Perspectives on the global economic meltdown- (Nov 28 2010)

[shyam]

Nair-saar... I didn't know about this story. Thanks for posting, even if that was OT.

[Theo_Fidel]

Hnair,

Yes that particular episode still rankles around here. Esp. the real reason Vaikuntathar was taken out, namely his support for women wearing upper clothes. Yes, this was a controversy at one time.

[RamaY]

Last OT from me. Travancore kingdom was always different. Don't equate it to other monarchies.

Lets not get too sentimental how ever. Their treatment of lower communities was particularly reprehensible. Present generation of royals like to pretend these things did not happen. One reason Kanya Kumari & their original capital Padmanabhapuram is now in TN. Around here, it is good riddance. We thank the creation of India in its present form every day. Some of that wealth was undoubtedly taken from here, a deeply impoverished place back then. Belongs to more than the temple IMO.

Could you please say the same w.r.t Hindus under Muslim rule and all nizam wealth must belong to telangana Hindus? And same in all other places where Muslims robbed local Hindu populations?

Same goes with various Christian real estates around india. They were given during the colonial rule of British and French

To get a good picture of whether if the Padmanabhaswamy temple (or any other temple wealth) was a loot, one should better read the tax systems under Hindu kingdoms.

[Neshant]

The articles on the temple gold is in the general forum under the history thread.

Allright back on topic. Speaking of thieves in the temple :

------
Euro zone warns Greeks on sovereignty and privatization

BRUSSELS/BERLIN (Reuters) - Euro zone finance ministers have approved a 12 billion euro ($17.4 billion) installment of Greece's bailout, but signaled that the nation must expect significant losses of sovereignty and jobs.

Ministers in the Eurogroup gave the go-ahead for the fifth tranche of Greece's 110-billion-euro financial rescue agreed last year, and said details of a second aid package for Athens would be finalized by mid-September.

But within hours of Saturday's decision, Eurogroup chairman Jean-Claude Juncker warned Greeks that help from the EU and International Monetary Fund would have unpleasant consequences.

"The sovereignty of Greece will be massively limited," he told Germany's Focus magazine in the interview released on Sunday, adding that teams of experts (expert crooks probably) from around the euro zone would be heading to Athens.

http://beta.news.yahoo.com/euro-zone-wa ... 37361.html

[Neshant]

this is where banking & financing will ultimately get an economy

-------------
Selling gold teeth to make ends meet in Greece
By Daniel Flynn and Renee Maltezou

ATHENS | Thu Jun 30, 2011 3:37pm BST

ATHENS (Reuters) - A smartly dressed woman waits as a young man behind a glass screen weighs her gold earrings, bracelets and rings and counts out 1,600 euros (1,446 pounds). "I'll see you again soon," she says, slipping the bills into her purse. Behind her, a grey-haired man shuffles towards the counter. "Do you buy gold teeth?" he asks. In the Greek capital, gold is marking a divide between the "haves" and a growing number of "have nots."

Shops like this one have mushroomed in downtown Athens and are doing a brisk business. They offer cash for gold by weight and sell it to foundries.
Many ordinary Greeks who prospered after the Mediterranean country entered the euro a decade ago are now being forced to sell their family treasures just to make ends meet.

With the worst recession since the 1970s grinding into its third year, fresh belt-tightening measures to appease international lenders are driving many middle-class Greeks to desperation.

full-
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/06/3 ... QO20110630

[shyam]

Crisis of Capitalism in animated form. They talk more about India for losing jobs instead of China.

[Singha]

yes its the irony that a american whose everything is made in china or mehico or central america - starting from shoes going through undies , his ipod upto to his baseball cap, draws himself to full height and *demands* that the indic customer service rep who answers his call to complain about his china-made stuff not working speak to him in perfect american accented english

no different from the spit and polish seen in Pak cantonments and Kayani saar walking with that cane, while drones pound pak-e-rear 24x7 with impunity.

[Muppalla]

^^^
I just say one word and I love to repeat. Americans are intellectually dishonest with respect to India, Indian origin folks. Period. You will only understand the enorimity of this situation if you happen to work on US government contracts. Working for commercial sector will not really help you to understand completely as one in four is an Indian origin person.

[Neshant]

Resources aside (which i'm sure the euro thieves are after in Libya), I wonder if the gold dinar was one of many reasons for the invasion. Gadaffi was promoting intra-African trade with a gold dinar rather than euro-dollar fiat.

