China made back 4.5% of the week's decline today. Make no mistake, we are witnessing the emergence of a badly needed counterbalance in the World economy.
Doc,
Based on the vitriolic, nonsensical responses that I have seen re: my thoughts about the front office and what they have done to us all, clearly we are dealing with people who have come to believe that unfettered capitalism is the ideal system, and heaven forbid should we consider an alternative.
These people are deluded. The small minority who have profited at the expense of the vast and overwhelming majority are in for a rude shock. Gone are the days when the pursuit of profit for its own sake and at any cost is considered socially acceptable. The planet's resources are finite and clearly going forward decisions taken by the private sector will need to take into account what is in the best interests of all, and not just them.
In America today we are seeing angry people taking to the streets in protest with automatic weapons strapped to their shoulder. The current discourse is about health care but when the dust settles there the focus will shift to the wretched excess and incomprehensible greed of those standard bearers of capitalism.
The West is in economic depression, and Asia (led by China) is not. The latter's prospects are bright, they have turned the corner. From what I have seen so far post-crisis, I am not so sure that we will right our ship until we return to some semblance of balance.
Time will tell.
Yes Vulcani, I agree, but I believe China's future progress will be limited as access to overseas markets (especially US) decreases, which is a must if the US economy and others are to recover. This requires western economies to recover jobs lost to China and the skills too, which will soon disappear.
I was recently reading, in a Saigon newspaper, of GM throwing big parties throughout Vietnam for the domestic auto Dealers and how their (Ford) unprecedented success was due to their close relationship with dealerships throughout Vietnam.
Meanwhile in USA government subsidies to buy US cars has caused a false blip giving rise to claims that US is out of recession... giving rise also to claims from US Dealerships that they are owed billions in subsidies not yet paid.
As I have said with a market economy (not free markets) we may not have the right to control the free movement of money or production (where manufacturing takes place) but we do own our own markets and access should not be unconditional and all goods must comply with our own quality assurance standards.
In USA there are many who want to keep government out of business but the cost of goods must include many things. How can we "penalise" our own domestic industries for the costs of training, pensions funds, healthcare, quality assurance, policing, fire-fighting, national defence, and many other necessary costs, when we allow the same manufacturers to move overseas, dump all of these necessary costs, hire slave labour and send the manufactured goods back to domestic markets for top dollar?
Oh, are these costs to be borne by government, if so who will pay the taxes?
Perhaps, as with pollution control, with slavery also, we have "no right" to dictate to Third World economies? Its their turn now, right?
Some hard choices ahead. Its time to get real.
And Americans should take time to imagine life without taxes.
We have to respect and defend our own borders and this will improve manufacturing and employment in our own countries and it will also prevent many other ills such as drug and arms smuggling, people traffiking etc. It will also help manage demand from any US universal healthcare program, which is essential if it is to survive.
