking the Carbon out of the fuel, and using it in conjunction with green growing things to make oxygen and biofuels and leaving our cars with something cleaner to burn?
Why can't we just build a national electric car to be used by the Postal Service that anyone can buy for a minimal monthly payment with guaranteed functionality or replacement?
Do we really need all those fucking street lights everywhere? Crimeny! Have you ever flown at night? It's so damn pretty it blinds you even a quarter mile up! Can't we, I don't know, save some energy by turning the lights out? Or should we just rename the whole country "Las Vegas" or "Afraid of the Dark to the Tune of Trillions of light bulbs"?
Weren't victory gardens a great idea? And since most of the things the government declares "war" on these days - terrorism, drugs, poverty, etc. - since most of them are more like ideas than actual "things" you could make "war" on and then make them go away through your careful or feverish application of force, shouldn't we be looking at our society systematically and calling everything that has negative impacts into question? You know, like what real reform is supposed to be like? Not topical or shallow finger wagging, but regime change, paradigm change, or at the very least some kind of aggressive transparency campaign through Washingtoon.
Who decided that we need only 3 or 4 hours of Presidential Debates with only 2 candidates?
Why aren't either of the two talking about voting reform including instant run-off voting, barometer vital statistics like infant and mother mortality rates or the number of incarcerated citizens, setting records straight in regard to US domestic and foreign economic policies and partial (and temporary) usurpation of government by the industrial, financial, and political elites?
Did anyone ever get held accountable for all the crazy shit that has happened in the last 10 years? 20? 50?
Does anyone realize that the missle defense network we're setting up in key areas around the world could start another arms race with many more nuclear powers on the globe?
Didn't Dick Cheney redraw the electoral district maps in Texas personally? Meanwhile, does anyone on this planet actually trust Dick Cheney?
Shouldn't we do something like, about that, or redraw that map?
Hello?
With kids getting bigger and less healthy, isn't that kind of an emergency, and shouldn't we do something about that right now - like maybe legislate the nutritional content per dollar requirements of commercial food manufacturers?
If there aren't as many jobs and not much economic prosperity, and even though it will cause some challenges to arise here and there, shouldn't we be able to wisely reduce our economy, at home and at work, to best maintain our lifestyle and reflect our values?
Isn't it obvious that the Non-Governmental Organizations that have risen through popular grassroots support are pretty much in the lead when it comes to setting an example to the rest of us for what our goals as a human species should be?
Since the U.S. Auto Industry - regardless of who's "fault" it may have or have not been - summarily fell into top heavy failure via stagnant technologies and fell far astray of top-line thinking, shouldn't there be some kind of change in leadership or re-organization?
Shouldn't we be listening to the auto workers more, like we should listen to the teacher more, the journalist more, children more, history more, science, the triumphs and methods of other places with other cultures... more than we hear now?
Why shouldn't we do these things?
Why aren't they already happening?
Where do we go if we can't see where we are?
Did anyone in the history of the world ever imagine a place as large, diverse, and complex as the social, political, and economic landscape that we're inundated with every day as reward for waking up and getting out of bed? This place we're a part of? This place we belong to? Or should belong to.
Where other than the margins!@*!
Why isn't anyone saying we should save our domestic oil resources for when our great-grandchildren might desperately need them?
How long have we known that the pharmaceutical, oil, and energy companies have been making hand over fist? and meanwhile, how many lives have been ruined by medical costs, urban pollution, and high heating/utilities costs?
Why can't science figure out a way to make dogs and cats get along together?
Why doesn't the whole nation collectively bargain to make it cheap to get a massage every week? Okay, maybe the whole State then?
Is farming really so bad that practically nobody wants to do it on a large scale other than Monsanto ilk?
Can't we teach students to spot bullshit politicians when they see them? like - "stranger, stranger"?
Why aren't the gas companies taking the Carbon out of the fuel, and using it in conjunction with green growing things to make oxygen and biofuels and leaving our cars with something cleaner to burn?
Why can't we just build a national electric car to be used by the Postal Service that anyone can buy for a minimal monthly payment with guaranteed functionality or replacement?
Do we really need all those fucking street lights everywhere? Crimeny! Have you ever flown at night? It's so damn pretty it blinds you even a quarter mile up! Can't we, I don't know, save some energy by turning the lights out? Or should we just rename the whole country "Las Vegas" or "Afraid of the Dark to the Tune of Trillions of light bulbs"?
Weren't victory gardens a great idea? And since most of the things the government declares "war" on these days - terrorism, drugs, poverty, etc. - since most of them are more like ideas than actual "things" you could make "war" on and then make them go away through your careful or feverish application of force, shouldn't we be looking at our society systematically and calling everything that has negative impacts into question? You know, like what real reform is supposed to be like? Not topical or shallow finger wagging, but regime change, paradigm change, or at the very least some kind of aggressive transparency campaign through Washingtoon.
Who decided that we need only 3 or 4 hours of Presidential Debates with only 2 candidates?
Why aren't either of the two talking about voting reform including instant run-off voting, barometer vital statistics like infant and mother mortality rates or the number of incarcerated citizens, setting records straight in regard to US domestic and foreign economic policies and partial (and temporary) usurpation of government by the industrial, financial, and political elites?
Did anyone ever get held accountable for all the crazy shit that has happened in the last 10 years? 20? 50?
Does anyone realize that the missle defense network we're setting up in key areas around the world could start another arms race with many more nuclear powers on the globe?
Didn't Dick Cheney redraw the electoral district maps in Texas personally? Meanwhile, does anyone on this planet actually trust Dick Cheney?
Shouldn't we do something like, about that, or redraw that map?
Hello?
With kids getting bigger and less healthy, isn't that kind of an emergency, and shouldn't we do something about that right now - like maybe legislate the nutritional content per dollar requirements of commercial food manufacturers?
If there aren't as many jobs and not much economic prosperity, and even though it will cause some challenges to arise here and there, shouldn't we be able to wisely reduce our economy, at home and at work, to best maintain our lifestyle and reflect our values?
Isn't it obvious that the Non-Governmental Organizations that have risen through popular grassroots support are pretty much in the lead when it comes to setting an example to the rest of us for what our goals as a human species should be?
Since the U.S. Auto Industry - regardless of who's "fault" it may have or have not been - summarily fell into top heavy failure via stagnant technologies and fell far astray of top-line thinking, shouldn't there be some kind of change in leadership or re-organization?
Shouldn't we be listening to the auto workers more, like we should listen to the teacher more, the journalist more, children more, history more, science, the triumphs and methods of other places with other cultures... more than we hear now?
Why shouldn't we do these things?
Why aren't they already happening?
Where do we go if we can't see where we are?
Did anyone in the history of the world ever imagine a place as large, diverse, and complex as the social, political, and economic landscape that we're inundated with every day as reward for waking up and getting out of bed? This place we're a part of? This place we belong to? Or should belong to.
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