The Libyan central bank had an unusually large amount of gold relative to its population size. It makes me wonder if Libya might have been preparing to reduce its dependance on foreign fiat and transition at least partly to a gold backed something.

If there's one thing that euro/US do not like, its countries not accepting their fiat paper in exchange for goods & services. Good numbers of hardworking and enslaved suckers are going to be needed from the third world to offload fiat paper on in the years ahead if western countries are to recover their finances.

[Neshant]

Get your money out of the US and out of reach of government asap. Do it while you still can.

The useless middleman economy known as banking & financing led by the Federal Reserve is looking to rip working people/savers off by transferring their losses onto your back. These con artists need to be shut down as they lead a parasitic existance on productive society and the parasite is beginning to kill the host.

----
Get Ready To Be Financially Conscripted
Arnold Bock

A new financial policy initiative known by the label "Financial Repression" may soon become our worst nightmare. 'Repression' rhymes with 'depression' which could be what we have to look forward to as rampant price inflation and permanently lower living standards take hold. Get ready to be conscripted into a citizen army assembled for the greater cause of saving the nation from being swamped by a tsunami of debt. Let me explain.

What is Financial Repression?

Financial Repression is a policy cocktail comprised of large doses of monetary inflation, commonly known as money creation far in excess of the growth in the economy, coupled with interest rates that are below the real rate of inflation. While that may not sound particularly scary, the policy is designed to cause asset and price inflation which is reflective of, and caused by, a devaluing dollar. A much lower standard of living is the inevitable outcome.

What's the Purpose of Financial Repression?

The purpose of Financial Repression is to allow the US federal government to cope with its overwhelming accumulated debt and unfunded promises for future Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and employee pensions. It also prevents a proud nation from having to 'restructure' its debt as run-of-the-mill dead beat nations periodically are forced to do. Insolvency is just plain un-American for the world's largest economy, the only remaining super power and the owner of the world's reserve currency. To declare the equivalent of a private sector bankruptcy is just not in the cards.

In order to make Financial Repression work, the FED needs to keep a cap on nominal interest rates preferably at four percentage points below the real rate of price inflation. Aside from the highly negative impact of decimating the nest eggs of citizen-savers, it has the beneficial effect of inflating away debilitating, pesky and otherwise unmanageable financial obligations of the federal government.

Will Financial Repression Work?

A four percent interest rate below the real rate of inflation, compounded over ten years, reduces in half the 'real' value of payments to the government's debt holders and entitlement recipients. Imagine what it does to the purchasing power of social security payments. Everyone gets the number of dollars promised, but they just don't buy as much. Magical, isn't it, especially if citizens think they are getting richer because their pay checks rise and their houses start to increase in price, thanks to inflation.

In the absence of large foreign buyers of US government debt, we the citizens will be conscripted to fill the gap, all for the greater good of the nation's future. A captive audience of citizen-savers and investors are expected to be a compliant army of civic minded patriots herded into the role of federal bond buyers in order to save the nation for future generations of Americans. Of course we will be assisted by the FED with a rejuvenated and renamed QE3 program...designed to drive dollar devaluation and inflation.

How Will Financial Repression Work?

So how will this new and improved effort at national financial rejuvenation and restoration scheme work? A fixed percentage of all pools of capital - including savings, investments, pension and retirement funds of individuals and institutions - will be mandated to own Treasury bonds as a part of their savings and investment portfolios.

Will Financial Repression Be Voluntary?

As with all conscriptions involving a national crisis, this one will be anything but voluntary. Your personal 401k and IRA are likely to be conscripted to become part of this greater good. Bank assets, insurance company investments, university and other public institution endowments, pension funds and virtually all pools of money will be forced to join the cause of the greater good for America's future.

How Can Financial Repression Be Avoided?

You could decide now to place some of your money in more friendly investments than US federal government bonds. Bill Gross, head of the nation's largest bond fund, took exactly this decision a few months ago by unloading all of Pimco's US government bonds. However, it is entirely probable that Pimco will find itself owning US Treasury paper once again.

If you decide to transfer some of your cash outside the country you should do it soon simply because 'Capital Controls' restricting the movement of money outside the US are likely to become increasingly problematic. Rules are already in place to restrict money laundering derived from illicit drugs or the movement of money which facilitates terrorism. Expect more restrictions under the guise of fighting drugs and terror when, in fact, it is designed to ensure there is a large and captive market for increasingly unmarketable Treasury debt.

When Will Financial Repression Begin?

When does this process get underway? As soon as possible, but given the inclination of politicians to present purely positive pictures prior to elections, one could reasonably conclude that it will not be implemented, or talked about publicly, until after the November 2012 election. Political leadership on this issue will remain invisible until electoral risk subsides or until there is absolutely no alternative to a rapidly burgeoning debt crisis.

What Will Cause Financial Repression to Commence?

Financial Repression will be imposed upon us when normal market demand for the massively growing quantities of US Treasury debt dries up. China, the biggest foreign customer for US government bonds, is developing a bad case of cold feet when it considers US Treasury bond 'investments'. Instead they are mopping up the world's natural resources from their pot of surplus dollars derived from burgeoning manufactured exports. The Japanese now need to cash in their Treasury debt to pay for tsunami damage, essentially dropping them to bit player status in the bond market. The Saudis and other mid-east oil Sheikdoms need their US petrodollars to buy protection and to insulate themselves from the unsettling consequences of the 'Arab Spring.'

Why Financial Repression is Coming - to YOU

If foreign buyers with the deepest pockets are deserting the regular Treasury auction of bonds, notes and bills, who is available to pick up the slack? The existing official debt is $14.3 Trillion and the current year fiscal deficit is projected to add another $1.7 Trillion. Since much of the 'old' debt continues to mature, it too must find new purchasers.

These troubling realities leave US domestic buyers to do the heavy lifting of buying US government debt. Who might these US domestic buyers be? Think FED and its $100 Billion of magical digital dollars per month, or $600 Billion in total, over the past six months under the guise of Quantitative Easing, commonly known as QE2. While difficult to confirm, it would appear that the FED has bought approximately 70 percent of the debt during this period. What about the period immediately ahead now that the FED says it will stop the QE2 program?

Why Financial Repression is Unavoidable

US sovereign debt is VERY serious. It currently stands at $14 Trillion - the allowable ceiling. Moreover, the federal government is presently running an annual deficit of $1.7 Trillion with deficits of similar dimensions projected into future years. As such, Congress is now playing political games for voter consumption which will lead inevitably to raising this debt head room by a further $2 Trillion, thereby allowing current politicians to get re-elected in November 2012. Given the fact that 42 cents of every dollar spent by the federal government is borrowed money, not tax dollars, the debt ceiling is going to have to be lifted, year after year, by Billions of additional dollars.

That is not the worst of it, however. Projected future deficits are even more overwhelming in that promises to citizens for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other obligations for other services are mind numbing in scale. The worst part is that these promises are dramatically underfunded. Depending on whose numbers are used, what assumptions are made about future economic growth, inflation, rates of interest and similar considerations, unfunded future liabilities range from $60 Trillion to over $100 Trillion. Obviously, growth of the economy and massive tax increases are totally incapable of meeting the debt challenge.

What Can We Expect to Unfold in Years to Come?

Citizen taxpayers and benefit recipients should expect more and higher deficits forcing an ever growing mountain of debt. Current fifty year low interest rates are guaranteed to rise which will make servicing the humongous debt an insurmountable challenge. So what is going to happen?

The U.S. could declare "Banana Republic" style insolvency and embark upon debt restructuring, but that would be the 'easy' route out of the debt morass. The US is the world's largest economy, the only remaining super power and owns the world's reserve currency. Alpha nations like the US don't declare the public sector equivalent of a private bankruptcy.

Instead, the US and other first world economies that are reaching similar zombie debt status, will adopt brutally tough austerity measures starting with painful reductions in social security and health care benefits. Tax increases should be expected too, as well as ever more digital dollar printing.

The end result of Financial Repression will be rampant price inflation and permanently lower living standards. Get ready to be conscripted into a citizen army assembled for the greater cause of saving the nation from being swamped by a tsunami of debt.

[Neshant]

oh boy!

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Greece finds no buyers in ‘fire sale’ of national assets, Civil Unrest Spreading
Guardian UK

While Greece erupted in protest again yesterday, representatives of the country’s government were at Claridge’s hotel trying to drum up international investors’ interest in a “fire sale” of its national assets.

Up for sale are 39 airports, 850 ports, railways, motorways, sewage works, a couple of energy companies, banks, defence groups, thousands of acres of land for development, casinos and Greece’s national lottery. George Christodoulakis, Greece’s special secretary for asset restructuring and privatisations, said the sell-off would raise €50bn (£44bn) to help pay back the country’s

Aref Lahham, managing director and founding partner of Orion Capital Managers, said most private equity firms would not buy Greek assets because the "risks are too high". He added: "I think people will not buy those assets, that is the sad truth."

Lahham said more than half of the assets up for sale comprises land for commercial or residential development, which is unattractive because of the difficulty of securing financing to build in Greece.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011 ... le-shunned

[rags]

Aah..any good haggler would know that the first statement you make to try and subdue the seller is,
"Maal is not good"

If the Govt expects 50 bil, the vultures will circle until this expectation is beaten down. The fact that such a firesale will lead to displacement of local industries by providing "market access" is as old as the East India trading company and the same will be downplayed by the buyers.

The last statement in this game will always be "Chalo, I will grant you 10 billion or some such"

In other news, Roubini tries another round of prophecy where he specifically points to increased adeptness globally in "kicking the can down the road"

http://www.cnbc.com/id/43659234

[Airavat]

Italy's €48 billion 3-year austerity budget gains approval

Tremonti told reporters that the most “radical and revolutionary change regards costs of the political and administrative apparatus” and that they will have to fall within European standards. The number of official cars will be limited to 1,600, from tens of thousands now.

The austerity cuts aim to bring the budget deficit of 3.9 percent to a near balance by 2014.

[Hari Seldon]

Eurostan is phukked only. Watch the slow motion unraveling happen. Not good for the global economy, of course but tyhe losses wo;t be evenly shared by the rest of the world. The export powerhouses in asia will suffer but it seems unkil will lose too as trans-atlantic trade is still the big gorilla in value terms.

[Neshant]

one wonders what really gives these european economies their high value.

maybe there are a few high tech companies here and there. but all the rest just looks like run of the mill companies doing stuff at a higher price than what would be done in the east.

A good deal of the economy must be over-priced valuations with debt masquerading as wealth. Kind of like Greece where in 2007 their state companies might have been valued at X and now its valued at X/4 where the wealth evaporates like mist in the spring.

[devesh]

^^^
Neshant ji,

that happened also in Spain and Ireland. even in US, the same thing is being played out over several years. of course, US is also adding in QE, and all other global stuff into the mixture making the entire scene even more complicated and difficult to predict with certainty. by increasing the "uncertainty" of the timing and/or place of financial earthquakes, the "certainty" of another financial earthquake has gone up simply b/c there are so many dominoes now, that any one of them can endanger a bunch of others.

[Neshant]

devesh-ji,

Its downright scary what's going on and how little everyone knows about it. Trillions of dollars are appearing out of nowhere, doing rounds and dissolving without a trace of having existed. Can't help but feel this thing does not have long before it blows up from under everyone's lungis.

So keep your lungi well knotted.

[Neshant]

Italy's debt needs surge as costs rise to euro-era record

London: In sovereign borrowing, as in comedy, timing is everything, and Italy's timing is terrible.

The nation needs to refinance 26 per cent of Eur-ope's second-biggest debt burden just as wrangling over Greece's next rescue sends borrowing costs to euro-era records. The extra yield as investors demand to hold 10-year Italian bonds relative to German bunds rose 15 basis points yesterday to 214, approaching the high of 223 set on June 27.

"Italy has a lot of positives going for it, but foreign buyers are going to be cautious while there's contagion risk," said Steven Major, global head of fixed-income research at HSBC Holdings in London. "Italy needs Greece to be sorted as it and all the other euro-region countries don't need the contagion."

Investor confidence in Italian bonds waned the past two months as Standard & Poor's and Moody's Investors Service said they may cut the country's credit rating because slow economic growth will make it tough to curb debt. Italy's 10-year bond yield topped 5 per cent last week for the first time since November 2008, leaving Italy with rising financing costs as it faces a surge in bond redemptions.

http://gulfnews.com/business/economy/it ... d-1.834438

[Neshant]

Its worth watching



"The AMERICAN DREAM is a 30 minute animated film that shows you how you've been scammed by the most basic elements of our government system - the monetary system"

[SwamyG]

Get your money out of the US and out of reach of government asap. Do it while you still can.

The useless middleman economy known as banking & financing led by the Federal Reserve is looking to rip working people/savers off by transferring their losses onto your back. These con artists need to be shut down as they lead a parasitic existance on productive society and the parasite is beginning to kill the host.

My mom used to worry about all this in her own way - call it women's survival or preservation abilities. She does not understand economics nor she knows global politics. However, she used to pester me to buy real-estate in India and move some money to India. I would ask "Why?". She would answer "who know what will happen, what if somebody says you cannot move your money back to India". I would answer "in order for that to happen, a whole lot of things have to become bad in this World". She would whine about how I don't listen to her or elders. So there is a slim chance of her uneducated/uninformed fears to transpire.

Listen to your amma folks. Mata, pita, guru* and daivam onlee.

* - in these case, MBA professors & other economic gurus.

[ramana]

Neshant, Soon after 2008 meltdown Spinster/Umrao Jaan/John Snow wrote a series of steps that will happen by 2016. One of the big one was what you call Repression.

I dont know if any one saved that?

[SwamyG]

1)recession 2)contraction 3)stagflation and 4)Hyper inflation.
On Feb 05 2009, he observed 1 and 2 were happening.

Recession --> Deflation --> Pump Fiat Money --> Stagflation -->Hyper inflation
On May 25 2009, he said we were in between 2 and 3.

[VikramS]

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/am ... -agencies/

Mr. Pritchard on the backlash at the rating agencies. ECB is now saying that ratings do not matter and they will allow anything to be used as collateral.

[Neshant]

Neshant, Soon after 2008 meltdown Spinster/Umrao Jaan/John Snow wrote a series of steps that will happen by 2016. One of the big one was what you call Repression.

I dont know if any one saved that?

I must have missed it.

[UBanerjee]

Building Boom in China Stirs Fears of Debt Overload

In the last few years, cities’ efforts have helped government infrastructure and real estate spending surpass foreign trade as the biggest contributor to China’s growth. Subways and skyscrapers, in other words, are replacing exports of furniture and iPhones as the symbols of this nation’s prowess.

But there are growing signs that China’s long-running economic boom could be undermined by these building binges, which are financed through heavy borrowing by local governments and clever accounting that masks the true size of the debt.

The danger, experts say, is that China’s municipal governments could already be sitting on huge mountains of hidden debt — a lurking liability that threatens to stunt the nation’s economic growth for years or even decades to come. Just last week China’s national auditor, who reports to the cabinet, warned of the perils of local government borrowing. And on Tuesday the Beijing office of Moody’s Investors Service issued a report saying the national auditor might have understated Chinese banks’ actual risks from loans to local governments.

As municipal projects play out across China, spending on so-called fixed-asset investment — a crucial measure of building that is heavily weighted toward government and real estate projects — is now equal to nearly 70 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. It is a ratio that no other large nation has approached in modern times.

Even Japan, at the peak of its building boom in the 1980s, reached only about 35 percent, and the figure has hovered around 20 percent for decades in the United States.

China’s high number helps explain its meteoric material rise. But it could also signal a dangerous dependence on government infrastructure spending.

And the zinger:

Adding to the risk, the collateral for many loans is local land valued at lofty prices that could collapse if China’s real estate bubble burst. Wuhan’s land prices have tripled in the last decade.

[abhischekcc]

There is another factor why China's lofty land prices are absolutely essential for the stability of the Chinese economy.

First thing - most of the much vaunted 'high savings rate' of China comes is made of taxation.
Second thing - much of the taxation comes from the taxing land transactions.
Third thing - local and Chinese givernments need high valuations as well as high number of transactions to maintain high income from taxation.

This leads to an interesting conundrum, first noted by Andy Xie, many years before he was fired by Morgan Stanley - that there is a virtuous cycle high land valuations lead to high tax income, leads to more investment for development, leads to higher land valuations. He also noted that on a downside, this virtuous cycle will immediately become a vicious cycle, and money will dry up faster than rainwater in Sahara. - This is the reason that the CCPjust cannot let land valuations fall - it will cause a collapse of the China model of development.

PS - that is also the reason why such a large proportion of the investment goes into RE - keeping valuations high.

[girish.r]

Its worth watching



"The AMERICAN DREAM is a 30 minute animated film that shows you how you've been scammed by the most basic elements of our government system - the monetary system"

Whoaaa......

Thats a very nice clip. Thanks!

[ramana]

SwamyG, Thanks. You got it. Even he was looking for it.

http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 32#p616232

I had earlier said the cycle of contraction, injection, stagflation, hyper inflation ...

Meanwhile US jobs report for June:

Yahoo Finance:

The Ugly, Ugly and Ugly

[Neshant]

Europe wants to censor US rating agencies with regulatioin because they don't like the bad rating they are given. The bad karma they have incured looting poor Africans through colonialism and financial con games have come back to haunt them.

They now want to setup their own rating agency and give themselves a good credit rating. But who is going to trust such a rating agency since its obvious their ratings will be bogus.

No doubt however these US rating agencies are fraudsters representing the interests of US more than anything else. They give their own country AAA rating and give other countries ratings based on political & financial decisions that benefit the US.

Not one CEO from these rating agencies has gone to jail for rating garbage mortage backed securities sold by the trillions as AAA (when in fact they were FFF).

India should be wary of US rating agencies too. Its time to setup our own independant rating agency now and not wait till there's a financial crisis like Europe when setting up any indegenous rating agency seems suspect. Hopefully babus are not asleep.

----

Barroso: EU will have proposals on rating agencies, Europe needs an own agency

The Associated Press, On Friday July 8, 2011, 10:28 am
By The Associated Press

WARSAW, Poland - The head of the European Commission says the practices of the three top credit rating agencies will come under scrutiny and that Europe could benefit from having its own agency.

Rating agencies have had a central role in warning about Europe's debt crisis, though many politicians have criticized them for fanning fears.

Jose Manuel Barroso said the Commission "will come up with some proposals in the autumn" on regulating the agencies, but did not give any detail.

He said the agencies sometimes anticipate risks but can also "overrate" them.

Barroso said the ratings market — dominated by Standard & Poor's, Moody's and Fitch in the U.S. — would benefit from competition from a new, independent European agency.

Barroso spoke Friday in Poland, which holds the rotating EU presidency.

[ramana]

The mortgage crisis is becoming a halahal: they can neither swallow it or spit it out. Banks are unable and unwilling to loan mod with lower interests due to : jobs situation, the limits proposed by HAMP etc are unrealistic, lost equity, lower appraisals. They have to slow down foreclosures due to regulations and illegal practices. Short sales are in stagnating due to lack of buyer obtaining financing. Only cahs sales are going thru. A lot of vulture investors in the market. Buy three homes and sell one for cash flow. Forget refinancing for original owners due to fall in appraisal, new loan to equity ratios, and getting realistic appraisals. Second loans are being sold off to vulture investors or charged off. If there was law that required the bank to offer the home owner to settle the second at same value as to external buyer some of the homes due to loss of equity could be saved.

Todays US jobs report for June shows its all smoke and mirrors like FSU or Panda stats.

[SwamyG]

^^^
Ramana: It boils down to what you said once, paraphrasing - What matters most is who gets up first or fast after the hit.

The one and only Super Star of this World Rajinikanth said once in a film (Baba ?): "I am not an elephant but a horse for I get up in a jiffy when I fall"

[ramana]

Well the banks and Ombaba are making sure the common folks cant get up at all, forget fast!

[Prem]

NASA laying off 2k people is so reminiscent of the PSU under Gorbachov. Ripe for India and China to put these intelligent folks to work .

[ramana]

I stopped for gas today morning and noticed the local bank has a new name! The former named bank was very local. I guess the economy was unable to sustain it.

[Airavat]

What will replace the dollar as global currency? Gold? Renminbi? Maybe commodities?

[Singha]

yday was the last shuttle mission, broadcast live on some indian news channels. an era has ended. king is dead. nobody knows when the new king will emerge as there are no male hiers. the vast high cost NASA structure clearly cannot be sustained ... I guess it will just fold up barring some research labs in a few yrs.

[vic]

I am basically a layman=moron but tell me what is the economic plan of western world? They handed over the manufactering to China, service industry to India and harass tourists/students. Now they want India/China to increase "internal" consumption, what would be left in these economies?

[Singha]

university professors , financial alchemists, "con-sultants" to assist in rightsizing, accountants, overpaid doctors , insurance company sharks, car salesmen, police, firemen, govt agents to spy on people ... seemingly prospects for strong growth.

I had posted a parody in another thread. its all about H&D only now.

a guy stands in a sneaker (made in china), socks (guatemala), undies (india), trouser (mehico), shirt (bangladesh), watch (malaysia), cap (china), ipod (foxconn china) and demands "respect" that the poor call center rep in India understand his american engrish and reply back in his same accent - about a call that his computer made in china is having problems even his condoms would be made in pondicherry india.

nook nood saar.

[SwamyG]

Vic:
I have asked that before, and Carl (a BRFite) will tell you that they will have to retrain ityadi.

The US should just engage in where its competitive advantage lies. So not propping up manufacturing or auto industries, but IMO rather focus on educating and retraining workers laid off.

To do what? I have heard this innovation, re-training ityadi several times on the radio, tv and internet. But there has been no convincing specificity.

Carl replies:

Sure. That is for the workers to decide.

[SwamyG]

Singha: SHQ ordered beads from Fusion Beads. The needles were made in India Some beads were made in Japan.